Three years had passed since his wife and two children were murdered. They’d been tough years—the kind that could break a man if he let it. John had skated close to that dark edge a couple of times, done a lot of things he wasn’t proud of. He’d spent a year addicted to prescription drugs—antianxiety medications, painkillers, sleeping pills. If the doctors had prescribed them, John had obliged by taking them with the glee of a suicidal junkie. Somehow, he’d always managed to wake up the next morning.
And then there was the small matter of the retribution he’d doled out a few months after the murders. Everyone knew he’d done it—his fellow cops, the Cuyahoga County district attorney, his friends. But cops make the best criminals, and when the grand jury came back after five hours of deliberation, they’d handed down a no bill, and John Tomasetti had walked away a free man.
He’d come a long way since those dark days. He’d left Cleveland, left the Cleveland Division of Police, and landed a position as special agent with the great state of Ohio in Columbus. He’d cut out the pills and most of the booze. He was down to seeing the company shrink just one evening per week now. Tomasetti was on the road to recovery, with the fragile hope of, if not happiness, at least a normal life. He figured it was the best a man like him could shoot for.
He’d just opened his laptop to check e-mail when a tap on the door drew his attention. He looked up, to see Deputy Superintendent Lawrence Bates step into his office. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”
Since he hadn’t done shit except haul in boxes and clutter things up, Tomasetti smiled. “I have a knack.”
Bates slid into a chair, leaned forward, and set his elbows on his knees. He was a tall, lanky man of about fifty who smoked like a chimney, drank like a fish, and somehow still managed to run six miles a day. He was married, with two college-age kids and a couple of Labrador retrievers. He’d come over to BCI from the FBI office in Dallas, Texas, six years ago. Rumor had it that he’d had an affair with his administrative assistant. Things had gotten ugly when his wife found out, and she’d given him an ultimatum. Larry had chosen his marriage over the bimbo and made the move to Cleveland. He looked like a man who’d been paying for his transgressions ever since.
“I understand you’ve spent some time in Holmes and Coshocton counties in the last year,” Bates says.
John thought of Kate and smiled. “I’m familiar with the area.”
Eleven months ago, he and Kate had worked a serial murder case in Painters Mill. It was a brutal case. They’d spent some intense days together, butted heads a few times, and somehow forged a friendship that had, so far, withstood the test of time. Looking back, Tomasetti realized that the Slaughterhouse Killer case and, more specifically, his relationship with Kate, had probably saved not only his career but his life.
“You have a pretty good working relationship with the local law-enforcement agencies down there?” Bates asked.
“I do.”
“This came in this morning.” Bates handed him a blue sheet of paper, which John recognized as a Request for Assistance form. “I spoke with Sheriff Rasmussen down in Millersburg. He tells me there’s been a string of hate crimes in the area in the last six months.”
“Hate crimes?” John knew from experience most were against minorities: African-Americans, Hispanics, Jews, and gay men. “Against who?”
“The Amish.”
“That’s a twist.” But John knew hate for the sake of hate had no boundaries. Vaguely, he recalled that Kate had told him about several incidents. “Doesn’t that fall under the FBI’s jurisdiction?”
“Hate crimes are against the law whether it’s on a state or federal level. Since we got the call, we show up.” Bates continued: “Rasmussen tells me there’ve been half a dozen incidents. Started out with a few bashed mailboxes. The usual kind of thing you see in small towns. Then a couple of weeks ago, someone ran a buggy off the road. A pregnant Amish woman was injured, lost her baby.”
Tomasetti picked up the RFA form and skimmed the particulars. “Any of the vics press charges?”
“Not a one.”
“So even if we catch the perpetrators, we basically have nothing.”
“We have you.”
“Because I have such a charismatic and persuasive personality?”
Bates chuckled. “Because you know Chief Burkholder.”
John wondered if someone had it written down in some file that he and Kate were sleeping together.
“I understand she was born Amish,” Bates said, clarifying.
“That’s what I’ve heard.”
“I thought she might be able to persuade some of these Amish to come forward, press charges, and testify, if we get that far.”
“If anyone can do it, Kate can. She’s … determined.”