Linda Castillo - Sworn to Silence

“Glock just handed me a year’s worth of typing and these phones just won’t shut up.” Her sigh hisses through the line. “What’s up?”

“I need a central meeting room where I can meet with my officers while we’re working this case. I thought that file room next to my office might work. What do you think?”

“It’s cluttered and kinda small.” But I can tell by her tone she’s pleased to be in on the decision-making.

“Do you think you could get someone to help you clear it out and put that folding table and chairs in there?” When she hesitates, I add, “Call Pickles. Tell him he’s on active duty effective immediately. He can help you with that old file cabinet.”

Roland “Pickles” Shumaker is seventy-four years old and my only auxiliary officer. The town council tried to force me to fire him two years ago when he shot Mrs. Offenheimer’s prize bantam rooster after the thing attacked him. But Pickles has been a cop in Painters Mill for going on fifty years. Back in the eighties, he single-handedly busted one of the largest meth labs in the state. I couldn’t see ending his career over a dead chicken. So I asked him to accept auxiliary duty and, knowing the alternative, he agreed. He’s a grouchy old goat, smokes like a teenager on a binge, colors his hair a weird shade of brown, and lies incessantly about his age. But he’s a good cop. With a murder to solve and the clock ticking, I need him.

“Pickles’ll be glad to get the call, Chief. He still checks in every day. Been driving Clarice nuts since he got the axe. She don’t like him hanging around the house all day.”

“We’ll put him to good use.” I think of some of the things I need for the meeting room. “Order a dry-erase board, flip chart and corkboard, will you?”

“Anything else?”

I hear her phone ringing. “That’s it for now. I’ll be in to brief everyone in ten minutes. Hold down the fort, will you?”

“Kinda like trying to hold down a leaf in a tornado, but I’ll try.”

Next, I call Glock and ask him to run a background check on Connie Spencer. In typical Glock fashion, he’s already on it.

“She got a DUI in Westerville last year and an arrest for possession of a controlled substance, but no conviction.”

“What was the controlled substance?”

“Hydrocodone. Her mom’s. Judge let her off.”

“Keep digging, see what else you can find.” I tell him about Donny Beck and pass along the list of names Spencer gave me. “I want checks on all of them.”

“Logging in now.”

I disconnect and hit the speed dial for T.J. to see how he’s doing on the condom front. “How’s the search going?”

“I feel like a frickin’ pervert.” He sounds as if his day is shaping up like mine.

“You’re a cop with a badge working a murder case.”

Assuaged, he gets down to business. “The cash register at Super Value Grocery uses SKU numbers for inventory. Manager went through the tape. They sold two boxes of lubricated condoms on Friday. Another on Saturday.”

“Do they have the customers’ names?”

“One guy paid with cash. The other two with checks, so I have two names. I’m on my way to talk to one of them now.”

“Nice work.” I think about the guy who paid with cash. “Did any of the clerks recognize the cash guy?”

“Nope.”

“Does the store have security cameras?”

“Grocery has two cams. One above the office inside and one in the parking lot. The one inside isn’t positioned to capture customer faces, but the one in the parking lot is worth a shot.”

“Do we know when the cash guy bought the condoms?”

Paper rustles through the line. “Eight P.M. Friday.”

The timing is right; the murder happened Sunday. “Get the film. Let’s see if we can ID him.”

“You got it.”

“I’m on my way to the station. Can you swing by for a quick meeting?”

“I can be there in ten minutes.”

“See you then.” I hit End and toss the phone onto the passenger seat. The clock on my dash flicks to four P.M. The passage of time taunts me. Fourteen hours have passed since Amanda Horner’s body was found and I’m no closer to knowing who did it than I was at the start.

As I speed toward the station, I try not to think about my brother and our plans for tonight. I honestly don’t know whether to hope that we find a body buried in that old grain elevator. Or pray that we don’t.

CHAPTER 7

John Tomasetti knew he was in serious shit the instant he walked into Special Agent Supervisor Denny McNinch’s office and saw Deputy Superintendent Jason Rummel standing at the window. The last time he’d seen Rummel was when Field Agent Bryan Gant was shot and killed while executing a search warrant in Toledo six months ago. Word among the agents was that Rummel only ventured from his corner office for hirings, firings or deaths. John didn’t have to wonder which of the three had warranted this personal visit.

Seated at the conference table with her requisite Kasper suit and Starbucks mug, Human Resources Director Ruth Bogart paged through a brown expandable file. A file that was too thick from too many forms being shoved into it, and worn from too many bureaucratic fingers paging through. A file John was pretty sure had his name printed on the label.

He should have been worried for his job. At the very least he should have been concerned that he was about to lose his salary and health insurance. Not to mention bear witness to the end of a law enforcement career that had taken him twenty years to build.

The problem was, John didn’t give a damn. In fact, he didn’t give a good damn about a whole hell of a lot these days. Self-destructive, he knew; not a first for that, either. But at the moment all he felt was mild annoyance that he’d been pulled away from his cranberry muffin and dark roast.

“You wanted to see me?” he said to no one in particular.

“Have a seat.” Denny McNinch motioned toward one of four sleek leather chairs surrounding the table. He was a large man who wore his suits too tight and never removed his jacket, probably because his armpits were invariably wet with sweat. John wondered if he knew that the field agents and administrative assistants called him Swamp Ass behind his back.

Two years ago, when John had first come on board with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, Denny had been a field agent. He’d been a weight lifter and could run a five-minute mile with a fifty-pound pack strapped to his back. He’d been a decent marksman and a black belt in karate. Nobody fucked with Denny McNinch. Back in the day, he’d been a real ass-kicker. Then he’d begun the arduous climb up the political ladder. Somewhere along the way he’d become more figurehead than principal. He stopped shooting. Stopped running. Too much deskwork turned brawn to flab, respect from his peers to mild disdain. John didn’t have any sympathy; Denny had made his choices. There were worse fates for a man.

Rummel, on the other hand, was a paper-pusher from the word go. He was small in stature with a wiry build and a Hitleresque mustache that had made more than one field agent crack a smile at an inappropriate moment. But it was usually the last time they smiled at Jason Rummel. Rummel made up for his physical shortcomings by being a mean son of a bitch. A real corporate sociopath. The man with the hatchet. At fifty, he was at the top of the Bureau’s political food chain. He was a predator with big fangs and sharp claws and a proclivity for using both. He fucked up careers for the sheer entertainment value.

As John pulled out a chair, he figured he was about to be on the receiving end of those claws. “What’s the occasion?” he asked. “Someone’s birthday?”