In the last forty years, for the three-county area, a total of fourteen males between the ages of sixteen and thirty-five went missing and are still unaccounted for. Any one of those missing men could be my unidentified decedent, so I narrow it down to Holmes County.

Pulling a yellow highlighter from my pencil drawer, I mark the six names. Twenty-two-year-old Mark Elliott vanished after a fight with his girlfriend five years ago. Thirty-five-year-old Raymond Stetmeyer disappeared on a fishing trip twelve years ago. In 1997, thirty-one-year-old Ricky Maitland told his wife he was going out for a drink at a local bar and never came home. In 1985, twenty-year-old Leroy Nolt left for work one morning and his parents never saw him again. Seventeen-year-old Benjamin Mullet, an Amish boy, disappeared during his Rumspringa in 1978. And Thomas Blaine, twenty-five-year-old father of two from Clark, went missing after a DUI arrest back in 1977. There’s no mention of any old injuries or broken bones in any of the cases.

Two of the names, Nolt and Stetmeyer, are familiar. Not because I remember either case, but because Painters Mill is a small town and I happen to know that the families still live in the area. I’m especially interested to find out if any of these missing were treated for a broken arm at some point before they disappeared. Of course, it’s too late to contact anyone tonight, so I opt to make the calls first thing in the morning.

The police station is hushed at this hour. The phones have quieted. Jodie has turned down her radio. There’s no traffic on Main Street outside my window. It’s so quiet, I can hear the whisper of wind against the eaves. The whir of my computer’s hard drive. I find myself wishing for the pandemonium I’m usually so quick to complain about. Tonight it’s almost too quiet. The kind of quiet that sets my mind to work on things I’ve been trying to avoid all day.

Murderer!

Baby killer!

On an intellectual level, I know the death of Paula Kester’s baby was not my fault. I did what any cop would do: I removed the child from a dangerous, life-threatening situation. Yes, I violated the golden rule about moving an injured patient. But I had seconds to make a decision, and I used my best judgment. If faced with the same situation again, I’d do exactly the same thing. Still, I can’t help but wonder if that baby would have lived had I not gone into that mobile home.…

I think about Tomasetti, waiting for me at the farm, and for the first time I question why I’m still here. Why I haven’t gone home to him. I’m avoiding him, I realize. Hiding from him. From a possibility I don’t want to face.

I missed my period last month. It should have happened about three weeks ago. I waited, unconcerned, certain my body would not betray me. I made excuses, blaming it on job-related stress, missed meals, too little sleep, even that head cold I had a few weeks ago. As soon as things settled down, I rationalized, it would come and everything would get back to normal. For three weeks now, I haven’t let myself think about it. The shrinks would probably call it denial—not an easy feat for a realist like me. But there are some things that are simply too frightening to confront, and, for me, this is one of them.