Fallen Read online

  “The man eats like a horse, I tell you,” she says in Deitsch.

  I want to wrap my arms around her, silence her chatter, hold her while she comes apart, absorb some of the pain I’m about to inflict. But there’s no way I can do any of those things, so I brush past her and open the door. “Mr. Schwartz?” I call out. “Dan, it’s Kate Burkholder.”

  Dan Schwartz appears in the doorway that separates the living room from the kitchen, a sandwich in hand. He’s wearing a straw flat-brimmed hat. Blue work shirt. Brown trousers. Suspenders. His face splits into a grin at the sight of me. He’s still missing the eyetooth I recall from my youth. He’s never gotten it fixed.

  “Wie geht’s alleweil?” How goes it now? At the sight of me and his wife, his expression falls. “Was der schinner is letz?” What in the world is wrong?

  “It’s Rachael,” I tell them. “She’s dead. I’m sorry.”

  “What?” Choking out a desperate-sounding laugh, Rhoda raises her hand, takes a step back, as if she’s realized I’m a carrier of some deadly contagion. “Sell is nix as baeffzes.” That’s nothing but trifling talk.

  Dan reaches for his wife, misses, stumbles closer and grasps her hand in his. He says nothing. But I see the slash of pain lay him open. While the Amish live by their belief in the divine order of things and life beyond death, they are human beings first and foremost, and their pain rips a hole in my heart.

  “Rachael?” Rhoda brings her hand to her face, places it over her mouth as if to prevent the scream building inside her from bursting out. “No. That can’t be. I would have known.”

  “Are you sure?” Dan asks me.

  “She’s gone,” I tell them. “Last night. I’m sorry.”

  “But … how?” he asks. “She’s young. What happened to her?”

  I almost ask them to sit down, realize I’m procrastinating, a feeble attempt to spare them that second brutal punch. But I know that delaying bad news is one thing a cop can never do. When notifying next of kin, you tell them. Straightforward. No frills. No beating around the bush. You lay down the facts. You express your sympathy. You distance yourself enough to ask the questions that need to be asked.

  Because I don’t have the official cause or manner of death, I tell them what I can. “All I know is that her body was found around eleven o’clock this morning.”

  The Amish man raises his gaze to mine. Tears shimmer in his eyes, but he doesn’t let them fall. “Was it an accident? A car?” His mouth tightens. “Or drugs? What?”

  I’m not doing a very good job of relaying the facts. My mind is clouded by my own emotions, the things I saw, the things I know about their daughter. “She was found in a room at the Willowdell Motel,” I tell him. “We don’t know exactly what happened, but there was some physical trauma. The police are investigating.”

  Rhoda Schwartz presses both hands to her cheeks. Tears well in her eyes and spill. “Mein Gott.” My God.

  Dan looks at me, blinking rapidly, trying to absorb. “What kind of trauma?”

  I can tell by the way he’s looking at me that he already suspects that his daughter’s antics, her lifestyle, finally caught up with her.

  “I believe Rachael was murdered,” I tell them.

  “Someone … took her life?” Rhoda chokes out a sound that’s part sob, part whimper. “Who would do such a thing? Why would they do that?”

  Dan looks away, silent. The muscles in his jaws work. His eyes glitter with tears, but still they do not fall.

  After a moment, he raises his gaze to mine. “Rachael was here? In Painters Mill?”

  “You didn’t know she was in town?” I let my gaze slide from Dan to Rhoda, the question aimed at both of them.

  Both shake their heads.

  “Do you have any idea why she was here?” I ask.

  Rhoda doesn’t even seem to hear the question. She’s turned away, wrapped her arms around herself, blind and deaf, cocooned in her own misery. From where I stand, I can see her shoulders shaking as she silently sobs.

  “We didn’t know,” Dan tells me.

  “When’s the last time you saw her?” I ask.

  Dan lowers his gaze to the floor, so I turn my attention to Rhoda.

  The woman looks at me as if she’d forgotten I was in the room. Her face has gone pale. Her nose glows red. She blinks as if bringing me back into view. “Right before Christmas, a year ago, I think.”

