Her Last Breath: A Kate Burkholder Novel

made by the hit-skip vehicle was found on this piece from the buggy. I sent it to the lab, but took a photo so everyone could take a look.” I pass out the photos.
    I give everyone a few minutes to scrutinize, then my eyes land on Mona. This is her first official briefing. She’s trying to hide her excitement, but she’s not doing a very good job of it. She’s been my dispatcher for about three years now. She attends college during the day and is close to earning a degree in criminal justice. Twice, she’s approached me about an officer position. Both times I hedged, attributing my inability to promote her to my limited budget. The truth of the matter is that, despite her enthusiasm, she’s not ready for police work. That doesn’t mean that at some point I won’t hire her; I think she’ll make a fine cop one day. But she’s not there yet.
    “Reports,” I say. “Mona, did you get anything off the hotline?”
    She takes a deep breath, like a kid about to take her first dive off the high board. “Hotline has been steady, but I’ve spent some time weeding out the crazy spaceship stuff.”
    Skid interjects with, “That fuckin’ Mueller.”
    Everyone laughs. Don Mueller has been calling in UFO sightings since he saw E.T. thirty years ago, at which point he became convinced extraterrestrials were out to kidnap him.
    Mona continues. “Mrs. Obermiller reported seeing a truck drive past her farm with its headlights off the evening of the incident. She couldn’t give the color or model of the truck. Didn’t get a plate number. Couldn’t give a description of the driver. But she said it was moving fast, and she thought that was odd.”
    Glock sits up straighter. “She lives about four miles down the road from that intersection, Chief.”
    I make eye contact with T.J. “Will you go talk to her before you go home?”
    “You bet.”
    “What else, Mona?”
    “Lots of people calling in wanting to know if Paul Borntrager and his kids were murdered. I guess word is getting around town. I’m telling them we’re still investigating.”
    “Good answer,” I tell her. “Stick with it. Anything else?”
    “That’s all I got, Chief.”
    “Nice job.” I don’t miss the grin that spreads across her face before I turn my attention to Pickles and Skid. “How’d the canvassing go?”
    Pickles clears wet cobwebs from his throat. “I hit the three farms off of CR 14. Amos Miller’s place. Roy Stutz’s farm. Don Jackson’s place. No one saw shit.”
    I look at Skid.
    “I hit the Schlabach place, the Hertzler’s farm, and that beat-up trailer home where Donnie Boyd lives.” He touches a button on his iPhone to check his notes. “Everyone seemed to like Paul Borntrager, and the wife, too. Everyone I talked to had nothing but good things to say about both of them.” He squints at the small display. “Schlabachs weren’t very forthcoming, Chief.”
    “Now there’s a surprise.” The Schlabachs are a conservative Amish family and have about eight kids. I ticketed Amos Schlabach a few weeks back for refusing to display a slow-moving vehicle sign on his buggy. He reminded me I would be spending all of eternity burning in hell for having left the fold. “Did you speak with Martha?”
    “Tried to.” Skid shakes his head. “She sent me packing.”
    “I’ll talk to them.” But I’m not too excited about the prospect of any helpful information. “Anything else?”
    “That’s it, Chief.”
    I motion toward Maloney. “Take it away, Frank.”
    He’s removed his jacket and wears a short-sleeved uniform shirt beneath. I suspect he’s trying to show off his biceps to Mona. That he doesn’t realize she’s more interested in his report than him makes me smile.
    It takes Maloney twenty minutes to take us through the reconstruction. I’m impressed. Despite the poor quality of his sketching, he presents a credible rendition of the incident. He’s good at what he does.
    “In my estimation,” he tells us, “the hit-skip broadsided that buggy at about 80 MPH.”
    Because of the extent of the damage to the buggy and the location of the victims, all of us had known the truck was traveling at a high rate of speed. But to see the information in black and white, to hear the words spoken aloud, conjures images that draw a collective gasp from everyone in the room, including me.
    Maloney continues. “There were no skid marks. So we’re either dealing with some kind of mechanical failure—brake failure, for