The elevator doors open to a reception area with pale yellow walls, a blue sofa and chair, and a couple of large areca palms. The coffee table holds a vase filled with silk peonies. A flat-screen television mounted on the wall is tuned to the Fox News Channel. As I take in the decor, I can’t help but think that someone tried a little too hard to make a dismal place seem normal.

A middle-aged woman in a fuchsia skirt and jacket sits behind a glossy oak desk with a headset on. She offers an appropriately somber smile. “Can I help you?”

Tomasetti steps ahead of us and shows his identification. “We’re here for a viewing.”

“We’re expecting you. I think they’re ready back there.” She eyes the two Amish men as she hands him a clipboard. “Just sign at the bottom.”

Tomasetti scribbles an illegible signature on the form and returns the clipboard to her.

She rounds her desk. “This way, please.”

With Tomasetti and I behind her and the two Amish men trailing, she takes us around the corner. We pass by a windowless gray door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Above the door, a sign printed in an Old English font reads MORTUI VIVIS PRAECIPIANT. It’s not the first time I’ve seen those words. I don’t read Latin, but I know the translation by heart: “Let the dead teach the living.”

The hall opens to a small, starkly furnished room painted an eye-pleasing beige. A sofa table holds a small lamp and a box of tissues. Above the table, a cheap southwestern print in an oak frame is hung a few inches too high. A ceiling-to-floor curtain drapes the fourth wall. Next to it, a small round speaker with a red button is set into a niche. Behind the curtain, I know, is the viewing window.

“I’ll let them know you’re here,” the woman tells us.

Bishop Hertzler and Levi King stand near the sofa table, looking out of place, not making eye contact with Tomasetti or me. Neither man acknowledges the curtain, as if pretending it isn’t there will make whatever’s on the other side disappear.

The urge to move, to pace the confines of the small space, is strong. I stand there waiting, impotent.

“Never doubt in the dark what God has shown you in the light,” the bishop says. “He will take care of His children.”

No one responds. No one knows what to say. Those of us in law enforcement know that sometimes God sits back and lets Fate have her way. We know sometimes God’s children die before their time.

Levi shoves his hands into his pockets and looks down at the floor. A few feet away, Tomasetti stands near the curtain, looking as if he might tear it aside himself if it doesn’t open soon.