For a moment, the only sound comes from the blast of the generator on the back porch and the chorus of crickets all around us. Then Zimmerman whispers, “Are Bonnie and the other children all right?”

I shake my head. “They’re gone, too.”

“Mein Gott.” Bowing his head, he sets his fingertips against his forehead and rubs so hard the skin turns white. “Who would commit this terrible sin?”

“I don’t know.”

“I do not understand God’s will,” Reuben says.

I don’t think murder is what God had in mind for the Plank family, but since my views aren’t popular among my former brethren, I remain silent. “I’m going to have one of my officers drive you to the station so we can take your fingerprints. Can you do that for me?”

“But what about the cows?” he asks. “They must be milked.”

Dealing with cattle is the least of my worries this morning. But having grown up on a farm much like this one, I know the animals must be dealt with. “I’ll have Bishop Troyer send some men over as soon as possible. They’ll take care of the milking.”

He nods. “It is the right thing to do.”

It’s no small sacrifice for Zimmerman to ride in an English police car; it’s against the Ordnung, the rules set forth by the local church district, but he nods. “I will help any way I can.”

I close the car door and cross to my Explorer. Opening the rear hatch, I pull out my crime scene kit. It’s not very high tech. Just a box of latex gloves, disposable shoe covers, a sketch pad and notebook, a stack of miniature fluorescent orange cones used for marking evidence, a roll of crime scene tape, a couple of inexpensive field test kits, and the new digital camera I recently had approved for purchase by the town council.

I find Glock on the back porch, marking the bloody handprint for the CSU, a work light in his hand. “Zimmerman any help?” he asks over the drone of the generator.

I shake my head. “He didn’t see anything.”

“You believe him?”

“For now.”

We enter the kitchen. After being outside in the fresh air, the reek of death is suffocating. Setting the kit on the table, I remove a small tube of Vicks and dab it beneath my nose.

I offer it to Glock, but he refuses with his usual, “Can’t stand the smell.”

It’s an ongoing joke that usually garners a laugh. We don’t laugh this time around.