“Kaufman’s down. In the pen. For God’s sake, the hogs are killing him!” I don’t wait for a response. Cradling my injured wrist, I go back to the hay chute and drop down to the stall below. Quickly, I jog to the aisle and rush to the pen. I know immediately something has changed. Kaufman has gone silent. The hogs have quieted.
I reach the gate, startling when a juvenile hog careers past and scurries toward open pasture. I look in the pen. Most of the pigs have fled. Shock and revulsion rise in my chest at the sight of Kaufman—what’s left of him—lying in a pool of blood.
“What the fuck?” Glock whispers behind me.
The Amish man lies unmoving in a prone position with his face turned away. His arms are spread wide. Hands gone, the sleeves of his shirt shredded and blood soaked. One leg is bent at the knee and crossed over the other. A massive pool of blood has been trampled by dozens of cloven hooves.
I tilt my head to my lapel mike. “What’s the ETA on that ambulance?” But I know it’s too late.
“Paramedics just arrived at the house, Chief,” comes T.J.’s voice. “Want me to send them back?”
“That’s affirm. Make it fast.”
I don’t want to go into the pen. I don’t want to see what the hogs did to Kaufman. I don’t want the sight branded onto my brain. I don’t have a choice. I’m a first responder and EMT certified. It’s my responsibility to take every action necessary to preserve life until help arrives.
The gate squeaks when Glock swings it wider. We start toward the fallen man. The stench of manure is powerful, but I barely notice. I can smell the blood now. Too much of it for anyone to have survived.
“This is going to be bad,” Glock mutters.
I stop a few feet away and look down at Kaufman. His shirt and suspenders are shredded and have been torn away from his body. His torso is riddled with bite marks. The flesh on his abdomen is torn, and something gray with blue veins protrudes from the gash. Bile rises into the back of my throat when I look at his face. His eyes stare sightlessly into space. His right cheek has been torn open, exposing the gums and teeth and part of his jawbone. His right ear is gone. His hands are gone. The stumps of his wrists are jagged flesh and the pink-white of protruding bone.
“That’s some disturbing shit,” Glock mutters.
I don’t know what to say to that. I’m not sure I can speak even if I try.
Digging into his equipment belt, he digs out a latex glove and slips it onto his right hand. Kneeling, he presses his index finger against Kaufman’s carotid artery.
After a moment, he lowers his head and gives a single shake. “He’s toast.”
*
The next hours pass in a blur. Abigail Kaufman is taken into custody and transported to the Holmes County Jail in Holmesville. The county prosecutor will have to sort through an array of charges, ranging from the attempted murder of a peace officer, attempted murder for what she did to her parents, and first-degree murder for the poisoning death of her husband. That’s not to mention Kaufman. Since she implicated her brother in the death of Leroy Nolt, two additional Holmes County deputies were dispatched to Abram Kaufman’s farm to bring him in for questioning.
Doc Coblentz pronounces Reuben Kaufman dead at the scene. It’s premature to rule on the cause or manner of death, but in an off-the-record conversation, the coroner tells me that if my bullet had killed Kaufman he wouldn’t have continued to bleed once the hogs went to work on him. By all indications, while the fall and the bullet incapacitated him, he more than likely died of massive trauma and blood loss caused by the mauling that followed. At some point a local animal-protection organization is called in and the hogs are rounded up. I don’t know what will happen to them. I’m not sure I want to.
I recount the incident a dozen times to several law enforcement officials affiliated with two agencies. The case is officially assumed by the Holmes County Sheriff’s Department. I give another statement along with the pertinent information on Abigail Kaufman to the lead detective. I physically walk him through the scene, which is being sketched, videotaped, and photographed. I try not to look at any of it.
Once Kaufman’s body is transported to the morgue, the CSU from BCI goes to work. The rifle is confiscated. Since I fired my service revolver, my .38 is also taken for testing “just to cross the t’s and dot the i’s,” according to the detective. The CSU is looking for the slugs from the .22 when Tomasetti calls.
He begins with his usual: “Are you all right?”
“I’m okay.” But I tell him about my wrist. “Might just be a sprain.”
He makes a sound that’s part dismay, part disapproval. “That’s not code for ‘compound fracture,’ is it?”
I can’t help it; I laugh. It feels good after the things I witnessed this afternoon. It reminds me that I’m alive. That I still have my life and a future with the man I love.
As if understanding, Tomasetti falls silent and listens as I take him through it.
“Tough scene,” he says when I’m finished.