Her Last Breath: A Kate Burkholder Novel

communiqué crackles over T.J.’s radio. The Borntrager farmhouse is in flames. I listen, horrified and outraged, on the verge of a panic I can barely contain. I wait, expecting the worse.
    I turn back to Mattie. I feel my eyes crawling over her, and I understand how a police officer could step over the line. “How could you do that to your own child?”
    She regards me with a cool resolve. “David saw us together. Michael and I. At the clinic. I told him it would be our little secret, but I knew eventually he’d tell someone. He was a stupid, stupid child.”
    “What in the name of God happened to you?” I ask.
    “You think you know what it’s like.” Her voice is so cold I feel the rise of gooseflesh on my arms. “Being Amish. Having three special-needs children. A weak, ignorant husband who was so afraid of God he could barely bring himself to touch me. They were a burden. They relied on me for everything. Everything. I was a slave to them. To the Amish and all of their self-righteous morals. I wanted more. I deserved more.”
    “You could have left.”
    “That’s so easy for you to say.” Venom leaches into her voice. “You got out. You found your life. I stayed and they were killing me. I hated them for it.”
    Sirens wail in the distance. Somewhere in the periphery of my consciousness I hear T.J. moving around. His boots grinding broken glass against the floor. The hiss and chatter of his radio.
    I glance over my shoulder to find him looking at me expectantly. I don’t know what he sees in my eyes, but I’m compelled to say, “I’m okay.”
    “I know you are,” he replies.
    He’s barely gotten the words out when a Holmes County Sheriff’s deputy’s voice comes over the radio to report that he’s found David Borntrager unharmed.
    Casting a final look at Mattie, I walk away.

 
    CHAPTER 25
    The next hours pass in a flurry of activity of which I don’t seem to be a part of because I’m not participating. I’m not in shock, but as I answer a barrage of questions from T.J. and two deputies from the Holmes County Sheriff’s department, I feel as if I’m operating from inside an airtight jar. I hear my voice, I see their responses, hear their words. But somehow we’re not quite connecting.
    Within minutes of T.J.’s initial call, Glock and a young social worker with Children Services were sent to the Borntrager farm. A second deputy was dispatched to the quarry where my vehicle sits in sixty feet of water. I’m standing on the sidewalk in front of the clinic with a blanket over my shoulders when Mattie is taken into custody. Time slows to a crawl when her eyes meet mine. I don’t know what she sees on my face, but she can’t seem to stop looking at me. I’d wanted a few minutes alone with her. I want to know how much she knew. When she knew it. I need to know if she’s as guilty as Armitage. But I let the moment pass and then she’s gone.
    I was given an obligatory physical exam by an EMT at the scene. I balked, of course, but because of my ordeal in the water, the injury to my hand, and the injection administered earlier by Armitage, I was taken by ambulance to the ER at Pomerene Hospital, where a young resident took two vials of blood, removed a four-inch sliver of wood from my hand, and spent an hour bandaging, prodding, and making jokes that weren’t quite funny. I appreciated the attempt at humor nonetheless.
    Sheriff Mike Rasmussen showed up shortly after my arrival and stuck by me like a two-year-old to his mommy. I don’t know if he was there in a law enforcement capacity or if he was there to support me. It didn’t matter; I was glad for the company. Once I was given a clean bill of health, he whisked me to his cruiser and did a decent job of making small talk during the drive to the Sheriff’s Department in Millersburg. Once there, I was given coffee, offered a cigarette—which I accepted despite the fact that the office is a smoke-free environment. I was taken into the largest and most comfortable interview room and spent the next hour going over every detail, from the moment I found the pin in the gravel behind the clinic to when T.J. arrived on scene. I answered every question posed, laughed when appropriate, and basically played the role to which I’d been cast. By the time we’re finished, I’m exhausted and numb and want badly to go home, shower, and fall into bed.
    I don’t know who called Tomasetti, but he’s waiting for me when I walk out of the