“Keep at it.”
I ring off, clip my phone onto my belt. I’m walking fast, energized by the possibility of a break in the case. Tomasetti falls in beside me. “You get something?”
“The name of a guy who did some work for Slabaugh.”
“Sounds promising.”
“A break would be nice.”
We reach the Explorer. “What about your vehicle?” I ask.
“I’ll pick it up after we talk to Coulter.”
“Fair enough.” We climb inside and I pull onto Township Road.
“Wouldn’t be the first time some lowlife killed the guy who signed his paycheck,” Tomasetti says.
“Who says crime doesn’t pay?”
*
I call Lois for Coulter’s most current address as I head toward the highway. She punches his name into LEADS and discovers he did time at the Mansfield Correctional Institution for burglarizing his place of employment, a tire shop, where he stole some tools and two hundred dollars in petty cash.
“Raiding the till to triple murder is one hell of a leap,” Tomasetti comments.
“Yeah, but not implausible.”
“What’s your theory?”
“Maybe Coulter planned to rob Slabaugh. Maybe he wasn’t expecting the brother to be there. Abel was visiting, remember? Anyway, let’s say Coulter showed up. The three men had a confrontation. Things got physical. Coulter pushed them into the pit, then panicked and ran.”
Tomasetti takes over. “Rachael Slabaugh shows up. Tries to save her husband, but the methane gets to her and she falls into the pit.”
“What about the missing cash in the mason jar?” I ask.
“Maybe he hit the house on the way out, once everyone was in the barn.”
“Pretty cold-blooded.”
“Yeah.”
We look at each other, our minds churning. It’s a good supposition. But is it right?
Coulter lives in a small frame house a block from the railroad tracks and grain elevator. The dank, salty smell of the nearby slaughterhouse wafts into the Explorer as I pull up to the curb. An old Ford Thunderbird with wide tires, aluminum wheels, and oxidized black paint sits in the driveway, a tribute to the muscle cars of the 1970s.
“He work?” Tomasetti asks.
“Third shift at the oil-filter factory in Millersburg.”
We disembark and take the cracked sidewalk to the porch. The front yard is mostly dirt and trampled gray snow. A child’s tricycle and several toy cars litter the sparse grass. It looks like a toy graveyard.
Standing slightly to one side, I use my keys to knock on the storm door.
A moment later, a plump woman holding a newborn baby opens the door. She wears faded jeans and a Cincinnati Reds sweatshirt. Pale blue eyes dart from me to Tomasetti and back to me. “Can I help you?” she asks.
I show her my badge. “Is Ricky Coulter here?”
“He’s in bed.” She looks over her shoulder. “Is something wrong?”
“We just want to talk to him,” I say. “Can you get him for us?”
“He’s only been asleep a couple of hours.”
“This won’t take long.” Tomasetti smiles easily. “Go wake him for us.”
I can tell she doesn’t want to comply, but she’s smart enough to realize she doesn’t have a choice. “Okay.” Hefting the baby, she steps back. “Come on in.”
We step into a small living room. The walls are white and nicked up, evidence of a family that’s long outgrown its dwelling. A few feet away, a toddler wearing a diaper and a stained bib sits on well-worn carpet and pounds a pan with a wooden spoon. In the kitchen, a white dog with a cast on its leg lies on the cracked linoleum, watching us, its tail fanning the air. The television is tuned to a soap opera.
“Can I help you?”
I look up and see a thirty-something man shuffle out of the hall. He’s wearing pajama bottoms and a white T-shirt. I can tell by the crease marks on the left side of his face that he’d been sleeping. Behind him, the woman clutches the baby, eyeing us with unconcealed suspicion.
“You Ricky Coulter?” I ask.
“Yeah.” Rubbing his fingers over mussed hair, he walks toward us. “What’s this all about?”
“I understand you did some work for Solomon Slabaugh,” I begin.
“I dug some postholes and put in some end posts for him a couple of months ago.” His brows knit. “Does this have something to do with what happened to him?”
“Where were you yesterday morning?”
He takes the question in stride, as if I’d asked about the weather. “I was here.”
“You work that night?”
“I was sick. Ate something that didn’t agree with me.”
“Is there someone who can verify that you were here?”
Turning, he motions toward the woman. “Honey, tell them where I was yesterday morning.”
She hovers a few feet away, bouncing the baby, dividing her attention between us and the soap opera. “He was home sick. We ate at that burger place down by the speedway, and he threw up half the night.”