Page 94 of Rage

“Whatever Yutzy’s motivations, good or bad or somewhere in between, he wasn’t exactly doing these women a favor.”

“Short term, they would have money and some semblance of security.”

“Long term … jobs like that can lead to exploitation and worse.” Tomasetti’s eyes sharpen on mine. “These women, Yoder and Borntrager, were young and attractive.”

I nod. “For Amish women, they were outgoing. Independent minded. They had some attitude and yet they were naïve.”

“Vulnerable.”

The word teeters, refuses to settle, and I find myself thinking about predators. Not coyotes, but the human variety.

“Let’s look at Brooks,” Tomasetti says. “How does he play into all of this?”

“Wilma Borntrager worked for him. Samuel Yutzy did some contract work for him. The landscaping. Now, both of them are dead. That’s a tangible connection. Gotta be something there.” Hearing the exasperation in my voice, I lean back in the chair and sigh. “This is why I was talking to myself earlier.”

His phone chimes. Frowning, he glances at the screen and taps a key. “Looks like my IT guy worked late,” he murmurs.

“Some solid information would be nice about now,” I mutter.

“How about a window into the laptop from the rental house?”

I sit up straighter. “That’ll do.”

“First things first.” He swipes the screen. “The serial number traces back to Wilma Borntrager.”

“She purchased it.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s hers.” He nods, keeps scrolling. “Looks like we’ve got some email to take a look at. There are photos. Videos. IT guy thinks he got some chat-room logs. The browsing history, too. He’s still looking at that.”

“Can you send me the data?” I ask.

“I can send you what I have so far.” He lowers his cell and frowns. “Do me a favor?”

“Just ask.”

“Before you jump into all that data, will you grab a couple hours’ sleep?”

“First you bring home a stray cat and now you’re being sweet to me.” I say the words teasingly, but I mean them.

“I like to think of it as charming.”

“That works.”

“I’d appreciate if you didn’t start any rumors.” His smile is followed by a sigh. “Look, I’ve got to hit the shower and get going.”

“Want some company?” I ask.

Grinning, he reaches over and closes my laptop.

No matter the crime—whether it’s a homicide or robbery or an assault—a large chunk of an investigator’s time is invariably spent on the mundane. Things like paperwork and the filling out of official forms, and untold hours combing through random information that may or may not be helpful or even related to the case.

Somehow, another day has blown by. It’s nearly eight P.M. and I’m in my office at the police station, staring at my computer monitor and wishing I had chosen the reading glasses with the higher magnification. Before leaving for his meeting with the lawyer in Columbus this morning, Tomasetti forwarded several zipped data files, which I downloaded from a secure cloud storage website. I spent much of the day skimming through hundreds of emails, flagging anything that might be relevant to the case. The laptop was being used by multiple individuals. I don’t recognize most of the names. Some could be pseudonyms, but Tomasetti is working on pulling IP addresses. Unfortunately, it’s going to take some time.

The majority of the correspondence appears to be benign, everything from résumés to hookup messages, to breakup messages, to dinner-and-drinks plans.

Despite being formerly Amish, Wilma Borntrager was well versed in all forms of electronic communication. She’d been seeing several men simultaneously, though her relationship with Samuel Yutzy seemed to be the most serious. In spite of her financial woes early on, she always seemed to have enough money to go out on the town, either alone or with friends.

Not only was Wilma involved in multiple relationships with varying degrees of intimacy, she flirted excessively. Initially, I assumed that because of her financial situation and displacement after leaving the Amish, she was looking not only for companionship but for a man willing to help her out financially. The more I see, the more I realize that’s not the case. Wilma Borntrager was hooking up with multiple available men; some of them were giving her cash and gifts. To what end I can only guess.