Her Last Breath: A Kate Burkholder Novel (8 page)

They give me directions and I take the elevator to the third floor and the patient rooms that were added during a recent renovation. I find room 308 and enter to find Mattie in a chair next to the hospital bed—which is vacant. She’s leaning forward with her head against the mattress, her arms folded beneath her cheek, sleeping. In the corner, Bishop Troyer is lying in a recliner, snoring loud enough to rattle the windows.

Mattie startles awake and springs into an upright position. “Oh. Katie. I thought you were the nurse.” She rises abruptly and looks toward the door. “They’re supposed to bring David.”

She sways as if she’s not steady on her feet, and I wonder if she’s had anything to eat. I step forward, set my hands on her shoulders to support her. “Did you get any rest?”

“I’m not tired.” She makes a halfhearted attempt to shake off my hands and cranes her neck to see into the hall, her face twisted into a mask of worry. “They should have brought him in by now. Where is he? Why isn’t he here?”

“He’s fine, Mattie. I just talked to the nurse. They’ll bring him up soon.”

She looks at me as if she doesn’t believe me. “But they told me the same thing an hour ago. Do you think something’s happened?”

“Why don’t you sit down and catch your breath, and I’ll check on him, okay?” Gently, I ease her backward toward the chair, but she refuses to sit.

She looks at me, blinking back tears. Her eyes are swollen and red rimmed from crying. The delicate area beneath them is the color of a bruise. Her complexion is so pale it’s almost translucent; I see the blue strip of a vein at her temple. Her lips are nearly white beneath the fluorescent lighting of the room. But even sleep deprived and in the throes of a powerful grief, she’s lovely.

“I keep expecting Paul to walk through the door,” she whispers. “He always knew what to do.” Her legs give way as if they no longer have the strength to support her, and she collapses into the chair, leans forward, and puts her face in her hands. “I need him. What am I going to do without him?”

“Everything’s going to be okay.” But my words ring hollow even to me. This is one of those times when everything isn’t okay and may never be okay ever again.

Across the room, the bishop brings the recliner to an upright position, but he’s having a difficult time getting to his feet. For the first time since I’ve known him, he looks fragile and old and utterly exhausted. I start toward him to help, but he raises a hand to stop me. “No, Katie. I’m fine.”

Feeling useless, I step back. “I’ll check with the nurse to see what the holdup is.”

I’m midway to the nurses’ station when I see an orderly and a nurse wheeling a gurney down the hall. There’s an IV stand connected to it. Both bed rails are raised, and there’s a small figure beneath the sheet. The nurse is wearing SpongeBob scrubs, with a pen behind her ear. Her name tag heralds her name as S
USAN
M. The pin above it warns: I
CAN BE DIFFICULT.

“Is that David Borntrager?” I ask as they approach.

The nurse looks up from the clipboard, gives my uniform a quick once over, and smiles. “This little champ is ready for his room.”

Keeping pace with them, I glance down at David. He sleeps soundly, his mouth slightly open, head crooked to one side, completely unaware. His left arm is swathed in some kind of purple wrap, and he’s got a raw-looking abrasion on his forehead. It’s the first time I’ve seen him in decent light, and I can’t help but notice the heavy brows and the down-slanted eyes, the too-small distance between his nose and upper lip, his obesity, and I remember hearing talk about Mattie and Paul having a special-needs child.

“How is he?” I ask.

“Doctor Reinhardt repaired a blood vessel in his abdomen and removed his spleen. He lost quite a bit of blood, so we gave him two units. It was touch and go for a bit, but his blood pressure is stable now. The only other trauma is the broken arm and a slight concussion.” Another smile. “This little guy is going to be just fine.”

Relief shudders through me, and I release the breath I’d been holding. I follow alongside the gurney as they wheel him to room 308. We arrive to find Bishop Troyer standing at the door. His old face breaks into a grin when he spots the boy.

Mattie springs from her chair, one hand over her mouth, and rushes toward her son. “Is he all right?” Her gaze goes to the nurse. “Can I touch him?”

“He’s going to be fine. And, yes, you can touch him all you like. Just don’t jostle him or press on his tummy.” Unfazed by the fact that Mattie is Amish and there’s a bishop standing a few feet away, the nurse smiles. “I’m Susan, by the way. You must be Mom.”

