Her Last Breath: A Kate Burkholder Novel Read online

  I kneel at his side. “Everything’s going to be okay,” I tell him. “You’ve been in an accident. I’m here to help you.”

  His mouth opens. His lips quiver. His full beard tells me he’s married, and I wonder if his wife is lying somewhere nearby.

  I set my hand on his. Cold flesh beneath my fingertips. “How many other people on board the buggy?”

  “Three … children.”

  Something inside me sinks. I don’t want to find any more dead children. I pat his hand. “Help is on the way.”

  His gaze meets mine. “Katie…”

  The sound of my name coming from that bloody mouth shocks me. I know that voice. That face. Recognition impacts me solidly. It’s been years, but there are some things—some people—you never forget. Paul Borntrager is one of them. “Paul.” Even as I say his name, I steel myself against the emotional force of it.

  He tries to speak, but ends up spitting blood. I see more on his teeth. But it’s his eye that’s so damn difficult to look at. One is gone completely; the other is cognizant and filled with pain. I know the person trapped inside that broken body. I know his wife. I know at least one of his kids is dead, and I’m terrified he’ll see that awful truth in my face.

  “Don’t try to talk,” I tell him. “I’m going to check the children.”

  Tears fill his eye. I feel his stare burning into me as I rise and move away. Quickly, I sweep my beam along the ground, looking for victims. I’m aware of sirens in the distance and relief slips through me that help is on the way. I know it’s a cowardly response, but I don’t want to deal with this alone.

  I think of Paul’s wife, Mattie. A lifetime ago, she was my best friend. We haven’t spoken in twenty years; she may be a stranger to me now, but I honestly don’t think I could bear it if she died here tonight.

  Mud sucks at my boots as I cross the ditch. On the other side, I spot a tiny figure curled against the massive trunk of a maple tree. A boy of about four years of age. He looks like a little doll, small and vulnerable and fragile. Hope jumps through me when I see steam rising into the cold night air. At first, I think it’s vapor from his breath. But as I draw closer I realize with a burgeoning sense of horror that it’s not a sign of life, but death. He’s bled out and the steam is coming from the blood as it cools.

  I go to him anyway, kneel at his side, and all I can think when I look at his battered face is that this should never happen to a child. His eyes and mouth are open. A wound the size of my fist has peeled back the flesh on one side of his head.

  Sickened, I close my eyes. “Goddammit,” I choke as I get to my feet.

  I stand there for a moment, surrounded by the dead and dying, overwhelmed, repulsed by the bloodshed, and filled with impotent anger because this kind of carnage shouldn’t happen and yet it has, in my town, on my watch, and there’s not a damn thing I can do to save any of them.

  Trying hard to step back into myself and do my job, I run my beam around the scene. A breeze rattles the tree branches above me and a smattering of leaves float down. Fingers of fog rise within the thick underbrush and I find myself thinking of souls leaving bodies.

  A whimper yanks me from my stasis. I spin, jerk my beam left. I see something tangled against the tumbling wire fence that runs along the tree line. Another child. I break into a run. From twenty feet away I see it’s a boy. Eight or nine years old. Hope surges inside me when I hear him groan. It’s a pitiful sound that echoes through me like the electric pain of a broken bone. But it’s a good sound, too, because it tells me he’s alive.

  I drop to my knees at his side, set my flashlight on the ground beside me. The child is lying on his side with his left arm stretched over his head and twisted at a terrible angle. Dislocated shoulder, I think. Broken arm, maybe. Survivable, but I’ve worked enough accidents to know it’s usually the injuries you can’t see that end up being the worst.

  One side of his face is visible. His eyes are open; I can see the curl of lashes against his cheek as he blinks. Flecks of blood cover his chin and throat and the front of his coat. There’s blood on his face, but I don’t know where it’s coming from; I can’t pinpoint the source.

  Tentatively, I reach out and run my fingertips over the top of his hand, hoping the contact will comfort him. “Honey, can you hear me?”

