Fallen

by Linda Castillo

  “Come on,” Tomasetti hisses.

  But the driver parks on the other side of Rachael’s Lexus, so that all we can see is the roof and a portion of the hood. A dark sedan. Four-door. A male disembarks. Too dark to see his face. Average height. Muscular build. He moves with the ease of a self-assured man. Comfortable with who he is. Confident. No hesitation or uncertainty.

  The door of the Lexus swings open. Rachael gets out, slams it behind her. She rounds the hood, meets the man on the other side, out of sight. The footage is too grainy to see his face or discern his expression. But even to my untrained eye, his body language speaks of tension. He’s much larger than her. I recall the autopsy report. Rachael Schwartz was five feet six inches tall and weighed in at 120 pounds. This man is taller by six or eight inches and outweighs her by seventy or eighty pounds. In a physical confrontation, she wouldn’t stand a chance.

  They exchange words. Some gesturing. Hands on hips. The tension remains, but it’s more subtle now. Two adversaries facing off, aware of appearances, indications of weakness. Some elusive element simmering beneath the surface. After a moment, the male motions toward the bar. Rachael turns and looks, then shrugs. Reluctant. He motions again. This time, she throws up her hands and they start that way.

  In that instant, they face the camera dead-on.

  “Show us your face, you prick.” Tomasetti clicks the mouse, freezing the frame. He tries to enlarge it, but the resolution becomes too grainy. Cursing, he clicks again, moving them forward frame by frame. It doesn’t help.

  “Any chance you have a computer guy who can bring that into better focus?” I ask.

  “We can damn well try. I know one of the computer forensic guys. I’ll give him a call, see if he’ll meet me first thing.” He checks his watch. “Let’s see if Schwartz and her pal leave together.”

  It takes us twenty minutes to find their departure. Sure enough, Rachael and her male counterpart walk out of The Pub an hour later. This time, we catch a glimpse of their faces. It’s blurred, but something pings in my brain. Something about the male. The way he moves? The way he walks? The set of his shoulders? His clothes? What?

  “Freeze it,” I say abruptly.

  Tomasetti clicks the mouse.

  “I think there’s something familiar about that guy.” I reach over and usurp the mouse. Back up the footage. Play it forward. “I don’t know. Something…”

  “You’ve met him before?” he asks.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe. Something in the way he moves. There. The way he swings his arms when he walks, the tilt of his head.”

  “Do you mean, see-him-at-the-grocery familiar? Or maybe you’ve seen him around town? Or have you met him? Arrested him?”

  “I don’t know.” Frustration sizzling, I play it again, taking it apart frame by frame.

  Tomasetti waits, dividing his attention between me and the video. I turn to him. “I need a clear shot of his face, damn it. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him before. I don’t know him, but I’ve seen him. Maybe talked to him. His mannerisms are familiar.”

  He reaches for my laptop, presses the button to eject the disk. “Let me get to work on this.”

  CHAPTER 22

  I’m tired to my bones, already missing Tomasetti and nearly to the farm in Wooster when my police radio barks. “Chief, I’ve got a ten-fourteen.” Margaret uses the police code for “prowler” and then rattles off an address that’s familiar—and still fresh in my memory bank.

  “Is that the Bontrager place?” I ask.

  “RP is Ben Bontrager,” she tells me, using the abbreviation for “reporting party.” “I know you’re on your way home, but since they’re Amish I called you instead of Mona. Do you want me to send her since she’s on duty?”

  “That’s okay. You did the right thing.” I turn round in the parking lot of a Methodist church and head that way. “I’m ten-seven-six.”

  One of the things my years in law enforcement have taught me is that coincidences rarely occur, especially in the course of an investigation. I’ve been chief in Painters Mill for about eight years now. Aside from the selling-of-unpasteurized-milk incident, my department has never been called to the Bontrager farm. And yet just outside of twenty-four hours after the murder of Rachael Schwartz, I receive a call to report a prowler. Coincidence?

