Chapter 20

CHAPTER 20

It's fully dark by the time I leave the center and start toward the Explorer. I'm lost in thought as I walk down the steps and start across the parking lot. Everything the director told me swirls in my head like some morose, Middle Ages–set movie as I open the driver's-side door and slide behind the wheel.

" Schwertler " translates loosely to "of the sword."

… wrote a manuscript called On the Sword …

… helped orchestrate a violent pogrom against Regensburg's Jews.

I think about the murder of Milan Swanz and struggle to find some parallel or connection, but it's like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. In the backwaters of my mind, my exchanges with Bertha Swanz float untethered.

Did he break your son's arm?

She closes her eyes, nods.

… had a knife on him and hacked off a piece of the bishop's beard…

"Swanz was violent," I mutter, my voice sounding like that of a stranger in the silence of the cab. "But he was also the victim."

You're blaming the victim, Kate, whispers the voice of reason.

"And now you're arguing with yourself." Sighing, I buckle up and pull out of the lot. A quick glance at the dash reminds me I should have been home by now. Tomasetti and I were supposed to have dinner together. A bottle of wine. Some conversation. I'm forty minutes late and half an hour from the farm. If I rush, I can still spend some time with him.

Driving slightly above the speed limit, I take Highway 77 north. Around me, the night is quiet. Not much traffic. The snow has stopped, but there's a rise of mist in the air. I think back to my conversation with Neufeld as I fly past Heini's Cheese Chalet and then the 77 Housewares home-goods store. I've just made the turn onto County Highway 207 when I hear something shift in the back seat. At first, I think my laptop case has slipped off the seat and onto the floor. I glance over my shoulder, sense movement directly behind me. Alarm jolts me.

"What—"

I'm reaching for my .38 when something loops over my head and is yanked against my throat. I raise my hand to protect my neck, but I'm not fast enough. The bind is drawn impossibly tight. I put one hand on the wheel. I grapple for my .38 with the other. My hand on the butt. Out of the holster. Finger inside the guard. I twist, try to put eyes on my attacker. A dark figure in the periphery of my vision. I try to speak, but I can't make a sound.

I fire blind. The explosion deafens, the concussion of it puffs against my face as it tears a hole in the roof. My attacker grasps my wrist, jerks it back. I get off another shot before he tears the gun from my grasp. I stomp the accelerator. The engine roars. I yank the wheel right. The front end drops. The headlights play crazily over tree trunks. The undercarriage scrapes the ground. The Explorer lurches forward, bounces violently. I see night sky. Headlights on the treetops. Blood hammering inside my head.

I see the massive trunk an instant before the Explorer slams into it. The seat belt digs into my pelvis. The airbag explodes, a giant boxing glove punching my face and chest. The figure is catapulted between the front seatbacks, hitting my right shoulder. I jab him with my elbow. Once. Twice. I draw back my left hand and punch blind. No good because my neck is bound to the headrest.

He hits my right cheek, but I can tell he's shaken from the impact. He scrambles from between the seats. Growling like a beast, he crawls across the passenger seat. I try to get a look, but I can barely turn my head and it's too dark to see. The passenger door flies open and he's out.

I fight away the deflated airbag and jam the fingertips of both hands between the bind and my throat. It's too tight.

Shit. Shit.

Blood pounds in my face. My mouth is open wide. My tongue sticking out. No air in my lungs. Brain going fuzzy.

"Last warning," comes a raspy male voice.

I glance left, see a figure standing outside. Somehow, the door is open. His torso visible, not his face. I don't know where my weapon is and for a terrifying instant, I envision it in his hand, a bullet slamming into my temple. I claw at the bind. Why isn't it loosening? My vision swims. Blood pounding in my head. Panic knocks hard at the door and involuntarily I try to raise my hips. Locked in by the seat belt, I kick mindlessly.

I reach for the Gerber folding knife. Fingers of my left hand digging deep into the skin of my throat.

Don't pass out. Don't pass out.