  That Rachael hadn’t seen her parents in almost a year and a half tells me a great deal about the relationship. “Last time you talked to her, did she mention any problems? Was she troubled in any way?”

  The Amish woman shakes her head. “She seemed same as always. A little lost maybe. But you know how that goes. She left the fold. That’s what happens.”

  “Do you stay in touch with her?” I ask. “Did she call or write?”

  “I talked to her on her birthday,” the Amish woman tells me. “I called her. From the pay phone shack down the road there. Been a year ago now.”

  “How did she seem last time you talked to her?” I ask. “Did she mention what was going on in her life? Was she having any problems? Anything unusual or worrisome?”

  “She was fine.” The Amish woman’s face screws up. Leaning forward, she buries her face in her hands.

  I give her a moment and press on. “How was your relationship with her overall?”

  “As well as can be expected,” Rhoda tells me. “Bishop Troyer put her under the bann, you know. I never lost hope that she’d find her way back to us, back to the Amish way.”

  For the first time I see guilt on their faces, mingling with the grief, as if they’ve just realized they should have softened their stance and stayed closer to their daughter in spite of the rules.

  “Did she stay in touch with anyone else here in Painters Mill?” I ask.

  “She was always close with Loretta Bontrager,” Rhoda tells me.

  I don’t know Loretta personally, but the image of a quiet little Amish girl drifts through my memory. Back then, her last name was Weaver and she was the polar opposite of Rachael. While Rachael was loud and outspoken, Loretta was reserved and shy. No one could quite figure out how they became best friends. Loretta still lives in Painters Mill; I see her around town on occasion. She’s married now with children of her own.

  I pull the notebook from my pocket and write down her name.

  “They’ve been friends since they were little things,” Dan says.

  “Don’t know if they see each other much anymore,” Rhoda adds. “But if Rachael kept in touch with anyone here in Painters Mill besides us, it would be Loretta.”

  I nod, my mind already moving in the next direction. “Was there anyone else she was close to?”

  “We wouldn’t know about that,” Dan tells me.

  “Did she have a boyfriend?” I ask.

  Dan drops his gaze, deferring to his wife.

  “She was private about such things,” the Amish woman says quietly.

  I nod, realizing she likely doesn’t know, and I shift gears. “Did she ever mention any problems with anyone? Any arguments?”

  The man shakes his head, his eyes on the floor, mouth working.

  But it’s Rhoda who answers the question. “If she did, she never spoke of it. Not to us.”

  “Probably didn’t want to worry us, you know,” Dan adds. “She was thoughtful that way.”

  “Thoughtful” is the one word I wouldn’t use to describe Rachael Schwartz. “Do you know any of her friends in Cleveland?” I ask.

  The couple exchange a look.

  Dan shakes his head. “We don’t know anything about her life there.” Disapproval rings hard in his voice.

  “Do you have any idea where she worked?” I ask. “How she was making a living?”

  “Worked at some fancy restaurant,” Rhoda tells me.

  “Do you know the name of it?”

  “No.” Shaking her head, Rhoda looks down at her hands. “And she wrote that book, you know. All those l
ies.” She clucks her mouth. “Amish men having their way with women in the back seat of their buggies. Good Lord.”

  “Chafed a lot of hides here in Painters Mill.” Dan grimaces, shame darkening his features. “We knew nothing good would come of her being in the city.”

  “Evil goings-on,” Rhoda adds. “We tried to tell her, but she was a headstrong girl, didn’t listen. You know how she was.” She shakes her head. “She would have been safer here. Gotten married. Had a family. Stayed close to God.”

  I don’t point out to them that from all indications Rachael was murdered right here in Painters Mill, likely by someone who knew her. Someone filled with rage, a complete lack of control, no conscience to speak of, and the capacity to do it again.

  CHAPTER 5

  The Willowdell Motel is crawling with law enforcement when I arrive. In an effort to preserve any possible tire tread evidence, all official vehicles have relocated to the road shoulder in front of the motel. I see Glock’s cruiser. An SUV from the Holmes County Sheriff’s Office. An Ohio State Highway Patrol Dodge Charger. The only vehicles inside the perimeter are the BCI crime scene unit truck and the Holmes County Coroner’s van.

