Her Last Breath: A Kate Burkholder Novel

by Linda Castillo

  The age of the house was reflected in the interior, too, but the dilapidation was interspersed with unexpected flashes of character and the kind of architecture rarely seen in today’s homes. Tall, narrow windows ensconced in woodwork adorned every external wall, ushering in a flourish of natural light. The ceilings were twelve feet high with intricate crown molding. A wide, arched doorway separated the formal dining room from the living area. The kitchen was “all original”—a term Tomasetti deemed interchangeable with “needs gutting and replacing.” A peek beneath the threadbare olive-green carpeting revealed a gold mine of gleaming oak that had never seen the light of day. Tomasetti didn’t have an eye for design or color. The thing he did have an eye for was potential and the old house brimmed with it.

  Never a pushover, he’d left his Realtor standing in the driveway looking decidedly depressed—perhaps due to the “place is a dump” comment he’d uttered as they parted ways. He went back to his office in Richfield to immerse himself in work, which was an open case involving the unidentified remains of a Jane Doe found in Cortland, Ohio—and forget all about that dusty old farmhouse.

  But he couldn’t get it out of his head, which didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Tomasetti was a city slicker from the word go. He preferred concrete over cornfields and the din of horns and gunned engines over the bawling of calves or spring peepers. He loved the hustle and bustle of downtown. The cultural centers and the bars and restaurants tucked away in unexpected places. He even liked the grittiness of the downtrodden neighborhoods and warehouse districts. So why the hell was he thinking about that shit-hole farmhouse out in the middle of fuck-all?

  He might not want to admit it, but he knew why. And the notion that his life was about to change, especially by his own hand, scared the living hell out of him.

  It had been a long time since he’d wanted anything with such ferocity, even longer since he thought he might actually have a chance of getting it. Or that he deserved something as ordinary as happiness or peace of mind or the opportunity for a fresh start. For the first time in four years, he was thinking about the future. A future that wasn’t bleak.

  Two days later Tomasetti called his Realtor and made a ridiculously low offer on the property. He assured himself even a motivated seller would never accept that level of highway robbery and a rejection would be fine by him. The last thing he needed was a goddamn money pit. But the owner had surprised him and accepted the price without a counter offer. Tomasetti had surprised himself by handing over the cash. Three weeks later, they closed the deal.

  He’d figured the regret would sneak up on him any day now. The knowledge that he’d screwed up and made a bad investment. But a month had passed and he had yet to lament his decision. He’d already resolved to do some work on the place. Put in a new kitchen. Granite countertops. Cherry cabinets. Travertine flooring. The kitchen, after all, was the room in which you garnered your best return. When the kitchen was finished, he’d sand and stain the hardwoods. Repair and paint the siding. Slap some paint on the interior. Then he’d sell the place to some sucker who wanted to live out in the middle of nowhere so he could listen to the frogs and get bitten up by mosquitoes. Hopefully, Tomasetti could make a little cash in the process.

  His superiors at the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation had been urging him to take some time off for a couple of years now—something Tomasetti had resisted because, up until now, he’d needed to work. When he’d walked in to Denny McNinch’s office and announced he would be taking the entirety of his vacation time, he’d thought Denny was going to fall out of his chair. In fact, Denny had looked worried, like maybe he thought Tomasetti was teetering on some precipice with one foot already over the edge. Then he’d told Denny about the house and his superior had seemed not only relieved, but genuinely pleased.

  The one person Tomasetti hadn’t told was Kate. He wasn’t sure why; he knew she’d be happy for him. Hell, knowing Kate she’d probably volunteer to drive up for the weekend to help him paint. But Tomasetti knew why he hadn’t told her and it was those not-so-apparent motivations that scared him. This house wasn’t just an investment or a place to live. It represented something much more important: the future.

  Last summer, he and Kate had worked together on a string of missing persons cases in the northeastern part of the state. They spent some intense days together in the course of the case and one night he’d gotten caught up in the moment and asked her to move in with him. Tomasetti had never seen her look more uncertain—or terrified. He might have laughed if he hadn’t been so damned disappointed.

