An Evil Heart (Kate Burkholder, #15)(32)

Vann di meind uf flayshlichi sacha ksetzt is, sell fiaht zu’m doht.



It’s a Bible passage; Romans if I’m not mistaken. In English it means: “For to be carnally minded is death.” “What?” I mutter. Who would write that particular passage in Deitsch? What does it mean? And who would draw such a crude picture and leave it at the site of a murder? A prankster? Someone who didn’t like Karn? Someone who hated him?

I walk to the shoulder and scan the trees at the edge of the woods, but there’s no one there. Tugging a baggie from my duty belt, I slip the paper into it. Everything I know about Aden Karn churns in my brain. Not a single person I talked to had a negative thing to say about him.

So who hated him enough to ambush him on a lonely back road and end his life with a crossbow?

I look north, the direction Karn was traveling the morning he was killed. He was on his way to meet his ride to work, the man who’d driven him to and from his construction job for the last year. Who else knew Karn’s routine? Who knew he took this route? What time he met his coworker? Someone close to him, my cop’s voice whispers. My brain scrolls through the list of names. Emily Byler. Wayne Graber. Vernon Fisher. His coworkers. His parents. Someone I don’t yet know about …

For to be carnally minded is death.

The passage seems to refer to sex or lust. I recall the photos and sex toys I found in Karn’s bedroom and I wonder: Who cared about the sex life of a twenty-one-year-old male? Emily Byler? If Vernon Fisher was interested in Emily, he may have kept an eye on Karn. I recall Wayne Graber’s response when I asked him if Karn was seeing anyone else. He might’ve … you know, seen one or two over the last few months. English girls … He’d just discovered his freedom. He liked women …

Did Karn commit some perceived transgression that, in the mind of his killer, warranted murder? According to Doc Coblentz, the second bolt had been fired at close range. The intimate nature of that second shot tells me this crime was personal. The killer knew him. Hated him. Wanted him gone at any cost and he was willing to risk his freedom to do it.

I walk to the spot where the body was found. According to Doc Coblentz, the bolt entered the abdomen from the front. Turning, I look down the road. The woods are to my left. Open field to the right. In order for the bolt to penetrate from the front while Karn was riding his bike toward the pickup point, the killer would have been standing on the road or one of the shoulders or ditches. At some point, Karn likely would have spotted him. He would have noticed the crossbow. Did the killer discharge the bolt before Karn could react? Or did Karn recognize the shooter and believe he had nothing to fear?

I look down at the asphalt where the body had lain. I walk to the shoulder where the shooter may have stood. “Why did you take the bolts?” I wonder aloud.

“Because they are evidence,” I whisper.

The swoosh! of doves taking flight startles me. I’m swinging around, wondering what disturbed them, when I hear the crunch! crunch! crunch! of someone running through fallen leaves within the cover of the trees. I stand still, watch for movement, listening, but nothing else comes. There are no vehicles in sight. No place to hide a vehicle. No trailhead that I can see. No one around.

So, who’s in the woods, Kate?

Aware that the light is fading fast, I traverse the ditch, and approach the barbed-wire fence. I’m midway over the top when I hear the rustle of leaves and I know without a doubt someone is there and on the move.

I swing my leg over the top of the fence and drop to the other side. “Painters Mill Police!” I call out. “Stop and identify yourself!”

No response.

The pounding of feet against the ground breaks the silence. Twenty yards away. Too many trees to get a look. I break into a run, hit my shoulder mike as I enter the trees. “Ten-eighty-eight,” I say, using the ten code for “suspicious activity.” “I’m ten-eighty.” Giving chase. “Ten-seven-eight.” Need assistance.

I release my mike and pour on the speed. “Police! Stop! Stop!” I hear my quarry ahead and to my left, so I veer that way. I dart around a massive walnut tree, pick up the pace as fast as I dare. In the periphery of my thoughts, I hear my radio light up. Skid is on duty and en route. ETA eight minutes. A lot can happen in eight minutes.

I hurdle deadfall, miscalculate, and get slapped in the face by a branch hard enough to open the skin on my cheek. Cursing, I stop and listen, hold my breath. Over the roar of my pulse, I hear footsteps again, the crackle of leaves. Dead ahead. Closer now. I launch into a sprint, dart around a tangle of raspberry, and catch a glimpse of movement ahead.

“Stop!” I call out. “Police!”

The trees open to a narrow deer trail. It takes me down a gulley. I splash through a shallow creek. I clamber up the steep incline, slide on loose rock, end up using my hands to claw my way up. At the top, I spot a patch of blue through the trees. Just a few yards ahead. A kid, I think. White ball cap. I’m outrunning him.

Adrenaline pumping, I sprint to him, running all out. “Stop right now!”

The trail veers left around a big rock, then right. I take the curves fast, catch sight of the runner. I’m so close I can hear his labored breaths. Ten feet away. He’s small in stature. Not very fast. Six feet between us. Three …

I lunge, plow my shoulder into the small of his back, wrap my arms around his hips, and take him down in a flying tackle. A high-pitched scream rends the air as we fall. Only then do I realize the perpetrator isn’t a kid at all, but female. Smaller than me. Young. An Amish girl.