“Some.” Leaning back in his chair, he unwraps a toothpick and sticks it between his lips. “You think this is drug related?”
“Something ugly like this happens, and drugs come to mind.” All eyes swing to me. “It’s a desperate, money-driven business.”
“Amish might be easy pickin’s.” Pickles chews on the toothpick. “Being pacifists and all.”
He’s right; generally speaking, the Amish renounce any kind of violence. “If some crackhead found out the Planks kept money at the house, they might think they could make off with some easy cash.”
Glock pipes up. “How would anyone know the Planks kept cash on hand?”
All eyes turn to me, and I know they’re wondering how the social crevasse that exists between the Amish and English might have been traversed. “Maybe one of the Planks mentioned keeping cash at the house while they were in town. Maybe the wrong person overheard and decided to rob them.”
Skid looks doubtful. “You mean like ‘My grandma keeps ten thousand dollars cash in her broom closet’?”
I shrug, knowing it’s a stretch. But you never know when a stretch might become the real deal.
“Maybe it started out as a burglary,” Glock says.
“Only the family was home and all of a sudden it’s a robbery,” T.J. adds. “Maybe they didn’t want witnesses.”
“That doesn’t explain the torture aspect.” I look from man to man. “If our perp went in for money or valuables, that level of violence just doesn’t fit.”
Glock weighs in with, “Or maybe the perp figured on robbery and didn’t give a damn who got hurt. They do a home invasion, decide not to leave any witnesses. Maybe this killer is some kind of psychopath, high on God only knows what, and it turned into a fuckin’ melee.”
Pickles pulls the toothpick out of his mouth and uses it to make his point. “If the killer went into that house at night, surely he knew the family was home.”
The direction our collective minds have gone makes me think of hate. Hatred of the Amish is unfathomable to most, but I know it is a cancer that is all too active. I wonder if hate could be part of this. Or all of it. “What about a hate crime?” I venture.
“Definite possibility,” Glock says.
I meet his gaze. “Check into hate crimes against the Amish in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana in the last two years. I want names and addresses. That gets into federal territory, so the feds will have records.”
“I’m on it.”
I turn my attention to Pickles. “Who are the biggest dealers in the area?”
Pickles knows the answer off the top of his head. “Jack Hawley got popped two years ago with a key of coke. Did eighteen months at Terre Haute. Word is he’s hanging with his old friends.”
“These guys never learn,” Glock mutters.
I jot the name on my pad. “Who else?”
“We know that goddamn Harry Oakes is selling meth. Got a network the size of New fuckin’ York. But he’s one paranoid son of a bitch. I can’t see him doing this kind of thing.”
“Who else?”
“The Krause brothers.” Pickles gives a nod. “They’re cooking shit out at their old man’s farm. House is derelict, so they moved a trailer home out there. Lights are burning in those barns half the damn night.”
“Where’s the old man?”
“Sent him to an old folks home down in Millersburg.”
“Huh.” I think about that a moment, tap my pad with my thumb. “These names are a starting point. Let’s go knock on some doors. Feel them out.”
Glock sits up in his chair. “You want me to go with you?”
I shake my head. “I’ll take Pickles.”
The former Marine looks alarmed. “Those Krause boys’ve got guns out there, Chief.”
I don’t have anything against guns in general. I have faith in our constitution, and I believe a law-abiding citizen has the right to keep and bear arms. If I hadn’t had access to a weapon seventeen years ago, I wouldn’t be here today. Still, as a cop, I know that in the wrong hands a gun can become an instrument of death in a split second. “We’re just going to rattle some cages,” I say. “See what runs out.”
“Chief, with all due respect . . .”
Pickles bristles at Glock’s concern. “We can handle it.”
I cut in before the situation escalates. “Pickles and I will take care.”
He nods, but doesn’t look happy about us going out alone.
I look at T.J. “I want you to canvass the area around the Plank farm.” Gaining useful information via canvassing is a long shot since many of the Amish farms in the area are more than a mile apart. Many will not speak openly to the English police. But with nothing to go on and the clock ticking, it’s worth the time and effort. “Ask about the family. Friends. Relatives. And see if anyone saw any strange vehicles or buggies in the area. Find out which homeowners keep firearms and what kind. Make a list.”
“You got it.”
Skid gives me a puzzled look. “What about me?”
“If I were you, I’d go home and get some sleep,” I tell him. “We’ve got a long stretch ahead and it might be a while before you get another chance.”
CHAPTER 8
Pickles and I hit the Krause place first. The farm sits on a dirt road four miles north of town. A decade earlier, Dirk Krause farmed soybeans, corn and tobacco. But as he got up in years and his capacity for physical labor dwindled, the farm fell to ruin. Instead of taking over the operation, his twin sons, Derek and Drew, let the fields go to shit. They sold the International Harvester tractor—for drug money more than likely—and leased the land to a neighbor. Talk around town is that the two sons, in their twenties now, work just enough to eke by. The brunt of their income is derived from selling crystal meth.
“You really think these losers had something to do with murdering that family?” Pickles asks as I turn the Explorer into the long gravel lane and start toward the house.
“Since we don’t have squat as far as suspects, I thought talking to them might be a good starting point.”
I park behind a rusty manure spreader surrounded by waist-high yellow grass. To my left, an ancient barn with weathered wood siding and a hail-damaged tin roof leans at a precarious angle. To my right, the house squats on a crumbling foundation like an old man in the throes of a cancerous death. Every window on the north side is broken. The back porch door dangles by a single hinge.
“Good to see they’re keeping up the place.” I slide out of the Explorer. The buzz of cicadas is deafening in the silence of the old farm.
“Place used to be nice,” Pickles grumbles as he gets out. “Looks like a goddamn junkyard now.”
“Except for that.” I point.
In stark contrast, a brand new fourteen-by-sixty trailer home with a satellite dish and living room extension perches on an old concrete foundation. A bright red barbecue grill lies on its side outside the front door, ashes and chunks of charcoal spilling onto the grass. A few feet away, four metal chairs and a brand-new cooler form a semicircle. A white Ford F-150 gleams beneath the carport. I think of a pistol in the hands of a paranoid meth freak and find myself hoping neither man is crazy enough to shoot at a cop.
“Looks like someone’s home,” Pickles says.
“Let’s do some rattling.” I start for the trailer.
I’ve had a couple of run-ins with the Krause brothers in the three years I’ve been chief. I arrested Derek twice, once on a drunk and disorderly charge after a fight broke out at the Brass Rail Saloon. He got off with a fine and probation. The second time, however, he did time for assaulting a nineteen-year-old woman, beating her so severely she had to be hospitalized. I witnessed some of the assault and happily testified against him. I’ve kept my doors locked and my sidearm handy since he was released last spring.
I’ve never arrested Drew, but I know him by reputation. I pulled his sheet before leaving the station. He did time at Mansfield for possession of meth with intent to sell. No arrests since, but as far as I know he’s just been
