Kate Burkholder: Her Last Breath Part 3

I stop and turn to her. She takes a quick step back, as if not quite trusting me not to pop her in the mouth, and lowers the mike to a more respectful distance. "I can't confirm that at this time," I tell her.

She tries to ask another question, but I turn away, b.u.mping the mike with my shoulder as I start toward the scene.

Behind me, I hear her ask the cameraman, "Did you get that?"

"d.a.m.n vultures," comes a familiar voice.

Ahead, I see Sheriff Mike Rasmussen and a uniformed deputy striding toward me. I've known the sheriff for about a year now. Though I'm city and he's county, we've worked together on several cases, pooling the resources of our respective departments. We've b.u.t.ted heads on a couple of occasions, but he's a good cop and a quick study when it comes to the politicking side of his job. He's also one of the few in the local law enforcement community who knows about my relations.h.i.+p with John Tomasetti.

I extend my hand and we shake. "You guys get traffic diverted?" I ask.

"Bunch of d.a.m.n rubberneckers." Rasmussen's expression is grim. "Any news on the kid?"

"He was in surgery when I left the hospital."

"I hate it when kids get hurt."

I nod, trying not to think of Mattie, and turn my attention to the deputy. He's a burly man in his midthirties with a crew cut and the direct, probing eyes of a man who likes being in the thick of things. He's wearing a tan jacket with the Holmes County Sheriff's Department insignia on his left breast. Beneath the jacket, his uniform s.h.i.+rt stretches a tad too snugly across pecs the size of small hams.

"I'm Chief Burkholder," I say, offering a handshake.

"Frank Maloney." He looks at me with a little too much intensity and gives my hand a slightly too-hard squeeze.

"Frank's a certified accident reconstructionist," Rasmussen says.

I nod, pleased he's on scene this early in the game. "Any preliminary thoughts on what happened?"

Maloney's chest puffs out a little. He's proud of his certification and likes being the one in the know. "Buggy was southbound on Delisle. The hit-skip was westbound on CR14 and broadsided the buggy." He holds up an intricate-looking Bosch Laser Distance Measurer that in the last few years has replaced measuring wheels and tapes. "This guy was hauling a.s.s."

"How fast?" I ask.

"I'd ballpark upwards of eighty miles per hour."

"Jesus Christ," Rasmussen mutters. "The buggy didn't stand a chance."

I glance toward the scene, trying not to imagine how that went down. The buggy hasn't yet been moved. Someone covered the dead horse with a tarp. The coroner has removed the dead, but left tarps over the bloodstained gra.s.s. I make a mental note to get the fire department out here with a tanker to flush away the biohazard.

"County Prosecutor been out here yet?" I ask.

"Came and left," Rasmussen replies.

"I hope he's as p.i.s.sed as I am." I can tell by the men's expressions we're on the same page. They want this son of a b.i.t.c.h as badly as I do.

"We'll make sure everything's well doc.u.mented," Rasmussen a.s.sures me.

I nod. "I put out an APB for an unidentified vehicle with a damaged front end."

"I got my boys out looking," the sheriff adds.

"Anything useful as far as debris?" I ask.

When a cop arrives on the scene of a traffic accident, his first priority is always the preservation of life. It takes precedence over everything else, including identifying and protecting evidence. Upon my arrival here earlier, I was so intent on locating the victims and rendering aid, I didn't get a good look at the buggy or debris. Any cop worth his salt will tell you that finding and identifying that debris-those pieces left behind by the vehicles involved-is the first step in identifying the vehicle and locating the driver.

Rasmussen sighs. "We're going to be picking up pieces of that buggy for a while. We're going to load everything up and take it to impound for a closer look under some light."

"Anything from the vehicle?" I ask.

"The only piece we've been able to identify is a side-view mirror," the sheriff tells me.

As if by unspoken agreement, the three of us start toward the intersection. Someone has denoted the locations where the deceased victims came to rest with fluorescent orange marking paint. From where I stand I can see the blue tarp covering the horse. We stop a few yards from the point of impact and I take a moment to establish the debris field and for the first time I get a sense of the scope of the carnage.

