“The truth. All of it.”

“I’ve told you everything I know.”

I pause long enough to let him absorb everything that’s been said. “Norm, I haven’t put all of this together yet, but I think these two murders may be related to a cold case from back in 1979,” I tell him. “The Hochstetler case.”

“I remember it. That Amish family. But I was only a teenager at the time.”

“Did you know the Hochstetlers?”

He hesitates. “No.”

“Do you know anything about what happened the night that family was murdered?”

“Of course not.” He makes a sound of disbelief. “What the hell are you insinuating?”

“I’m not insinuating anything. I’m trying to solve two homicides, get a killer off the street, and maybe keep you safe in the process.”

“I had nothing to do with that.” His lips peel back, exposing small, artificially white teeth. “How dare you accuse me of—”

“I didn’t accuse you of anything.”

From two feet away, I can hear his molars grinding. “This is outrageous. I ask you for help, and you come into my home unannounced and start making wild accusations, all because you haven’t the slightest clue how to do your job! I’m a sitting member of the council, for God’s sake.”

“Norm, I need you to level with me. If there’s anything you’re not telling me, you need to come clean. Right now.”

He stares at me, his mouth open, his chest rising and falling. “I’ve told you everything I know.”

“I’m not going to let this go,” I tell him. “Do you understand?”

A quiver runs the length of his body. In the periphery of my vision, I see his right hand curl into a fist. And I know he’s struggling to control a temper run amok. That if he loses the battle, I’d better be prepared to defend myself. I’m not sure what it says about me, but I’m pretty sure I’d take a hit for the opportunity to arrest him.

“You fucking bitch. I’m sick and tired of your incompetence. First my daughter is killed because of you and now this. I swear to God, I’ll have your job for this.”

I try hard to let the words roll off me, especially the insinuation about my being responsible for the death of his daughter. But I don’t quite succeed. My heart is pounding; I can feel the pulse of it in my neck. Adrenaline jigs in my midsection, powerful enough to make my hands shake.

“You do what you have to do,” I tell him. “This isn’t going to go away.”

He strides to the door and opens it. “Get the fuck out of my house.”

I stand there for a moment, looking at him. “Watch yourself, Norm. I mean it.”

He snarls another expletive at me as I go through the door and step into the pouring rain.

CHAPTER 15

I’m nearly to the station when my phone erupts. I check the screen to see that I’ve received a text from the coroner: Michaels autopsy complete. Will be at my office until noon. Groaning inwardly, I make a U-turn and head back toward Pomerene Hospital.

No matter how many times I make this journey to the morgue, it never gets any easier. Dread is a dark and silent presence that steps onto the elevator and rides with me to the basement. The doors swish open to a tiled corridor. My boots echo as I pass a yellow and black biohazard sign and a plaque that reads: MORGUE AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL. At the end of the hallway, I push open dual swinging doors and traverse a second hall to the clerk’s desk, but Carmen is nowhere in sight. Early lunch, I think, and I’m reminded that I’ve yet to have coffee.

I go through a second set of swinging doors. The autopsy room is straight ahead. To my right is a small alcove, where the biohazard protection supplies are stored. I glance to my left and through the mini-blinds of his glassed-in office, I see Doc Coblentz sitting at his desk, eating a burger the size of a small tire.

I enter his office. “Sorry to interrupt,” I tell him, relieved he’s not eating in close proximity of a dead body.

“This is the only place I can enjoy red meat in peace.” He blots his mouth and rises. “My wife has me eating rabbit food. Beets and carrots.” He extends his hand and we shake.

“You work all night, Doc?”

He nods. “The dead are blissfully quiet.”

“Okay.” But I can’t help but grin. “You finished the Michaels autopsy?”

He sobers. “We just received Julia Rutledge.”

“Any idea when you might get to her?”

“As soon as I can.” Taking a final bite of the burger, he motions toward the alcove. “You know the drill.”

I go to the alcove, where his assistant has set out disposable shoe covers, a blue gown, hair cap, and latex gloves. Doc Coblentz is waiting when I emerge and, I find myself wondering how he does what he does. No matter how well prepared I think I am, I’m never ready to witness this cold and clinical side of death. While the blood and bodily fluids have been rinsed away, the incised skin hidden from view, there is no eradicating the hideousness. I can’t look at a body without thinking of the life that person lost or the loved ones he left behind.

Entering the autopsy room is like stepping into a cave where some grotesque beast stores its kills. Ensconced in gray ceramic tile, the room is maintained at a cool sixty-two degrees. But despite the state-of-the-art HVAC system, the smells of formalin and decaying flesh are ever-present reminders of why this place exists. It’s a large room, about twenty feet square. Stark fluorescent light pours down from several overhead lamps onto stainless steel counters. There are a dozen or so white plastic buckets. Gleaming instruments lie atop stainless steel trays, the uses of which I don’t want to ponder. Two deep sinks with arcing faucets are butted against the far wall, next to a scale used to weigh organs.

“What’s the cause of death?” I ask.

“Strangulation due to the compression of the carotid arteries causing global cerebral ischemia.”

I follow the doc to a gurney situated beneath a lamp that’s been pulled down close. A green sheet marred by several watery stains covers the body. I brace an instant before Doc Coblentz peels away the sheet.

I steel myself against the sight of the massive Y-incision cut into Dale Michaels’s torso. The flesh is blue gray with a sprinkling of silver hair on a chest that’s sunken and bony. A few inches above his navel, a neat red hole the size of my pinkie stands out in stark contrast against the pasty skin.

“So he was still alive when he was hanged from those rafters?” I ask.

“Correct. There was a good bit of bleeding from both gunshot wounds, which tells me the heart was still beating when he sustained them.”

“There were two gunshot wounds?”

“Sorry to do this to you, Chief, but you need to see this.” He draws the sheet down to mid-thigh, revealing more of Dale Michaels than I ever wanted to see. A shriveled penis and scrotum are nestled in silvery pubic hair. There’s a wound there, too, and I can barely force myself to look. My eyes skim over jutting hip bones and the tops of skinny thighs. But Michaels was not a thin man. The abdomen bulges and is slightly gelatinous with fat.

The urge to look away is powerful, but despite my aversion, I don’t.

“For simplicity’s sake, I’ll refer to them as Wound One and Wound Two.” Using a wooden, cotton-tipped swab, he indicates the hole near the navel. “On Wound One, we’ve got an entry wound here. The slug penetrated the stomach wall between the greater curvature and the pyloric canal and lodged near the spine.”

“Did it paralyze him?”

“Probably not, but the trauma so close to the spinal cord may have temporarily immobilized him.”

“Looks like a small caliber.” But I’m finding it increasingly difficult to focus on Dale Michaels’s brutalized body. “A .22 or maybe a .25.” I look over at him. “Is the slug intact?”

“I have one slug, which I’ve bagged for you. The other was a through and through.”