  Kate was independent to a fault. She could be closed off emotionally. Like him, she lugged around a good bit of baggage. She might be fearless when it came to her job, but she could be skittish when it came to their relationship.

  Tomasetti got that, but he wanted her in his life. He wanted to share this with her. For the first time since he’d lost his wife and children, he wanted more. A lot more. The question was, did Kate?

  He’d been making the forty-five-minute drive from Richfield to the farm for three days now and he’d fallen into a routine he liked, arriving at the crack of dawn, throwing open the windows, turning the old radio to a station in Dover. He spent twelve hours the first day demolishing the kitchen. Everything had gone: cabinets, countertops, sink, and pantry and most of the Sheetrock. He’d ripped up the linoleum to expose the subflooring, and hauled everything to the Dumpster he’d rented. The crew of painters had arrived the second day, repairing the exterior siding and porch, installing new shutters—black—and finally giving the wood a coat of fresh white paint. The house no longer looked like somebody’s nightmare—at least on the outside.

  Now, after three days, sunburned and sore, with a smashed index finger that was probably going to shed its nail, Tomasetti looked around and actually liked what he saw. He’d measured for cabinets, countertops, and flooring yesterday and ordered what he needed. When the materials arrived, he would begin installation. Tomorrow, a quick stop at the home improvement store in Wooster and he could start painting the interior.

  It was nearly 10:00 P.M. when he walked to the cooler he kept in the hall off the kitchen. Digging inside, he pulled out a Killian’s Irish Red and carried it to the back porch. Taking his usual place on the step, he uncapped it and drank. A three-quarter moon glinted off the tin roof of the barn and illuminated the hulking form of the silo beyond. Being away from the hustle and bustle of the city had bothered him at first; the quiet seemed unnatural and made him feel isolated and edgy. But by the end of the second day, he’d begun to hear the music inside the silence: The chatter of the squirrel that lived in the spruce tree outside the kitchen window that was none too happy about the new interloper. The family of red-winged blackbirds that swooped from the spruce to the weeping willow on the bank of the pond. At dusk, the peepers and bullfrogs took over, their night song floating through the windows like some ballad you never wanted to end.

  Tomasetti drank the beer and listened to the land. He listened to the buzz of the fluorescent light overhead. The creaks as the old house settled around him. He thought about Kate and wondered what she was doing. He wondered what she’d think of this place. He missed her, he realized. He wanted her here, wanted to share this with her. He took another swig and thought about calling her, but something told him to wait. He’d get a few rooms painted tomorrow. Get the house one step closer to finished. And then he’d invite her up for dinner. Tomorrow, he thought.

  Tomorrow.

  *

  Though it’s nearly midnight and my shift is about to end, I won’t be going home any time soon. The ambulances and fire trucks are gone, but the scene is lit up by the flashing emergency lights of law enforcement vehicles and crawling with cops. I count five vehicles, including one from the State Highway Patrol, two from the Holmes County Sheriff’s office, and one from my department. The fifth vehicle is a news van from a television station out of Columbus. A pretty blond woman wearing a hot-pink ja
cket finger-combs her hair beneath the glare of lights and the glowing red eye of the camera.

  She spots me as I’m climbing out of the Explorer, shouts an alert to her cameraman, and starts toward me at a fast clip. “Chief Burkholder? Can we get a statement?”

  I’m midway to the crime scene tape when she steps in front of me, effectively stopping me, and shoves the mike in my face. “Can you confirm that this was a hit-and-run accident that killed this Amish family tonight, Chief?”

  “The accident is still under investigation.” I step around her and keep going.

  Holding the mike close to my face, she keeps pace with me. “Can you tell us how many people were killed?”

  “There were three fatalities. We’re not releasing names pending notification of next of kin.”

  “They were Amish?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Was the buggy affixed with a slow-moving-vehicle sign?”

