Her Last Breath: A Kate Burkholder Novel

ringing nonstop all morning, and now we’re too tired to talk to each other.
    “Katie.”
    I look up to see Luke holding a two-foot length of wood that’s jagged on one end. It’s painted black on one side, naked on the flip side. “I think I found something.”
    The Amish man brings the wood over to us. “This piece of wood is from the door on the right side of the buggy. The leading edge or forepart.”
    Maloney, Rasmussen, and I form a circle around him and study the scrap of wood.
    “My datt made this buggy,” Luke tells us. “Probably ten or twelve years ago. Back then, we used more wood than fiberglass. Oak, I think. These are his initials, burned into the wood here. See?” Smiling, he runs a calloused fingertip over small, black letters: JM . “John Miller. He liked working with the hardwoods. Walnut, too.” Sobering, he indicates an irregularity in the surface. “The wood is soft enough so that if something strikes it with force, it leaves an impression.”
    The mark looks like someone took a hammer and struck a single hard blow against the wood. Only this was no hammer and I realize we’re getting our first glimpse of something from the vehicle that killed Paul Borntrager and his children.
    In tandem, Rasmussen, Maloney, and I lean forward for a closer look. I pull my mini Maglite from my belt and set the beam on the impression. Beneath the light, I discern that it’s hexagonal in shape.
    “That looks like a bolt head,” Rasmussen says.
    Maloney nods. “A big one.”
    I look at the two men. “On the front end of a Ford truck?”
    Rasmussen shrugs. “Maybe the driver had something bolted on.”
    “Brush guard?” Maloney asks.
    I glance at Luke. “Do you have any idea what might have made that dent?”
    Luke turns the wood over in his hands, runs his fingers over the impression. “I agree that it looks like a bolt. No way to know what it attached.”
    Rasmussen eases the board from Luke’s hands. “I’ll run this out to the body shop, see if they can help us out.”
    “Luke,” I begin, “if the buggy were still intact and standing, how high off the ground would this piece be?”
    The Amish man’s brows knit. “I would have to take a tape measure to it to be exact. Guessing, I would say thirty-six or thirty-eight inches.”
    I look at Rasmussen. “That’s about the right height for a bumper.”
    The sheriff frowns. “So we may be looking at a Ford truck with a brush guard or some type of after-market bumper.”
    My phone chooses that moment to vibrate against my hip. Turning away, I snatch it up and answer with a brusque, “Burkholder.”
    “Chief, I just took a call on the hotline I thought you ought to know about.”
    It’s Lois Monroe, my first shift dispatcher, and she’s talking so fast I can barely understand her. “Slow down.”
    “The owner of a body shop in Wooster remembers a guy bringing in a truck to have the front end reinforced. He didn’t think anything about it until he heard about the hit-and-run on the news this morning.”
    “What kind of truck?”
    Paper crinkles on the other end. “Ford F-250.”
    My interest surges. “Which body shop?”
    “Voss Brothers.” She rattles off the phone number and address. “Guy’s name is Bob Voss.”
    I thank her and disconnect to find Rasmussen looking at me intently. “You up to a trip to Wooster?” I ask.
    “Tell me you just got a break,” he mutters.
    Quickly, I recap my conversation with Lois. “Could turn out to be nothing. Some guy who plays demolition derby on the weekend.”
    “Or if you’re a glass-half-full kind of guy like me, it could be our first break.”
    Rasmussen, the eternal optimist.

 
    CHAPTER 7
    The abandoned grain elevator sat at the edge of the woods like a ghost ship listing on a dark sea. The massive structure was slowly being devoured by a forest determined to reclaim its rightful domain. Trees embraced the backside, vines reaching into the broken windows and wrapping their spindly arms around the wood and concrete exterior, as if trying to pull the structure more deeply into the woods to consume it.
    Jack Mott and his best friend, Leon, turned twelve last month, and they’d been coming here all summer. It was the perfect place to explore and play army. Once, Leon had brought his BB gun and they’d played cowboys and Indians. Leon had shot a bat that had been hanging from one of the rafters. It plopped down at their feet, a bloody hole in its side, dead as road kill. Jack