Linda Castillo - Sworn to Silence

CHAPTER 4

The Horners live in the Sherwood Forest mobile home park on Highway 83 between Keene and Clark. The sky is as hard and gray as concrete as I turn onto the gravel street. Next to me, Glock studies the map I printed before leaving.

“There’s Sebring Lane,” he says, pointing.

I make a right and see a dozen mobile homes lined up like Matchbox cars on either side of the street. “What’s the lot number?”

“Thirty-five, there at the end.”

I park the Explorer in front of a blue and white 12 by 60 Liberty mobile home circa 1980. A living room extension juts from the side, giving it a haphazard look. But the lot is well kept. A newish Ford F-150 pickup sits in the driveway. I see green curtains at the kitchen window. Residual Christmas lights encircle the storm door. An aluminum trash can overflows at the curb. An ordinary home about to be shattered.

I’d rather cut off my hand than look into Belinda Horner’s eyes and ask her to identify a body I’m certain is her daughter. But this is my job, and I don’t have a choice.

I get out and start toward the trailer. The wind penetrates my parka, icy spears driving into my skin. I shiver as I climb the steps and knock. Beside me, Glock curses the cold. The storm door swings open as if someone is expecting us. I find myself looking at a middle-aged woman with bottle-blonde hair and tired, bruised eyes. She looks like she hasn’t slept for a week.

“Mrs. Horner?” I flash my badge. “I’m Kate Burkholder, chief of police in Painters Mill.”

Her eyes dart from me to Glock, lingering on our badges. I see hope in her eyes, but that hope is tempered with fear. She knows a personal visit from the cops isn’t a good sign. “Is this about Amanda? Have you found her? Has she been hurt?”

“May we come in?” I ask.

She steps back and opens the door wider. “Where is she? Is she in some kind of trouble? Was there an accident?”

The trailer is too warm and cramped with a dozen pieces of mismatched furniture. I smell this morning’s bacon, last night’s meatloaf and the lingering remnants of hair spray. The television is tuned to a game show where some lucky contestant is bidding on a jukebox. “Are you alone, ma’am?”

She blinks at me. “My husband is at work.” Her eyes flick from me to Glock and back to me. “What’s this about? Why are you here?”

“Ma’am, I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

Something wild leaps into her eyes. Some terrible precursor to grief. She knows what I’m going to say next. I see the awful anticipation as clearly as I’ve felt it in my own heart.

“We may have found your daughter, ma’am. A young woman matching her description—”

“Found her?” A hysterical laugh squeezes from her throat. “What do you mean found her? Why isn’t she here?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but the woman we found is deceased.”

“No.” She raises a hand as if to fend me off. Her expression is fierce enough to stop a train. “You’re wrong. That’s not true. Someone made a mistake.”

“We’ll need for you to come down to the hospital in Millersburg and identify her.”

“No.” She chokes out a sound that is part sob, part moan. “It’s not her. It can’t be.”

I drop my gaze to the floor to give her a moment. I take those precious seconds to rein in my own emotions and try not to think about how impossible it is to stand here and fracture this woman’s world. “Is there someone we can call to be here with you, ma’am? Your husband or a family member?”

“I don’t need anyone. Amanda’s not dead.” Gasping for breath, she presses a hand against her stomach. “She’s not.”

“I’m sorry.” My words ring hollow even to me.

Her hands curl into fists and she puts them against her temples. “She’s not dead. I would have known.” Her ravaged eyes meet mine. “The police made a mistake. This is a small town. Mistakes happen all the time.”

“There was no identification, but we believe it’s her,” I say. “I’m very sorry.”

She turns away from us and paces to the other side of the room. I glance at Glock. He looks the way I feel; like he’d rather be anywhere in the world than this hot and cramped trailer, tearing this woman’s life apart. His gaze meets mine. His nod bolsters me, and I wonder if he knows how badly I need that small sign of support at this moment.

He speaks up for the first time. “Mrs. Horner, I know this is difficult, but we need to ask you some questions.”

She turns to Glock and looks at him as if seeing him for the first time. Tears shimmer in her eyes. “How did she . . .”

She knows there’s more coming; I see it in her eyes. Some people have a sixth sense when it comes to impending tragedy. She has that look. The mental brace. The ancient eyes. And I know she has received her share of blows.

“The woman we found was murdered,” I reply.

