“Did you recognize him?”
“I didn’t get a good look.”
He pauses. “You think it was the killer?”
The experts say a large majority of killers return to the scene sooner or later. I’ve seen it happen myself a few times in the course of my career. This time, however, the scenario doesn’t make sense. “My Explorer was parked in plain sight.”
He shines the beam over my muddy uniform. “I’ve got a jacket in my cruiser. . . .”
The chirp of my radio interrupts. “Two-eight-nine.” Glock’s voice crackles. “I’m 10-23 Hogpath Road.”
I hit my mike. “Any sign of the subject?”
“Negative.”
“Damnit.” The son of a bitch could have exited the cornfield at any point, gotten into a vehicle, and fled the scene. The rain will eradicate any tracks. “Take a look around. See what you can find.” I sigh. “We’ll come back at first light.”
“Roger that.”
Shaking my head, I brush at the mud on my jacket. “Damnit.”
T.J. looks thoughtful. “You think the killer might’ve come back for the journal, Chief?”
“It crossed my mind.” His expression becomes concerned, and I know he’s thinking the same thing I am. “We need to keep the scene secure. I want a more thorough search of the house and outbuildings first thing in the morning.”
T.J. nods. “Look, I came on duty later than everyone else. You want me to stick around?”
“That would be great. Thanks. Keep your radio handy, will you?”
“You bet.” He looks around. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to go through the journal tonight and see if Mary Plank identifies a boyfriend.”
He seems to consider that a moment. “You think the boyfriend killed the whole family?”
“I don’t know. But he just became my number one suspect.”
CHAPTER 11
“That sounded urgent. Is everything all right?”
John Tomasetti looked across the span of desktop at his newest nemesis and resisted the urge to get up and walk out the door. “A case,” he muttered. “Agency business.”
Contemplating him, Dr. Warren Hunt leaned back in his sleek leather executive chair, the poster boy for patience and serenity, and nodded. “If you need to take care of business, there’s an adjoining office you’re free to use.”
Tomasetti looked down at the cell phone in his hand and tried not to think about Kate. Or the fact that instead of sitting in this office humiliating himself, he should be on his way to Painters Mill. “Let’s just . . . get this over with.”
The doctor smiled.
Tomasetti had never been a fan of doctors, but he hated shrinks with particular vehemence. He found all of their how-do-you-feel-about-that questions, their phony concern and not-so-covert glances at their watches obscenely disingenuous. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a choice but to tolerate Dr. Warren Hunt. The suits might call it progress, but John called it a crock of shit.
“Where were we?” the doctor asked.
Hunt was a nice enough guy. A little too preppy for someone his age; John guessed him to be in his mid- fifties. But he’d been through some tough times. He’d spent a year in Bosnia way back when. He’d been a cop in New Orleans during Katrina. But while those things held weight for Tomasetti, there was baggage, and then there was
“I think we were discussing my plethora of vices,” Tomasetti replied.
Hunt gave a small smile, then looked down at the file in front of him. Tomasetti knew it contained records— damning personal information from past doctors—another proviso he didn’t care for, but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about any of it. And so here he was.
“I see you’ve had some problems with alcohol,” Hunt said. “Are you still drinking?”
Tomasetti looked across the gleaming span of rosewood, wondering how much of this would get back to his superiors. “I’ve cut back. A lot.”
“You still running?”
“I’m up to a couple of miles.” He hadn’t run for a week, but then he didn’t feel the need to confess.
“What about sleep?” Hunt asked. “You sleeping at night?”
“Better.”
“Sleep disturbances? Nightmares?”
“Sometimes.” For the last two and a half years—since the murders of his wife and two little girls—Tomasetti had been plagued by nightmares. More than one shrink had called them a by-product of post-traumatic stress disorder. They’d prescribed everything from Valium to antidepressants to antianxiety drugs to sleeping pills. The antidepressants seemed to do more harm than good, so John had stopped taking them almost immediately. The rest, however, he’d sucked down with the self-destructive glee of an addict.
Early on, the drugs had made his days bearable and the nights not quite so endless. He figured if he wasn’t thinking about blowing his brains out, the meds were working. Things began to improve after the Slaughterhouse case—after he met Kate. He weaned himself off the drugs. Not cold turkey, but one pill at a time. At first, everything had been all right. He started running. Taking care of a body he’d abused for more than two years. Just when he thought he was going to make it, everything went to shit.
Tomasetti wanted his life back. He wanted his job back. He wanted to go to Painters Mill to see Kate, help her with the case. The phone call he’d received from her earlier drove that need into his brain like a six-inch spike. She wouldn’t approve, but he worried about her. Too damn much if he wanted to be honest about it. But then he knew that bitch Fate had a habit of snatching away the things he cared about most.
His relationship with Kate was an anomaly; he’d never been a fan of female cops. Like their male counterparts, they could be a difficult lot. John figured he had enough problems just getting through the day without taking on a complicated woman. Not that he was looking. Not that she’d have him. Or so they both claimed.
She was one of the most interesting women he’d ever met. She was tough, capable and attractive as hell. This from a man who was not easily swayed by a pretty face. Evidently, he’d made an exception for her because she swayed him and then some.
In retrospect, Tomasetti knew that while it might have been the facade of tough that had initially drawn him to her, it was the barely discernible air of vulnerability that was the coup de grace. Thrown together during a time of off-the-chart stress, and his fate had been sealed. Less than a week into the investigation, they’d ended up in bed. At first, it had been all about the sex. By the time he’d returned to Columbus, their relationship had turned into something else. Something he didn’t necessarily want, but he’d come to learn life didn’t give a damn about timing.
“So, you’re still having nightmares,” the doctor said. “How often? Once a week? Twice a week? More often?”
“A couple of times a week,” John answered. “Not as intense.”
“I wish you’d change your mind about the antidepressants.”
“I think my brain has enough problems without adding to the mix.”
“I know a few of the MAOI-class antidepressants have gotten some bad press in the last couple of years. But we could try one of the SSRIs. There are several good ones on the market. The supervised use of an antidepressant could be helpful in getting you back on track.”
Tomasetti’s life had been a train wreck for so long, he didn’t think he’d ever be able to put the mangled pieces back together in a form that made sense. “Not going to happen, Doc.”
“If you have a chemical imbalance—”
“We both know my being here has nothing to do with some goddamn chemical imbalance. It has to do with the people I care about getting slaughtered. How the hell do you equate that with a fucking chemical imbalance?”