Some of the desperation leaves Mattie’s expression, but her eyes never leave her son.
“Ja.”

“I’m David’s nurse today.” Her voice is devoid of the phony cheeriness that grates in situations like this, and I find myself liking her.

The orderly, a big teddy bear of a man wearing blue scrubs with a long-sleeve tee-shirt beneath, maneuvers the gurney so that it’s lined up with the bed. Mindful of the IV line and stand, the nurse peels down the blanket and sheet and fluffs the pillow. In tandem, they lift the boy and transfer him to the bed. The child stirs briefly, but doesn’t wake. Once he’s lying supine, the orderly covers him with a sheet and woven blanket, while the nurse hooks the IV bag to the portable stand next to the bed.

Mattie can’t seem to take her eyes off her son. She’s standing too close, getting in the way, but neither the nurse nor the orderly seems to mind.

The nurse picks up the clipboard and makes a note. “The doctor will be in to talk to you later.”

“Thank you.” Mattie bends and presses her cheek against her son’s, her eyes closed. “My sweet little miracle,” she whispers.

Using an ear thermometer, the nurse takes the boy’s temperature and scribbles something on the clipboard. “If you folks need anything, just press the button over there.” She indicates a call button next to the bed, makes a quick adjustment to the IV drip, and leaves the room.

Mattie hovers over her son, caressing his forehead, rounding the bed and touching him through the sheets, looking down at him as if she’s afraid to break contact lest he slip away.

I sidle over to Bishop Troyer. “Do you need anything Bishop?”

“We are fine.”

“You should go home and get some rest.”

He gives me a stern look. “If you’re worried that I’m going to collapse from old age, I should tell you that Mattie’s
mamm
is on her way.”

“I would have picked her up and brought her.”

“I know.”

“And it never crossed my mind that you’re old.”

His mouth twitches, but he doesn’t smile. That the boy is going to survive has eased the oppressive sense of doom from earlier. Still, we’re mindful that we’re in the midst of a monumental tragedy.

“Everything is taken care of at the house?” I ask, referring to Mattie’s farm. “Someone is there to feed the livestock?”

“Of course,” the Bishop replies. “We are Amish.”

I’d known that would be the case, but I was compelled to ask. The Amish may not have phones in their homes, but the community has a healthy grapevine and news travels fast, especially in the face of tragedy. The instant word got out about Paul’s death—probably with the help of the bishop’s wife—Mattie’s friends and neighbors converged with prayers and able hands.

“Katie?”

I look up to see Mattie approach. Though she’s lost her husband and two of her children, the hopelessness is gone from her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispers. “For what you did. For being there. Thank you for everything.…”

The next thing I know her arms are around me, pulling me close and squeezing hard. Her mouth is close to my ear and I hear her sob quietly. Her body shakes against mine. As if of their own volition, my arms go around her. She smells of laundry detergent and sunshine and I find myself hugging her back with a fierceness that surprises me. “I’m so sorry for your loss,” I say quietly.

“God called Paul and Norah and Little Sam home. It was His will and I accept that. But He decided this was not David’s day to go to heaven. He answered my prayers and gave me back my boy. For that, I am thankful.”

There’s more to say. At some point, I’ll need to tell her the accident was a hit-and-run. If she asks about Paul’s final moments, I’m obliged to tell her he was alive when I arrived on the scene. But for now, she has enough on her plate.

And I have a killer to find.

CHAPTER 6

I’m on my way to the station when my cell phone erupts. I glance down, see Sheriff Rasmussen’s name on the display, and snatch it up.

“Where you at, Chief?”

“Just left the hospital.”

“How’s the kid?”

I give him the rundown on David. “He’s going to make it.”

“That’s terrific news.” But I know that’s not the reason he called. “Look, we may have gotten a break on identifying the hit-skip vehicle. One of the deputies thinks the side-view mirror we found at the scene is from a Ford truck.”

“That
is
a nice break.” But a cynical little voice reminds me:
Nothing is ever that easy.
“Now all we have to do is find the truck it belongs to.”

