It’s the worst kind of night to be on the road—windy and stormy—and the drive from Wooster to the scene, which is just inside the township limits of Painters Mill, takes almost twenty minutes. Twice I have to slow down—once because the road is flooded, and the second time because the windshield wipers can’t keep up with the deluge. The Michaels farm is located on a narrow road that runs parallel with the railroad tracks that cut through town. My headlights illuminate a gravel lane with a hump of weeds in the center when I make the turn, and for the second time tonight I’m glad I drive a high-clearance vehicle. Ahead, I see the flashing lights of Glock’s cruiser.
I park behind a newish Lincoln Navigator and cut the engine. The windows of the large Tudor-style house to my right are dark. The immense barn hulks to my left. The sliding door is open and I can see the yellow cone of Glock’s flashlight. I pick up my radio. “Ten twenty-three.”
“Copy that, Chief,” comes the voice of my second-shift dispatcher.
“Ten twenty-eight.”
“Go ahead.”
I squint through the rain streaming down the windshield and recite the plate number on the SUV. “David, Henry, Adam, three, seven, zero, niner.”
Keys click on the other end as she enters the tag number into the BMV database. “Comes back clear to an oh-six Lincoln. Registered to Christopher Thomas Harrington here in Painters Mill.”
“Ten four.” Grabbing my slicker and Maglite from the backseat, I get out. My hair is half soaked by the time I get my hood up. I start toward the barn.
I enter to the din of rain against the tin roof. I get the impression of a cavernous space with a dirt floor and huge wood support beams. On the other side of one of those beams, I see the body hanging from the rafters. It’s too dark for me to discern much in terms of detail, but in the light thrown off by a single bare bulb, I can see the contorted neck, and in silhouette, the protrusion of a tongue from the mouth. Well-worn wingtips dangle six feet from the floor, where Glock is in the process of setting up cones and taping off the immediate area. As always, his uniform is military crisp, the arch of his boots shined to a high sheen. He looks like he just came off the set of some police recruiting video.
A thirtysomething woman wearing a quilted jacket over yoga pants, her feet jammed into lavender-colored skimmers, is standing just inside the door to my left, crying softly into a well-used tissue. Daughter, I think. Probably the owner of the Navigator and the one who found him. Her hair is the color of a new copper penny and sticks to her scalp like wet corkscrews. Glock must have offered her his slicker, because she’s got it draped over her shoulders. I can see her shivering beneath it.
I make eye contact with her, nodding to let her know I’ll speak to her in a moment as I cross to Glock. “She found him?”
He nods. “Name’s Belinda Harrington. Lives in Painters Mill.”
“Have you talked to her yet?”
“Just to get an ID. Swinger’s her dad. Evidently, she’s been trying to reach him for a couple of days. He didn’t return her calls, so she drove over to check on him. When he didn’t answer the door, she got worried and came out here to the barn.”
I look at the body and try not to shudder. The neck is bent at a severe angle with the rope biting into the larynx area of the throat. The fingers of his left hand are trapped between the rope and his flesh, as if he’d changed his mind after jumping, but the weight of his body made it impossible to escape. I’m no expert, but I’ve seen the result of a few hangings in the years I’ve been a cop. This one wasn’t clean.
“Hell of a way to go,” I say in a low voice.
Sighing, Glock glances up at the body. “What are people thinking when they do shit like this?”
I don’t bother trying to answer. “Did you find a note?”
He shakes his head. “I’ll do a more thorough search once we get some lights out here.”
“We’ll need to check the house, too.” I motion toward the platter-size wet spot in the dirt beneath the body. “Any idea what that is?”
“Not sure. Some kind of biohazard.”
It’s not unusual for a hanging victim’s bladder to release at the time of death, but something about it bothers me. I run my beam over the length of the body. That’s when I notice the dark stain on his slacks near the waistband. Too dark to be urine. “That looks like blood,” I say to Glock.
“Shit.” He adds his beam to mine. “Looks like a stain on his shirt, too. Bloody nose? Maybe he bumped something on his way down?”