  He moans. I hear his breaths rushing in and out between clenched teeth. He’s breathing hard. Hyperventilating. His hand twitches beneath mine and he cries out.

  “Don’t try to move, sweetie,” I say. “You were in an accident, but you’re going to be okay.” As I speak, I try to put myself in his shoes, conjure words that will comfort him. “My name’s Katie. I’m here to help you. Your datt’s okay. And the doctor is coming. Just be still and try to relax for me, okay?”

  His small body heaves. He chokes out a sound and flecks of blood spew from his mouth. I hear gurgling in his chest, and close my eyes tightly, fighting to stay calm. Don’t you dare take this one, too, a little voice inside my head snaps.

  The urge to gather him into my arms and pull him from the fence in which he’s tangled is powerful. But I know better than to move an accident victim. If he sustained a head or spinal injury, moving him could cause even more damage. Or kill him.

  The boy stares straight ahead, blinking. Still breathing hard. Chest rattling. He doesn’t move, doesn’t try to look at me. “… Sampson…” he whispers.

  I don’t know who that is; I’m not even sure I heard him right or if he’s cognizant and knows what he’s saying. It doesn’t matter. I rub my thumb over the top of his hand. “Shhh.” I lean close. “Don’t try to talk.”

  He shifts slightly, turns his head. His eyes find mine. They’re gray. Like Mattie’s, I realize. In their depths I see fear and the kind of pain no child should ever have to bear. His lips tremble. Tears stream from his eyes. “Hurts…”

  “Everything’s going to be okay.” I force a smile, but my lips feel like barbed wire.

  A faint smile touches his mouth and then his expression goes slack. Beneath my hand, I feel his body relax. His stare goes vacant.

  “Hey.” I squeeze his hand, willing him not to slip away. “Stay with me, buddy.”

  He doesn’t answer.

  The sirens are closer now. I hear the rumble of the diesel engine as a fire truck arrives on scene. The hiss of tires against the wet pavement as more vehicles pull onto the shoulder. The shouts of the first responders as they disembark.

  “Over here!” I yell. “I’ve got an injured child!”

  I stay with the boy until the first paramedic comes up behind me. “We’ll take it from here, Chief.”

  He’s about my age, with a crew cut and blue jacket inscribed with the Holmes County Rescue insignia. He looks competent and well trained, with a trauma kit slung over his shoulder and a cervical collar beneath his arm.

  “He was conscious a minute ago,” I tell the paramedic.

  “We’ll take good care of him, Chief.”

  Rising, I take a step back to get out of the way.

  He kneels at the child’s side. “I need a backboard over here!” he shouts over his shoulder.

  Close on his heels, a young firefighter snaps open a reflective thermal blanket and goes around to the other side of the boy. A third paramedic trots through the ditch with a bright yellow backboard in tow.

  I leave them to their work and hit my lapel mike. “Jodie, can you ten seventy-nine?” Notify coroner.

  “Roger that.”

  I glance over my shoulder to the place where I left Paul Borntrager. A firefighter kneels at his side, assessing him. I can’t see the Amish man’s face, but he’s not moving.

  Firefighters and paramedics swarm the area, treating the injured and looking for more victims. Any cop that has ever worked patrol knows that passengers who don’t utilize safety belts—which is always the case with a buggy—can be ejected a long distance, especially if speed is a factor. When I was a rookie in Columbus, I worked an accident in which a semi truck
went off the road and flipped end over end down a one-hundred-foot ravine. The driver, who’d been belted in, was seriously injured, but survived. His wife, who hadn’t been wearing her safety belt, was ejected over two hundred feet. The officers on scene—me included—didn’t find her for nearly twenty minutes. Afterward, the coroner told me that if we’d gotten to her sooner, she might have survived. Nobody ever talked about that accident again. But it stayed with me, and I never forgot the lesson it taught.

  Wondering if Mattie was a passenger, I establish a mental grid of the scene. Starting at the point of impact, I walk the area, looking for casualties, working my way outward in all directions. I don’t find any more victims.