  “We’ll see,” I murmur as I crank up my speed to just over the limit and run my overhead lights. In minutes I pull into the lane of the Bontrager farm. The house is lit with the yellow glow of lantern light. I keep my eyes open for movement as I barrel up the lane. There are no vehicles in sight. No one outside. I park behind the buggy at the rear of the house. I’m on my way around to the front when the back door swings open.

  “Chief Burkholder?”

  I turn to see Ben Bontrager standing on the porch, holding the door open, a lantern in hand.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “There was a man. In the barn. A stranger. He threatened my wife. Roughed her up some.” Looking distressed, he opens the door wider and ushers me through. “Kumma inseid.” Come inside.

  “Is anyone hurt?” I ask as I enter.

  “No.”

  “Where’s the man?”

  “He ran away.”

  “Did you recognize him?”

  “I didn’t see him.” But his eyes skate away from mine. “Deah vayk.” This way.

  I speak into my lapel mike and ask for assistance. “Mona, ten-fourteen. I’m ten-twenty-three the Bontrager farm. Ten-seven-eight.”

  Her voice cracks over the radio. “Ten-seven-six.”

  Ben and I pass through a back porch that’s been enclosed and is being used as a laundry/mudroom. An old-fashioned wringer-style washer squats in the corner. A hat rack where four kapps and a man’s straw hat are hung. A clothesline decorated with men’s shirts bisects the room. Open shelving laden with canning jars. A taxidermy deer head with twelve-point antlers stares at me from its place on the wall.

  “You didn’t have to come, you know.”

  I look toward the kitchen to see Loretta Bontrager standing in the doorway, looking at me as if I’m going to pull out my .38 and cut her down. She looks shaken and pale, her nose and eyes glowing red as if she’d been crying. Even from ten feet away I see the marks on her throat.

  I cross the distance between us. “Are you hurt?” I ask. “Do you need an ambulance?”

  “I’m fine.” She does her best to scoff, but doesn’t quite manage. The look she gives her husband is fraught with recrimination. “I told you not to call. It was nothing. I’m fine.”

  I point at the marks on her neck. “Who did that to you?”

  Giving her husband a scornful look, she turns and walks into the kitchen.

  Puzzled by her response, I follow. “Loretta, what happened?”

  Ben brushes past me to stand next to his wife. He sets his hand on her shoulder, but she moves aside and it drops away. An odd mix of concern and confusion infuses his expression. I notice the trousers over his sleep shirt, telling me he’d been in bed and wakened.

  Loretta sinks into a chair as if her legs aren’t quite strong enough to support her. “It was nothing,” she tells me. “Just … a man down on his luck and in need of help. That’s all.”

  I look at Ben and raise my brows.

  He meets my gaze, gives a shrug. “I woke and she wasn’t in our bed. I found her in the barn, crying. I saw those marks on her neck, and she told me about the man. I thought we should tell someone.” He turns his attention to his wife and his mouth tightens. “Men who are down on their luck do not leave marks like that on a woman.”

  When Loretta looks away from him, he adds, “Fazayla see.” Tell her.

  The Amish woman looks down at her hands and shakes her head. “I haven’t slept well since … what happened to Rachael. So I go to the barn sometimes to see the lambs. The babies, you know.” Her mouth curves as if the thought gives her comfort. “I was holding one of the newborns when a man just … came out of nowher
e. He grabbed me.” Her eyes flick away and she lowers her head, presses her fingers against her forehead. “He … wanted money. I told him I didn’t have any and … he…” She touches the marks at her throat. “I think he didn’t believe me. He shoved me. Choked me.” She shakes her head. “He’d been drinking. I could smell it on his breath. I offered to give him food, but he got angry and … he pushed me down and then he just … ran out the back.”

  It’s not the kind of crime we have here in Painters Mill. In fact, in all the years I’ve been chief, I can recall only two muggings. Both times it happened in the parking lot of the Brass Rail Saloon at closing time and involved individuals who’d had too much to drink.

  “Did you recognize him?” I ask. “Have you ever seen him before? Around town?”

