Her Last Breath: A Kate Burkholder Novel

by Linda Castillo

  Everyone at the table nods, looking pleased with themselves, and for an instant I struggle not to laugh, because they look very much like bobbleheads.

  *

  On the short drive from the council meeting to the police station, I can’t help but think of all the pet projects to which monies were allocated as a result of political back-scratching, and I kick myself for not pointing them out. But I know it wouldn’t have mattered; it definitely wouldn’t have helped my cause. The last time I took on the council, I was accused of not being a team player. The fact of the matter is, they were right; I’m not a team player. If I can do something better on my own, without having to rely on someone else—especially if there’s a life at stake—fuck the team. If I want to keep Mattie and David safe, I’m going to have to do it myself.

  I’m still angry when I walk into the station. Mona looks up from her place at the switchboard. Her mouth falls open when she notices my black eye. “Whoa.”

  “Whatever you do,” I mutter as I head toward the coffee station, “don’t tell me I look like shit.”

  “Actually, Chief, I was just thinking you look kind of good roughed up. I mean, in a badass kind of way.”

  I can’t help it; I laugh. “I love you, Mona.”

  Lois emerges from the hall with a box of office supplies in her arms. She nearly drops a ream of copy paper when she notices my face. “Janine Fourman didn’t do that, did she?”

  I’m in the process of pouring coffee and laugh so hard I slosh some over the side of my cup. “She would not survive the attempt.”

  Lois reaches the desk and sets the supplies next to the switchboard. “Judging from the look on your face, I’m assuming the council meeting didn’t go well.”

  “That would be an understatement.”

  Passing the headset to her counterpart, Mona meets me at the coffee station. I try not to notice that she’s looking at me with a little bit of awe in her eyes. “There’s ice in the fridge in the back, Chief, do you want me to make you an ice pack?”

  “If you don’t mind, that’s probably not a bad idea.” Armed with coffee, I head toward my office.

  My computer has gone through the lengthy process of booting up, and I’ve just opened my e-mail software when I hear a tap on the door. I look up to see Mona standing outside my doorway, ice pack in hand.

  I motion her in. “Thanks.”

  Waving off my gratitude, she hands me the pack and takes the chair opposite my desk.

  Gingerly, I set the pack against my cheek. “Your shift ended an hour and a half ago,” I point out.

  “I stayed late to work on tip-line stuff.” She shrugs. “I guess I lost track of time.”

  “You know I can’t pay you overtime.”

  “I know it’s not for lack of trying, Chief.” Blushing, she looks away. “We know you go to bat for us.”

  My chest swells with unexpected force. “Thanks for saying that. I needed to hear it.”

  Shrugging off my thanks, she shoves two sheets of paper at me. “I put the tip-line stuff into a spreadsheet. Twenty-two calls so far. I thought you might want a peek.”

  I take the papers and find myself looking at a table with column headings for the date and time, the name and contact information of the caller, and the particulars of the tip. I’m impressed by the level of organization and attention to detail, and I feel a little guilty because she’s good at what she does and I haven’t done much to recognize it. I’m reminded of her interest in becoming a police officer and I realize should the budget ever materialize, I’ll consider her as a candidate.

  “Most of the callers didn’t leave contact info?” I ask.

  “They wanted to remain anonymous.”

  “Damn Amish,” I mutter.

  She snickers.

  “I’m surprised we didn’t get any alien calls.”

  “We did,” she tells me. “I didn’t put them on the list.”

  I flip the page and my eyes are drawn to the final call, which came in late yesterday. An Amish woman, who refused to give her name, claims one of her children saw Mattie Borntrager on the road in front of her farm late at night, arguing with an unknown male.

  “Do you have anything else on this anonymous Amish woman?” I ask.

  Mona shakes her head. “She wouldn’t leave her name.”