  I pick up my radio and hail Dispatch. “Anything come back on Schwartz?”

  “Two DUIs in the last four years,” Lois tells me. “Both out of Cuyahoga County. She pled no contest both times. Hot-check charge six years ago. Paid a fine. Last summer she was arrested for domestic violence. Charge was later dropped.”

  A ping sounds in the back of my brain. “Does Prince Charming have a name?”

  “Jared Moskowski. Thirty-two years old. No record. Never been arrested.” She rattles off a Cleveland address. “Get this: Moskowski was the complainant on the domestic,” she says.

  Most often in the course of a domestic dispute, it’s the female who gets roughed up by a male partner and makes the call. Knowing what I do about Rachael Schwartz, I’m not surprised that she was at least as much an instigator as a victim. Even so, I’ll make sure Tomasetti takes a hard look at Moskowski.

  I’m about to thank her and end the call when she pipes back up. “Oh, and I got a line on that address you gave me.”

  “Shoot.”

  “It’s not a residence, but a business. A bar called The Pub.”

  “You’re a font of interesting information this afternoon,” I tell her.

  “Internet connection helps a little.”

  As I park behind Glock’s cruiser, I wonder if Rachael is still involved with Moskowski. I wonder if their relationship is volatile. I think about the bar in Wooster and I wonder why Rachael would write down the address when she lives in Cleveland, which is about an hour’s drive away. Did she have plans to meet someone? Or did she meet with them on the drive to Painters Mill from Cleveland? Was there an argument? Did that someone follow her to Painters Mill and confront her in that motel room?

  I spot Tomasetti’s Tahoe several yards away and start toward it. I find him leaning against the hood, talking on his cell. Upon noticing my approach, he ends the call.

  “You talked to the family?” he asks.

  I nod, wondering if traces of the conversation are still evident on my face. “They took it pretty hard.”

  He’s looking at me a little too closely, his eyes seeing more than I want him to see. “Hard on you, too, evidently.”

  “And here I thought I was getting pretty good at my tough-guy façade.” I make the statement lightly, but it doesn’t ring true.

  “How well did you know her?”

  “I didn’t, really. Not as an adult.” I struggle to put my finger on the flicker of pain in my chest. “The first time I saw Rachael Schwartz, she was still in diapers.”

  “Long time.”

  “She was too damn young to die.”

  I’m exasperated that I can’t hold his gaze. Maybe because I know he sees all the things I’d rather not deal with at the moment. That my emotions are too close to the surface. He watches me, saying nothing, and in that instant, the silence strips me bare.

  “I knew her when she was a kid. That’s what’s so tough about this. Of all the Schwartz kids, Rachael is the one that … made an impression. She was vivacious. A mischief-maker. She loved to laugh. Trouble was never too far away.” I don’t know why I’m telling him all of that, but it feels important and the words come out in a rush.

  “Connections,” he says.

  “Too many probably.”

  He sighs. “Looks like trouble found her this time.”

  “You going to assist with the case?” I ask. “I mean, officially?”

  “I’m your guy.”

  I look toward the motel room. In my mind’s eye, I see the way Rachael Schwartz looked dead on the floor. The extent of damage to her body. Her face.

  “Tomasetti, the level of violence…”

  “Yeah.”

  “It was … over-the-top. Personal, I think, and passionate.”

  I tell him about the domestic dispute, but he already knows. “I got an address for Moskowski,” he tells me. “Detectives are on their way to pick him up.”

  Typically, and since this is my case, I’d be part of the interview process. But because this investigation involves multiple agencies, and Moskowski lives in Cleveland, which is light-years out of my jurisdiction, Tomasetti will be the one to conduct the initial Q and A.

  I hold his gaze, wrestling with what needs to be said and what doesn’t. “Rachael Schwartz … she wasn’t exactly the poster child for an Amish girl.”

  He cocks his head, knowing there’s more, waits.

