A Dark Path #4
He shakes his head. “I plow, plant, or cut this field every spring and fall,” he says. “All I can tell you is that it wasn’t here in the spring.”
Tomasetti stands and I see him mentally tally the distance between the two farms. “Easy distance for a big dog to cover,” he says.
“Especially a hungry one,” I mutter.
The Amish man’s brows knit. “That dog’s a gluttonous thing. Never met a bone he didn’t like. I reckon he could have done it.”
“Let’s mark it,” I say. “Cover it. Have the forensic anthropologist process it when he arrives.” I get to my feet and look in the direction of the Chupp farm. “We need to figure out where these bones came from.”
Tomasetti nods. “Woods might be a good place to start. The bank along the creek.”
I’m still thinking about the deteriorated state of the boot when my cell phone chirps. I glance down to see HOLMES COUNTY SHERIFF pop up on the display. “Burkholder.”
“Kate, it’s Mike.”
Mike Rasmussen is the sheriff of Holmes County. I’ve known him since the first major case I worked as chief. He is not only a good sheriff, but a friend. “You heard about the remains?” I ask.
“Just saw it come over the wire,” he tells me. “Look, I don’t know if this is related, but I wanted to give you a heads-up on a case the sheriff’s office down in Morgan County is working on.”
Making eye contact with Tomasetti, I put the call on speaker. “What do you have?” I ask.
“Ten days ago, in McConnelsville, a deputy was called to the cemetery. Apparently, an unknown individual dug up one of the graves. Took most of the remains, including the skull.”
“Did they get the guy?” I ask.
“Still at large,” he says. “The police believe the theft occurred during the night. No one saw shit. They’re working on finding some CCTV, but they’re not too hopeful.”
“Did the thief steal anything besides the bones?” Tomasetti asks. “Jewelry? Anything like that?”
“Just the bones, but it gets even more interesting. There were multiple footprints at the scene. The sheriff believes more than one individual is involved. As if that’s not enough weirdness for you, the son of a bitch left some strange writings behind.”
“What kind of writing?” I ask.
“They called in an expert from Ohio State University and he told them they were satanic symbols.” Papers rattle on the other end. “The only symbol named here on the report is the Leviathan Cross, also known as Satan’s cross. There’s more, and they’ve got someone looking at it.”
“Do they have a theory as far as motive?” Tomasetti asks.
“I talked to the sheriff a couple days ago and he says it may be a satanic group or cult operating in the area and the bones may have been taken for some kind of ritual.”
Tomasetti has a pretty good poker face, but I don’t miss the flash of incredulity. “Any names to go with the theory?”
“They’re working on it.” Rasmussen sighs. “Look, I know McConnelsville is an hour and a half from Painters Mill, but in light of those bones I thought you should know.”
We chat for another minute or so and by the time I end the call, I’m more perplexed—and troubled—than when I picked up.
“Just when you thought things couldn’t get any weirder, they get weirder,” Tomasetti mutters.
“Cult’s an angle we hadn’t considered,” I say.
He nods, thoughtful. “Is there a cemetery in the area?”
“There are two in Painters Mill. The Amish cemetery. And Roselawn.” I think about that a moment. “The problem is neither cemetery is close enough for the dog to have picked up a bone.”
I dial the number for Dispatch.
“Any news on those bones, Chief?” Lois answers.
I recap my conversation with Sheriff Rasmussen. “Get someone out to both cemeteries here in Painters Mill. Tell them to check the graves, see if any of them have been disturbed.”
“You got it.”
Tomasetti and I cover the boot and bone with a tarp and mark it with an evidence cone. We spend twenty minutes walking the cornfield, looking for additional bones or clothing, but we find nothing.
We’re on our way back to the Explorer when I spot Barkman leading his team of horses out of the field. “Mr. Barkman? Do you know if there’s a cemetery in the area?” I ask. “Maybe a family plot? Or Amish?”
“The only graabhof I know of is in Painters Mill.” The Amish man starts to go back to the horses, but stops and turns back to me, his brows pulled together. “On second thought, I think there might be a graabhof out to the old Zook place.”
It takes me a moment to recall the property he’s referring to. I haven’t thought of it in years, probably because it can’t be seen from the road. “The one at the dead end?”
“That’s the one,” he says. “No one goes there anymore. Place has been deserted as long as I can remember.”
A few minutes later, Tomasetti and I are back in the Explorer. “If memory serves me,” I tell him, “there’s a gravel lane just off the dead end. Even when I was a kid, the fields were so overgrown you could barely see the house.”