I unclip the knife. Thumb off the safety switch. Hit the release button with my thumb. The knife fires. My hand shakes as I bring it up. Set the blade against the bind. A belt, I think. Leather. And in that instant I'm damn glad I keep my tools sharp, because the bind falls away.

I collapse against the steering wheel, choking, and I let the blood come back to my head. For the span of several seconds I can't move. I sit there with my forehead against the wheel, drooling and wheezing and thanking God the son of a bitch didn't kill me.

When I'm able, I unbuckle my seat belt. I stumble out, go to my knees, spit what tastes like blood in the snow. Vaguely, I'm aware that the Explorer is nose down in the ditch. Trees on either side of the road.

I reach for my radio. "Ten-thirty-three." Officer in trouble. I rasp out my location. "Suspect at large."

Six minutes pass before I see the flash of emergency lights coming down the road. My vehicle is basically a crime scene now, so I touch as little as possible. Because my attacker is still at large, I do reach in and pull out my Maglite. A quick search reveals my .38 on the floor of the back seat area. I slip on my duty gloves and keep my weapon at my side while I wait.

Relief slips through me when Glock's cruiser slides to a stop behind my Explorer. His door swings open and he jogs to me, sidearm and Maglite at the ready, eyes on the woods all around.

"Chief!"

"I'm okay," I tell him.

"Suspect?"

"He's on foot."

"Armed?"

"I don't know."

His eyes widen as he takes in my appearance, but he doesn't say anything. Instead, he speaks into his radio, letting the dispatcher know that he's arrived on scene. That the suspect is at large and possibly armed. And that an ambulance is needed.

"Get the sheriff's department out here, too," he tells her.

For several minutes, we walk the scene, our Maglites illuminating the ground, flicking occasionally to the woods on either side of the road.

"Looks like he may have come this way."

I glance across the road to see Glock kneel, and I start toward him. Sure enough, midway between the Explorer and the woods, there's a print of a man's shoe in the snow.

"Nice impression," I say.

"Plaster guy's going to like it."

We look at each other and, despite the fact that I'm still shaken, we smile.

"What the hell happened?" he asks.

I lay out an abbreviated version. "There's no way I left the Explorer door unlocked."

Holding my gaze, he pulls out his cell, puts it on speaker. "Mona?"

"'Sup, dude."

"Cruise over to the Amish and Mennonite Heritage Center. Rope off the parking lot. No one in or out."

"You got it." A heavy pause and then, "The chief okay?"

"I'm fine," I cut in.

"Glad to hear it, Chief. On my way over there now."

Pomerene Hospital ER is quiet this evening. I'm a regular here, either for one of my officers who was injured on the job, for my own follies, or for some incident in which a citizen was hurt and I need to talk to them. I'm acquainted with most of the ER staff and have a friendly relationship with the staff and doctors. It's those little things that bolster you when your shirt is covered in an alarming amount of blood, you're good and shaken up and trying not to show it, and you have a professional image to uphold.

"Were you unconscious at any time during the incident, Chief Burkholder?"

I'm sitting on a gurney in a curtained area of the ER. The young medical practitioner is grilling me while pecking information into a handheld electronic device. I guess him to be just south of thirty, wearing his usual Peanuts scrubs, and not a facial wrinkle in sight.

"No," I tell him.

He looks at me over the tops of his glasses as if to make sure I'm telling the truth. "Well, the X-rays are all good," he says. "Looks like your nosebleed has stopped." His eyes flick down to my neck. "You've sustained a new contusion there on your throat. Bruises on top of the bruises from last night. All of it's going to bloom come morning."

"I've been wanting to wear that new turtleneck I bought a couple weeks ago," I say dryly.

Grinning, he shakes his head. "Tylenol this evening for pain, use an ice pack if you need it, and you're good to go."

I stick out my hand for a shake. "Thanks."

As he prepares to walk out the door, he turns and points at me, his expression turning serious. "Nothing personal, but I don't want to see you back here for a while."

"I'll do my best."

And then he's gone.

