“Kate?”
Giving myself a mental shake, I force my mind back to the matter at hand. I recall Bishop Troyer telling me that Bonnie Plank had wanted to speak to him about Mary. Had Bonnie known about her daughter’s pregnancy? No one I spoke to remembered a boyfriend. Who fathered the child? Did Mary have a lover? Was she raped and never reported it? Even to her family or bishop?
“How far along was she?” I ask.
“Without the fetus, there’s no way to tell.”
“Did anyone find the missing uterus?”
“Not that I’m aware of.” He looks at me over the tops of his glasses. “Once we realized she was pregnant, we took vaginal swabs, cervical swabs and did what’s called a vaginal wash. On the outside chance she’d had
“I don’t know what that is,” I say.
“The wet-mount slide revealed that she had live sperm in her vagina.”
All I can think is that we now have DNA. “So she was raped and he didn’t use a condom?”
“I don’t think so. Most of these sperm were immobile. I would guess they were over forty-eight hours old.”
Surprise lands another hard blow. “I didn’t realize sperm could live that long.”
“They can survive up to about seventy-two hours.”
I blink at him, confused. “So she had sex or was raped well before the murders?”
“Correct.”
I look from man to man. “Was she raped?”
Doc Coblentz shrugs. “There was no vaginal tearing or bruising of the pubis. Of course, that’s not definitive proof it wasn’t forcible rape. But there were no visible signs.”
My gaze darts to Rohrbacher. “At least now we have DNA.” I can’t keep the optimism from my voice. This development could break the case wide open. “I’ll have BCI check CODIS.” CODIS is the acronym for the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System. Beginning in 1994, DNA samples of offenders were taken and entered into a database. If the semen retrieved from Mary Plank’s body is from an identified past offender, the FBI analyst may be able to match it with a name.
“How long will it take?” the doc asks.
“I’m not sure. A few days maybe. But if this guy’s in the system, we’ll have a name.”
The possibility bolsters me. But I know if the DNA is not in the system we’ll be back at square one. I look again at the girl’s body. So young and with so many secrets. I wish I didn’t know what that was like, but I do. And I feel a hell of a lot more than I should. I know what it’s like to be part of a close-knit group, to desperately want to belong, only to be held apart by secrets.
“Any hair or fibers on any of the bodies?” I ask.
He nods. “Both. We sent everything to BCI.”
If any of the hairs found are from the offender and include an intact root, we could have a second source of DNA. One more nail in the bastard’s coffin. “What about Bonnie Plank?” I ask.
Rohrbacher replaces the sheet. Doc Coblentz shuffles to the second gurney. “She died from a single penetrating gunshot wound to the mid-back area. The bullet transected the lower cervical and upper thoracic spinal cord.”
“She died instantly?”
“Correct.” He pulls down the sheet. For a moment the only sound comes from the buzzing of the fluorescent lights and the hard thump of my heart. Bonnie Plank is a plump woman with ample body fat and breasts that sag to the left and right of her ribcage. The Y-incision has been stitched, but she hasn’t yet been cleaned up. Her head is turned slightly to one side, and I see a blood smear on her neck. Several red droplets stain the sheet.
When I close my eyes, I can still see the image of her lying in the grass, clutching the baby. She’d been running away. They shot her in the back.
“Any sign of sexual assault?” I ask.
“No.”
At least she hadn’t had to endure the final insult of a rape. “What about the baby, Doc?”
He grimaces. “The baby was killed by the same bullet that killed his mother. I won’t have COD on the child until I complete the autopsy.”
“Do you have anything preliminary on the adult male and two boys?”
“It appears all three suffered gunshot wounds to the head. They appear to be fatal wounds.” He replaces the sheet, covering Bonnie Plank’s body. “Dr. Rohrbacher and I are going to work through the night, Kate. We’ll finish late tonight. I should have a full report late tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
I’m ready to leave. The smell of death and the things I’ve seen and heard have torn down what little optimism I’ve been able to muster. But I have one more question that must be answered before I can go. “The killer made a halfhearted effort to make these killings look like a murder-suicide. Can you tell me definitively that Amos Plank’s gunshot was not self-inflicted?”
He crosses to another gurney and lowers the sheet. Amos Plank’s face is colorless. His lips are stretched taut over broken teeth. His tongue looks like a cut of meat that’s been dropped into a blender.
Coblentz indicates the mouth area with the swab, then defers to his counterpart. “Dr. Rohrbacher?”
The young doctor looks at the body the way a bright student might look at some fascinating science project. “The bullet entered the skull through the mouth.”
“That’s consistent with suicide, isn’t it?” I ask.
“That’s correct,” he concedes. “But the trajectory path of the bullet is not consistent with a self-inflicted wound.” As if handling a piece of fragile porcelain, the doctor places his hands on either side of the head and turns it slightly so that the back of Amos Plank’s head is visible. “The bullet exited here.”
The exit wound is jagged and large and is located just a few inches above the neck. The flesh has begun to deteriorate, the edges turning red-brown. I can see white chips of bone inside the wound. “The bullet shattered the C1 vertebra as it left the body.”
“Can you clarify that for me?”
“The trajectory is at a slightly downward angle. With a suicide, the trajectory is usually upward. The bullet would pass through either the parietal or occipital lobe and exit the rear of the skull. Autopsy will be more definitive, but I would say whoever shot this man was above him. This victim was probably kneeling, the shooter standing, therefore the bullet angled down, shattered the spinal cord at C1 and exited high on the neck.”
“I concur.” Doc Coblentz takes off his glasses. “Combined with the bruising on the wrists, we’re going to rule the manner of death a homicide.”
Though I had anticipated this, I’m still shocked by the images running through my mind. Amos Plank kneeling. A killer standing over him, holding a gun in the Amish man’s mouth. An execution-style murder is unfathomable. But for someone to be cold enough to look into another human being’s eyes and pull the trigger is pure, unadulterated evil.
CHAPTER 10
Dusk falls softly in October. The hard glare of the afternoon sun acquiesces to the cool hush of the night layer by layer. Darkness will not arrive peacefully tonight. Sitting at my computer in my cramped office at the station, I watch a bank of storm clouds to the west steal the final snatches of light from the horizon. Lightning flickers, outlining the silhouettes of massive thunder-heads. I feel a storm of a different nature roiling inside me.
The Plank family has been dead for about eighteen hours. I should be relieved Mary Plank’s autopsy uncovered evidence that could conceivably solve the case. Once DNA is extracted and CODIS comes back, we could have a name. I can’t quiet the nagging voice in my head telling me it’s not going to be that easy.
In order for CODIS to spit out a name, the perpetrator must already be in the system. He must have been arrested at some point in his lifetime. And the data must have been entered into the database, which doesn’t always happen. What if he’s got a previously clean record?
Of course the DNA and fibers will help me build a case, particularly if we make the arrest and it goes to trial.