  Reflective signage has been in the news recently, and is an ongoing point of contention between law enforcement and some of the Old Order Amish, who believe any kind of signage is ornamental and, therefore, against the rules set forth by the Ordnung.

  I stop and turn to her. She takes a quick step back, as if not quite trusting me not to pop her in the mouth, and lowers the mike to a more respectful distance. “I can’t confirm that at this time,” I tell her.

  She tries to ask another question, but I turn away, bumping the mike with my shoulder as I start toward the scene.

  Behind me, I hear her ask the cameraman, “Did you get that?”

  “Damn vultures,” comes a familiar voice.

  Ahead, I see Sheriff Mike Rasmussen and a uniformed deputy striding toward me. I’ve known the sheriff for about a year now. Though I’m city and he’s county, we’ve worked together on several cases, pooling the resources of our respective departments. We’ve butted heads on a couple of occasions, but he’s a good cop and a quick study when it comes to the politicking side of his job. He’s also one of the few in the local law enforcement community who knows about my relationship with John Tomasetti.

  I extend my hand and we shake. “You guys get traffic diverted?” I ask.

  “Bunch of damn rubberneckers.” Rasmussen’s expression is grim. “Any news on the kid?”

  “He was in surgery when I left the hospital.”

  “I hate it when kids get hurt.”

  I nod, trying not to think of Mattie, and turn my attention to the deputy. He’s a burly man in his midthirties with a crew cut and the direct, probing eyes of a man who likes being in the thick of things. He’s wearing a tan jacket with the Holmes County Sheriff’s Department insignia on his left breast. Beneath the jacket, his uniform shirt stretches a tad too snugly across pecs the size of small hams.

  “I’m Chief Burkholder,” I say, offering a handshake.

  “Frank Maloney.” He looks at me with a little too much intensity and gives my hand a slightly too-hard squeeze.

  “Frank’s a certified accident reconstructionist,” Rasmussen says.

  I nod, pleased he’s on scene this early in the game. “Any preliminary thoughts on what happened?”

  Maloney’s chest puffs out a little. He’s proud of his certification and likes being the one in the know. “Buggy was southbound on Delisle. The hit-skip was westbound on CR14 and broadsided the buggy.” He holds up an intricate-looking Bosch Laser Distance Measurer that in the last few years has replaced measuring wheels and tapes. “This guy was hauling ass.”

  “How fast?” I ask.

  “I’d ballpark upwards of eighty miles per hour.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Rasmussen mutters. “The buggy didn’t stand a chance.”

  I glance toward the scene, trying not to imagine how that went down. The buggy hasn’t yet been moved. Someone covered the dead horse with a tarp. The coroner has removed the dead, but left tarps over the bloodstained grass. I make a mental note to get the fire department out here with a tanker to flush away the biohazard.

  “County Prosecutor been out here yet?” I ask.

  “Came and left,” Rasmussen replies.

  “I hope he’s as pissed as I am.” I can tell by the men’s expressions we’re on the same page. They want this son of a bitch as badly as I do.

  “We’ll make sure everything’s well documented,” Rasmussen assures me.

  I nod. “I put out an APB for an unidentified vehicle with a damaged front end.”

  “I got my boys out looking,” the sheriff adds.

  “Anything useful as far as debris?” I ask.

  When a cop arrives on the scene of a traffic accident, his first priority is always the preservation of life. It takes precedence over everything else, including identifying and protecting evidence. Upon my arrival here earlier, I was so intent on locating the victims and rendering aid, I didn’t get a good look at the buggy or debris. Any cop worth his salt will tell you that finding and identifying that debris—those pieces left behind by the vehicles involved—is the first step in identifying the vehicle and locating the driver.

  Rasmussen sighs. “We’re going to be picking up pieces of that buggy for a while. We’re going to load everything up and take it to impound for a closer look under some light.”

  “Anything from the vehicle?” I ask.

  “The only piece we’ve been able to identify is a side-view mirror,” the sheriff tells me.