Belinda Horner makes a sound that is part scream, part groan. She glares at me as if she wants to attack me, the messenger of unbearable news. I brace, but she doesn’t move. For several interminable seconds, it’s as if she’s frozen. Then her face turns deep red. “No!” Her mouth quivers. “You’re lying.” Her gaze flicks to Glock. “Both of you!”

Unable to meet her ravaged eyes, I focus on a stain in the carpet. After a moment, an animalistic sound erupts from her throat, startling me. I look up to see her bend at the waist, as if someone gut-punched her. When she looks at me, her face is wet with tears. “Please tell me it’s not true.”

This isn’t the first time I’ve had to deliver bad news. Two years ago, when I’d been on the job for less than a week, I was forced to tell Jim and Marilyn Stettler that their sixteen-year-old son wrapped his brand-new Mustang around a telephone pole, killing himself and his fourteen-year-old sister in the process. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in the course of my law enforcement career. It was the first time in my life I drank alone. But it wasn’t the last.

I go to Belinda Horner, set my hand on her shoulder and squeeze. “I’m very sorry.”

She shakes off my hand and turns on me. She looks like she wants to tear me apart. “How could this happen?” She is screaming now. Overcome with grief and an impotent rage that is about to burgeon out of control. “How could someone hurt her?”

“We don’t know, ma’am, but I promise you we’re doing everything we can to find out.”

She stares at me a moment longer, then clenches her fists in her hair as if to pull it out. “Oh, dear God. Harold. I have to call Harold. How am I going to tell him our baby is gone?”

Spotting a phone on the counter, I cross to it and pick it up. “Mrs. Horner, let me call him for you. What’s his number?”

She wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, leaving a smear of mascara. Her voice trembles as she recites the number from memory. I dial, hating it that Harold Horner’s life is about to be torn apart, too. But I don’t want this woman left alone. I have a crime to solve and I can’t do that from here.

Horner answers on the first ring. I identify myself and tell him there’s an emergency at home. He asks about his wife first, and I tell him she’s all right. When he asks about his daughter, I ask him to come home and hang up.

Belinda Horner stands at the window, her arms wrapped around herself. Glock stands near the door looking out at the bleak landscape beyond. His forehead is slicked with sweat. I feel that same terrible sweat between my shoulder blades.

“Mrs. Horner, when’s the last time you saw Amanda?” I ask.

The question elicits a look that gives me a chill. “I want to see her,” she says hollowly. “Where is she? Where’s my baby?”

Before I can answer, her knees buckle. I rush toward her, but Glock is faster and catches her beneath the arms just as her knees hit the floor. “Easy, ma’am,” he says.

Glock and I help her to the sofa. “I know this is hard, Mrs. Horner,” I say. “Please try to calm down.”

She turns tear-bright eyes on me. “Where is she?”

“The hospital in Millersburg. The chaplain is waiting for you there if you need him.”

“I’m not very religious.” She struggles to her feet, glances around the room, but she doesn’t move. She seems confused, not sure where she is or what to do next. “I really want to see her.”

“That won’t be a problem.” I try again to get the information I need. “Mrs. Horner, when’s the last time you saw your daughter?”

“Two days ago. She was . . . going out. She’d just gotten her hair cut. Bought a new sweater at the mall. It was brown with sequins at the collar. She looked so pretty.”

“Was she with someone?”

“Her friend Connie. They were going to that new club.”

“What club?”

“The Brass Rail.”

My officers have been called there on several occasions. The place draws a young crowd high on hormones and booze and God only knows what else. “What’s Connie’s last name?”

“Spencer.”

I pull a pad from my pocket and jot. “What time did Amanda leave here?”

“Seven-thirty or so. She was always running late. Waited till the last minute to do everything.” She squeezes her eyes closed and chokes back a sob. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

“Did Amanda have a boyfriend?”

“No. She was such a good girl. So young and pretty. Smart, too. Smarter than me and her daddy put together.” She looks at me, her mouth trembling. “She was going back to college this fall.”

I have no words to console her.

“Do you mind if we take a look at her room?” I ask.

She gives me a thousand-yard stare.

“Could you show us her room, ma’am?” Glock asks quietly.

Keening softly, she shuffles toward the hall. I follow close behind. We pass a tiny bathroom. I see pink towels with lace and a matching shower curtain. She stops at the next door, pushes it open. “This is her room. Her things.” Her body convulses with sobs. “Oh, my baby. My poor, sweet baby girl.”

