“You a cop before that?”
I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “I didn’t work at the Cut and Curl, if that’s what you’re asking.”
One side of his mouth curves up. “This your first murder?”
“Norm Johnston tell you that, too?”
“He said you were inexperienced.”
His candor surprises me. “What else did he tell you?”
He looks amused. “Are you pumping me for information?”
“Just the truth.”
“Telling the truth usually gets me into trouble.”
“I get the feeling you don’t mind.”
He looks out the window for a moment, then turns his attention back to me. “So what’s your experience?”
I lift a shoulder, let it drop. “I was a cop in Columbus. Six years in patrol. Two as a detective. Homicide.”
Even in the dim light from the dash, I see his brow arch. “They didn’t mention that.”
“Didn’t think so. What about you?”
“Narcotics, mostly.”
“Detective?”
“Yeah.”
“How long?”
“Since dinosaurs roamed the earth. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m one of them.” He smiles.
I resist the urge to smile back. “You look familiar.”
“I was wondering when you were going to get around to that.”
I’m not sure what he means. “Get around to what?”
“You’re not up on your pseudo-celebrities, are you?”
A vague memory tickles the back of my brain. A newspaper or television story out of Cleveland or Toledo about the murder of a cop’s family. Home invasion. A decorated cop going rogue . . .
I can’t hide my surprise when I look at Tomasetti.
“Yeah, I’m him.” He looks amused. “Lucky you, huh?”
Unable to meet his penetrating stare, I look back at the road. “Toledo? Last year?”
“Cleveland,” he corrects. “Two years ago.”
“I followed the story some.”
“You and half the state.”
I want to ask him if he did it, but I don’t. The general consensus among law enforcement was that John Tomasetti had snapped. He’d gone after the man responsible for the murder of his family and exacted revenge. No one could prove it, but that hadn’t kept the DA from putting him in front of a grand jury.
“How did you end up at BCI?” I ask after a moment.
“The commander wanted me gone, gave me a recommendation. The saps at BCI didn’t know what they were getting.” He gives me a dry smile. “Do you want to get drunk and talk about it?”
“You need to drink to talk?”
“Most of the time.”
We drive for a while in silence, and then he asks, “It’s not easy to pass that detective’s exam, Chief. What made you give up all that glory for small town police work?”
I shrug, feeling self conscious. “I was born here.”
He nods as if he understands. “How is it that you’re fluent in German?”
He’s referring to my conversation with the Augspurgers. “It’s Pennsylvania Dutch.”
“Obscure language.”
“The Amish speak it.”
“Plenty of Amish in this part of Ohio.” I sense him studying me, wondering.
“There are more Amish in Ohio than Pennsylvania now.” A statistic he probably doesn’t give a good damn about.
“They offer Pennsylvania Dutch at the community college here or what?”
“My parents taught me.”
I see his mind combing through that. He’s not sure what to make of it. What to make of me. Had the circumstances been different, I might have enjoyed the moment. He doesn’t want to ask. But a man like John Tomasetti doesn’t necessarily give a damn about political correctness. He earns points with me when he finally asks, “You Amish, or what?”
“Was.”
“Huh. Johnston mentioned you were a pacifist.”
“In case you’re not reading between the lines, Johnston is full of shit.”
“I got that.” He whistles. “A gun-toting, cursing, former Amish female chief of police. I’ll be damned.”
The parking spaces in front of the police station are blissfully vacant when we arrive. I walk in to see Mona reclined at the dispatch station, her high-heeled boots propped on the desk. She’s holding a half-eaten apple in one hand, a forensic science book with a CSI-esque cover in the other. She’s tapping her foot to a Pink Floyd remix she has turned up too loud. She doesn’t hear us come in.
“I guess working graveyard has its benefits,” I say.
She fumbles the book and drops the apple. Her boots slide off the desk. “Hey Chief.” To my surprise, she blushes. “Damn book’s giving me the heebie-jeebies.” She whips out the messages. “Phone was ringing off the hook until about twenty minutes ago.”
“I guess people gotta sleep.”
“Thank God. The crazies are starting to call. Psychic from Omaha claims she was a victim of the Slaughterhouse Killer in her first life. Oh, and some whack job from Columbus called to tell you Amish women shouldn’t be police officers.” She crumples the pink slip and shoots it into the wastebasket. “I set him straight.”