The smell of death lingers. I shine my light around the kitchen. Smudges of gray-black soot from the fingerprint powder cover the countertops, the cabinets, the table and the sink. Several drawers stand partially open. Someone tracked mud onto a braided rug. I think of Bonnie Plank, and I wonder how many times she scolded her children for the same offense.
Outside, thunder rumbles with enough gusto to rattle the windows. Inside, the house is as still and silent as an underwater cave. I know this isn’t the ideal time for a look around, after dark, when I can’t see shit. But I know more about the Plank family now. Specifically, I know more about Mary. A young girl with a big secret and a host of problems that secret would have brought down on her life. That’s when I realize her bedroom is the room I want to search again.
Standing in the darkened kitchen, I think about what might have happened the night of the murders. Had it been dark like this when the killer arrived? Had the Plank family already turned in for the night? Or had the house been lit with the glow of lantern light? Since most dairy operators rise as early as four A.M., they go to bed early.
“The Planks were in bed,” I say aloud.
The mind of a killer is a dark, malignant place, viscous with a cancer of black thoughts and secret hungers most people can’t imagine. A place most people don’t want to conceive of because they’d never see the world in the same light. Getting inside a place like that is akin to climbing into a crypt and snuggling up with a decaying body. Still, I open that door and step inside. I conjure thoughts I hope will tell me who and why and how.
Lightning flashes, illuminating the kitchen for a split second. I shine my beam on the back door and wonder where the killer entered. There was no sign of forced entry. Did the Planks lock their doors? Or did someone let him in? Someone who knew him?
The killer enters through the unlocked back door. He’s got a gun and a flashlight. He carries a coil of speaker wire in his pocket. He wears gloves. All of it shows intent, premeditation. He’s scared, but driven—and excited. He knows what he wants, what he must do. He wishes for light, but compensates for the lack of it. Is he alone?
He moves through the kitchen and into the living room. His heart rate is up; he’s breathing hard. Lots of adrenaline. Is he here to steal? Or is he here to kill?
He travels up the stairs, silent and slow. The first bedroom belongs to the parents. He rouses them from a deep sleep. He holds the gun on Mrs. Plank to keep Amos under control. He binds the Amish man’s wrists first; he’s the biggest threat. He binds Bonnie’s hands next. The baby, little Amos, sleeps in his cradle beside the bed. Neither Bonnie nor Amos understands what the killer wants. They don’t know he’s going to kill them.
How does he keep them under control while he wakes and ties up the rest of the family? Does he threaten them with the gun? Does he have an accomplice? The questions come at me in a barrage, but I have no answers.
I slink back into the dark cavern of his mind, and I see him move to the next room. Ten-year-old David and fourteen-year-old Mark. He rouses them from sleep. The boys are confused and disoriented as he binds their hands behind their back. Amish children are taught to respect and obey adults. They wouldn’t have put up a fight; they would have listened to him because the killer is an adult.
Sixteen-year-old Annie’s room is next. Like the boys, she’s frightened and disoriented. He binds her hands and moves on to Mary’s room down the hall, rouses her from sleep. He’s thinking about other things now. The girls. Pretty and young and innocent. Does their fear excite him? Does he see them as objects? Are they the reason he’s here?
He herds all of them down the stairs. Does he carry the baby himself? No. The child is nothing but an annoying object to him. Does he leave the baby alone in the cradle? No. Bonnie died with the baby in her arms. The baby is crying. To shut it up, the killer unties Bonnie and lets her pick him up, carry him downstairs.
“Why did you come here?” I wonder aloud.
Did he plan to kill the entire family from the beginning? Some of them? Rape the girls? Did he wear a mask? Or did he kill them because they could identify him?
Downstairs. In the dark. A flashlight and a gun. Amos would sense what the killer had planned for the girls by now. He would be terrified, agitated, prepared to defend his family. But it’s too late for that; his hands are bound. Amos tries to fight, so the killer forces the man to kneel, shoves the gun into his mouth and pulls the trigger. An explosion of blood. The violence begins. Horror. Death.
Panic fills the house now. Screaming. Bonnie goes to her husband. Touches him. She gets blood on her hands. The baby crying. The killer points the gun at the baby. Shut him up! Bonnie scoops him into her arms and runs, leaving the bloody handprint on the back door. Death chases her. A bullet in her back. She falls in the grass and mother and child die as one.