I'm trying to decide if I should put my coat on over the gown I'm wearing or slip back into my blood-spattered uniform shirt when the curtain is yanked open. I look up to see Tomasetti enter. He slows as his eyes sweep over me. I try not to squirm beneath the weight of his stare, and I resist the urge to raise my hand to cover my throat. I can tell by his expression that he's already seen the damage.

"Did they get him?" I ask.

"Dogs lost him in the woods," he tells me. "There were tracks. Looks like someone picked him up."

"So, there were two people involved." It's not a question.

"Evidently."

"Tomasetti, there's no way he had time to call someone. There's no way someone could have gotten there so fast. It had to have been planned."

Tomasetti's not listening. Shaking his head, he crosses to me, eyes on mine. Not quite angry, but unhappy with me nonetheless. "Kate, what the hell…"

"I'm okay."

"I can see that," he says dryly. His anger shows as he gets a better look at the bruises and the bloodstains on my trousers.

I hate it that I'm finding it difficult to hold his gaze. That I feel as if this were somehow my fault.

I try to steady my hands. I can't help thinking about how this scenario might've played out if I hadn't had that knife. Or if the son of a bitch who ambushed me had decided to use the .38 instead of running. That Tomasetti might have been making a trip to the basement instead of the ER.

"I'm sorry," I finally manage.

"I know you are." He practically snarls the words.

"I didn't—"

He cuts me off. "How many times am I going to walk into this ER and find you bloodied and beaten and cracking jokes like some twenty-year-old fucking rookie?"

Angry, I snap at him, "Cut it out."

I know he loves me and doesn't want to lose me to violence, the way he lost his family years before. But I feel the need to remind him that I had no choice in the matter. I was doing my job and sometimes that's the way it goes.

The silence that follows seems to cool the temperature a bit.

"Did you recognize him?" he asks.

"He was in the back seat, waiting for me. Once I realized he was there, things happened fast." I'm not sure what it means that both of us are more comfortable dealing with this in terms of our jobs rather than our roles as husband and wife. I think there might be a lesson in there.

"Any chance you got him when you fired your weapon?"

"He didn't react," I say. "I don't think so."

"Same guy from before?" he asks.

"I don't know," I say. "One thing I do know is that I did not leave the Explorer unlocked when I was inside the Heritage Center."

"I know you didn't."

It's not the response I expected. "You do?"

He nods. "Mona found what's called an ‘air wedge' in the parking lot."

"I have no clue what that is."

"An air wedge is a tool used by burglars to gain access to vehicles. It's basically a flat, heavy-duty balloon they stuff into the opening between the door and the frame. They pump up the balloon, which gives them enough space to use a reach tool to either unlock the door or roll down the window."

"Odd tool for your everyday average Joe to have in his back pocket."

"Either he's a thief or this was premeditated." He frowns at me. "Take me through it."

As I recount to him the moments in the Explorer, I can still feel the tremendous pressure of the belt at my throat, the blood to my head cut off. "When I hit the tree, the impact threw him between the seats and into the front."

I almost reach for my throat, think better of it, look down at my hands instead. "That's it."

"Did he say anything?"

"He said something like: ‘This is your last warning.'"

"Original." His expression is like ice. "He left you to asphyxiate."

I shudder. "I was able to get to my Gerber and I cut the damn belt."

"We found the belt," he says. "He'd buckled it. If you hadn't had that knife on you, you'd be dead."

He says the words with brutal honesty.

"Anything else?" he asks.

"I hit that tree pretty hard," I tell him. "He may be injured."

"Definitely did some damage to the Explorer." Eyes holding mine, he slides his cell phone from his pocket, thumbs something into it. "We'll check area hospitals and clinics just in case."

I look over at the tiny closet next to the bed where my coat and uniform shirt hang. I see Tomasetti looking, too, taking in the blood, and he shakes his head. "What the hell am I going to do with you?"

"You can start by taking me to the station. I can at least write up an incident report. Get myself a rental car—"

"Said the woman who doesn't know when to quit." He strides to the closet, pulls out my shirt and coat, and thrusts them at me. "The only place you're going is home."