“She wrote about it. In the diary.”

“Well, then you probably already know that one day when she was waiting for him, she carved their initials in a tree.”

I stare at him, aware that my pulse is spiking. Initials won’t solve the case, but they might help identify the boyfriend. “Do you know where the tree is? Near the water? The path? Parking area?”

He grimaces, shakes his head. “She didn’t say. Just a tree. That’s all I know.”

I stare at him a moment longer. I’m still not sure if I like him, but one thing that’s clear to me is that he loved his sister. “This would have been a lot easier if you’d just come clean from the start.”

He closes his eyes briefly and in that instant I know he blames himself, at least in part, for his sister’s death. Maybe for the deaths of his entire family.

“Nothing’s going to bring them back,” he says.

“No, but sometimes telling the truth helps you sleep at night.”

It’s been a long time since I’ve been to Miller’s Pond, and I always forget how pretty it is. The dam is on the east side. Below the dam, a greenbelt thick with trees runs along Painters Creek. To the west is a cornfield. On the north side, a hay field is hip high with alfalfa. To the south, the yellow-green carpet of a soybean field stretches as far as the eye can see.

The pond itself is a good-size body of water. People swim here in the summer. They ice-skate in winter. Lovers park here at night. Teenagers drink and smoke dope. The area is secluded with no official parking area. The only thing that keeps the place from getting crowded is that you have to walk half a mile down a wooded path to get to the water.

Ed Beachey’s place was on the way, so Tomasetti and I stopped by to ask him if Mary Plank had sought his help. The Amish man claimed she never contacted him. I believed him. I wanted to assure him his secret was safe with me, but I’ve learned the hard way not to make promises I might not be able to keep. Another dead end.

I told Tomasetti about my conversation with Aaron on the drive over. Neither of us is very optimistic about finding the tree with the initials. But with the case stalled and the clock ticking, he wasn’t opposed to a quick look-see.

“Pretty heavily wooded area.” He parks in front of the guardrail.

“I thought we could walk the path, see if anything pops out at us.” I slide out of the SUV. It’s so quiet I can hear the bees buzzing around the goldenrod and dandelions in the bar ditch.