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It’s never wise to make assumptions when you’re a cop, especially when you’ve just arrived at a potential crime scene in which a dozen scenarios could have played out. Situations aren’t always as they appear. Freak accidents happen more often than we think.
DB?” “I need you to run Aden Karn
“I hear your Rolodex is in grave danger,” I say by way of greeting. Doc Coblentz is wearing his usual white lab coat over blue scrubs. Tie-dyed graphic Crocs stick out from beneath his desk. He looks past me as if expecting the threat to be standing there in all of her pin-striped glory. “She’s been after it for a year now. I’ve got twenty years of contacts in that thing.”
When I reach the gurney, he gives me a sagacious look. “Remember, Kate, everything we discuss prior to autopsy is preliminary. But I felt what I’m about to show you may be important in terms of your investigation.” “I appreciate it,” I hear myself say, and I’m surprised because my voice sounds perfectly normal.
Glock’s words ring hard in my ears … went crossbow hunting a few years ago with a friend of mine. He got a buck. When he retrieved his bolt, he didn’t pull it out. He pushed it through. And it took some doing. I stare at Doc, and I grapple to find my voice. “How can you tell?”
I almost can’t get my head around the brutality of such an act. It was a close-range killing done with cold deliberation. “Whether it was personal or random,” I say, “whoever did this was intent on killing his victim.”
“Whoever did this took his time,” he tells me. “He stayed calm. Had the wherewithal and physical strength to push those bolts through a human body. With that second shot, he made damn sure that when he walked away, Aden Karn would be dead.”
It was an up-close-and-personal execution. Cold-blooded and violent. What kind of person commits such a heinous act and why? Someone intent on killing. A psychopath. A sadist. All of the above …
Paige didn’t have much. I open the final drawer. A small candle in a glass votive, its center burned down to nothing. Like the girl, I think, and I curb a wave of what I can only describe as sadness. It’s a terrible parallel to the life of the young woman who died long before her time.
‘When a man loses his faith, he loses a piece of his humanity.’” “Smart guy.” I nod. “Keeping that part of yourself intact takes a lot of effort when you see the things we do, but we can’t ever give up hope, especially when our grip is precarious.”
“When you’re Amish,” I say, “and you screw up or commit some perceived sin, it isn’t arrest you have to worry about, it’s God and your community. If you stand before the congregation and confess your sin, you are forgiven.”
A cop should never blame the victim for any crime committed against them. It’s wrong on every level, professionally unethical, and personally corrupt. That said, an investigator must have the temerity to take a hard look at a victim who participated in high-risk behaviors or lived a reckless lifestyle, because those two things can raise the odds of someone becoming the victim of a crime.
I sigh. “I’m not going to have a black eye for our wedding, am I?” “Maybe.” A smile touches his mouth. “But you look good in blue.”