“I’m about to run it over to the Ford dealership. If they can confirm it, I’ll add the make to the BOLO.” He pauses, gets to the point. “Impound garage didn’t have room for the buggy inside, and I didn’t want to leave it outside, so I had it hauled down to the volunteer fire department garage. Prosecutor wants us to reconstruct it, so that once we get a positive ID on this guy, he’ll be ready to file. If this case goes to trial, we need to have all our ducks in a row. What are the odds of your pulling some of your Amish strings and getting a buggy maker out here?”

“Pretty good.”

“I’m here with Maloney and we’ve been combing through this shit all morning.” He lowers his voice. “We have two pieces from the vehicle. The mirror, and then this morning we found some kind of pin that’s been sheared in half.”

“What kind of pin?”

“Not sure just yet. Almost looks like something you’d find on a tractor. To tell you the truth, we’re not even sure it came from the hit-skip.”

My conversation with Glock floats uneasily through my mind. “If this guy was going as fast as Maloney says, there should have been a lot of debris, Mike, even if there was a brush guard or something.”

“We thought maybe the driver stopped and picked it up.”

“It’s possible.” Even as I say the words my gut tells me it’s not probable. “But it would have taken a lot of time and effort for someone to sift through all the debris and pick up only what he needed to cover his tracks. Think about it. It was dark. Drizzling. After an impact like that, the driver would have been shaken up. Maybe even injured.”

“Or drunk on his ass.”

“That’s not to mention the emotional trauma of seeing the dead and knowing what he’d done. Even if he’s some kind of sociopath, there’s the fear of discovery. Who would have the wherewithal after a crash like that?”

“Maybe there was a passenger. Two of them.”

“Maybe.”

I hear frustration in his sigh and wonder if he got any sleep. “I ran the sheared pin down to one of the body shops here in Millersburg earlier. The manager thought maybe it was from some kind of after-market part.”

“What does that mean?”

“It didn’t come from the factory. It was added after the vehicle was purchased.”

“That could jibe with the brush guard theory.” Glancing in my rearview mirror I turn around in the parking lot of a Lutheran church and head back toward Millersburg. “I’m going to swing by the buggy maker’s place now, see if I can get him to ride down there with me.”

“Excellent. I should be back from the dealership in half an hour. Hopefully with some news.”

*   *   *

I’ve known Luke Miller since I was ten years old and we got into trouble for passing notes in the one-room schoolhouse where I received my early education. Blond-haired, blue eyed, and armed with a thousand-watt grin, he was one of the more interesting characters to grace my childhood. I’d had huge a crush on him. He was fun to be around because he was always breaking the rules and getting into trouble—a trait we shared—and he never hesitated to argue his position with the adults, a rarity among Amish children, since most are well behaved and respectful to the extreme. Together, we were a force to be reckoned with. I think the teacher was relieved when our eighth-grade education was complete and she was rid of us.

He’s one of only a few Amish who no longer farms for a living. He resides in a small frame house in Painters Mill proper. He doesn’t own a horse or buggy and gets around via an old Schwinn bicycle, or when necessary, he hires a driver.

I find him in the shop behind his house fitting a wheel to the axle of a finished carriage. When he hears me enter, he looks at me through the spokes of the wheel and offers a big grin.

“Katie Burkholder.” He rises to his full height, gives me an assessing once-over. “What a pleasant surprise.”

He’s wearing a straw hat, dark gray trousers with suspenders over a blue work shirt. As a kid, he’d been somewhat of a neatnik, and I notice immediately that quality has carried over into his adulthood. But then neat has always looked good on Luke.

It’s odd to see an Amish man his age without a full beard. He’s one of the few adults I know who never married, a feat that’s almost unheard of, since family and children are touchstones of the culture.

“Nice man-cave you’ve got here, Luke.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve decided to come back to the old ways and you’re here to buy a buggy.”

“Not unless you can retrofit it with a V-8 and light kit.”

“Don’t forget the sound system.” Laughing, he motions toward a well-worn wooden pew set against the wall.
“Sitz dich anne un bleib e weil.”

I look at the bench, but I don’t sit. “I can’t stay.”

Tugging a kerchief from his back pocket, he wipes his hands and starts toward me. “How are you?” He extends his hand to mine and we shake.

“I need a favor,” I tell him.

“You’re the one person I could never say no to.” He holds on to my gaze—and my hand—an instant too long and I find myself thinking about the time he took me behind the silo at Big Joe Bilar’s farm when I was thirteen and kissed me.