The Dead Will Tell by Linda Castillo Read Free Book Online Page A

third-shift dispatcher, Mona Kurtz, sitting cross-legged on the floor near her desk, several files spread out in front of her. She’s wearing her headset and tapping her foot against the floor to Florence and the Machine’s “Dog Days Are Over.” She looks up when I enter and grins sheepishly. “Hey, Chief.”
    “Morning.” I pull a stack of message slips from my slot.
    “You’re in early this morning.”
    “Murder makes for a busy day.” I glance through my messages. “Anything else come back on Dale Michaels?”
    “Guy didn’t even have a speeding ticket.” Rising, she reaches for a manila folder next to the switchboard and passes it to me. “I started a file, but there’s not much there.”
    “What about the Hochstetler file?”
    “Jodie couldn’t find it. She thinks it’s locked up in your office.”
    Tucking the file under my arm, I stop at the coffee station to fill my cup and then head to my office. I’m doing my utmost not to think about Tomasetti, but even with an unsolved homicide on my hands, I’m not doing a very good job of it.
    At my desk, I open the file and find Glock’s report along with a couple of dozen photos of the scene. I read the report twice and then take a few minutes to look at each photo. Of the body. The scene. And the mysterious Amish peg doll, including a shot of the name inscribed on the base. HOCHSTETLER . And I know this is one of those cases that won’t give up its secrets easily.
    I go to the file cabinet, kneel, and tug open the bottom drawer. At the rear, where several cold case files are collecting dust, I find the Hochstetler file and take it back to my desk. It’s a thick folder containing dozens of reports from several law enforcement agencies. The Holmes County Sheriff’s Department. The Ohio State Highway Patrol. The Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation. And, of course, the Painters Mill PD. Ronald Mackey had been chief back in 1979. Homicide investigative procedures have improved since, but he did a good job with documentation and included several dozen Polaroid photos of the victims—what was left of them—and the scene.
    I read the reports first. Forty-two-year-old Willis Hochstetler owned Hochstetler Amish Furniture, which he ran out of the home he shared with his wife, Wanetta, and five children. In the early morning hours of March 8, one or more individuals went into the home, probably looking for cash. In the course of the robbery, Willis Hochstetler sustained a fatal gunshot wound. At some point thereafter, the house caught fire—possibly from a lantern. Four of the children perished in the fire. According to the sole survivor, fourteen-year-old William, there were at least three men in the house, possibly more. They were armed with handguns and covered their faces so he was unable to identify them. When they left, they took his mother, thirty-four-year-old Wanetta, with them. The Amish woman was never seen or heard from again.
    According to the coroner’s report, the four children died of smoke inhalation. It was also determined that Willis Hochstetler died of the gunshot wound, which he sustained before the fire. I pick up the photos. They’re faded, but I can see enough to know there wasn’t much left of the house—or the victims. In the back of the file, Chief Mackey made a notation that William Hochstetler was taken in by an Amish couple and later adopted by Jonas and Martha Yoder, taking their name.
    Now, William and his wife, Hannah, own Yoder’s Pick-Your-Own Apple Farm. I’ve stopped by there a dozen times since I moved back to Painters Mill, to buy apples or cider or apple butter, all of which are delectable. It’s a good way for me, as chief, to keep a finger on the happenings within the Amish community.
    I close the Hochstetler file, and pull out the photos of the Amish peg doll. Why was the figurine left inside the mouth of the victim? Is there some connection between the two cases?
    I call out to Mona. “Did