Sworn to Silence (29 page)

The barn is a dilapidated structure one windy day away from becoming a pile of rubble. Starkey takes Tomasetti and me down the unshoveled sidewalk. I notice footprints in the snow and I wonder why he goes to the barn when he doesn’t own livestock.

I get my answer when he slides open the door and we step inside. A yellow El Camino, its paint as glossy as the day it was driven off the showroom floor, sits on cinder blocks with its hood open. Four aluminum wheels lean against a support beam. Beyond, a lawn chair squats next to a rusty fifty-gallon drum. From atop the drum, a radio blasts an old Eagles song. An aluminum pie tin overflows with cigarette butts.

“Nice place,” Tomasetti says.

“This is where I was Saturday night.” Starkey points at the El Camino. “That there’s the car I been working on.”

“You into junkers?” Tomasetti asks.

“That ain’t no junker, man. She’s a classic.”

I move deeper into the barn, find myself looking for a snowmobile. I check the dirt floor for track marks, but find nothing. The air smells of moldy earth
and motor oil. I spot a tarp in the corner, cross over and lift it. Dust motes flare and a circa 1965 John Deere tractor looms into view.

Disappointment presses into me. I wanted Starkey to be our man. He’s a convicted rapist. A pedophile. A man with an appetite for porn and God only knows what else. But his height tells me he’s not the man who attacked me in the woods last night. He doesn’t fit the profile. He’s not organized. Not highly intelligent. As desperately as I want to solve this case, my gut tells me he’s not the killer.

I stride toward the men and point rudely at Starkey. “Don’t leave town.”

“I’m on parole. What do you think I’m going to do? Take a fuckin’ Hawaiian vacation?”

I start toward the door. “Let’s go.”

I reach the Tahoe first and climb in. In the relative warmth of the cab, I suddenly feel as if I haven’t slept for a week. A dull ache hammers at the base of my skull.

Tomasetti pulls out of the driveway and heads toward town. I stare out the window at the bleak landscape and try not to let the heat and low hum of the engine lull me to sleep.

“He’s not our guy,” Tomasetti says without looking at me.

“I know.”

“Most serial killers have an above-average IQ.”

“Rules out Starkey.” I glare at Tomasetti. “Next time you feel like going Dirty Harry, do it on your own time, okay?”

He looks at me as if I offended him. “You’re the one who hit him.”

“I smacked him upside the head to get his attention.”

“You kicked his chair out from under him.” Shrugging, he returns his attention to the road. “I was impressed.”

I catch myself grinning. Under different circumstances, I might have liked John Tomasetti. I may not agree with his tactics, but I know he had my back in there. Before I can analyze further, he makes a quick turn into the parking lot of McNarie’s Bar. It’s one of two drinking establishments in Painters Mill, a dive replete with red vinyl barstools, half a dozen booths and a jukebox from 1978 with all the original music selections.

“What the hell are you doing?” I demand.

“I could use a drink.” He swings open the door and gets out.

“A
drink?
”

He slams the door.

I shove open my door and slide out. “It’s ten o’clock in the morning. We have work to do.”

Glancing at his watch, he keeps walking. His stride is so long, I have to jog to keep up. “Damnit, John, we need to get back to the station.”

“This won’t take long.”

I stop beside a rusty Toyota pickup, and watch him disappear inside. I look around the deserted parking lot, too pissed to notice the cold or the clouds gathering in the west.

“Starkey was right,” I mutter as I start toward the door. “He’s an asshole.”

Corina Srinvassen couldn’t wait to get on the ice. She’d fantasized about it all through her eighth-grade history class. Through literature class, health class with Mr. Trump where they learned about STDs, lunch with Lori Jones and study hall beneath the watchful eye of Mrs. Filloon aka Scary Bitch.

When the three-twenty bell rang, Cori hit the door running. She planned her routine on the long bus ride home. She was going to try the double twist today. She was alone, after all; no one to laugh at her if she fell on her butt. By four-fifteen she’d changed clothes and slipped out the door before her mother could stop her.

