“Ten-seventy-seven five minutes.”
I rack the mike. “Backup’s on the way.”
“Let’s go.” Tomasetti reaches for the door handle.
I grab his arm and stop him. “Are you armed?”
He glares at me. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re only here to observe.”
Temper flashes in his eyes. “Goddamnit, Kate.”
“I mean it,” I snap. “I want this done by the book.”
“Fine.” He shakes off my hand with a little too much force.
We disembark simultaneously. I can see Long’s trailer from where I parked. The black pickup sits in the driveway. “Looks like he’s home.”
“I’ll go around back,” Tomasetti says.
Giving him a nod, I draw my .38 and ascend the wooden steps of the deck. Standing slightly to the side, I knock hard on the storm door. “Todd Long! Police! Open the door. We need to talk to you.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Tomasetti disappear around the rear of the trailer. I hammer the door with my palm. “Police! Open up!”
A cop has got to be cautious when approaching a suspect’s residence. Contrary to popular belief, the door doesn’t have to be open for you to get shot. Depending on the weapon, a bullet can go right through a steel door. This particular door is made of wood and has a small diamond-shaped window just above eye level. Opening the storm door, staying to one side as much as possible, I set my toes on the threshold and put my eye to the glass.
The interior is dim. No lights. Curtains drawn. I see a living room with dark paneling. A kitchen with oak cabinets. Countertops littered with beer cans, newspapers and several days’ worth of mail. A bottle of top shelf whiskey sits on a glossy coffee table. Beyond, I see the outline of a flat-screen TV.
“Todd Long!” I shout. “Open the door now!” I’m about to pull away and wait for Glock to pile-drive the door when something snags my eye. Cupping my hands, I put my face to the glass. At first, I think the massive stain on the wall behind the sofa is food or drink. The kick of adrenaline in my gut tells some part of my brain it’s not.
“Shit.”
“No sign of anyone.” Tomasetti takes the steps two at a time and stands next to me.
“I think that’s blood on the wall,” I say.
Grimacing, he puts his face to the window and looks inside. “I think you’re right.”
He’s nearly a foot taller than me and has a better vantage.
“Any sign of a body?” I ask.
“Can’t see much from this angle.” He looks over at me. “Are you reasonably suspicious of foul play here?”
I jerk my head and try not to think of his unofficial status. “Do it.”
He steps back, then lands a kick next to the lock.
Wood splinters and the door flies open. Before I can move, Tomasetti drops into a shooter’s stance and thrusts himself inside. “Police! Put your hands up!”
My weapon leading the way, I follow him. Tomasetti goes right, toward the kitchen. I go left where the living room opens to a hall. I smell blood an instant before I see the body. On the other side of the room, Todd Long is sitting upright on the sofa, his arms and legs splayed. His head leans against the back-rest. His face is angled up, toward the ceiling, as if he fell asleep while watching TV. From where I stand, I can see that the back of his head is missing. His hand grips a big .45 revolver.
“Aw, shit.” Tomasetti’s voice reaches me as if from a great distance.
“Looks like we’re a little late,” I hear myself say.
“Or maybe we timed this just right.” I look at him and he shrugs. “Son of a bitch saved everyone a lot of time and trouble.”
I don’t agree with that; I have too many questions rolling around in my head. That’s not to mention my need to see justice done for the Plank family. But my thoughts are too scrambled at the moment to rebuff his statement.
“I’m going to clear the rest of the trailer.” Tomasetti heads down the narrow hall toward the bedrooms.
I can’t take my eyes off the dead man. Sightless eyes stare at the ceiling. His mouth is open and filled with blood. I see powder burns on his lips. Broken front teeth. Blowback covers the wall behind him. I can make out tiny pieces of brain tissue, blood and small flecks of bone on the dark paneling.
Tomasetti emerges from the hall. “Clear.” He glances at the body and for a second I’m afraid he’s going to draw down and put another bullet in it. He motions toward the bottle of whiskey on the coffee table. “Looks like he got juiced up and took the easy way out.”
Neither of us has any sympathy for a man who drugged and raped a fifteen-year-old girl. But I didn’t want it to end like this. I feel as if someone yanked the rug out from under me. There’s no sense of justice. No closure. Just a dead man, a dead family and a hundred questions that will never be answered.
Trying not to think about that too much, I hit my lapel mike. “I’ve got a 10-84 at three five Decker in the Melody Trailer Park. Can you 10-79?”
“Roger that,” comes Lois’s voice.
“Deceased is Todd Long. See if you can find contact info for NOK, will you?”
“Sure thing, Chief.”
Movement at the door snags my attention. I glance over to see Glock enter, his eyes on the corpse. “Damn. Fucker bit it, huh?”
“Looks that way.” But the scenario troubles me in some vague way I can’t put my finger on. I thought this would feel better. Instead, it feels unfinished.
I look around the trailer. The place is messy. I don’t relish the thought of an in-depth search; there’s nothing I hate more than human filth mixed with a little biohazard. But I’m not going to be leaving any time soon.
For a moment, the three of us stand there, staring at Long’s body. It’s an anticlimactic moment; I’d been hoping for an arrest. I wanted to know what happened inside the Plank farmhouse on the night of the murders. I wanted to know why. I’m not proud of it, but a small part of me wanted to take my best shot at the bastard responsible.
“He didn’t seem like the kind of guy to have an attack of conscience,” I say to no one in particular.
“More than likely it was the thought of going to prison that did him in,” Tomasetti replies.
“Going to save the taxpayers a bundle,” Glock adds.
Sighing, I look at Todd Long’s body and silently curse him. “Let’s gear up and see what he left us.”
In the sweltering heat of the day, Glock, Tomasetti and I thoroughly search drawers, cabinets, and any other conceivable hiding place. With painstaking care, we bag, label and box, preserving as much of the scene as possible. Our efforts pay off. By noon we’ve filled three large plastic storage bins with evidence, including photographs, half a dozen computer disks, two flash drives, several types of unidentified pills, a video camera, books on photography, pornographic magazines, clothing and a suicide note.
The note is hand-printed in pencil on a sheet of tablet paper. Holding up the bag, I stare at the childish lettering and say to Glock. “Long worked for the railroad. Can you run over to the office and get a sample of his handwriting so we have something to compare this to?”
“Sure.” But he gives me a puzzled look. “You think he didn’t write it?”
“I just want to cover all the bases.”
Glock heads out the door. I’m aware of Tomasetti watching me as he places labeled and sealed bags into the last storage container. He doesn’t say anything, but I know what he’s thinking. I’m being too thorough, looking for things that aren’t there. And no matter how much effort I put into this, the Plank family is still dead.
Doc Coblentz arrived on the scene half an hour earlier. Enough time to give me a preliminary assessment. “What do you think?” I ask.
The doc is wearing olive-green slacks. The back and armpits of his scrubs shirt are sweat-soaked. The doctor shakes his head. “I attended a seminar at Nationwide Children’s in Columbus a couple of weeks ago. We toured the cancer center where most of the patients are pediatric. We’re talking brain tumors. Lymphoma. Leukemia. Sick kids
