Linda Castillo - Sworn to Silence

“I didn’t know that! I swear. She looked like a grown-up woman. Tits out to fuckin’ here.” He makes a slashing sign a foot from his chest. “And she wadn’t no virgin like she claimed.”

Disgust ripples through me. My temper hammers at the door, but I don’t let it out. “How well did you know Ellen Augspurger?”

“Don’t know her neither.”

“If I find out you’re lying, I’ll come down on you so hard you’ll wish you were back in prison.”

“I swear I don’t know her. Either of them.”

“You on probation?”

“What do you think?”

“You like porn?” Tomasetti breaks in.

Starkey cranks his head around. “What the hell kind of question is that?”

“Kiddie porn? You keep it in the house?”

“I don’t do that shit.”

“No, I’ll bet you’re an S&M kind of guy, aren’t you?”

“This is bullshit. You can’t talk to me that way.”

“Dwayne,” I cut in, “do you keep knives in the house?”

He blinks again, as if he’s having a difficult time keeping up with our questions. “Everyone has knives.”

“You hunt?”

He leans back in the chair, balancing himself on two legs. A laugh rattles from his throat. “Can’t stand the sight of blood.”

“You think that’s funny?” I ask.

“Kinda, me being the sticker and all.”

My molars grind. I lunge, slap my hands down on his shoulders, and shove hard. He tries to come forward in the chair to regain his balance, but he’s not fast enough. The chair tips back and he lands hard on his back.

“You fuckin’ cunt!” He snarls the word as he scrambles to his feet. “You can’t—”

I set my hand on my baton. “One step and you’re going back to Mansfield.”

The words freeze him in place. But he’s pissed. His face is the color of raw meat. A vein pulses at his left temple. He wants to hit me; I see it in his eyes. Part of me wishes he would try.

“Kate.”

I barely hear John’s voice over the drum of my heart. I know losing my temper is counterproductive. I tell myself I’m pushing Starkey because I want him rattled. The problem is that while Dwayne Starkey is a lowlife piece of scum, I don’t think he’s the man we’re looking for.

I jolt when Tomasetti’s hands come down on my shoulders. I know he can feel the tremors running through me. I don’t look at him. “Easy, Chief,” he says quietly, then steps up beside me and holds a computer disk out for Starkey to see. “Nice desktop you’ve got, Dwayne. Big-ass monitor. I’ll bet the graphics are killer. How much memory you got in that thing?”

“What’re you doing in my bedroom, man?” Starkey whines like a schoolboy who’s just been told he’s going to be paddled. “He’s not allowed to look through my shit.”

I shrug, but I want to punch Tomasetti. One badly behaved cop is enough.

“It was in plain sight.” Tomasetti looks up from the disk. “ Delilah’s Double Date . Huh. I think I missed that one.”

“Ain’t no law against X-rated movies,” Starkey says.

“That depends on how old the stars are.” I look at the disk. “Delilah looks kind of young.”

“Just a kid,” Tomasetti agrees.

Starkey jabs a finger at the disk. I see grime beneath his nails. “I bought that good and legal.”

“What else do you have on your computer?” I ask.

“I ain’t got nothin’ I shouldn’t have. I’m fuckin’ rehabilitated.”

Tomasetti shakes his head. “We just want to know about the women.”

“Don’t know those kilt women, man.”

I jab my finger in his face. “Put your coat on.”

Starkey’s eyes go wide. “You can’t take me to jail! I ain’t done nothin’!”

“You’re going to show us your barn, Dwayne,” Tomasetti snaps. “Put on your coat or I’ll drag you out there without it.”

The barn is a dilapidated structure one windy day away from becoming a pile of rubble. Starkey takes Tomasetti and me down the unshoveled sidewalk. I notice footprints in the snow and I wonder why he goes to the barn when he doesn’t own livestock.

I get my answer when he slides open the door and we step inside. A yellow El Camino, its paint as glossy as the day it was driven off the showroom floor, sits on cinder blocks with its hood open. Four aluminum wheels lean against a support beam. Beyond, a lawn chair squats next to a rusty fifty-gallon drum. From atop the drum, a radio blasts an old Eagles song. An aluminum pie tin overflows with cigarette butts.

“Nice place,” Tomasetti says.

“This is where I was Saturday night.” Starkey points at the El Camino. “That there’s the car I been working on.”

“You into junkers?” Tomasetti asks.

“That ain’t no junker, man. She’s a classic.”

I move deeper into the barn, find myself looking for a snowmobile. I check the dirt floor for track marks, but find nothing. The air smells of moldy earth and motor oil. I spot a tarp in the corner, cross over and lift it. Dust motes flare and a circa 1965 John Deere tractor looms into view.

Disappointment presses into me. I wanted Starkey to be our man. He’s a convicted rapist. A pedophile. A man with an appetite for porn and God only knows what else. But his height tells me he’s not the man who attacked me in the woods last night. He doesn’t fit the profile. He’s not organized. Not highly intelligent. As desperately as I want to solve this case, my gut tells me he’s not the killer.

I stride toward the men and point rudely at Starkey. “Don’t leave town.”

“I’m on parole. What do you think I’m going to do? Take a fuckin’ Hawaiian vacation?”