  When I’m finished, I drift back to where I left Paul, expecting to find him being loaded onto a litter. I’m shocked to see a blue tarp draped over his body, rain tapping against it, and I realize he’s died.

  I know better than to let this get to me. I haven’t talked to Paul or Mattie in years. But I feel something ugly and unwieldy building inside me. Anger at the driver responsible. Grief because Paul is dead and Mattie must be told. The pain of knowing I’ll probably be the one to do it.

  “Oh, Mattie,” I whisper.

  A lifetime ago, we were inseparable—more like sisters than friends. We shared first crushes, first “singings,” and our first heartbreaks. Mattie was there for me during the summer of my fourteenth year when an Amish man named Daniel Lapp introduced me to violence. My life was irrevocably changed that day, but our friendship remained a constant. When I turned eighteen and made the decision to leave the Plain Life, Mattie was one of the few who supported me, even though she knew it would mean the end of our friendship.

  We lost touch after I left Painters Mill. Our lives took different paths and never crossed again. I went on to complete my education and become a police officer. Mattie joined the church, married Paul, and started a family. For years, we’ve been little more than acquaintances, rarely sharing anything more than a wave on the street. But I never forgot those formative years, when summer lasted forever, the future held infinite promise—and we still believed in dreams.

  Dreams that, for one of us, ended tonight.

  I walk to Andy Welbaum’s truck. It’s an older Dodge with patches of rust on the hood. A crease on the rear quarter panel. Starting with the front bumper, I circle the vehicle, checking for damage. But there’s nothing there. Only then do I realize this truck wasn’t involved in the accident.

  I find Andy leaning against the front bumper of a nearby Holmes County ambulance. Someone has given him a slicker. He’s no longer crying, but he’s shaking beneath the yellow vinyl.

  He looks at me when I approach. He’s about forty years old and balding, with circles the size of plums beneath hound dog eyes. “That kid going to be okay?” he asks.

  “I don’t know.” The words come out sounding bitchy, and I take a moment to rein in my emotions. “What happened?”

  “I was coming home from work like I always do. Slowed down to turn onto the county road and saw all that busted-up wood and stuff scattered all over the place. I got out to see what happened…” Shaking his head, he looks down at his feet. “Chief Burkholder, I swear to God I ain’t never seen anything like that before in my life. All them kids. Damn.” He looks like he’s going to start crying again. “Poor family.”

  “So your vehicle wasn’t involved in the accident?”

  “No ma’am. It had already happened when I got here.”

  “Did you witness it?”

  “No.” He looks at me, grimaces. “I think it musta just happened though. I swear to God the dust was still flying when I pulled up.”

  “Did you see any other vehicles?”

  “No.” He says the word with some heat. “I suspect that sumbitch hightailed it.”

  “What happened next?”

  “I called nine one one. Then I went over to see if I could help any of them. I was a medic in the Army way back, you know.” He falls silent, looks down at the ground. “There was nothing I could do.”

  I nod, struggling to keep a handle on my outrage. I’m pissed because someone killed three people—two of whom were children—injured a third, and left the scene without bothering to render aid or even call for help.

  I let out a sigh. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

  “I don’t blame you. I don’t see how you cops deal with stuff like this day in and day out. I hope you find the bastard that done it.”

  “I’m going to need a statement from you. Can you hang around for a little while longer?”

  “You bet. I’ll stay as long as you need me.”

  I turn away from him and start toward the road to see a Holmes County sheriff’s department cruiser glide onto the shoulder, lights flashing. An ambulance pulls away, transporting the only survivor to the hospital. Later, the coroner’s office will deal with the dead.

  I step over a chunk of wood from the buggy. The black paint contrasts sharply against the pale yellow of the naked wood beneath. A few feet away, I see a little girl’s shoe. Farther, a tattered afghan. Eyeglasses.

  This is now a crime scene. Though the investigation will likely fall under the jurisdiction of the Holmes County Sheriff’s office, I’m going to do my utmost to stay involved. Rasmussen won’t have a problem with it. Not only will my Amish background be a plus, but his department, like mine, works on a skeleton crew, and he’ll appreciate all the help he can get.