  As if by unspoken agreement, the three of us start toward the intersection. Someone has denoted the locations where the deceased victims came to rest with fluorescent orange marking paint. From where I stand I can see the blue tarp covering the horse. We stop a few yards from the point of impact and I take a moment to establish the debris field and for the first time I get a sense of the scope of the carnage.

  “My God, this guy was fucking flying,” I say to no one in particular.

  Maloney points to the place where Paul Borntrager had died just a few hours earlier. “Adult male was thrown fifty-three feet.”

  Rasmussen shakes his head. “Youngsters were thrown even farther.”

  “What about skid marks?” I ask. “Or tire imprints?” Sometimes, if the skid marks are clean enough to get a measurement of the tire, we can use that information to help identify the offending vehicle. On rare occasions the tread is visible. Photos are scanned into a computer. From there, they can sometimes be matched to a manufacturer or retailer and, in some cases, if there is some identifiable mark on the tire—a cut or defect in the rubber, for example—a specific vehicle. Combined, those things can be invaluable to the identification process. Not to mention the trial.

  Maloney and Rasmussen exchange looks that makes the back of my neck prickle.

  “There are no skid marks,” Maloney says.

  “Not a single one,” Rasmussen reiterates.

  Something cold and sharp scrapes up my back. “The driver made no attempt to stop?”

  “Looks that way,” Maloney replies.

  “The road surface was wet,” I tell him, thinking aloud. “Is it possible he tried to stop, but couldn’t due to conditions?”

  “That son of a bitch didn’t even tap the brake,” Rasmussen mutters.

  “Could we be dealing with some kind of mechanical failure?” It’s an optimistic offering, but I pose the question anyway.

  Maloney shrugs. “It’s possible, I guess.”

  “If someone’s brakes fail and they slam into a fucking buggy, you’d think they’d stop and render aid,” Rasmussen growls.

  Maloney nods. “Even if they get scared and panic, they’d call 911.”

  “Unless they’ve got something to hide.” I say what all of us are thinking. What we already know. “We’re probably dealing with a DUI.”

  “That’s my vote,” Rasmussen says.

  “Or some idiot texting,” Maloney puts in.

  I think of Paul Borntrager’s last minutes. He’d been broken and bleeding and yet his only concern had been for his children. I think of Mattie, hold
ing vigil at the hospital, waiting for word on the condition of her only surviving child. I think of David, an innocent little boy, hurting and frightened and fighting for his life. I think of the three lives lost and the countless others that will be destroyed by their passing. I think of the pain that has been brought down on a community that’s seen more than its share of heartbreak in the last few years. And gnarly threads of rage burgeon again inside me.

  I study the scene. My mind’s eye shows me a horse and buggy approaching the intersection. I hear the clip-clop of shod hooves against the asphalt. The jingle of the harness. The creak of the buggy. The chatter of the children, oblivious to the impending tragedy. Dusk has fallen. It’s drizzling. Visibility is low. The road surface is wet. Concerned about the coming darkness, Paul would have been pushing the horse, hurrying home. Around them, the symphony of crickets from the woods fills the air.

  There would have been a flash of headlights. An instant of horror and disbelief as Paul Borntrager realizes the vehicle isn’t going to stop. He plants his feet, hauls back on the reins. A firmly shouted, “whoa!” Then the horrific violence of the impact. No time to scream. An explosion of wood and steel and debris. The horse is killed instantly, the harness rigging ripped from the buggy. The victims are ejected, their broken bodies violently impacting the earth.

  “A lot of the Amish try to avoid the busier roads after dark,” I say.

  Both men look at me as if I’ve inadvertently spoken the words in Pennsylvania Dutch. I add, “They know it’s dangerous.”

  “We’ve all seen how impatient some of these damn drivers can be,” Rasmussen mutters.

  “I cited some guy from Wheeling a couple of days ago for passing a buggy on a double yellow line,” Maloney says. “I’d like to show him some photos from this scene.”

  The three of us nod and then Rasmussen glances at his watch. “It’s too late to canvass.”