Page 40 of A Gathering of Secrets

“What do you think happened between Emma and Daniel?” I ask.

He bends, picks up another board, and slams it down on the bench hard enough to draw the attention of the man standing at the next workstation. “I don’t know.”

Now it’s my turn to look around. I lower my voice. “Do you think Daniel made advances toward her? Forced her to do something she didn’t want to do?”

Bracing both hands against the board, he stares at the piece of wood as if it’s his only salvation. “She wouldn’t talk to me. She just wouldn’t say.”

“Did you ask?”

“Yeah, I did.”

I wait, but he doesn’t elaborate, doesn’t even look at me.

“Where were you two nights ago?” When he glares at me, I add, “I have to ask.”

“Home with my wife. You can ask her.” He swings around to face me. “Don’t expect me to be sorry about Dan Gingerich being dead. Far as I’m concerned, that son of a bitch got what he deserved, especially if he’s burning in hell.”

* * *

Certain cases take on a life of their own. They touch us in unexpected ways. Sometimes they touch us in ways we don’t want to be touched. They take us to places we don’t want to venture. Remind us of people we don’t want to be reminded of. Cases are rarely limited to the victim or loved ones or the families. Cops get drawn in, too. They become involved with the people they come into contact with. While we do our best to keep a handle on all of those gnarly emotions and preconceived notions we keep tucked away in that back drawer, we don’t always succeed.

When I walked into the Gingerich case, I saw Daniel as a victim. An innocent kid who’d been preyed upon and murdered brutally. But as in most cases, the deeper you dig, the more you learn—and sometimes you realize the people you’re fighting for aren’t who you think they are, and none of what happened is black and white.

If Emma Miller and Elam Schlabach were involved in a serious relationship and hadn’t had yet had sex, how did she end up pregnant? Was she seeing Daniel behind his back? Did that relationship, her pregnancy, or her death have anything to do with Gingerich’s murder? Is Elam Schlabach telling the truth about any of it?

The possibilities gnaw at me as I drive to the farm. I hate to call it a night when I have so many unanswered questions buzzing inside my head, but it’s late; any answers are going to have to wait until morning.

It’s dusk when I arrive home. I’m so preoccupied, I barely notice the way the sunlight slants through the trees at the back of our property or the mist rising from the pond. I glance at the dock where Tomasetti sometimes likes to fish, but he’s not there. Two mallards glide through the smooth-as-glass water.

I’m midway to the old Victorian house we’ve shared for nearly two years when a pang of something I don’t recognize stops me in my tracks. The chatter in my head grinds to a halt. Turning, I look out across our property, and for the first time in days, I see the simple beauty of my surroundings and I drink it in. Somehow I hadn’t noticed that the foliage is abloom with fall color. I stand there, listening to the calls of the red-winged blackbirds that swoop and play among the willows by the pond. The whisper of the wind through the treetops. The bawling of Mr. Cline’s cattle to the south. The tinkle of the wind chimes I bought on impulse at one of the Amish tourist shops in town. Autumn evenings in this part of Ohio are magical; they are a feast for the senses, balm for the soul of a troubled cop. And I’ve been missing all of it for so long I hadn’t even noticed when it slipped away.

I’m about to open the back door to find Tomasetti and talk to him about my epiphany when I hear pounding coming from the barn. Setting my laptop case on the stoop, I turn and head that way. The structure is nearly as old as the house, in dire need of new shingles and a paint job, but it’s chock-full of character. Tomasetti and I have done little in the way of barn renovation, and it’s probably going to be our next big project.

The sliding door stands open, so I go up the ramp and walk inside. The sound of the pounding is louder. I move more deeply into the dimly lit interior. Someone is definitely hammering away on something.

“Tomasetti?”

“Back here!” comes his voice from somewhere outside at the rear.

The bank barn is an old German design that’s built into a hillside. The front has two stories. The back has three stories due to the additional livestock stalls on the underside of the building. I head toward the rear, take the step-up to the wood floor, and cross to the window. I look out to see Tomasetti working on a good-size shed of some type.

“What are you doing?” I call out.

He looks up at me and grins. “I think the technical term for it is busting my ass.”

I grin back. “You look good in that hammer.”

“Why don’t you come down here and show me?”

Laughing, I take the stairs to the lower level. I cross through the livestock stalls mounded with decades of manure that’s long since composted to dirt. Tomasetti has set up shop ten feet from the barn. I see the orange snake of an extension cord. A handsaw lying in the dust. A toolbox full of his tools of the trade.

The structure he’s working on is about ten feet square. It’s not finished; there are only three walls and it’s not yet too heavy for him to move. No windows or door yet. It looks like some sort of rustic, giant doghouse.

I don’t want to ask what it is; I feel as if I should know. “Are we getting a dog?” I ask, though neither of us would ever consider leaving a dog in a doghouse.

Tomasetti removes a nail from his mouth, sets it against the wood, and drives it home with four blows of the hammer. “Two too many legs.”

I think about that a moment, as amused as I am baffled. “We’re getting a kid?”