An Evil Heart (Kate Burkholder, #15)(53)

“Spaghetti. Homemade sauce. My uncle Sergio’s recipe.”

“You don’t have an uncle Sergio.” I hand him a glass. “How’s everything?”

He takes a moment to turn down the flame and set the wooden spoon on a folded paper towel. When he faces me, his eyes are clear and deep and … at peace. “We found the girls. They’re home tonight. With their parents. Four days and he didn’t touch them.”

The words bring a smile to my face. “Chalk one up for the good guys.”

“Yeah.” He gives the pot another quick stir. “You try not to get caught up in things, but when kids are involved…”

“Hits close to home,” I say.

He nods. “This one did.”

“There’s something to be said about keeping the faith.”

“I think there’s a gentle admonishment in there somewhere.”

I hold on to my smile, but it feels thoughtful. “Back when I was a rookie, one of the old-timers told me something I never forgot. It went something like: ‘When a man loses his faith, he loses a piece of his humanity.’”

“Smart guy.”

I nod. “Keeping that part of yourself intact takes a lot of effort when you see the things we do, but we can’t ever give up hope, especially when our grip is precarious.”

“Said the wise woman.” Holding my gaze, he raises his glass and we clink them together.

“To happy endings.”

Smiling at each other, we sip. The wine is like baked plums and smoke on my tongue and the moment is magical. We stand there for a full minute, saying nothing, comfortable with the silence. With each other. And for the life of me I can’t stop looking at him. I can’t stop loving what I see. I want to reach out and stop this moment. Keep it forever.

“Any chance this frees you up to assist me?” I ask.

“I’ll get my case tied up tomorrow.” He sets down the wine, and, using potholders, dumps the steaming pan of pasta into a colander. “So where you at?”

“The land of zero progress.”

“Face meet wall.”

The investigation enters the space between us and I resent the intrusion. As if in unspoken agreement, we decide to hold it at bay a few moments longer. We’ll talk about it on our terms. We won’t let it darken this place where we stand.

We heap pasta and sauce onto plates and take them to the table. As we eat, I bring him up to speed on both cases.

“Do you think the two homicides are related?” he asks.

“Two murders inside a few days…” I sigh. “I can’t see how they’re not related, but what’s the connection? Karn and Rossberger were polar opposites. She was English. He was Amish. They didn’t run in the same circles. None of the same contacts. They lived in towns an hour apart. I can’t find a single person who knew both of them. No connected threads on social media.”

He sips wine, sets down the glass. “Tell me about Karn.”

“He was from a good family. Well-liked. Hard worker. No record. Not so much as a parking ticket. According to everyone I talked to, he was the epitome of a good kid. Until yesterday, anyway.” I tell him about my conversation with Christina Weaver.

“That’s an interesting development. Do you believe her?”

“I do. She was just fifteen years old when it happened. She didn’t want to talk. Didn’t want to come forward. If I hadn’t pushed, if her mother hadn’t brought her to the station, I never would have been the wiser.”

“Certainly puts a dent in Karn’s good-kid reputation, doesn’t it?”

“Opens some doors as far as a motive for murder, too.”

Tomasetti cuts a slice of bread from the loaf and hands it to me. “You checked males who are close to Weaver,” he says. “Boyfriend. Father. Uncle. Grandfather.”

“The only person who knows what happened to her is her mother.”

“Any chance she—”

“No.”

“That level of violence with a fifteen-year-old girl.” He says the words slowly, thinking aloud. “What if it wasn’t an isolated incident, but a pattern?”

I sip wine, surprised to find that my earlier exhaustion is gone, my mind beginning to spool. “If that kind of behavior was a pattern in a town the size of Painters Mill, it seems like I would have caught wind of it.”

“Twenty-one is young. He was just getting started.”

“Maybe.” My mind has already surged ahead to another possibility. “Also worth noting that he was Amish. That’s relevant because even if someone in the community knew what Karn had done, there’s a good chance they wouldn’t come forward.”

“Why not?”

“When you’re Amish,” I say, “and you screw up or commit some perceived sin, it isn’t arrest you have to worry about, it’s God and your community. If you stand before the congregation and confess your sin, you are forgiven.”

“So there’s no need for the cops,” he says sardonically.

“It doesn’t always happen that way, of course, but it’s feasible.”

“Taking that mindset into account, there’s a better chance that a woman or girl who’s been victimized wouldn’t come forward.” He swirls the wine in his glass. “If Karn was a predator and the behavior was a pattern, maybe one of his victims decided to mete out a little revenge.”