Down a Dark Road (Kate Burkholder #9)

Another silence, steely and brittle. We sit across from each other, staring at the tabletop. It’s so quiet I can hear the spring peepers outside.

“I always knew you’d make something of yourself,” he says after a moment. “I always knew it would be something … big and important.”

“I don’t see how you could have known such a thing,” I tell him. “I didn’t.”

He surprises me by laughing. “I bet Bishop Troyer wasn’t happy about it.”

“He had no say in the matter.” When he raises his brows, I add, “I left when I was eighteen.”

He nods, thoughtful now. “How are Jacob and Sarah?”

“They’re both married. I have nephews and a niece.”

“But no children for you?”

I say nothing.

“Are you close to them?”

“Not like we were.” The old pain burgeons, but I shove it back. I’ve been estranged from my brother and sister most of my adult life. I’ve reached out to them several times since I’ve been back in Painters Mill, but because I left the fold their responses were tepid.

“I don’t think we’ll ever get that back,” I say.

“It’s a sad thing,” he says. “You were close once. I’m sorry you lost that. I know how much family means.”

I don’t respond. I don’t want him inside my head or knowing too much about me. I don’t want him to know how much those tattered relationships hurt when they slipped away.

He gives a resolute nod. “So are you any good at what you do?”

“Good enough.”

“Good enough to find the person who killed Naomi?”

I don’t know what to say to that, so I remain silent.

“You look the same,” he says after a moment.

Now it’s my turn to laugh, but it’s a short, uncomfortable sound. “I hope not.”

“The same only … better.”

“You were always good at dishing out the compliments,” I tell him. “Especially when you wanted something.”

“And you were always good at breaking the mold. Still are, aren’t you?” He doesn’t expect an answer and so I say nothing.

He stares at me as if seeing me for the first time. Scrutinizing me, as if my sitting here at this table with him is somehow shocking.

After a moment, he speaks in a low voice. “As fucked up as all of this is … I still wondered if it would be you who came tonight.”

“It’s my jurisdiction.”

“I’m glad I got to see you again.”

A softness unfolds inside me, an uncomfortable mix of nostalgia and melancholy, the latter because the sweet boy I once knew took a wrong turn somewhere along the line and more than likely there’s no coming back.

He laughs abruptly. “Do you remember that time the pigs got out of their pen and it was just you and Jacob and I to round them up?”

Despite the situation, I find myself smiling. I tell myself that reminiscing might help me gain control of the situation, soften him up, get him to come to his senses, but that’s not completely honest, because in that instant he’s the old Joseph I once looked up to. The Amish boy I was half in love with and loyal to till the end.

“Must have been a dozen pigs running around,” I say.

“Rooting up the garden. Gobbling up all the corn and tomatoes.”

“Not to mention Mamm’s peonies.”

“We got an earful about that, didn’t we?” He barks out another laugh. “You and I trapped that big sow between the barn and the silo.”

I surprise myself by laughing, too. It’s such an inappropriate, out-of-character reaction that I set my hand over my mouth to smother it. Chief of Police Kate Burkholder would not be laughing with this man, a prison escapee and convicted murderer. But thirteen-year-old Katie with her unfettered sense of humor and reckless heart would laugh until tears streamed from her eyes.

“You climbed onto her back and tried to ride her back to the barn,” I say.

“She bucked me off halfway there.”

“You never were a very good rider.”

“She was so traumatized she ran all the way back to the pen.”

Our laughter commingles, overriding the sounds of law enforcement outside, the weight of the situation. And for the span of several seconds, we’re teenagers and our biggest problem is how to finish our chores so we can go swimming in the creek, or to the woods for a game of hide-and-seek.

Reality intrudes when my phone vibrates on the table. I glance down at the caller ID, but I don’t recognize the number. Evidently, Mona has passed my number on to the sheriff’s department or BCI. More than likely, they want to know what the situation is. What King’s intentions are. If he’s armed. If anyone has been hurt. I let the call go to voicemail.

Sobering, I make eye contact with King. “Sooner or later I’m going to have to answer that.”

“I know.” The last remnant of his smile fades, and for the first time, he looks frightened. “I didn’t kill her,” he whispers, the softness of his voice making the words somehow more powerful.

I stare at him, suddenly angry with him for putting me in this position, for expecting me to believe him when my every instinct is warning me not to, for asking me to do something I don’t want to do.

“I need more than just your word,” I say.

He tightens his mouth. “Will a witness do the trick?”





CHAPTER 6

Disbelief wells inside me. “A witness? Who?”

“Sadie.”

My last vestige of hope sinks. The disappointment that follows is bitter and deep. “You know what, Joseph? I’ve heard enough.” I rise abruptly, but he reaches out, sets his hand on my arm.

“Sit the hell down and listen to me,” he hisses.

“Let go of me.”

He surprises me by obeying.

I sink back into the chair. “Joseph … Sadie?”

“She saw a man come into the house that night,” he tells me. “She saw him, Katie. In the hallway, outside our bedroom. He had a shotgun in his hands.”

I’m not sure what to make of his assertion. What does he possibly hope to accomplish? I read enough about the case to know the kids were in the house the night of the murder. It’s common knowledge. What kind of man drags a five-year-old little girl back into such a nightmare scenario?

“That’s ridiculous.” I keep my voice level, but I hear the hard ring of anger in it. “Investigators and a social worker with Children Services interviewed those kids. All of them. Multiple times. Any knowledge of the crime would have been uncovered in the course of those interviews.”

“It was.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“She told them what she saw. But because of her age no one took her seriously.”

“Joseph, she was three years old.”

“I know how old she was!” he shouts.

“A child that age would be considered an unreliable witness.”

“You have to understand something,” he tells me. “Sadie is not like most children her age. She’s … wise beyond her years. Mature for her age. Smarter than me. Naomi, even. This child of five … Katie, she already knows her mind.”