Down a Dark Road (Kate Burkholder #9)

“He’s got my sidearm,” I tell him, trying not to wince. “A thirty-eight. City issue. I believe there’s a long gun in the house, too.”

Rasmussen shifts uncomfortably. Tomasetti looks away. Having your weapon commandeered by a previously unarmed suspect is the consummate rookie mistake. In the eyes of my counterparts, and regardless of the circumstances, indefensible.

Crowder makes a sound of thinly veiled disgust.

Ignoring all of it, I tell them about discovering the stolen vehicle. “I’d just called for backup when he ambushed me.”

Ryan snags a legal pad from a shelf behind him and pulls a pen from his breast pocket. He drops both onto the table between us. “Did King say what he wants? Did he make any demands?”

I recap the highlights of everything that was said, including the fact that I’d known him when we were kids. “King is claiming he didn’t murder his wife,” I tell him.

“Yeah and Jack the Ripper didn’t gut eleven women,” Crowder mutters.

“He wants someone to look into his case,” I say. “Give the evidence a second look.”

Ryan scrubs a hand over his jaw. “Of course he does.”

“What’s his frame of mind?” Scanlon asks.

“He’s on edge. Nervous. But not out of control,” I reply.

“Suicidal?” the negotiator asks.

I shake my head. “He said nothing to indicate he wanted to hurt himself. Or anyone else for that matter. He did, however, state he wasn’t going back to prison.”

Ryan and Scanlon exchange looks.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Crowder mutters. Mr. Helpful.

“Tell me about the hostages,” Ryan says.

I give him the names and ages of the children and he jots them on the notepad.

“Where are the children?” Ryan asks.

“Upstairs,” I reply. “They’d just gone to bed a few minutes before I left.”

“They have the run of the house?”

“Yes.”

Ryan snatches up his phone, thumbs a button, and speaks to someone on the other end. “See if you can find blueprints of that house. I know it’s old. Just do it.” He pockets the phone and turns his attention back to me.

“One more time, Chief Burkholder,” Ryan says. “Take us through everything that happened from the get-go.”

I start at the beginning and run through it to the end, recalling the conversations to the best of my memory. When he asks, I offer my impressions. Mostly, I stick to the facts. “I asked King multiple times to release the children, but he refused.”

“Are the children afraid of him?” Scanlon asks.

I shake my head. “Not at all. In fact, they seem quite content to have him in the house. King has fed them. Put them to bed. After seeing the way he interacted with them—and the way they responded—I don’t believe he means to harm them. I don’t believe they’re in imminent danger.” I shrug. “They seem more worried about all the police activity.”

“Well, that’s cozy as hell,” Crowder says.

Ryan jots something on the pad of paper. “He get any extra ammo with that thirty-eight?”

“Just what’s in the cylinder.”

A pause ensues. Everyone absorbing the information, trying to come up with a strategy.

“You grew up with King,” Scanlon says.

“His family lived next door to our farm for about six years,” I reply.

As I speak, I sense Tomasetti watching me intently from across the table. He’s been unusually reticent. I’m not sure if it’s the result of his earlier worry about me, or because he doesn’t like seeing me on the hot seat.

Ryan looks at Scanlon. “Any way we can use that to our advantage?”

Scanlon nods. “Might be helpful to keep Chief Burkholder around as a resource in case we run out of ideas on this thing.”

“I’ll help any way I can,” I tell them. “But honestly, I tried appealing to him while I was inside and he wasn’t receptive.”

Ryan glances at his watch. “Anything else, Chief Burkholder?”

I tell them about the little Amish girl’s assertion that there was a man with a long gun in the house the night Naomi King was killed.

“Now we got the one-armed man,” Crowder grumbles.

I take them through the girl’s account, leaving nothing out. Ryan scribbles onto a pad. Scanlon types into a tablet. All the while I’m aware of dispassionate eyes on me, and I know the information is falling on deaf ears.

“Let me get this straight.” Crowder crosses his arms over his barrel chest and leans back in his chair. “So that fucking King marches a five-year-old into the room, puts her in front of you, and has her tell you that she witnessed the murder?”

“She didn’t witness the murder,” I tell him. “She claims she saw a man with a rifle in the house that night.”

“You’re aware the murder was over two years ago,” Crowder states. “She was only three years old at the time.”

“I did the math,” I tell him.

“He coached her,” Crowder says.

“It has been my experience that a witness that age is unreliable.” Ryan looks from Scanlon to Crowder. “Jeff, were those kids interviewed by Children Services?”

“The sheriff’s department talked to all of them. So did social workers from Children Services,” Crowder replies. “I do recall one of them mentioning a man with a gun, but the kid was too young and the psychologist deemed her unreliable.”

“What’s your take, Chief Burkholder?” Tomasetti asks. “Did the girl seem credible?”

Leave it to Tomasetti to prod the elephant in the room.

“She’s five years old now,” I tell them. “She relayed the story without input from King. I’m no expert, but if King coached her, he did a good job. She seemed credible. Confident. She gave details that would have been difficult for a five-year-old to fabricate.”

“Details like what?” Crowder asks.

“For one thing she said the intruder was clean-shaven. Her father, being a married Amish man, had a full beard at the time of his arrest. She also said the intruder wasn’t dressed in Amish clothes.”

“Doesn’t seem too complicated,” says Crowder.

“She also said the man pointed the long gun at her,” I say. “She claimed to have heard a ‘click,’ as if he’d pulled the trigger but for whatever reason the rifle didn’t fire. If King had coached her, why would he ask her to say something like that? It doesn’t make sense.”

The men fall silent. Rasmussen and Tomasetti are looking down at their notes. Crowder, Ryan, and Scanlon are staring at me as if trying to decide if I’ve sided with the enemy.

“What are you saying exactly?” Ryan asks.

I meet his gaze head-on. “I’m telling you what was said.”

“We had a shitload of evidence against that son of a bitch,” Crowder says. “We’re talking fingerprints. Blood. Gunshot residue. His fishing story was full of holes.”

Ryan intervenes. “The children will certainly be interviewed again when this is over.” He looks around the table. “We’re not going to retry King tonight so let’s deal with the crisis at hand. We need to get those hostages out of there unharmed and get King to lay down his weapons and turn himself in.”