“We’re just collecting information,” I add. “You know, to rule people out.”
“Well, I was home all night. With my girlfriend, Glenda Patterson.” He spells the last name. “We watched a movie. You can call her.”
I jot down the name. “You two live together?”
“No, she’s got her own place in Maple Crest.”
Maple Crest is a new housing development that’s gobbled up a good bit of farmland on the east side of town. “Anything else you can tell us about Mary that might help us?” I press.
“Not that I can think of.”
“Did she ever seem upset?” I ask.
“Not really,” he says. “She was always head down, working. Like I said, Evelyn kept her pretty busy.”
“What kind of vehicle do you drive?” Tomasetti asks.
“Grand Am.
“What color?”
“Black.” Barbereaux’s eyes narrow. “Why?”
Tomasetti gives him a half smile. “We appreciate your time,” he says and starts toward the door.
Barbereaux makes eye contact with me. “I hope you catch the asshole who did this,” he says.
“We will,” I say and fall in beside Tomasetti.
We’re midway to the loading dock when I remember Evelyn Steinkruger’s comment about Mary smelling like cigarette smoke, and I turn back toward Barbereaux. “Do you smoke?” I ask.
“Naw.” He grins. “Those things’ll kill you.”
Back in the Tahoe, Tomasetti puts the vehicle in gear and pulls out of the parking lot.
“What do you think?” I ask.
“I think he looks like the fuckin’ UPS guy.”
That makes me laugh. My melancholic mood lifts just a little. It feels good, I realize, and I’m glad Tomasetti is here. “Where to?” I ask.
“Crime scene. I want to see the place before it gets dark.”
Ten minutes later, we arrive at the Plank farm. Tomasetti pulls up behind the buggy and shuts down the engine. “Pretty place,” he says. “Quiet.”
“Isolated, too.”
“Closest neighbor is what? About a mile away?”
I nod. “The Zooks. They didn’t hear anything.”
I get out and start toward the door. I’m in the process of unlocking it when Tomasetti steps onto the porch.
“CSU’s all done?” he asks.
“Finished up late last night.”
“Any idea who you chased into the cornfield?”
I shake my head. “Rain washed away any tire tread or footprints.”
“You think it was the killer?”
I consider that for a moment. “I don’t know. Why would he come back when my Explorer was parked in plain sight?”
“Unless you were his target.”
“I don’t think so. He was pretty quick to run. This guy was like a jackrabbit. It was as if he was shocked to see me.”
“Teenagers? The morbidly curious?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
We’re standing in the kitchen. Around us, the house is so hushed I can hear the wind whispering around the eaves. The occasional creak of one-hundred-year-old wood. It has the empty feel of a vacant house now. Traces of the people who had once lived here are fading, and it strikes me that I don’t want them to be forgotten.
“Bad scene.” Tomasetti glances toward the living room where three pools of blood are marked with markers, then looks up at me. “CSU get anything useful?”
I give him the rundown of everything we’ve gathered so far. “We’re waiting to hear from the lab on latents, footwear imprints, hair, fibers and DNA.”
“I’ll make some calls, see if I can light a fire.”
“I appreciate that.”
I cross to the window above the sink, look out at the field beyond. I should be thinking about the case, but even that is dwarfed by my keen awareness of Tomasetti.
“Kate.”
I turn to see him standing a scant yard away, staring at me with those intense eyes. “Is this how it’s going to be? We talk about the case? Make small talk?”
I want to pretend I don’t know what he’s talking about. Part of me wants to make him take that first perilous step into the quagmire of words neither of us is good at. “I’m just trying to get my footing here.”
“Are you talking about the case or us?”
“Both, I guess.” I give him a smile. “I think I’m better at the case stuff.”
“Safer ground.” But the hard lines of his face soften. “I wish you’d felt you could call me—”
“I did—”
“And ask me for help without worrying that I was going to lose it.” He smiles. “All you have to do is ask. I’ll be here.”
“I didn’t want to drag you into it.” I motion toward the bloodstained floor. “Put you through this.”
“I’m here because I want to be here.” He looks around the kitchen, sighs, then turns his attention back to me. “I’m a cop, Kate. This is what I do. God knows it’s not always easy. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to turn tail and run every time there’s a bloody crime involving a family.”
“I know you can handle it,” I say. “I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. But that doesn’t mean a crime like this isn’t going to bring back what happened to you. I don’t like seeing you hurt, John. Maybe that’s what I was trying to avoid.”
“I appreciate that. But in all fairness, I think it’s my call. Not yours.”
“Duly noted.” I soften the words with a smile. “If it’s any consolation, I’m glad you’re here.”
We fall back into police mode. Our boots thud dully on the wood floor as we walk into the living room. The three pools of blood are dry now, brick-red and cracked around the edges. The smell is still discernible, but not as strong, and I realize the evidence of death is fading, giving way to the unstoppable force of life. It’s a rule all of us must abide by. No matter what happens, life always goes on.
I take the steps to the second level, giving Tomasetti a few minutes alone to walk and assess the scene. I do a final sweep of the bedrooms, but I know there’s nothing more to glean here. The rooms have been searched multiple times by multiple people. We’ve got everything we’re going to get. It’s not much, but we’ll just have to make do.