"My G.o.d, this guy was f.u.c.king flying," I say to no one in particular.

Maloney points to the place where Paul Borntrager had died just a few hours earlier. "Adult male was thrown fifty-three feet."

Rasmussen shakes his head. "Youngsters were thrown even farther."

"What about skid marks?" I ask. "Or tire imprints?" Sometimes, if the skid marks are clean enough to get a measurement of the tire, we can use that information to help identify the offending vehicle. On rare occasions the tread is visible. Photos are scanned into a computer. From there, they can sometimes be matched to a manufacturer or retailer and, in some cases, if there is some identifiable mark on the tire-a cut or defect in the rubber, for example-a specific vehicle. Combined, those things can be invaluable to the identification process. Not to mention the trial.

Maloney and Rasmussen exchange looks that makes the back of my neck p.r.i.c.kle.

"There are no skid marks," Maloney says.

"Not a single one," Rasmussen reiterates.

Something cold and sharp sc.r.a.pes up my back. "The driver made no attempt to stop?"

"Looks that way," Maloney replies.

"The road surface was wet," I tell him, thinking aloud. "Is it possible he tried to stop, but couldn't due to conditions?"

"That son of a b.i.t.c.h didn't even tap the brake," Rasmussen mutters.

"Could we be dealing with some kind of mechanical failure?" It's an optimistic offering, but I pose the question anyway.

Maloney shrugs. "It's possible, I guess."

"If someone's brakes fail and they slam into a f.u.c.king buggy, you'd think they'd stop and render aid," Rasmussen growls.

Maloney nods. "Even if they get scared and panic, they'd call 911."

"Unless they've got something to hide." I say what all of us are thinking. What we already know. "We're probably dealing with a DUI."

"That's my vote," Rasmussen says.

"Or some idiot texting," Maloney puts in.

I think of Paul Borntrager's last minutes. He'd been broken and bleeding and yet his only concern had been for his children. I think of Mattie, holding vigil at the hospital, waiting for word on the condition of her only surviving child. I think of David, an innocent little boy, hurting and frightened and fighting for his life. I think of the three lives lost and the countless others that will be destroyed by their pa.s.sing. I think of the pain that has been brought down on a community that's seen more than its share of heartbreak in the last few years. And gnarly threads of rage burgeon again inside me.

I study the scene. My mind's eye shows me a horse and buggy approaching the intersection. I hear the clip-clop of shod hooves against the asphalt. The jingle of the harness. The creak of the buggy. The chatter of the children, oblivious to the impending tragedy. Dusk has fallen. It's drizzling. Visibility is low. The road surface is wet. Concerned about the coming darkness, Paul would have been pus.h.i.+ng the horse, hurrying home. Around them, the symphony of crickets from the woods fills the air.

There would have been a flash of headlights. An instant of horror and disbelief as Paul Borntrager realizes the vehicle isn't going to stop. He plants his feet, hauls back on the reins. A firmly shouted, "whoa!" Then the horrific violence of the impact. No time to scream. An explosion of wood and steel and debris. The horse is killed instantly, the harness rigging ripped from the buggy. The victims are ejected, their broken bodies violently impacting the earth.

"A lot of the Amish try to avoid the busier roads after dark," I say.

Both men look at me as if I've inadvertently spoken the words in Pennsylvania Dutch. I add, "They know it's dangerous."

"We've all seen how impatient some of these d.a.m.n drivers can be," Rasmussen mutters.

"I cited some guy from Wheeling a couple of days ago for pa.s.sing a buggy on a double yellow line," Maloney says. "I'd like to show him some photos from this scene."

The three of us nod and then Rasmussen glances at his watch. "It's too late to canva.s.s."

"I'll get someone out here first thing in the morning." I think about that a moment. "The driver might be looking for a body shop in the next few days."

Rasmussen nods. "We've got five or six body shops in Millersburg. I'll send a couple of my guys out first thing in the morning."

"There are three in Painters Mill," I tell him. "We might include Wooster, too."

"I'll notify Wayne County," Rasmussen offers.

"Let's pull past DUIs, too," I suggest.

