Page 51 of Breaking Silence

We disembark and take the cracked sidewalk to the porch. The front yard is mostly dirt and trampled gray snow. A child’s tricycle and several toy cars litter the sparse grass. It looks like a toy graveyard.

Standing slightly to one side, I use my keys to knock on the storm door.

A moment later, a plump woman holding a newborn baby opens the door. She wears faded jeans and a Cincinnati Reds sweatshirt. Pale blue eyes dart from me to Tomasetti and back to me. “Can I help you?” she asks.

I show her my badge. “Is Ricky Coulter here?”

“He’s in bed.” She looks over her shoulder. “Is something wrong?”

“We just want to talk to him,” I say. “Can you get him for us?”

“He’s only been asleep a couple of hours.”

“This won’t take long.” Tomasetti smiles easily. “Go wake him for us.”

I can tell she doesn’t want to comply, but she’s smart enough to realize she doesn’t have a choice. “Okay.” Hefting the baby, she steps back. “Come on in.”

We step into a small living room. The walls are white and nicked up, evidence of a family that’s long outgrown its dwelling. A few feet away, a toddler wearing a diaper and a stained bib sits on well-worn carpet and pounds a pan with a wooden spoon. In the kitchen, a white dog with a cast on its leg lies on the cracked linoleum, watching us, its tail fanning the air. The television is tuned to a soap opera.

“Can I help you?”

I look up and see a thirty-something man shuffle out of the hall. He’s wearing pajama bottoms and a white T-shirt. I can tell by the crease marks on the left side of his face that he’d been sleeping. Behind him, the woman clutches the baby, eyeing us with unconcealed suspicion.

“You Ricky Coulter?” I ask.

“Yeah.” Rubbing his fingers over mussed hair, he walks toward us. “What’s this all about?”

“I understand you did some work for Solomon Slabaugh,” I begin.

“I dug some postholes and put in some end posts for him a couple of months ago.” His brows knit. “Does this have something to do with what happened to him?”

“Where were you yesterday morning?”

He takes the question in stride, as if I’d asked about the weather. “I was here.”

“You work that night?”

“I was sick. Ate something that didn’t agree with me.”

“Is there someone who can verify that you were here?”

Turning, he motions toward the woman. “Honey, tell them where I was yesterday morning.”

She hovers a few feet away, bouncing the baby, dividing her attention between us and the soap opera. “He was home sick. We ate at that burger place down by the speedway, and he threw up half the night.”

The baby squirms and begins to cry. Bouncing him slightly, she coos to him. “Shush now, little bear.”

Tomasetti looks from the baby to Coulter. “You ever have a disagreement with Slabaugh?”

Coulter shakes his head. “Never. Solly was a real stand-up guy. Honest and nice as could be.”

“We know about your record,” Tomasetti says.

“I figured that’s why you’re here.”

“You robbed your employer,” I add. “Took two hundred dollars and over five hundred dollars in tools.”

Coulter’s gaze flicks to me. “That was a long time ago. I did my time for that. I’m a different man now.”