Taking a final look at the empty hall, I go back downstairs. I’m anxious to talk to Tomasetti now, get his take on what might have happened, his theories, see if he has anything new to add that no one else has thought of.
I find him standing near the base of the stairs with his back to me. “What do you think?” I ask.
A quick glance over his shoulder and he walks away. Puzzled, I follow him. “At first we thought we were dealing with a murder-suicide, but—”
Tomasetti stops in the center of the living room, near where the bodies were found, and looks down at the bloody footprint. A current of worry goes through me when he sidesteps the dried blood and staggers left. I see his shoulders tighten. A sound that’s part gasp, part sigh fills the silence.
Concerned, I take a step toward him. “John?”
Leaning forward, he puts his hands on his knees and sucks in huge mouthfuls of air, like a marathoner who has just finished a long-distance race.
Case forgotten, I cross to him. “John? What’s going on? Are you all right?”
“Get the fuck away,” he grinds out.
“What’s wrong?”
No answer. He’s trembling uncontrollably now. Every breath is a rasp.
“Are you sick?”
Keeping his back to me, he raises a hand as if to fend me off. “Give me . . .” He chokes out the words. “. . . goddamn minute.”
Concern burgeons into alarm inside me. A dozen scenarios rush my brain. Is he sick? Having a heart attack? “John, talk to me,” I try. “What’s wrong? Are you in pain?”
His breaths rush between clenched teeth. I stand a few feet away, wondering what to do, how to help, growing increasingly worried. I can see the sheen of swea
t on the side of his face. He’s bent at the waist, his hands clenched into fists on his knees.
“Do you need an ambulance?” I ask.
“Give me . . . fucking minute,” he says in a hoarse voice.
The urge to pull out my cell and dial 911 is strong, but I resist. If he needed an ambulance, he’d tell me. This is . . . something else.
I stand there, feeling helpless, my hand on my phone. I’m frightened and embarrassed for him. And I’m worried about his well-being. Slowly, his breathing regulates. The shaking subsides. A sigh escapes him as he straightens. Without a word, without looking at me, he turns away and walks into the kitchen.
Gathering my composure, I follow. He’s at the sink, splashing water on his face. “What the hell was that?” I ask.
He yanks a towel out of a drawer and pats his face dry, looking at me over the tops of his fingers. “Had you worried, didn’t I?”
“That’s not funny,” I snap. “You were in serious distress a moment ago. You need to tell me what’s going on.”
He looks away, takes a moment to toss the towel on the counter. “I didn’t mean for you to see that.”
“You scared me.”
“Yeah, well, I scare myself sometimes.” The lines on either side of his mouth deepen, and he sighs like an old man who bears the weight of the world on shoulders that have grown brittle and frail. “There was a time when I thought I could walk away from just about anything. I was one of those cops who could go directly from some bloody murder scene to lunch and not think twice about it. I was untouchable. Never had demons. Never felt too much. That was one of the reasons I was such a good cop. The job never got to me. I never let it.” He pins me with a grim look. “All of that changed the night Nancy and the girls were murdered.”
“That’s understandable,” I say. “But you dealt with it. You got help.”
“I let a lot of doctors prescribe a lot of pills I was all too happy to take.”
“But you’ve come a long way since then.”
“Not far enough, evidently,” he says dryly.
“I don’t know what that means. And I don’t know what it has to do with what just happened to you.”
Tomasetti scrubs a hand over his face. “I’m having anxiety attacks, Kate. I’ve been to the emergency room.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m seeing the company shrink. It’s a condition of my continued employment with BCI.”
The words hit me like hammer blows. My head is reeling. Knowing everything he’s been through, I hurt for him. “How long have you been having the anxicty attacks?” I finally manage.
“A couple of months.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Not exactly the kind of thing a guy wants to discuss with his lover.”
I think about that a moment, trying to ignore the knot in my gut. “What’s the prognosis?”
“Going to keep me on the couch awhile.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Before you go all doe-eyed on me, you probably ought to hear the rest.”
“Now, you’re really making me nervous.”
“Yeah, well, it’s a pisser.” He grimaces. “The deputy superintendent has no idea I’m here.”
That isn’t what I expected him to say. “What?”
“I’m on leave. It’s mandatory.”
“Because of the anxiety attacks?”
He sighs. “Because of ancient history.”
“Maybe you ought to tell me everything.” Despite my efforts, my voice is tight.
“A few weeks before the Slaughterhouse case, I didn’t pass a drug test.”
I’m still trying to absorb the part about the panic attacks. It’s not easy. John Tomasetti is one of the strongest, most capable people I’ve ever known. To learn he’s suffering with an anxiety disorder truly stuns me. “Is your job going to be okay?”
“The deputy superintendent says once I get a clean bill of health, I can go back, pick up where I left off.” One side of his mouth curves, but his eyes remain sardonic. “I guess the good news is they haven’t tried to put me back in the loony bin.”
I’m one of the few who know that after the murders of his wife and kids, Tomasetti spent a few weeks in a psychiatric facility.
