Linda Castillo - Pray for Silence

“The Krause brothers.” Pickles gives a nod. “They’re cooking shit out at their old man’s farm. House is derelict, so they moved a trailer home out there. Lights are burning in those barns half the damn night.”

“Where’s the old man?”

“Sent him to an old folks home down in Millersburg.”

“Huh.” I think about that a moment, tap my pad with my thumb. “These names are a starting point. Let’s go knock on some doors. Feel them out.”

Glock sits up in his chair. “You want me to go with you?”

I shake my head. “I’ll take Pickles.”

The former Marine looks alarmed. “Those Krause boys’ve got guns out there, Chief.”

I don’t have anything against guns in general. I have faith in our constitution, and I believe a law-abiding citizen has the right to keep and bear arms. If I hadn’t had access to a weapon seventeen years ago, I wouldn’t be here today. Still, as a cop, I know that in the wrong hands a gun can become an instrument of death in a split second. “We’re just going to rattle some cages,” I say. “See what runs out.”

“Chief, with all due respect . . .”

Pickles bristles at Glock’s concern. “We can handle it.”

I cut in before the situation escalates. “Pickles and I will take care.”

He nods, but doesn’t look happy about us going out alone.

I look at T.J. “I want you to canvass the area around the Plank farm.” Gaining useful information via canvassing is a long shot since many of the Amish farms in the area are more than a mile apart. Many will not speak openly to the English police. But with nothing to go on and the clock ticking, it’s worth the time and effort. “Ask about the family. Friends. Relatives. And see if anyone saw any strange vehicles or buggies in the area. Find out which homeowners keep firearms and what kind. Make a list.”

“You got it.”

Skid gives me a puzzled look. “What about me?”

“If I were you, I’d go home and get some sleep,” I tell him. “We’ve got a long stretch ahead and it might be a while before you get another chance.”

CHAPTER 8

Pickles and I hit the Krause place first. The farm sits on a dirt road four miles north of town. A decade earlier, Dirk Krause farmed soybeans, corn and tobacco. But as he got up in years and his capacity for physical labor dwindled, the farm fell to ruin. Instead of taking over the operation, his twin sons, Derek and Drew, let the fields go to shit. They sold the International Harvester tractor—for drug money more than likely—and leased the land to a neighbor. Talk around town is that the two sons, in their twenties now, work just enough to eke by. The brunt of their income is derived from selling crystal meth.

“You really think these losers had something to do with murdering that family?” Pickles asks as I turn the Explorer into the long gravel lane and start toward the house.

“Since we don’t have squat as far as suspects, I thought talking to them might be a good starting point.”

I park behind a rusty manure spreader surrounded by waist-high yellow grass. To my left, an ancient barn with weathered wood siding and a hail-damaged tin roof leans at a precarious angle. To my right, the house squats on a crumbling foundation like an old man in the throes of a cancerous death. Every window on the north side is broken. The back porch door dangles by a single hinge.

“Good to see they’re keeping up the place.” I slide out of the Explorer. The buzz of cicadas is deafening in the silence of the old farm.

“Place used to be nice,” Pickles grumbles as he gets out. “Looks like a goddamn junkyard now.”

“Except for that.” I point.

In stark contrast, a brand new fourteen-by-sixty trailer home with a satellite dish and living room extension perches on an old concrete foundation. A bright red barbecue grill lies on its side outside the front door, ashes and chunks of charcoal spilling onto the grass. A few feet away, four metal chairs and a brand-new cooler form a semicircle. A white Ford F-150 gleams beneath the carport. I think of a pistol in the hands of a paranoid meth freak and find myself hoping neither man is crazy enough to shoot at a cop.

“Looks like someone’s home,” Pickles says.

“Let’s do some rattling.” I start for the trailer.

I’ve had a couple of run-ins with the Krause brothers in the three years I’ve been chief. I arrested Derek twice, once on a drunk and disorderly charge after a fight broke out at the Brass Rail Saloon. He got off with a fine and probation. The second time, however, he did time for assaulting a nineteen-year-old woman, beating her so severely she had to be hospitalized. I witnessed some of the assault and happily testified against him. I’ve kept my doors locked and my sidearm handy since he was released last spring.

I’ve never arrested Drew, but I know him by reputation. I pulled his sheet before leaving the station. He did time at Mansfield for possession of meth with intent to sell. No arrests since, but as far as I know he’s just been lucky. I’m pretty sure both men are in the drug business up to their hairy armpits.

The curtains at the window move as I climb the steel stairs. Standing to one side—in case whoever’s inside thinks I’m a space alien and decides to shoot me through the door—I knock on the storm door. My right hand rests on the .38 in my holster. I’m aware of Pickles behind me, his breathing slightly elevated. I can feel the adrenaline coming off both of us.

The door swings open, and I find myself looking at a chest the size of an SUV, DD cups and enough hair to make a fucking coat. I have to look up to meet his gaze.

“Derek Krause?” I recognize him, but I ask anyway.

“Who wants to know?”

His eyes are frighteningly bloodshot. His breath smells like week-old road-kill. The body odor that wafts up from beneath his armpits is strong enough to make my eyes water. “The police.” I show him my badge.

“Oh, it’s you.” He looks past me at Pickles and smirks. “What’d you do? Raid the fuckin’ old folks home?”

Pickles offers a harsh laugh. I don’t take my eyes off of Krause. “I need to ask you some questions.”

He looks down at me as if considering ramming his fist through my skull.

“Step outside,” I say.

“You got some kind of warrant?”

“We just want to ask—”

“Then I ain’t steppin’ nowhere.”

My teeth grind. Behind me, Pickles swears. I raise my hand slightly to silence him. “We just want to talk to you.”

Derek tries to close the door. I ram my boot into the space. “Get out here and talk to us, or I’m going to come back with a warrant and tear this place apart.”

“I didn’t do nothin’.”

“Nobody said you did.”

He shoves open the door. I step back just in time to avoid getting hit in the face with it. “Down there.” I point to the base of the trailer steps.

Sighing, he shoves past me. I glance at Pickles. He points covertly at his gun and raises his brows. You want me to shoot him? That makes me smile.

“What do you guys want with me?” Krause asks, shuffling down the steps.

I follow, hoping he’s not in the mood to fight because he’s huge. Two-fifty. Six-four. The last kind of guy I want to get into a scuffle with. “Where were you last night?” I begin.

“Here.”

“Can anyone collaborate that?”

“My dog.”

“Someone who can talk?” Pickles spits out his toothpick.

Derek sneers at him. “No.”

I motion toward his vehicle. “Nice truck. Yours?”

He turns his attention to me. “It gets me around.”

“Where do you work?”

“Farnhall.”

Farnhall is a manufacturing firm in Millersburg that makes oil filters. “What do you do there?”