Shamed (Kate Burkholder #11)(35)

“I’ll know more once I make the Y-incision. But I’m comfortable telling you now, preliminarily, that the cause of death is massive hemorrhage. The manner of death is homicide.”





CHAPTER 10


Twenty-three hours missing

You put in the hours. You do the research. You do all the right things. All of it with vigor and hope and heart. Still, a seven-year-old little girl is missing. A sixty-year-old grandmother is dead. A community is on edge. And the cops don’t have a fucking clue.

I know it’s the exhaustion that’s hijacked my frame of mind and dragged my thoughts to a place I know better than to venture. A smarter cop would go home for a few hours of uninterrupted sleep, get a fresh start with a clear head and then get back to work.

Wind and rain thrash my office window. Though it’s not yet closing time for most shops and businesses, Main Street is deserted. The first major cold front of the fall season blew through around noon. Weather usually doesn’t bother me. This afternoon, I’m cold to the bone. I can’t help but wonder if Elsie Helmuth is out there, wet and shivering with cold, frightened out of her mind, and hurting. Or worse …

“Chief?”

I glance up to see my second-shift dispatcher, Jodie Metzger, come through the door, a carafe of coffee in one hand, a stack of paper in the other.

I shove my cup toward her. “Thanks.”

She pours and sets the stack in front of me. “Ladies’ Club of Painters Mill had these flyers printed. Volunteers put out nine hundred of them today all over the county. I thought you might want to see them.”

I glance at the top sheet. Have you seen me? There’s no photo of Elsie Helmuth, just her name and a physical description. Seven years old. Female. Special Needs. Born: March 14, 2012. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Height: 3′9″. Weight: 60 lbs.

It’s well done, with all the right information, including the location of where she went missing, the tip line number, and the numbers for the sheriff’s department as well as the Painters Mill PD.

“I think we could probably use a miracle, too, if you’ve got one handy,” I tell her.

She shoots me a sympathetic look, and for the first time since I found Mary Yoder lying on the kitchen floor of the Schattenbaum farm, I feel like crying.

Please don’t be dead.…

“Anything else I can do?” she asks.

“Check the tip line again, will you?” I ask.

“Sure.” Jodie looks at me as if she wants to say something else, but she goes through the door without comment.

Earlier, I talked to Tomasetti about the gravel the coroner discovered in Mary Yoder’s mouth. He agrees it’s likely some strange extension of the note found at the scene. All he can do at this point is have the lab run a comparison to see if the gravel came from the driveway of the Schattenbaum place, which would likely mean the killer simply scooped it up and, after he killed Yoder, shoved it into her mouth. If the comparison shows the gravel didn’t come from the driveway, we start checking with aggregate dealers in the area. It’s a long shot, but worth pursuing at this point.

I open the manila folder in front of me and look at my copy of the note.

Food gained by fraud tastes sweet, but one ends up with a mouth full of gravel.

The original is printed in pencil. The lettering inept and juvenile. The words are from Psalm 94, the translation from the King James Bible, which is often used by the Amish, and has to do with the ills of receiving something undeserved through deception. What does it mean in terms of the case?

Tucking the note back in the folder, I look down at the yellow legal pad in front of me. I’ve filled most of it with stray thoughts and theories and a summary of what I know. I’m a big fan of free writing, turning my hand loose with a pen and clean sheet of paper. Sometimes, it’s a good way to open the channel to those thought processes that can get lost in the clutter. This evening, it gives me nothing.

I start at the beginning of the pad and page through, skimming notes I’ve already read a hundred times. I go to the map, study the red circles that indicate the residences of six registered sex offenders. All of them have been interviewed twice. All but one have alibis. I look at the aerial photos of the Schattenbaum place. The proximity to the creek, which was also searched.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

When the words begin to blur I reach for my reading glasses and keep going. I read the police report again. My description of the girl. Though I wrote the words less than twenty-four hours ago, it seems like a hundred years.

Elsie Helmuth. Age 7. Brn. Brn. Ht: 3′9″. Wt: 60 lbs.



A caution light flares somewhere inside my head. I blink at the page, trying to pinpoint what set it off. I glance at the Missing flyer again. Nothing there. No damn photo. I reach for the envelope from the Holmes County General Health District and, for the second time, I skim through the birth certificates of the Helmuth children. Names. Birth dates. County of birth.

Irma. 5-11-2008. Holmes Cnty.

Bonnie. 8-4-2009. Holmes Cnty.

Gracie. 9-19-2010. Holmes Cnty.

Elam. 11-13-2011. Holmes Cnty.

Becky. 12-27-2012. Holmes Cnty.

Luke. 2-1-2013. Holmes Cnty.

Annie. 1-31-2014. Holmes Cnty.

Why the hell isn’t there a birth certificate for Elsie? Miriam Helmuth said the baby came quickly and there was no time for the midwife to arrive. As a result, they never filed the paperwork and simply hadn’t gotten around to it yet.