  “Huh.” But the simple fact that the caller saw or heard the argument is telling. If the incident took place late at night on the road in front of Mattie’s farm—a dead-end road no less—the caller would have had to be walking or driving by, or else she lives nearby. Considering the late-night hour, I’m betting on the latter.

  “This is good work, Mona. Thank you.”

  She beams. “You want me to follow up on any of these?”

  I don’t believe any of the other calls are viable, but I say, “Why don’t you give Mr. Oren a call and get an alibi?”

  “Sure.”

  “Then why don’t you go home and get some sleep?”

  She grins. “I’ll do it, Chief. Let me know if you need anything else.”

  I return her smile. “I’ll let you know when the number crunchers get the hell out of the way.”

  CHAPTER 19

  I’ve just pulled into the gravel lane of Mattie’s neighbors to speak with Martha Schlabach and, hopefully, get the details on the alleged argument between Mattie and an unidentified male, when my cell phone vibrates against my hip. I glance down, recognize the number as the Amish pay phone on the edge of town, and I pick up on the third ring.

  “Katie?”

  Something in my sister’s voice makes the muscles at the back of my neck go taut. “What is it?” I ask.

  “Two policemen just left,” she tells me. “They were asking all sorts of questions about Daniel Lapp.”

  My foot hits the brake even before I realize I’m going to stop. All the while my sister’s words echo in my ears.

  They were asking all sorts of questions about Daniel Lapp.

  “Which policemen?” I ask. “When?”

  “Twenty minutes ago. I hitched the buggy and drove right to the phone to call you. Katie, I told them what you told me to say, but I was nervous. I don’t think they believed me. They kept looking at me as if they thought I was lying.”

  You were, I think. “Which policemen were there? Did you get their names?”

  “The sheriff from Coshocton County. Redmon was his name, I think. There was a deputy, too. I don’t remember his name.”

  The information flies through my mind like shrapnel tearing through skin and muscle and bone. I force myself to calm down and think. “What did they say exactly?”

  “They asked me about that day. You know, the day … it happened. I told them I was in town. I didn’t actually see Daniel. But I thought I remembered my brother saying something about him coming over to help bale hay.”

  “Okay,” I tell her. “That’s good. What else?”

  “Katie, they asked about you. I didn’t know what to tell them. My words got all jumbled up. I told them you were in the house that day and the boys stayed in the field.”

  “Have they talked to Jacob?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. They didn’t say and I didn’t ask. I didn’t want them to think I was concerned.”

  Or getting our stories straight … “It’s okay, Sarah. Don’t worry. You did good.”

  But none of this is good. It means the police have identified Daniel Lapp’s remains. It means they’ve questioned his brother, Benjamin, and they know Daniel was last seen at my parents’ farm. They know I was there the day he disappeared. Even more disturbing is the fact that Redmon questioned my sister without giving me a heads up. He’s not obligated, but it would have been a courtesy, since it involved a family member of a fellow law-enforcement official. The usual rationale for leaving a cop out of the loop is if said cop is suspected of wrongdoing.

  I tell myself that’s not the case in this instance. I’m being paranoid; there’s no way the police could know what happen
ed that day. That doesn’t prevent the wash of panic that rises in my chest. My siblings are wild cards; neither has experience dealing with cops. They’re probably not very good liars. I want to know if Redmon talked to Jacob. Did my brother stick to the story we discussed? Why didn’t the sheriff’s office inform me that they would be talking to my family? Will they be talking to me next?

  Redmon is probably wondering why I didn’t mention Lapp’s disappearance upon discovery of those remains. In hindsight, I wish I had because my silence, and my lack of action, could be considered unusual behavior. But I’d been hoping the remains wouldn’t be identified, and now it’s too late.

  I wish I could call Jacob. But like most Amish, my brother doesn’t have a phone. I resolve to swing by his farm when I finish here. Realizing my hands are wrapped around the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles ache, I force myself to relax them and proceed up the driveway toward the house.

