Tomasetti puts up a valiant fight about my going to work, telling me I need to stay home to recuperate and give Rasmussen and my guys at least a day to get a handle on whoever might be behind the shooting. But he knows me well enough to know I’m not going to hide out. When I don’t acquiesce, he moves on to plan B and suggests I take the .22 mini Magnum in my ankle holster as a backup weapon. I’m no fan of getting shot at, so I take his advice without argument.
He drops me off at the station at 10:00 A.M., before going to work in Richfield. I look like the walking dead. The bridge of my nose is bruised, and I’m pretty sure both eyes will be fully black by the end of the day.
Lois is at the switchboard with her headset on when I walk in. She gives me a double take, and gets to her feet. “Oh my.”
Her expression makes me smile, which causes the bridge of my nose to hurt. “Whatever you do, don’t say anything funny.”
“I’ll try not to.” Her expression sobers. “I figured you’d take the day off.”
“I thought this place might get kind of boring without me around to liven things up.”
Lois hefts a laugh. “You guys have any idea who did it?”
“Not yet.” I reach the dispatch station and pluck messages from my slot. “I don’t want to alarm you, but I want you to keep a close eye on the door for suspicious visitors, will you?”
“You bet I will.”
I go to the coffee station and find a mug. I feel her eyes on me as I pour.
“You need an ice pack, Chief? I think there’s a bag of frozen peas in the fridge.”
“That would be great.” I touch the bridge of my nose. “I could use a loaner car, too, while the Explorer is in the shop.”
“I’ll call the garage and have them send one over.”
*
I spend the morning rereading the file I’ve amassed on my John Doe aka Leroy Nolt case. An e-mail from Skid tells me Jeramy Kline’s parents are deceased. Abigail Kline’s parents, Naomi and Reuben Kaufman, sixty-four and sixty-seven years of age respectively, live on a county road outside of Charm. Neither has a record, although Reuben was cited multiple times for failure to display a slow-moving-vehicle sign on his buggy. The last ticket was issued three years ago. Either he’s stopped driving the buggy or he’s decided the slow-moving-vehicle sign isn’t too ornamental after all.
Abigail has two sisters, both of whom are now married and living in Upstate New York. Her brother, Abram, still lives in the area. I make a mental note to pay him a visit, too, to see if he came into contact with Leroy Nolt.
I’ve just shut down my computer, when my phone buzzes. I glance down to see SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT pop up on the display.
“How’re you feeling today, Chief?” Sheriff Rasmussen begins.
“Like the train conductor didn’t see me standing on the tracks.”
He chuckles. “I thought you’d want to know … that brass we found last night is, indeed, .22 caliber. Considering the distance, probably from a rifle. Crime-scene guy dug a slug out of your dash. Unfortunately, it’s fragmented, so we’re not going to be able to do anything with striations.”
“Lots of people have .22 rifles around here.” Including the Amish, a little voice reminds me.
“We may have gotten lucky, Kate. There’s a partial print on the casing. We don’t know if it’s enough, but they’re going to run it through AFIS and see if there’s a match. Tomasetti’s expediting everything for us.”
AFIS is the acronym for the Automated Fingerprint Identification System. I feel a little swell of pride in my chest at the mention of Tomasetti. “Thanks.”
“We stepped up patrols in all of Holmes County as well as Painters Mill proper. I’ve got my guys on mandatory OT.”
“I appreciate that, Mike. Keep me posted, will you?”
“You know it. Take it easy today.”
“I’ll do my best.”
*
Reuben and Naomi Kaufman live on a farm several miles south of Charm just off of County Road 600. It’s a huge place with two big bank-style barns and a white silo in dire need of fresh paint. In the field that runs alongside the frontage road, two aging draft horses nibble overgrazed grass next to a mossy pond. I turn into the gravel driveway and park my borrowed unmarked Crown Vic beneath the shade of an elm tree and take the sidewalk to the front porch. The two-story farmhouse is plain with tall windows covered on the inside with dark fabric. Two rocking chairs sit on a porch that’s been recently swept, but there are no flowerpots or hanging planters. Some Amish plant elaborate gardens, row after row of vegetables bordered by hundreds of beautiful flowers—petunias and daisies and geraniums. This garden is as plain as the house, with a dozen or more rows of tomatoes, corn, and green beans.