“Worth checking out if there’s a cemetery on the premises.” From his place on the passenger seat, Tomasetti taps the screen on his phone. “The Holmes County Historical Society says the house was built by Sylvanus Zook in 1866. It’s one of the first Amish settlements in Holmes County.”
I make the turn onto Wolf Creek Pike and head toward the dead end. “Hate to see that kind of history forgotten.”
“Maybe it’s not as forgotten as we think.” He looks down at his cell. “According to the Holmes County Auditor, the current titleholder is Naomi Zook. She lives in Millersburg.”
Using my Bluetooth, I hit the speed dial for the station.
“Hey, Chief,” comes Lois’s voice.
I recite the address of the Zook farm. “Tomasetti and I are on our way there now. Can you contact the owner and have her call me? Let her know we’re going to take a quick look around?”
“Sure thing.”
I’ve just ended the call when we reach the dead end. I stop the Explorer and find myself facing an impenetrable wall of trees, sentinels keeping outsiders from trespassing.
“Used to be a lane and mailbox here,” I mutter.
Tomasetti looks down at his phone, zooms in the map. “Might be another entrance at the back of the property.”
I’m looking for a place to turn around when he gestures toward a spot in the trees. “Might be the mailbox there.”
Leaning closer to the windshield, I squint. Sure enough, a few feet into the trees, a broken post protrudes from the ground at a forty-five-degree angle. Next to it, a battered piece of metal lies beneath a tangle of brush.
He motions. “Gotta be the driveway there.”
“You mean that faint path that’s overrun with saplings and brush and puddles the size of Lake Erie?”
He slants me a look. “I’ve heard you’re tough on official vehicles.”
I sigh. “Just … don’t tell the mayor.”
“My lips are sealed.”
Putting the Explorer in four-wheel drive, I ease the vehicle forward.
The bumper moves easily over the saplings, slapping them to the ground, crushing branches and brush.
Pulling into the badly overgrown driveway is like entering a cave.
Branches claw at the windshield and doors, emitting fingernail-against-slate squeaks that make me shudder to think of what’s happening to the paint.
“Unless there’s another entrance, no one’s been here in a long time,” Tomasetti points out.
“Hopefully, that includes grave robbers,” I say.
The left front tire drops into a pothole, jerking us sideways, and then lurches out. Another fifty yards and the trees on both sides thin.
I creep forward another hundred yards, and the roof of a house looms ahead.
It’s metal, steeply pitched and gone to rust. Three brick chimneys jut high into the air.
I negotiate a final turn, and the facade of a frame house materializes.
Tall, narrow windows stare back at us like malevolent eyes.
The siding is faded to gray and etched with climbing vines that reach nearly to the roof.
A wraparound porch with a rail missing many of its slats. Beautiful and yet somehow plain.
“Nice-looking old farmhouse,” Tomasetti comments.
“When I was a kid, everyone said this place was haunted.” I park a few yards from the house, kill the engine, and look around.
“You don’t believe in all that ghost stuff, though, do you?” he asks.
“Let’s just say I like to keep an open mind.”
He arches a brow.
Grinning because he isn’t sure if I’m kidding, I swing open my door. A cacophony of birdsong echoes among the treetops when we get out. The air seems cooler here, and rife with the smells of rotting leaves, wet earth, and growing things.
“Someone’s been here.”
I follow Tomasetti’s point. Sure enough, tire ruts mar the grass. “Looks recent.”
“Gotta be a back entrance.”
“What the hell is someone doing back here?”
“Hopefully, it doesn’t have anything to do with those bones.”
“Or ghosts.”
We wade through knee-high grass and take crumbling steps to the porch. I can’t help but notice that despite the ramshackle condition of the house, it teems with the character of a bygone era.
We spot the two sawhorses on the porch at the same time. Tomasetti shrugs. “Our mystery visitor has been busy.”
Farther away, a scaffold is parked to one side. Two five-gallon buckets of paint are lined up next to the window.
“Interesting that someone’s renovating the place,” I say.
“Anyone living here?” Tomasetti asks.
“Only one way to find out.”
I cross to the door. Even as I knock, I admire the solid walnut, the transom window above. When no one answers, I use the heel of my hand and try again. “Police department!” I call out. “Is anyone there?”
“No furniture inside.” A few feet away, Tomasetti cups his hands and peers through a window. “More construction equipment in the kitchen.”
“Let’s take a look in the back to see if we can find the cemetery.”
In unison, we descend the steps and trudge through knee-high weeds to the side of the house. Twenty yards ahead, an old German bank barn rises out of the jungle like a granite cliff.
“They don’t make them like that anymore,” Tomasetti says as we go around it and head toward the back.