"Can't hurt." Rasmussen's eyes sharpen on mine. "Any chance the kid saw something?"

"It's possible, but he was in critical condition and in surgery when I left the hospital." I glance at my watch. "I'll find out and keep you posted."

But we know the majority of crash victims rarely remember the minutes preceding a crash, especially if they've sustained a head injury or lost consciousness.

"With this kid being Amish," I begin, "even if he saw the vehicle and remembers it, he may not be able to tell us the make or model."

"Well that's just f.u.c.king peachy," Rasmussen mutters. "We need to find this son of a b.i.t.c.h, people."

CHAPTER 4.

Deputy Maloney, Sheriff Rasmussen, and I spend several hours walking the scene, photographing, video-recording, sketching, and surmising. At 2:00 A.M., Glock shows up with four large coffees from LaDonna's Diner, and we swarm him like zombies seeking flesh. It's hours before his s.h.i.+ft starts, but he possesses a sort of sixth sense when it comes to showing up when he's needed. He never seems to mind putting in the extra time, even though he's got two babies and a wife at home. I'm invariably glad to have him on scene and unduly thankful for the caffeine.

I'm standing next to my Explorer when a Painters Mill volunteer fire department tanker pulls onto the shoulder. I watch the young firefighter disembark, link the hose, and begin to flush the blood from the road and gra.s.sy areas. A few yards away, local farmer and town councilman Ron Jackson arrives in his big John Deere to haul the dead horse to the landfill.

Glock wanders over and we watch a big Ford dually back a twenty-foot flatbed trailer to the debris field. A red-haired man from a local wrecker service contracted by the sheriff's department gets out. Maloney and Rasmussen don gloves and begin picking up pieces, dropping them into bags, and loading them onto the trailer.

For several minutes Glock and I stand there, sipping our coffees, watching.

"h.e.l.l of a way to start the day," he says.

"Coffee helped." I smile at him and he smiles back.

"You get anything from the vehicle?" he asks.

I tell him about the lack of debris and he shoots me a look. "That's weird," he says.

We stare at each other, our minds working that over. "Maloney thinks this guy was going upwards of eighty miles an hour," I say.

"There should have been debris."

"A lot from the buggy," I say.

"Maybe the debris from the vehicle got mixed in with it."

Even as he says the words, something tugs at my brain, worrying me like a child yanking at his mother's dress to get her attention.

"Seems like the impact would have f.u.c.ked up the grille of a vehicle," Glock surmises. "Or busted out a headlight or signal light or something."

The feather touch of a chill brushes across the back of my neck, and I realize the lack of debris is the thing that's been bothering me all along. "They're going to haul everything down to impound, take a closer look under some lights."

Rasmussen approaches us. "I think we've got everything loaded up."

I address the sheriff. "Did you find any more debris from the vehicle?"

"Just the side-view mirror so far," Maloney replies.

I see a creeping suspicion enter the sheriff's eyes. "If that son of a b.i.t.c.h was going as fast as you say, he should have left pieces scattered all the way to Cleveland."

"Even with the work lights and generator, it's dark as a d.a.m.n cave out here," Maloney says. "Maybe we missed something. Maybe it got tossed in with all those pieces from the buggy."

"Driver might have had a brush guard on his front end," Glock offers.

Rasmussen nods, but he doesn't look convinced. "Even with a brush guard, he would have busted out a headlight or knocked off some plastic. Vehicles have a lot of plastic these days."

"Maybe it's some kind of homemade job," Glock offers.

Maloney tosses him an interested look and adds, "All you need is a welder and some steel." He turns to me. "Any vehicles from around here come to mind?" he asks. "Souped-up truck, maybe?"

"Or a f.u.c.kin' tank," Glock mutters beneath his breath.

Images of a hundred vehicles scroll through my mind. Stops I've made. Citations I've issued. Recent DUIs.

"A lot of farm trucks," I tell them. "I'll see if I can come up with a list."

"A lot of them farm boys got welders," Maloney adds.

The sheriff makes a sound of frustration. "We'll take a closer look at everything in the morning. In the interim, if you see something that fits the bill, make the stop."