  I find Martha Schlabach and two children in the side yard, hanging clothes on a clothesline. I don’t miss the quiver of surprise that runs through her body when she spots me walking toward them or the smugness of her expression when she notices my black eye. She probably thinks I deserve it.

  Martha is a few years older than me, but we went to school together for a couple of years as kids. She’s got a tanned face with patches of rosacea on both cheeks. I see a slightly receding hairline beneath her kapp and blond hair that’s gone curly and gray at her temples.

  Two wicker baskets filled with wet laundry sit on the ground at her feet. A bag of wooden clothespins have fallen over and spilled onto the grass. She’s got a clothespin clamped between her teeth and peers at me over the trousers in her hands. She doesn’t greet me, but then she’d never liked me. I never took it personally, because I knew it had more to do with my relationship with Mattie than me personally. When we were teenagers, Martha had her eye on Paul Borntrager, going so far as to tell some of her Amish girlfriends that she was going to marry him. I remember feeling sorry for her, because everyone knew Paul had eyes only for Mattie.

  “Guder mariya,” I begin, wishing her a good morning.

  My usage of Pennsylvania Dutch doesn’t impress her. “It’s almost afternoon now.”

  “Good day for laundry,” I say.

  “The breeze is nice.”

  I turn my attention to the two children. The boy is about three years old and blond with blunt cut bangs and a scab on his nose. He’s too little to help, but he’s trying, mimicking his mamm and handing her clothespins. The girl is about four and wears a light blue dress. Her feet are bare and dirty, and with a keen sense of nostalgia I remember a time when my own feet looked much the same way. I was lucky because my childhood was carefree. Up until my fourteenth year, it was unblemished, filled with wholesome living, of work and play, faith and family. The world has become a lot more complicated since then, and I can’t help but wonder if that’s true even here among the Amish.

  “Looks like you’ve got some good helpers,” I say.

  “They do what they can.” She bends to pick up another pair of trousers, snaps out the wrinkles, and hangs it on the line.

  “I need to ask you some questions about the Borntragers,” I say.

  “I don’t know much about them. Don’t know how I can help.”

  “How long have you been neighbors?”

  “Since Amos and I were married. Ten years now.” She removes a pin from her mouth, uses it to fasten a blue work shirt to the line.

  “Are they good neighbors?”

  “Of course. They’re Amish.” She cuts me a direct look, the meaning of which doesn’t elude me. You are not one of us. “Mattie helped me with the babies once or twice. Paul mucked stalls for us when Amos broke his leg last year. He was a good man.”

  I hear laughter and look past her to see a young girl running toward us, a black lab-mix puppy running alongside her, nipping at the hem of her dress. The sight warms me unexpectedly. I smile when I notice the torn fabric.

  The woman looks over her shoulder and frowns. “Sarah, your dress.”

  “He won’t stop.” The girl is laughing uncontrollably now, and the puppy is attached to the hem. “Mamm!”

  “You’ll be taking a needle and thread to that hem this evening,” the woman scolds, but her lips twitch.

  The girl collapses onto the grass a few feet from her mother and begins to play with the puppy, lifting its face to hers and giggling as it licks her cheeks.

  I cross to them and kneel. “What’s his name?”

  “Sammy. Ouch! He bites.”

  “He’s teething, like babies do,” I tell her. “He needs something to chew on. An old doll might keep those little teeth busy.”

  Martha Schlabach continues with her chore, but I feel her eyes on me as I reach for the puppy and bring its snout to mine. I get a whiff of puppy breath an instant before he bites the end of my nose and I’m reminded that my face is still sore. “He’s a feisty one.”

  “Datt says he’s going to be a good hunting dog some day.”

  “And a good friend, too.” I pass the puppy back to her and rise. Brushing the grass from my knees, I make my way back to Martha. I’m wary now of saying something inappropriate in front of the children, but I need to know if she called the tip line. If she did, I need to know exactly who saw what.

  Martha is a no-nonsense woman, a busy mother of seven whose days are filled with work from the crack of dawn until her head hits the pillow at night. Neither of us has the time or the patience for a polite Q & A session so I decide to take the direct approach.