After a moment, he gives me a sage look. “The night you called me, the night you chased someone into the cornfield . . .” He lets the words trail, but I already know where he’s going with it. “It scared the hell out of me.”
“Is that why you’re here? Because you’re afraid something will happen to me?”
“That might be part of it.”
I study the hard lines of his face, trying to see more than he will reveal. “You know nothing’s going to happen to me, right?”
His smile is rigid and false. “We’ve been cops long enough to know you can’t make those kinds of guarantees.”
Before I can refute the statement, his cell phone trills, sounding inordinately loud in the silence of the house. Snatching it from his belt, he brushes past me and answers with a curt, “Tomasetti.”
I watch as he pulls out a notebook and scribbles. “I got it. Fax the whole list to the station down here, will you? Thanks.”
Shoving the phone back into his belt, he turns to me. “The dark pickup truck you asked about?”
I’m still thinking about everything he just told me. The rapid shifting of gears to another topic jars me. “You got something?”
“BCI broke it down by color and by county,” he answers. “They’re faxing it to Glock now.”
“I thought you weren’t official?”
He smiles. “I have friends in low places.”
“How many vehicles?”
“Forty-two.”
“How many black and blue?”
He glances down at his notes. “Six black and eleven blue.”
I’m already pulling my phone from my belt, punching numbers. Glock picks up on the first ring. “You get the list?” I ask without preamble.
“Right here.”
“Any of the owners have a record?”
“Working on that now.” I hear computer keys clicking on the other end. “I got three. Colleen Sarkes. 2007 blue Toyota Tundra. DUI back in 2006. Another one last year.”
“Males,” I say.
“Robert Allen Kiser. Black 2009 F-250. Convicted domestic violence last year.”
“Who else?”
“Todd Eugene Long. 2006 Black Chevy. Convicted on a burglary charge a year ago.”
“Give me their addresses.”
Click. Click. Click. “Kiser lives in town.” He pauses. “Long lives in the Melody Trailer Park out on the highway.”
The Melody Trailer Park is closest to me. “I’ll take Long. Grab T.J. or Pickles and go talk to Kiser.”
“I’m on it.”
Shoving my phone back onto my belt I turn to Tomasetti. “I’ve got a name. Let’s go.”
He’s already striding toward the door. “Saved by the bell.”
The Melody Trailer Park is ten minutes from the Plank farm. The place has been around since before I was born, but its heyday has long since passed. Back in the seventies, it was the premier location for trailer homes and RVs. Young couples and retirees made the park a showplace for the up-and-coming. But time and circumstance have a way of eroding even the most en vogue of places, and the Melody Trailer Park was unable to escape its inevitable fall from grace.
Tomasetti turns the Tahoe onto a patchwork of crumbling asphalt pocked with potholes. A row of walnut trees runs parallel with a derelict privacy fence, separating the park from a wheat field to the south. Opposite, two dozen mobile homes line the street like wrecked cars waiting for the crusher. Most of the homes are streaked with rust and black grime that’s run down from the roof. I see broken windows, flapping screens and one storm door hanging by a single hinge. Two mobile homes are missing the skirting that encircles the base to keep the plumbing from freezing in the wintertime.
Seeing this kind of poverty in my own
backyard saddens me. My family and I were far from wealthy, but we weren’t poor, either. My parents always provided food and shelter, and instilled a sense of security. My life wasn’t ideal, but the problems I experienced had absolutely nothing to do with money.
“Dismal place,” Tomasetti comments.
“Wouldn’t want to live here when the temp dips below zero.”
“What’s the address?”
I glance down at my notebook. “Thirty-five Decker. I think it’s the last street.”
The final fringes of daylight fade as Tomasetti turns onto Decker. The lot numbers painted on the curb are faded, but we find number thirty-five at the end of the street. A handful of maple and sycamore trees surround a nicely kept mobile home, casting it into perpetual shadow. Fallen leaves the color of blood cover the yard and driveway. Some enterprising individual had built wooden steps and a deck off the front door. But time and the elements have bleached the wood to monochrome gray and eroded any semblance of prettiness. A black Chevy pickup with a big crease in the door is parked in the driveway.
“There’s the truck,” Tomasetti says.
I get out and head toward the front door. The steps creak as I ascend them, and I find myself hoping the wood holds. I knock and wait. In the driveway, Tomasetti peers into the truck windows. From where I stand, I see several beer cans in the truck bed. A toolbox. A length of nylon rope.
The door swings open, and I find myself facing a tall man with strawberry blond hair and a scruffy beard the color of peach fuzz. “Todd Long?” I ask.
His gaze flicks from me to Tomasetti, who’s coming up the stairs. “Can I help you?”
I show him my badge. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
He stares at my badge and his adam’s apple spasms twice. “Uh . . . what about?”
“A crime that was committed a few days ago.”
“I don’t know anything about a crime.”
Resisting the urge to roll my eyes, I sigh. “You don’t even know what I’m going to ask you yet.”
He stares at me, his eyes blinking.
“Can we come in?” I ask.
I can tell he doesn’t want to let us in. But he can’t seem to come up with a good excuse for refusing. Reluctantly, he steps back and opens the door. “Sure.”
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