Pray for Silence

who’d give anything just to go outside and play.” Motioning toward Long, he shakes his head. “I see something like this, and I wish there was some way this wasted life could be given to one of those children.”

“I don’t think life’s that fair.” That reality makes me sigh. I motion toward Long’s body. “You think this was self-inflicted?”

“From all indications, he put the barrel in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Judging from the exit wound, the bullet angled slightly up, went through the cerebellum and exited the skull at the back of the head. Death would have occurred instantly. Of course, I’ll perform an autopsy and tox screen. But my preliminary ruling is that this man killed himself.”

The words make me feel deflated. Maybe because I wanted answers, and Long will never be able to give them to me.

Tomasetti comes up beside us. “I think we’ve got just about everything.”

“Did Glock check beneath the trailer?” I ask, knowing it’s a favorite hiding place for criminal-minded mobile- home dwellers.

He nods. “Pulled the skirting aside and crawled under. Nothing there.”

I glance out the window. An ambulance idles in the driveway, waiting to transport the body to the morgue. I should be in a hurry to get out of there, where the smell of blood and death hang heavy. I should be anxious to review the evidence we’ve retrieved thus far so I can get the paperwork rolling and close the case. I should be anxious for life to get back to normal. For a reason I can’t readily identify, I’m reluctant to leave. I feel if I walk out, I’ll be closing the door on unfinished business.

Tomasetti picks up on my frame of mind. “Something bothering you?”

“I can’t see Long killing himself like this.”

“He’s been to prison before. Maybe he didn’t want to go back. Took the easy way out.”

I sigh. “Damnit, I didn’t want it to end this way.”

“Could have been worse.” He motions toward Long. “He could have run, gotten away.”

I think of Mary Plank. The shattered hopes and dreams. So many lives cut short. And for what? Money? Sexual gratification? Cruelty for the sake of cruelty?

“I wanted to know why he killed that family,” I tell him.

“Police work isn’t always that neat.” He gestures toward the storage containers. “I think the only answers we’re going to get are in those boxes.”

It’s nearly dusk when Tomasetti and I arrive at the station, lugging the boxes of evidence from Long’s place inside. The reception area smells like nail polish and Obsession perfume. Jodie, the new dispatcher, greets us with a Cosmo smile. She’s wearing snug black slacks and a white body-hugging tunic. Too sexy for a police station. Just what I need. “Hey, guys,” she says perkily.

T.J. and Glock stand upon hearing us enter and peer at us over the tops of their cubes. “Need a hand?” T.J. asks.

Glock lowers his voice. “This is your chance to show Jodie those biceps.”

T.J. smacks the other man on the back of his head with a little too much force. “Shut up, shithead.”

Their mood is jovial. I should be feeling the same now that one of the most violent cases in the history of Painters Mill has come to an end. I should be glad it’s over. But I’m not, and I simply don’t have the energy to pretend.

We carry the boxes to the storage-room-turned-command-center off the hall. Glock and T.J. shuffle out as I turn on my laptop and open the antivirus software. “I’m going to take a look at the drives.”

“A lot of them.” Tomasetti goes to the first box, digs around for a moment, then passes me a flash drive. I plug it into the laptop. While it’s being scanned for viruses, I turn my attention to the suicide note and read it for the dozenth time, looking for some hidden clue that’s just not there.

I can’t take it anymore. I can’t live with what I did. I loved Mary. She was sweet and beautiful and kind. But she told her parents about the kid. She was gonna tell everyone. And I went a little crazy. I’m so fucking sorry. Mom, you know I’m no killer. Don’t feel guilty. I’m just so fucked up. The meth fucked up my head. I’m sorry you have to deal with this, but I’m not going back to prison. There’s no other way. I love you, Blinky.

I shake my head, pissed by the lack any real answers. “Fucking coward.”

I look at Tomasetti to find him watching me intently. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” I rub at the ache between my eyes. “I just hate the way this played out.”

“Kate, look at this.”

The tone of Tomasetti’s voice jerks my attention back to him. I glance over to see him staring at my laptop screen, where he’s already opened the first file. All thoughts fall by the wayside the instant my eyes hit the screen. The images come at me like knives. I see Mary Plank lying on an old-fashioned iron bed. A man wearing a full-head latex mask—some sort of grotesque jester—is on top of her, arms braced, his hips pumping. I see his neck muscles straining. Mary wears only her kapp and black ankle boots. Her eyes are unfocused, but the look of revulsion on her face is clear.

“Oh no.” My voice is but a whisper. All I can think is, I don’t want to see this.

“Looks like Long,” Tomasetti says. “Same build.”

The screen goes black. We stare for an instant, unspeaking. Tomasetti is in the process of reaching for the mouse when abruptly the screen jumps back to life. Same lighting. Same bed and sheets. Same bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. A man sits on the side of the bed. He wears the same jester mask, but this time I’m sure the man is Todd Long. My chest tightens when Mary Plank kneels between his knees, her head bobbing as she performs oral sex.

“She’s been drugged.” Tomasetti’s words come to me as if I’m hearing them through cotton. “I’ll bet the pills we found are some type of barbiturate. Or Rohypnol, maybe.”

I want to respond, but feel as if there are two hands around my throat, squeezing my larynx, and I can’t get any words out. I glance at the screen, and see yet another twisted scenario playing out in terrible black and white. I feel Tomasetti’s gaze on me, but I don’t look at him. I don’t want him to see what I know is in my eyes.

This case isn’t about me, but it hits home in ways I never expected, and with a force that leaves me gasping for breath. Tomasetti knows what happened to me seventeen years ago, but he doesn’t know all of it. He doesn’t know the deepest, darkest secret of all.

“Kate.” He says my name gently, like a horse trainer trying to calm a frightened colt. “You don’t have to watch this.” He starts to close the laptop.

But I stop him. “Yes, I do.” The words are little more than croaks, but I force them out. I can feel my emotions winding up. I know if I don’t get a grip they’re going to spiral out of control. My brain chants Danger, danger, danger! But I don’t stop. “She was in love with him,” I grind out. “She wanted to marry him. Have his child. Spend her life with him. She was willing to leave everything she’d ever know. And he did this to her.”

The muscles in Tomasetti’s jaw flex, and he looks away. “He got what was coming to him.”

“That’s not justice.”

“Maybe not. But it’s about as happy an ending as you’re going to get with a case like this.”

It’s a hard, cynical view. But then John Tomasetti can be a hard, cynical man. At this moment, staring at the cruel realities playing out on that laptop, the world feels like a hard and cynical place.

I don’t want to look at that awful screen, but my eyes are drawn to it. Another unspeakable scene stares back at me. I see the glazed eyes of an innocent girl. A young woman full of goodness and life. I see evil in its most insidious form. He raped her body, her mind, her heart. He committed upon her the ultimate betrayal.

I stand so abruptly, my chair nearly falls over backward. Tomasetti looks uneasily at me. “Kate . . .”

“Can you get this stuff to the lab?” I hear myself say.

“Sure . . .”

Before even realizing I’m going to move, I’m heading toward the door. I hear my breaths rushing out as I shove it open. It bangs against the wall, and then I’m running down the hall. I hear John say my name, but I don’t stop. I see the dispatcher’s concerned expression as I cross through the reception area. I’m aware of T.J. standing in his cube, staring at me. Glock calls out my name as I yank open the door. Then I’m outside. Only then do I realize