  “No.” She shakes her head, but doesn’t look at me. “It happened so fast. And by lantern light. I didn’t get a very good look at his face.”

  “Did he have a weapon?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What did he look like?” I ask. “Was he English? Amish? White? Or black?”

  “English.” Her brows knit. “White.” She blinks as if taking herself back to a nightmare she doesn’t want to revisit. “He was just … average looking. Scruffy. Sandy hair. Strong, though.”

  “Age?”

  “Maybe thirty-five? A little younger than Ben and I.”

  “Height? Weight?”

  She looks at her husband. “Shorter than Ben. Heavier though.”

  The image of the man’s silhouette on the CCTV video flashes unbidden in my mind’s eye. “What was he wearing?” I ask.

  She struggles for a moment, then shakes her head. “Blue jeans, I think. I was so shaken up I didn’t really notice.”

  “Was he on foot?” I ask. “Did he have a vehicle?”

  “I didn’t see a vehicle, but he could have parked it somewhere, I guess.”

  “Do you have any idea where he went?” I ask. “Do you know which direction he went when he ran away?”

  Another shake. “I just saw him go out the door. At the back of the barn, the underside where the pens are. Ben woke up and … he ran over to the neighbor’s house and called 911.”

  Speaking into my shoulder mike, I hail Dispatch. “I need County to assist. Ten-eighty-eight.” Suspicious activity. I recite the address for the Bontrager farm. “White male. Six feet. One-ninety. May be on foot.”

  “Roger that.”

  I look at Loretta, trying to isolate the source of the sense that something about this incident isn’t quite right. It’s not that I don’t believe her. She’s visibly shaken. I can plainly see the marks on her throat. The blooming bruise on her cheek. I’ve no doubt someone accosted her. But I don’t believe it was some random stranger and I don’t believe he was here for money. The one thing I’m relatively certain of is that I’m not getting the whole story.

  That said, like much of rural America, Painters Mill has been hard hit by the opioid epidemic. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that someone looking for easy money went to an Amish farm in search of cash. It’s well known most Amish keep cash on hand. It’s also known that they will not defend themselves or their property. Many Amish, in fact, would hand over their cash just to help someone in need.

  I look at Loretta. “Do you mind if I take a look at those marks on your throat?”

  Her sigh is barely discernible, but she complies, tilts her head to one side. The flesh is abraded, the outline of fingers and a thumb visible. By morning, she’ll have bruises.

  “You sure you don’t want to get yourself checked out at the hospital?” I ask.

  “I’m fine, Katie,” she tells me. “Just shaken up is all. I didn’t even want to call you, but Ben thought we should. I wasn’t expecting anything like that to happen out in the barn of all places, especially this time of night.”

  “Did the man who attacked you say anything else?” I ask.

  “No, he just … asked for money. That’s all.”

  I nod, but that uneasy suspicion scratches at the back of my brain again. I nod, give her a moment to say more. When she doesn’t, I ask, “Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?”

  The couple exchange a look. Ben leans against the counter, his arms crossed at his chest, his expression closed and grim. Loretta won’t make eye contact with me, instead looking down at the floor. “I think that’s about it,” she says.

  “I’m going to take a look around.” Digging into my pocket, I pull out my card and jot my cell phone number on the back. “If either of you realize there’s more you need to tell me, give me a call.”

  I set the card on the counter and start toward the door.

  CHAPTER 23

  Summer 2008

  Loretta didn’t know how long they danced or how many songs the band played. Twice she became separated from Rachael, but found her way back. Once, she danced with an English girl with blue hair and eyes smeared with what looked like charcoal. But the girl had a nice smile and a big laugh, and Loretta thought she’d never had so much fun in her life.

  But, of course, as her mamm liked to say, all good things must come to an end, and as she danced next to the stage, her head began to swim. Sweat broke out on the back of her neck. When she looked at the stage, it tilted left and right and then swirled around her like some out-of-control merry-go-round. Worse, she was starting to feel nauseous. She looked around for Rachael, to tell her she needed to go get some water, but her friend was dancing with an English boy. His arms were around her waist and the way he was looking at her filled Loretta with a longing she didn’t quite understand. Rachael looked so happy, Loretta decided not to interrupt and headed out on her own.