I step past her and try to assess what I see with the unbiased eye of a cop. Not easy to do when the grief in the room is so palpable you can’t breathe.

The bed is a twin. Unmade. With lacy pink sheets and a matching comforter. Little-girl bedclothes, I think. Probably had them since she was a kid.

A lamp, alarm clock and several framed photographs sit atop the single night table. I cross to it and pick up a photo of Amanda and a young man. “Who’s this?”

Belinda blinks back tears. “Donny Beck.”

“Boyfriend?”

She nods. “Ex. He was crazy about Amanda.”

“Was she serious about him?”

“She liked him, but not as much as he liked her.”

I exchange looks with Glock. Another photo depicts Amanda atop a sorrel horse, grinning as if she’d just won the Kentucky Derby.

“She loves horses.” Belinda Horner looks as if she’s aged ten years in five minutes. Her eyes and cheeks are sunken, her makeup streaked down her face like that of a sad clown. “Harold and I bought her riding lessons for her high school graduation. We couldn’t really afford it. But she loved it so much.”

I replace the photo. “Did she keep a diary, ma’am? Journal? Anything like that?”

“Not that I know of.” She picks up a ratty-looking stuffed bear and smells it. Hugging the bear, she bursts into tears. “I want her back.”

I look around, hoping to spot something—anything—that will tell me more about Amanda Horner. Being as unobtrusive as possible, I look through the night table. Finding nothing, I move to the dresser and quickly rifle through T-shirts and jeans, socks and underwear.

The sound of a car door slamming outside alerts me that Harold Horner has arrived home. Without speaking, Belinda rushes from the room. “Harold! Harold!”

I look at Glock. “Jesus.”

He shakes his head. “Yeah.”

I enter the living room as the front door bursts open.

“I got here as fast as I could.” Harold Horner is a large man. Wearing a red flannel shirt and denim jacket, he looks like a lumberjack. He is bald with the rough hands of a workingman. I notice his eyes are the same color as his daughter’s. He scans the faces in the room. “Where’s Amanda?”

Showing him my badge, I identify myself. “I’m afraid we have some bad news about your daughter, sir.”

“Aw, Jesus. Aw, God. What happened? What’s going on?”

“She’s dead,” Belinda Horner blurts. “Our baby is dead. Oh Harold, dear God.” He goes to her and she collapses in his arms. “Our sweet little girl is gone, and she’s never coming back.”

I drop Glock at the station with instructions to head over to the Brass Rail. I’d rather do that myself; I’ve never been good at delegating. But I need to speak with Doc Coblentz. Revisiting the dead is one responsibility I won’t put on my officers.

Earlier, Glock completed the tedious task of lifting tire tread and footwear impressions at the crime scene. Mona couriered everything to the Bureau of Criminal Investigation and Identification lab in London, Ohio, which is over a hundred miles away. A courier fee isn’t in the budget, but I can’t spare an officer. I’ll pay for it out of my own pocket if necessary.

The lab will scan each impression and imprint into a computer and run a comparison analysis, matching impressions at the scene against the imprints of the first responders. It’s a long shot, but I’m hoping one impression will stand out and give us our first clue as to the identity of the killer.

It’s almost noon by the time I park adjacent the main entrance of Pomerene Hospital in Millersburg. I pass the information desk and take the elevator to the basement. A yellow and black biohazard sign glares at me as I go through the swinging doors. Doc Coblentz sits at a desk inside a glassed-in office where the miniblinds are open. He spots me and rises. Wearing a white lab coat and baggy tan trousers, he looks like an aging Pillsbury doughboy.

“Chief.” He extends his hand and we shake. “The parents were here a few minutes ago and identified her.” He shakes his head. “Nice family. Sad as hell to see something like this happen.”

“They see the chaplain?”

“Father Zimmerman took them to the chapel.” With a nod, he’s ready to get down to business. “I haven’t done the autopsy yet. All I have for you is a prelim.”

“I’ll take whatever you have.” The thought of seeing Amanda Horner’s body fills me with dread. But my need for hard facts overrides that human frailty. Right now, information is my most powerful tool. I want to catch the son of a bitch who did this. There is a part of me that wants to pull out my sidearm and fire a round into his face so he can’t put anyone else through the hell he’s putting the Horners through.