  Now that the injured boy has been transported, any evidence left behind will need to be preserved and documented. We’ll need to bring in a generator and work lights. If the sheriff’s department doesn’t have a deputy trained in accident reconstruction, we’ll request one from the State Highway Patrol.

  I think of Mattie Borntrager, at home, waiting for her husband and children, and I realize I’ll need to notify her as soon as possible.

  I’m on my way to speak with the paramedics for an update on the condition of the injured boy when someone calls out my name. I turn to see my officer, Rupert “Glock” Maddox, approaching me at a jog. “I got here as quick as I could,” he says. “What happened?”

  I tell him what little I know. “The driver skipped.”

  “Shit.” He looks at the ambulance. “Any survivors?”

  “One,” I tell him. “A little boy. Eight or nine years old.”

  “He gonna make it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  His eyes meet mine and a silent communication passes between us, a mutual agreement we arrive upon without uttering a word. When you’re a cop in a small town, you become protective of the citizens you’ve been sworn to serve and protect, especially the innocent, the kids. When something like this happens, you take it personally. I’ve known Glock long enough to know that sentiment runs deep in him, too.

  We start toward the intersection, trying to get a sense of what happened. Delisle Road runs in a north-south direction; County Road 14 runs east-west with a two-way stop. The speed limit is fifty-five miles per hour. The area is heavily wooded and hilly. If you’re approaching the intersection from any direction, it’s impossible to see oncoming traffic.

  Glock speaks first. “Looks like the buggy was southbound on Delisle Road.”

  I nod in agreement. “The second vehicle was running west on CR 14. Probably at a high rate of speed. Blew the stop sign. Broadsided the buggy.”

  His eyes drift toward the intersection. “Fucking T-boned them.”

  “Didn’t even pause to call nine one one.”

  He grimaces. “Probably alcohol related.”

  “Most hit-and-runs are.”

  Craning his neck, he eyeballs Andy Welbaum. “He a witness?”

  “First on scene. He’s pretty shaken up.” I look past him at the place where the wrecked buggy lies on its side. “Whatever hit that buggy is going to have a smashed up front end. I put out a BOLO for an unknown with damage.”

  He looks out over the carnage. “Did you know them, Chief?”

>   “A long time ago,” I tell him. “I’m going to pick up the bishop and head over to their farm to notify next of kin. Do me a favor and get Welbaum’s statement, will you?”

  “You got it.”

  I feel his eyes on me, but I don’t meet his gaze. I don’t want to share the mix of emotions inside me at the devastation that’s been brought down on this Amish family. I don’t want him to know the extent of the sadness I feel or my anger toward the perpetrator.

  To my relief, he looks away, lets it go. “I’d better get to work.” He taps his lapel mike. “Call me if you need anything.”

  I watch him walk away, then turn my attention back to the scene. I take in the wreckage of the buggy. The small pieces of the victims’ lives that are strewn about like trash. And I wonder what kind of person could do something like this and not stop to render aid or call for help.

  “You better hide good, you son of a bitch, because I’m coming for you.”

  CHAPTER 2

  One of the most difficult responsibilities of being chief is notifying next of kin when someone is killed. It’s a duty I’ve carried out several times in the course of my career. I want to believe experience has somehow made me more compassionate or better at softening that first devastating hammer blow of grief. But I know this is one of those occasions when past experience doesn’t count for shit.

  My headlights slice through the darkness as I speed down the long gravel lane of Bishop Troyer’s farm. There’s no lantern light in the windows. It’s not yet 9:00 P.M., but they’ve probably been asleep for hours. I park next to a ramshackle shed, grab my Maglite, and take the sidewalk to the back door. I know the bedrooms are upstairs, and the Troyers are getting up in years, so I open the screen door and use the Maglite to knock.

  Several minutes pass before I see movement inside. Then the door swings open and the bishop thrusts a lantern at me. He blinks at me owlishly. “Katie Burkholder?”