Kate Burkholder: Her Last Breath Part 8

The two men giggle like schoolgirls and I realize this is an entertaining moment for them. "I'm Billy Voss," the look-alike says, moving toward us, his hand outstretched.

"D'you see the look on her face?" Chuckling, Bob Voss wipes his eyes with a white kerchief.

"I guess your customers keep you two pretty amused," Rasmussen says, and I realize his sense of humor is the first thing to go when he's sleep deprived.

"You guys are twins?" I ask.

"Born ten minutes apart," Billy tells us as he slides a folder from the top of the file cabinet. "I got the brains, he got the looks."

Bob pours coffee into a nasty-looking mug. "You guys want some lead?"

Rasmussen and I decline.

"What can you tell us about this customer?" I ask.

"Nice looking young fella." Billy sets the folder on the counter and opens it.

Inside, I see a yellow sheet of paper from a legal pad that's scribbled with notes, and a generic-looking invoice that's filled out with blue ink.

Billy turns the invoice around, so we don't have to read it upside down and slides it toward us.

Date: August 25 Name: Howard Barnes Address: 345 West Fourth St. Killbuck Phone: 885-5452 Estimate for Repair Costs: Material: $92.00 Labor: $300.00 Total = $392.00 Make and model of vehicle: Gry 1996 Ford F-250 Plate # DHA3709 Description: Reinforce front end inch steel 18" 32"

For the span of several minutes, the only sound comes from an old Led Zeppelin song, "When the Levee Breaks," oozing from a sleek sound system set up on a TV tray behind the counter.

"Which one of you talked to this guy?" Rasmussen asks.

"I did," says Bob.

Listening to the conversation with half an ear, I unclip my cell and hit the speed dial for dispatch. Lois picks up on the first ring. "I need a ten twelve," I say.

"Go ahead."

"David, Henry, Adam, three, seven, zero, niner." I hear keys clicking on the other end as she enters the tag number into the BMV database.

"That's weird," Lois says. "You sure that tag number is right, Chief?" She reads it back to me.

I glance at the invoice. "That's it."

"According to BMV, that number doesn't exist."

"Well s.h.i.+t." I get a p.r.i.c.kly sensation on the back of my neck. "Give me a ten twenty-nine on Howard Barnes." I spell both the first and last names for her.

"Stand by."

Computer keys click. While she checks for wanted and warrants, I turn my attention to Bob Voss. "Did you happen to take a look at his driver's license?"

The old man stares at me, blinking, guilty. I feel Rasmussen's eyes on me, but I don't look at him.

"Well, no," Bob says. "We generally don't check."

I say to Rasmussen, "Tag number is bogus."

The sheriff's eyes narrow. "That's interesting as h.e.l.l."

I turn my attention to Bob. "How did he pay?"

Bill pulls the invoice to him, lowers the cheaters from his crown, and points to a checkmarked box on the form. "Cash."

"That's a lot of cash for someone to carry around," Rasmussen says.

"You sure about the make and model of the truck?" I ask.

Voss nods. "That I am. I know trucks, and I saw it myself."

"Short or long bed?"

He grimaces, shakes his head. "I don't recall."

"Chief?" comes Lois's voice over the phone.

I turn my attention back to the call. "What do you have?"

"Nothing coming back on Howard Barnes."

"You mean nothing as in he hasn't killed anyone lately? Or that he's not in the system?"

"Not in the system. You got a middle initial?"

"No."

The p.r.i.c.kling sensation augments into a creeping suspicion that drops into my gut like a stone. "I've got a make and model to add to the APB. Gray Ford F-250, 1996."

"I'll get it out ASAP."

"I also need ROs for all '96 Ford F-250 trucks in the three-county area: Holmes, Coshocton, and Wayne."

"I'm on it."

"Thanks." I disconnect to hear Billy saying, "... he was probably forty years old. I wish I remembered more, but it's been two weeks and we get quite a few customers in here."

"How exactly did you modify the truck?" Rasmussen asks.

"That's the reason I remembered this guy," Billy says. "He had us remove the b.u.mper and install a quarter-inch slab of steel and weld it to the frame with I-beams. When I asked him why, he mentioned the stump. Later, he said it was just for pus.h.i.+ng things around. You know, kind of vague. I figured it was just a farm truck and he was going to let his kid drive it around or something."

I look down at the invoice, spot the illegible scrawl at the bottom. "Is that his signature?"

Billy tries to slide the invoice around for a better look, but I stop him. In the back of my mind I'm wondering if the lab will be able to raise some latents. "Yes, ma'am."

"Do you mind if we take this with us?" I ask, adding, "I'll make sure you get it back."

Both men stare at me as if they've just now realized this is serious and they're mentally working through all the dark possibilities.

"You think this guy killed them people down there in Painters Mill?" Bob asks.

"I don't know," I say honestly. "But I think it warrants looking into."

"You got any other paper on this guy?" Rasmussen asks.

"No sir." Billy shakes his head. "That's it."

Rasmussen reaches into his jacket and pulls out an evidence bag containing the sheared pin. "This look familiar to either of you?"

Both men shake their heads.

Bob squints at the bag. "Looks like a three-quarter-inch L pin."

