Page 93 of Rage

“I saw that.”

“We don’t have a cat.”

“We do now.” He brings the carafe to the table and tops off my cup. “He adopted me this afternoon.”

“I never had you pegged as a cat guy.”

“I’ve got a few secrets up my sleeve.”

I nod, look a little more closely at the cat. “He doesn’t have a tail.”

“He’s either a Manx or had an unfortunate encounter with a coyote.” He replaces the carafe, picks up the cat, and sets the animal on the floor. “Might help us with the mouse population in the barn.”

“I like him already.”

He grabs his smartphone off the counter where it’s charging and settles into the chair across from me. “Kate, you look tired.”

“Can’t sleep.”

“Ghosts?”

I nod because I know it’s an existence both of us are intimately acquainted with.

“Tomasetti, whoever murdered these three young people … they left absolutely nothing behind.”

He sips coffee, looks at me over the rim of his mug. “I know.”

“Yutzy’s murder and dismemberment must have taken quite a bit of time. We’re talking a chain saw and knives, and moving a dismembered body a quarter of a mile through wooded terrain. And yet there was no foreign DNA. Not a single hair. We have at least one of the garbage bags and the chain saw that was used, and yet there were no fingerprints. No footprints. No glove or casings or cigarette butt. Same with Shetler. Same with Borntrager.”

“They’ve done this before,” he says slowly.

“We’re not dealing with amateurs or some crime-of-passion scenario.”

“They aren’t local.”

I nod, find myself thinking about patterns. “Yutzy helped Borntrager get a job. First at the brewery in Millersburg. Then at The Cheetah Lounge in New Philly. He helped Rose Yoder get a job at The Cheetah Lounge. That’s a pattern.”

“What’s his connection to The Cheetah Lounge?”

“I don’t know.”

“He could be a customer. A regular who became friendly with the staff, the dancers, the bartender or bouncer.”

My brain is already off and running, and I find myself recalling my conversation with Joseph Stoltzfoos. Something about Samuel having a weakness for a certain kind of woman …

I reach for my notebook, dig through until I find what I’m looking for. I look at Tomasetti. “When I asked Joseph Stoltzfoos about Yutzy’s relationship with Wilma Borntrager he said something interesting, so I wrote it down, and I quote: ‘He was always drawn to the women with a lot of drama in their lives. The ones who needed help. The ones in trouble.’”

“Was Borntrager in trouble?”

“She’d left the Amish. She didn’t have a place to go. Or a place to stay. No money. No friends. Her family wouldn’t speak to her, let her visit, or even take meals with her.”

“What about Rose Yoder?”

“She’d left the Amish, too.” I think about that a moment. “When you leave like that, you basically walk away from everything you’ve ever known, including your friends and family. Any ties you’ve ever had. You have no money. No place to stay. No support system. If someone dangles something you need in front of you, something like friendship or security or support—”

“Or a job—” he interjects.

“You’re going to go for it.”