The sky hovered heavy and low as she trudged through the woods toward the pond. The ice would be rough today. That happened when snow fell, melted and refroze. There was no way around Mother Nature’s quirks. One of these days Cori was going to have the money to go to an indoor skating rink in some fancy mall. The kind that was surrounded by swanky shops and the Zamboni kept the ice as smooth as glass.

Slinging her skates over her shoulder, Cori crested the hill and Miller’s Pond loomed before her like a big tarnished nickel. She ran down the embankment toward the lacing stump and kicked off her boots. Cold snaked through all three pairs of socks, and by the time she’d laced up, she was shivering. Pulling on her mittens, Cori wobbled down the bank, stepped onto the ice and pushed off. The rough surface didn’t slow her down. In that instant she was Michelle Kwan. The winter-dead cattails were adoring fans brought
to their feet by the grace and beauty of the young skater from Painters Mill, Ohio.

A pang of excitement went through Cori with that first, heady rush of speed. Closing her eyes, she raised her arms like a ballet dancer and took flight. She was one with the ice. A bird in an endless sky, spinning and dipping and free-falling to her heart’s delight. She wasn’t sure how long she skated. When Cori looked around, the sky had darkened even more. Snow, she thought as her skates bumped along the frozen shore. She was trying to find the best spot to try her double twist when the low rumble of an engine interrupted. Curious, she skated to the north end of the pond and trudged up the earthen dam. A short distance away, she caught a glimpse of a snowmobile disappearing into the woods. Weird, she thought, and wondered why someone would drive all the way out here and then leave so quickly.

She was about to resume skating when something in the snow drew her eye. A garbage bag, she realized. The snowmobile guy had dumped a bag of trash. Stupid litterbug. Then she remembered her friend Jenny telling her about people dumping kittens. She hated animal abusers even more than litterbugs.

Not wanting to take the time to remove her skates, Cori walked awkwardly over the tufts of frozen mud. Her blades clanked against the ground as she made her way across the dam and down the embankment. There was no way her mom would let her keep a whole litter of kittens. She could probably give one to Lori; her mom liked cats.

A few yards from the bag, Cori noticed something red spilled in the snow. It looked like paint, but her stomach suddenly felt funny, like when you woke up at night from a bad dream. That was when she remembered the kids on the bus making up scary stories about a dead woman. Her mom had told her not to go to Miller’s Pond today. She’d told her she didn’t want her on the ice alone. But Cori knew that wasn’t the real reason, and she wished she hadn’t sneaked away.

Pulling out her cell phone, Cori started toward the bag. Every now and then she looked toward the woods to see if there was anyone there. She listened for the snowmobile’s engine. But no one was there. Twenty feet away, recognition kicked her brain. Horror like she’d never before known in her young life
sent a scream pouring from her throat. Seeing a real-life dead body was nothing like in the movies.

Cori stumbled back, tripped on her skates and went down hard on her butt. “Ohmigod!” She scrambled to her feet. Her finger shook when she hit the speed dial button for home. “
Mom!
I’m at the pond! There’s a dead lady!”

“
What?
” Somewhere far away, she heard her mother’s voice. “Oh God, Cori. Honey, get out of there!”

“I’m scared!”

“Run, honey. Take the path. Stay on the phone. Daddy and I are coming.”

Too afraid to stop and remove her skates, Cori took off as fast as her feet would carry her toward the long path home.

I’ve been in McNarie’s Bar more times than I care to admit. When I was sixteen, I had my first taste of Canadian Mist from some biker who was either too stupid or too drunk to realize I was a minor. I smoked my first Marlboro in the ladies’ room with Cindy Wilhelm that same year. Had my first kiss from Rick Funderburk in the back seat of his Mustang in the parking lot when I was seventeen. I probably would have had sex that night had my father not shown up in the buggy and dragged me home. It doesn’t take long for a determined Amish girl in full self-destruct mode to unlearn the values her parents had so painstakingly instilled.