  By the time Loretta reached the edge of the crowd, her stomach was seesawing. She barely made it to the nearest tent before throwing up. When she was finished, she went to the booth of the guy selling water, bought a bottle, and decided to take it to the buggy and lie down.

  She got lost twice on the way. By the time she reached the buggy her head was pounding. Legs jittery, she drank half the water, and then crawled into the buggy to lie down in the back. It was cooler there and almost quiet. If she could just be still for a little while, she might be able to go back and rejoin Rachael.

  “Der siffer hot zu viel geleppert.” The drunkard had just sipped too much.

  Loretta wasn’t sure how long she’d dozed. A minute or two. She sat up to see Levi Yoder standing outside the buggy, looking at her.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  He was looking at her bare legs, so she tugged at her skirt, ran her hand over the fabric, wishing her friend hadn’t cut it. “Where’s Rachael?”

  “I was going to ask you the same thing.” He pulled out his cell phone, squinted down at it, then looked at her. “She’s late.”

  Loretta didn’t respond. Her head was still aching, but her stomach had calmed. It was just like Rachael to be late. How could she be so irresponsible? But Loretta figured it was as much her fault as her friend’s.

  “I reckon we’re going to have to just sit here and wait for her.”

  He was looking at her oddly, his head tilted to one side. The kind of look a man had when he was thinking about buying a horse; he liked what he saw, but thought he might haggle a bit before making an offer.

  “I’m going to go find her.” Loretta started to climb out of the buggy, but Levi blocked her way.

  “What’s your hurry?” he drawled.

  He held a can of beer in his hand. A cigarette dangled from the side of his mouth. She didn’t like the way he was looking at her.

  “I don’t want to get into trouble,” she said.

  “If she doesn’t show in a few minutes, I’ll go look.” He flicked the cigarette away.

  “My parents don’t know I left,” she said. “I have to go.” She didn’t want him to know that about her; the less he knew, the better. But she couldn’t think of a better excuse to get away fro
m him.

  “I’ll get you home,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

  He was blocking her way out, making her feel claustrophobic and trapped.

  “Bet your pal will show any moment.” He set his beer on the floorboard and started to climb into the buggy.

  Moving quickly, Loretta tried to slip past him. But he was faster. His hands closed around both her biceps. Lifting her, he slid her onto the back seat. “What’s your hurry?”

  “Let me out,” she hissed.

  He grinned. “I always thought you were a cute thing,” he whispered.

  “I have to go.” Loretta had barely uttered the words when he pushed her back and came down on top of her.

  “Aw, come on,” he whispered. “Just a kiss.”

  She turned her head just in time to avoid his open mouth. She discerned the wetness of spit on her cheek. The weight of his body, crushing against hers with such force that she couldn’t breathe.

  “I always fancied you,” he murmured.

  She tried to push him away, but he was too heavy. She twisted beneath him, tried to kick, but she was pinned. Vaguely, she was aware of him reaching between them, working at the zipper of his jeans, trying to get out his thing, his other hand sliding between her legs.

  Panic unfurled inside her. Her mamm had warned her about boys like Levi. Don’t get yourself into a mess, she’d said. Of course, that was exactly what Loretta had done. It was all her fault. How could she ever have believed sneaking out was a good idea?

  “Levi, stop it!” She gasped the words, squirming, trying to keep her legs together.

  In the next instant he jolted as if lightning had come down from the sky to strike his back. “What the—”

  Loretta looked over his shoulder, saw movement outside the door.

  “Get the hell off her!”

  Rachael.

  Relief moved through her like an earthquake. Oxygen bursting into air-deprived lungs. Cool water on a feverish face.

  Levi raised himself up off her. Loretta caught a glimpse of him pushing his thing back into his pants. A moment later, a loud snap! sounded behind him.