Pray for Silence

over a large area, some of which is outdoors, which makes the collection and preservation of evidence extremely difficult. Even though I’m not yet sure exactly what we’re dealing with—a mass murder or murder-suicide—I opt to err on the side of caution and preserve as much of the scene as possible.

I hand the camera to Glock. “Photograph everything before you touch it. You know the drill.”

Nodding, he takes the camera. Neither of us speaks as we cross through the kitchen to the living room. Stopping in the doorway, I shine my Maglite on Amos Plank.

“Bad fuckin’ scene,” Glock says.

“It’s worse in the barn.”

He casts a questioning look at me.

I tell him about the teenaged girls.

“Damn.” I see his cop’s eyes taking in Plank’s unbound hands. The proximity of the handgun to the body. The exit wound at the back of his head. Like any good cop, he’s making judgments based on what he sees. “You think he did this?”

“I don’t know.” It’s the most honest answer I can give. By all appearances, Plank went berserk, murdered his family, then put the gun in his mouth and blew his brains out. But the part of me that is Amish, that will always be Amish no matter how far I stray, can’t fathom an Amish man—an Amish father—inflicting these horrors upon his family. Granted, I didn’t know Amos Plank. But I do know the Amish culture. I know violence is not part of it.

While Glock snaps photos, I walk the living room, trying to envision what might have happened. I study the position of the bodies. The wounds. The proximity of the Beretta to Amos Plank.

“What did you do?” I whisper.

It’s a keenly unsettling feeling to share such a small space with so many dead, particularly those who’ve suffered a violent death. In the periphery of my consciousness, I’m aware of Glock moving around, snapping photos. I see the flash of the camera. I hear the click and whir of the shutter, the high-pitched whine of the battery charging between shots.

“Chief.”

I glance at Glock to see him kneeling, looking at something on the floor. I cross to him as he snaps the shot.

“Got a partial print here.” He takes a second shot.

I pull one of the evidence markers from my coat. “Plenty of tread.”

“Looks like a boot. Men’s. Size nine or ten.”

I arch a brow. “You’re good.”

“That’s what my wife says.”

We exchange small smiles, and I’m glad I have him to help me keep things in perspective. I kneel beside him, study the print. It’s a partial, the front half of a shoe or boot. “Where did he pick up that blood?” I wonder aloud.

“Had to have stepped in it somewhere.” Glock glances my way. “I didn’t see any other prints.”

“Gotta be.” I rise, look around, heartened by the promise of evidence.

He shoots a final photo, gets to his feet and we look around. He walks slowly toward the small boy on the other side of the room and snaps a shot.

I go to the nearest body and kneel. It’s not easy looking at a dead teenaged boy. He’s lying facedown, his hands bound behind his back. His head is turned to the side and I see blood in his hair. Bits of brain matter and tiny white bone fragments from his shattered skull spatter the floor. His lips are parted. I see blood between his teeth. The small pink nub of a tongue that’s nearly been bitten off. Though I used the mentholated petroleum jelly, the reek of urine and feces repulses me.

Then I notice the binding at the boy’s wrists and my petty discomforts are forgotten. It’s some type of insulated wire. Speaker wire, I realize. Something an Amish man would never have in his home or anywhere else. The double knots are tied off neatly. The wire is tight enough to cut skin.

The fact that the killer used speaker wire niggles at me as I go to the kitchen. Who would have speaker wire on hand? Someone putting a sound system into their home? Their car or RV? Someone who works with audio or sound systems? Computers maybe? I’m working the possibilities over in my head when Glock calls out.

“I think I found where he picked up that blood.”

I walk to him and he motions down at the dead little boy. “There’s blood on that rug. I’d say the killer stepped on the rug and tracked it.”

He’s right. Disappointment presses into me. “I was hoping we’d find a better print.”

“Never that fuckin’ easy.” He snaps several shots of the blood-soaked rug.

I go to the kitchen and pull the sketch pad from my kit. Back in the living room, I begin a crude illustration of the scene, concentrating on the location and position of each body. I’m not a very good artist, but combined with the photos, this depiction will be a good record of how we found the scene.

I go to Amos Plank’s body. He, too, lies facedown with his head turned to one side. The pool of blood surrounding his head glitters beneath the work light. I kneel next to him. “Glock, did you get photos of the father?”

Lowering the camera, he comes up beside me. “A half dozen or so from different angles.”

That gives me the go-ahead to move the body. “Help me roll him over,” I say.

Squatting next to me, Glock places his hands on the dead man’s left hip. I put my hands on his left shoulder. “Go,” I say and in tandem we roll him onto his back.

A cup or so of blood spills from his mouth when his head lolls. Glock and I move quickly back to avoid getting biohazard on our clothes. Plank’s face goes beyond macabre beneath the stark light. I see several broken teeth. Gray-black powder burns around his lips. Nostrils filled with coagulated blood. Jaw broken, mouth hanging open. A tongue shredded by a bullet.

Livor mortis has set in; the right side of his face is dark purple. Lividity occurs when the heart stops and blood, no longer being pumped, settles to the lowest part of the body. The bruise-like discoloration begins as early as half an hour after death and becomes more pronounced with time. It’s my first clue with regard to his time of death.

“Looks like he’s been dead at least an hour,” I say.

“If people knew what bullets did to their fuckin’ faces, we’d have a hell of a lot less suicides,” Glock comments.

The bullet wound appears to be self-inflicted. It entered via his mouth and exited out the back of his head, shattering his skull and taking a good bit of brain with it. Some might think it an apt end for a man who’d just murdered his family in cold blood.

“If he put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger,” Glock begins, “wouldn’t the concussion send him backward? Wouldn’t he land face-up?”

“Usually, that’s the case,” I say. “But if he was leaning forward. Clutching the weapon. Head down.” I ward off a chill the image conjures. “There may not have been enough momentum.”

“Hell of way to go.”

“Why would an Amish man have speaker wire?” I’m mostly thinking aloud. “He probably doesn’t own a stereo or TV. He didn’t even use a milking machine or generator for his dairy operation.”

“Hard to figure.” Glock shrugs. “Maybe he got it on sale somewhere or someone gave it to him. Uses it because it’s strong.”

“He has baling twine in the barn. Why not use that?”

“What are you getting at, Chief?”

I’m not sure how to express the thoughts running through my head without sounding prejudiced. But experience has taught me to listen to my instincts. Right now that little voice in my head is telling me this scene may not be what it looks like.

“I can’t see an Amish man doing this,” I say after a moment.

“The Amish are human, too,” he says. “They have tempers. Limits. They snap.”

He’s right. It’s rare, but the Amish have killed before. In 1993, Edward Gingerich murdered and then eviscerated his young wife. It’s one of only a few documented cases on record.

“This doesn’t add up,” I say. “The level of violence. The handgun. The torture of the daughters. The speaker