"Any idea what that kind of pin is used for?" I ask.

"Hard to say," Billy says. "One that size ... could be from a tractor."

"I seen 'em on farm implements," Bob adds. "Could be off a pivot bracket on a rototiller or mower. Honestly, since we don't know the length, could be for just about anything."

Frowning, Rasmussen drops the bag back into his pocket. "How exactly did you guys attach the steel plate?"

"We removed the b.u.mper and welded it to the frame," Billy explains.

"Did you use any type of pin or bolt?" I ask.

"No ma'am." Bob shakes his head. "We welded it. Solid as a rock, too."

Pinching the invoice between two fingers at its corner, the sheriff picks it up and slips it into the folder. "We're going to need a description of the customer."

"Do you guys have security cameras?" I ask.

Bob Voss nods. "In the yard out back where we park the vehicles we're working on. We've had thieves come over the fence at night a couple times. Took some rims once and a fuel pump a few months back, so we had cameras installed."

"Did this customer go into the yard?" I ask.

"Wish we could help you there," Billy says, "but he was only here in the office and the shop."

It takes another ten minutes to wrangle a description from the two brothers. They disagree on the color of the guy's hair and the type of s.h.i.+rt he was wearing. But we walk away with height, eye color, and the general impression that he was a "nice looking young fella" and "dressed like a yuppie."

As Rasmussen and I clamber into the Explorer, he turns to me and sighs. "Not to throw a wrench into such a straightforward case, but I'm pretty sure there is no Fourth Street in Killbuck."

Nothing about the address had struck me as odd, but now that he mentioned it, I realize he's right. "He gave a bogus address, too."

"People who give false information usually have something to hide," he says. "And he didn't just have body work done. He had the front end of a big-a.s.s truck with a big-a.s.s engine reinforced with a big-a.s.s slab of steel."

I pull onto the highway and glance at Rasmussen. "He's our guy."

"It would explain the lack of debris."

"He had the work done two weeks ago. That shows premeditation."

"Premeditated what?"

We look at each other for a moment, then he says, "I can't see someone murdering an Amish man and two kids. I mean, the way this was done-with a vehicle-a lot of things could have gone wrong. He risked a witness seeing him. He risked the victims surviving to identify him. The impact could have disabled his truck and stranded him, gotten him caught. h.e.l.l, he could have killed himself."

"Maybe what we're dealing with was more of a road rage situation," I say.

Rasmussen nods. "There's no shortage of meanness out there. We've seen it focused on the Amish before."

I'm still turning over the road rage angle. "Maybe it didn't have anything to do with this particular family. Maybe it was more about opportunity. It was dusk. They were alone on a little-used back road. Their paths crossed." I'm tossing out ideas, trying to make sense of something that makes absolutely no sense.

"We did have that rash of hate crimes last year," he says.

I think about the kids and shake my head, unable to wrap my brain around that kind of hatred. "This takes hate to a whole new level of ugly."

"I'll get that invoice to the lab, see what comes back." He sighs. "In the interim, I'd say we probably ought to keep our options open."

I nod, but in the back of my mind I know we're no longer dealing with a simple DUI or hit-and-run or even a case of vehicular homicide.

We're now investigating three counts of premeditated murder.

CHAPTER 8.

I'm sitting in the conference room, working on my second cup of coffee, and going through my spa.r.s.e collection of notes on the Borntrager case, as the rest of my team files in for an impromptu briefing. It's going to be a short meeting because we basically don't have s.h.i.+t in terms of information or suspects.

As usual, Pickles is the first to arrive and stakes his claim at the table adjacent me with a to-go cup from LaDonna's Diner in front of him. From where I sit, I can smell the cigarettes and English Leather. He's one of the few who actually enjoys these meetings. It's an added bonus if someone is getting their a.s.s chewed.

Two chairs down, Glock has the case file open in front of him, various reports and photos spread out on the table, reading. On his left, Skid leans back in his chair, gobbling up the final remnants of a burrito. At the head of the table, T.J. thumbs some urgent message into his Droid. I can tell from the grin on his face it doesn't have anything to do with police business. Frank Maloney, the accident reconstructionist from the sheriff's office, stands at the whiteboard, his back to the rest of us, finis.h.i.+ng a sketch of the scene in blue marker. Mona stands just inside the doorway, talking quietly to Lois, who's manning dispatch and listening for the phone. I put Mona in charge of overseeing the hotline, which has already given us our first lead. I'm hoping for more.

"You ready, Maloney?" I ask.

The deputy steps away from the sketch and sighs. "I'm a d.a.m.n good reconstructionist, but I suck at drawing."

The sketch is a crude rendition of the accident scene, replete with intersection labels, a north-south directional symbol, the ditch, mile marker, and the location of the stop sign. He's indicated the final resting place of the buggy, the direction in which it was traveling, along with the point of impact. The victims and horse are depicted with stick figures.

Taking a final swig of coffee, I go to the half-podium at the head of the table and open the briefing with the only good news I've gotten since the accident. "Before we begin, I wanted to let everyone know David Borntrager is going to be fine."

Everyone gives a short round of applause along with an enthusiastic "f.u.c.kin' A" from Glock.