  “I know you called the tip line,” I say quietly.

  She doesn’t look at me as she pins an apron to the line. “My husband wouldn’t approve of such a thing. My getting involved in someone else’s affairs.”

  “All information that comes in is confidential,” I tell her.

  “As if you can be trusted, Katie Burkholder.” Her laugh grinds from her throat like a sludged-up engine on a cold morning. “I don’t partake in idle gossip about my neighbors.”

  I resist the urge to roll my eyes. Martha didn’t have a problem blathering about Mattie or me when we were teenagers. Not only was she a gossipmonger, but half of what she passed along came from her own imagination. For an instant I’m tempted to remind her of that. Instead, I move closer to her and lower my voice. “If there was an argument or confrontation between Mattie Borntrager and someone else, I need to know about it.”

  She turns her attention back to her laundry, snapping open a work shirt, pinning it to the line, biting down on another clothespin.

  “The buggy accident that killed Paul wasn’t an accident,” I tell her.

  The Amish woman’s hands go still on the trousers she’s holding. “I don’t want to get involved.”

  “You already are.”

  Sighing, she looks down at the trousers and lets them drop into the basket, as if what she’s about to tell me requires all of her concentration. “I called,” she admits.

  “Thank you.”

  “I know it was God’s will, but my heart is broken about what happened to Paul and those precious children. If someone did this thing…”

  “Someone did,” I say. “If you know something, you need to tell me about it.”

  The woman stares at me, assessing me, trying to decide if I’m worthy of whatever information she’s safeguarding. I hold her gaze, willing her to open up.

  In Pennsylvania Dutch, she orders the youngsters to the house to wash their hands. When the girl with the puppy rises to go with the others, Martha stops her. “Sarah, put that puppy down and come here.”

  Reluctantly, the girl sets the puppy on the grass and starts toward us. Big hazel eyes go from her mamm to me and back to her mamm. The puppy continues to bite at the hem of her dress, but she doesn’t seem to notice now. She’s looking at us as if she’s done something wrong. I want to reassure her, but I defer to her mother and wait.

  When the younger children are out of earshot
, Martha turns her attention to the girl. “Sarah, do you remember when Sally had that bay colt?”

  “Ja. I got to stay up past my bedtime to help datt.”

  The woman smiles. “That colt is almost as much trouble as that puppy of yours.”

  “Datt says he’s going to be a good trotter.” The girl looks down at the puppy growling and tugging at the hem of her dress and giggles.

  Martha glances toward the house, watching the children, and addresses me. “Sarah and I have discussed gossip and we know it’s wrong to speak badly of our neighbors, don’t we, Sarah?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’m going to ask you to make an exception, Sarah, and tell Chief Burkholder what you saw that night you went out to the pasture to get Sally and bring her in.”

  The girl looks down at her bare feet, drags her toes through grass and dandelions. “Datt sent me to the pasture with the halter to get Sally while he put straw in her stall. He knew she was going to have her colt and it was time to bring her in.”

  Sarah looks nervous about retelling the story to me, an outsider, so I do my best to put her at ease. “What did you name your colt?”

  “Jim.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Six months now.”

  I nod. “So this happened six months ago?”

  The girl nods. “When I walked into the pasture, Sally was grazing by the road, where the grass is thick and there’s lots of clover. I walked over to her and when I was putting the halter on her, I saw Mattie Borntrager standing on the road, talking to a stranger.”

  “Was the stranger a man or woman?”

  “Man.”

  “Did you recognize him?”

  Sarah shakes her head.

  “Was it Mr. Borntrager maybe?” I ask.

  “No. He was a lot taller than Mr. Borntrager.”

  “Was he Amish or English?”

  “Amish, I think. He was wearing a hat. And he had a beard.”

  If the man was Amish, the beard indicates he was married. “Do you remember what time it was?” I ask.