“Don’t need a warrant to talk to someone.”
“If I like him as a suspect, I’ll want to search the place.” I look past the house where a dilapidated barn lists like a ship trapped in arctic ice. “I don’t want to screw this up. If he’s our guy, he could be doing the murders here.”
“If we like him, we’ll get the warrant.”
I glance at the back door in time to see the curtains part, then quickly fall back into place. “He spotted us.”
“I’ll take the front,” Tomasetti says.
Cold assaults me when I exit the vehicle. The sidewalk isn’t shoveled and my feet crunch through ankle-deep snow. In my peripheral vision, I see Tomasetti continue around to the front. I thumb the snap off my holster when I reach the back door. The top half of the door is glass. A crack runs through it and someone repaired it with duct tape. Dirty blue curtains gape about an inch. Through the gap I see an old freezer and circa 1970s cabinets.
I rattle the glass with my knuckles. “Dwayne Starkey! This is Kate Burkholder with the Painters Mill PD! Open up.”
I wait thirty seconds and knock again, harder. “Come on, Dwayne, I know you’re in there. Open the door!”
The door swings open. I catch a whiff of something vaguely unpleasant and find myself facing a small man with greasy hair, a receding hairline and a mustache the color of spicy mustard.
“Dwayne Starkey?”
“Who wants to know?”
“Kate Burkholder. Painters Mill PD.” Keeping my right hand close to my weapon, I pull out my badge with my left and hold it up. He stares at it long enough to make me wonder if he knows how to read. “I need to ask you some questions.”
“This about those kilt women?”
“What makes you think that?”
A hard laugh rattles from a cigarette-rough throat. “I know how you cops think. Somethin’ bad goes down and you want to hang it on the first con you see.”
“I just want to ask you a few questions.”
He looks undecided. “You got a warrant?”
“I can have one in ten minutes if you want to do it that way. It’d be a lot faster if you just open the door and talk to me.”
“I probably shouldn’t without my lawyer.”
A familiar baritone voice comes from behind Starkey. “If you didn’t do anything wrong, you don’t need a lawyer.”
I look past Starkey and see Tomasetti standing in the mudroom. I want to ask him what the hell he’s doing in Starkey’s house, but Starkey beats me to the punch.
“Who the fuck’re you? What’re you doin’ in my house?”
“I’m the good cop, Dwayne. I suggest you stop being a shithead and cooperate with Chief Burkholder. Believe me, you don’t want to piss her off.”
Starkey looks at me. “How the fuck did he get in my house?”
I’m wondering the same thing, so I don’t even try to answer. “Dwayne,” I begin, “we just need a few minutes of your time.”
Starkey steps back. He wears grungy jeans. A shirt with old sweat stains. He looks like he wants to run. I glance down at his feet and see dirty white socks. If he breaks for the door, he won’t get far.
I push open the door and step into a mudroom that smells the way Starkey looks, an unpleasant fusion of cat shit, body odor and cigarette smoke.
Starkey looks from me to Tomasetti and back to me. “I know my rights so don’t try any shit.”
“You have the right to sit the fuck down.” Taking the man by the scruff, Tomasetti muscles him into the kitchen and shoves him into a chair.
“Hey!” Starkey complains. “You can’t do that.”
“I just want to show you how much we appreciate your cooperation.”
I step into the kitchen. The stench of rotting food and animal feces punches me like a fist. An obese cat watches me from atop a 1970s refrigerator. I watch my step when I cross to Starkey.
“You still work at the slaughterhouse, Dwayne?” I ask.
“I ain’t missed a day since I started.”
“What do you do there?”
“Look, I got a clean record there.” He points at Tomasetti. “I don’t want you cops fuckin’ things up for me.”
Tomasetti slaps his hand away. “Answer the question.”
“I’m the sticker.”
“What’s a sticker?” I ask.
“I stick the steer in the neck after he’s stunned.”
“You cut its throat?”
“I guess you could put it that way.”
“You like doing that?” Tomasetti asks.
“It pays the bills.”
Something crunches beneath Tomasetti’s shoe as he steps into the living room. “You gotta go to school for that?”
Starkey glares at him. “Fuck you.”
“Dwayne,” I snap. “Cut it out.”
He looks at me as if I’m dense. “That guy’s an asshole.”
“I know.” I’m aware of Tomasetti moving around the living room, but I never take my eyes off of Starkey. “Where were you Saturday night?”