I start toward the door. “Let’s go.”

I reach the Tahoe first and climb in. In the relative warmth of the cab, I suddenly feel as if I haven’t slept for a week. A dull ache hammers at the base of my skull.

Tomasetti pulls out of the driveway and heads toward town. I stare out the window at the bleak landscape and try not to let the heat and low hum of the engine lull me to sleep.

“He’s not our guy,” Tomasetti says without looking at me.

“I know.”

“Most serial killers have an above-average IQ.”

“Rules out Starkey.” I glare at Tomasetti. “Next time you feel like going Dirty Harry, do it on your own time, okay?”

He looks at me as if I offended him. “You’re the one who hit him.”

“I smacked him upside the head to get his attention.”

“You kicked his chair out from under him.” Shrugging, he returns his attention to the road. “I was impressed.”

I catch myself grinning. Under different circumstances, I might have liked John Tomasetti. I may not agree with his tactics, but I know he had my back in there. Before I can analyze further, he makes a quick turn into the parking lot of McNarie’s Bar. It’s one of two drinking establishments in Painters Mill, a dive replete with red vinyl barstools, half a dozen booths and a jukebox from 1978 with all the original music selections.

“What the hell are you doing?” I demand.

“I could use a drink.” He swings open the door and gets out.

“A drink? ”

He slams the door.

I shove open my door and slide out. “It’s ten o’clock in the morning. We have work to do.”

Glancing at his watch, he keeps walking. His stride is so long, I have to jog to keep up. “Damnit, John, we need to get back to the station.”

“This won’t take long.”

I stop beside a rusty Toyota pickup, and watch him disappear inside. I look around the deserted parking lot, too pissed to notice the cold or the clouds gathering in the west.

“Starkey was right,” I mutter as I start toward the door. “He’s an asshole.”

CHAPTER 21

Corina Srinvassen couldn’t wait to get on the ice. She’d fantasized about it all through her eighth-grade history class. Through literature class, health class with Mr. Trump where they learned about STDs, lunch with Lori Jones and study hall beneath the watchful eye of Mrs. Filloon aka Scary Bitch.

When the three-twenty bell rang, Cori hit the door running. She planned her routine on the long bus ride home. She was going to try the double twist today. She was alone, after all; no one to laugh at her if she fell on her butt. By four-fifteen she’d changed clothes and slipped out the door before her mother could stop her.

The sky hovered heavy and low as she trudged through the woods toward the pond. The ice would be rough today. That happened when snow fell, melted and refroze. There was no way around Mother Nature’s quirks. One of these days Cori was going to have the money to go to an indoor skating rink in some fancy mall. The kind that was surrounded by swanky shops and the Zamboni kept the ice as smooth as glass.

Slinging her skates over her shoulder, Cori crested the hill and Miller’s Pond loomed before her like a big tarnished nickel. She ran down the embankment toward the lacing stump and kicked off her boots. Cold snaked through all three pairs of socks, and by the time she’d laced up, she was shivering. Pulling on her mittens, Cori wobbled down the bank, stepped onto the ice and pushed off. The rough surface didn’t slow her down. In that instant she was Michelle Kwan. The winter-dead cattails were adoring fans brought to their feet by the grace and beauty of the young skater from Painters Mill, Ohio.

A pang of excitement went through Cori with that first, heady rush of speed. Closing her eyes, she raised her arms like a ballet dancer and took flight. She was one with the ice. A bird in an endless sky, spinning and dipping and free-falling to her heart’s delight. She wasn’t sure how long she skated. When Cori looked around, the sky had darkened even more. Snow, she thought as her skates bumped along the frozen shore. She was trying to find the best spot to try her double twist when the low rumble of an engine interrupted. Curious, she skated to the north end of the pond and trudged up the earthen dam. A short distance away, she caught a glimpse of a snowmobile disappearing into the woods. Weird, she thought, and wondered why someone would drive all the way out here and then leave so quickly.

She was about to resume skating when something in the snow drew her eye. A garbage bag, she realized. The snowmobile guy had dumped a bag of trash. Stupid litterbug. Then she remembered her friend Jenny telling her about people dumping kittens. She hated animal abusers even more than litterbugs.

Not wanting to take the time to remove her skates, Cori walked awkwardly over the tufts of frozen mud. Her blades clanked against the ground as she made her way across the dam and down the embankment. There was no way her mom would let her keep a whole litter of kittens. She could probably give one to Lori; her mom liked cats.

A few yards from the bag, Cori noticed something red spilled in the snow. It looked like paint, but her stomach suddenly felt funny, like when you woke up at night from a bad dream. That was when she remembered the kids on the bus making up scary stories about a dead woman. Her mom had told her not to go to Miller’s Pond today. She’d told her she didn’t want her on the ice alone. But Cori knew that wasn’t the real reason, and she wished she hadn’t sneaked away.

Pulling out her cell phone, Cori started toward the bag. Every now and then she looked toward the woods to see if there was anyone there. She listened for the snowmobile’s engine. But no one was there. Twenty feet away, recognition kicked her brain. Horror like she’d never before known in her young life sent a scream pouring from her throat. Seeing a real-life dead body was nothing like in the movies.