As an adult, I’ve stopped in a time or two. The bartender, a gorilla-size, red-haired man I know only as McNarie, is a good listener. He has a decent sense of humor and makes one hell of a vodka and tonic.

I push open the door and wait for my eyes to adjust to the dim interior. I smell cigarette smoke and that old-beer reek common to bars. I spot Tomasetti slouched in a booth. An empty shot glass and two full ones sit on the table in front of him. I’m not surprised.

A stout woman behind the bar eyes me like a dog watching some stray slink into its yard. I give her a nod and start toward the booth.

Tomasetti looks up when I approach. “Glad you could make it, Chief. Have a seat.”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Having a drink. I ordered one for you, too.”

“We don’t have time for this.” I look down at the shot glass and resist the temptation to splash it in his face. “Take me back to the station.”

“We need to talk.”

“We can talk at the station.”

“More private here.”

“Goddamn you, Tomasetti.”

“Sit down. You’re drawing attention to yourself.”

Despite my efforts not to, I’ve raised my voice. A combination of stress, lack of sleep, and a subtle, crawling fear have gotten the best of me. “Take me back to the station. Right fucking now.”

He picks up the shot glass and hands it to me.

I ignore it. “I swear to God I’ll call your superiors. I’ll file a complaint. You and your bad attitude will be out the door so fast you won’t know which end is up.”

“Calm down,” he says, “I ordered a couple of sandwiches. If you want to get them to go, that’s fine.”

I walk to the bar and lean toward the saloon doors that lead to the kitchen. “We’d like those sandwiches to go!” I call out.

A young man who looks too dirty to be anywhere near food comes out and gives me a nod. I go back to the booth and slide in across from Tomasetti.

“You like riddles, Chief?”

“Not particularly.”

“I’ve got one I could use your help with.”

I look at my watch.

“There’s this cop,” he says. “Pete.”

I ignore him.

“Pete’s a good cop. Experienced. Smart. Anyway, there’s this killer loose in the town where he’s a cop. This killer has already murdered two people. Pete knows he’s going to do it again.”

I glare at him. “Are you going somewhere with this?”

“I’m getting to the riddle part.” He picks up the shot glass, drinks it down, and eyes me over the rim. “The twist is that sixteen years ago there were four
murders with exactly the same MO committed in this town. And then,
bam!
the killer disappeared off the face of the earth. Why would this cop, Pete, refuse to believe the killer from sixteen years ago is back? He’s a reasonable guy. What are the odds that two killers with exactly the same MO would haunt this same town? Why would Pete be reluctant to ask for assistance from other law enforcement?”

I want to give him a smart-assed reply, but for the life of me I can’t think of one. “Maybe Pete thinks the killer is a copycat.”

He nods as if considering, but I know he’s not. “When I tell this riddle, most people think Pete’s hiding something.”

“Like what?”

“That’s what makes this such a good riddle.” He shrugs. “I was hoping you could help me get inside his head and figure it out.”

I feel my pulse throbbing at my temples. I remind myself there’s no way he could know what happened, but the reassurance is little comfort. I’ve underestimated John Tomasetti. He isn’t just a figurehead with a badge. He’s a cop with a cop’s suspicions and the resolve to get to the bottom of those suspicions no matter what it takes.

“I’m not very good at riddles,” I say.

“I think Pete’s hiding something.” He shrugs. “I thought he might come clean if the right person asked.”

All I can think is
How does he know?
“You’re full of shit, Tomasetti.”

He smiles, but it’s the cunning smile of a shark. A big one with bottomless black eyes, sharp teeth and an unfailing killer instinct. Leaning back in the booth, he studies me as if I’m some lab experiment gone wrong. “So how did you go from being an Amish farm girl to a cop? That’s one hell of a leap.”