  “She got into trouble a lot. I mean, growing up. She made a lot of mistakes. Broke the rules. If her penchant for finding trouble followed her into adulthood…” I’m mixing potentially helpful information with extraneous crap, so I take a moment, dial it back. “I’m not saying she was a bad person. She wasn’t. Just sort of … full-bore.”

  “I’ve been around long enough to know that most people are little bit of both,” he says gently.

  “I don’t want her to be just another young woman who ended up dead because she made some bad decisions. She wasn’t perfect, but she deserved the chance to live her life.”

  He watches a state trooper get into his vehicle and pull out, gives me a moment to settle. It’s a small thing. But it’s one of a thousand reasons why I love him. John Tomasetti knows my weaknesses. All of them. He gets it. He gets me. And he’s good at letting things be.

  “Are we talking about a specific bad decision?” he asks.

  “Domestic violence incident aside.” I tell him about the book. “It made quite a stir here in Painters Mill. Some people weren’t happy with her.”

  “Anyone in particular?”

  “The Amish. Others, I’m sure. I’ll do a little digging and let you know when I get a name.”

  He nods. “So she’s likely made a few enemies over the years.”

  “Probably.”

  He nods toward the motel. “The manager came through with the CCTV. It’s not good. Too dark. Too far away. Angle is bad.” He shrugs. “I put our IT guys on it, so we’ll see.”

  Movement at the door of room 9 draws my attention. A technician with the coroner’s office clad in protective gear is wheeling a gurney from the van to the walkway outside the room.

  “Before I go…” I tell him about the piece of paper in the vehicle with the scrawled address. “It’s a bar in Wooster. The Pub. I thought I’d run up that way as soon as I get some time.”

  His eyes narrow on mine. “Wooster is about the midway point between Cleveland and Painters Mill. You thinking she met someone on her way down?”

  “Maybe.”

  I’m only giving him part of my attention now. Doc Coblentz is standing just inside the doorway of the motel room, typing something into his iPad. The last thing I want to do is go back in there. But my need for information—my need to hear the coroner’s preliminary thoughts—overrides my misgivings.

  “I’ve got to go.”
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br />   He looks past me, watches the technician kick down the brake on the gurney. “You’ve got this, right?”

  The smile I give him feels tight and phony on my face, so I lose it, let him see the truth—that this has me a hell of a lot more shaken than I want to be.

  “I just want to get this right,” I tell him.

  “You will.”

  There are too many people around for a kiss goodbye or any such nonsense, so I brush my fingertips across his hand and start for the door.

  I nod at the deputy as I duck beneath the crime scene tape. My boots crunch against gravel as I walk toward room 9. I pause at the doorway and find Doc Coblentz standing over Rachael Schwartz’s body. Clad in protective gear—face mask, disposable gown, a hair cap even though he’s bald, and shoe covers—he looks like a cross between the Michelin man and the Pillsbury doughboy.

  His technician, also clad in protective gear, punches something into an iPad.

  “Doc,” I say.

  Doc Coblentz turns, looks at me over the top of his eyeglasses, and I can’t help but notice that even in the face of such a heinous crime, his expression is serene. Unlike me, he’s not shaken or angry or outraged. Not for the first time I wonder how he does it, dealing with the dead as often as he does, and I’m reminded that he is first and foremost a man of medicine. A pediatrician—a healer of children. When it comes to his role as coroner, he is a scientist with a puzzle to solve.

  “Come on in, Kate,” he says. “I’m about to release the scene to all those anxious-looking BCI boys out there and all their high-tech gadgets.”

  I cross to him, trying not to notice the stink of blood and urine and other smells I don’t want to think about. “Can you tell me what happened to her?” I ask.

  “I can speculate.”

  “I’ll take whatever you can give me.”

  He looks down at the victim and sighs. “Preliminarily, and simply judging by the trauma, I would say she was beaten to death.”

  “Fists? Weapon?”

  “Blunt object more than likely.”

  I force myself to look at the body, grapple to put what I see into words. “What about the … wounds?” I ask. “Is it possible she was also stabbed or slashed?”