He’s right. It’s rare, but the Amish have killed before. In 1993, Edward Gingerich murdered and then eviscerated his young wife. It’s one of only a few documented cases on record.

“This doesn’t add up,” I say. “The level of violence. The handgun. The torture of the daughters. The speaker wire.”

“Hard to swallow when it’s the parent killing his kids.”

Glock is one of the best cops I’ve ever known. He has loads of common sense, good instincts, and enough experience under his belt to know appearances can be deceiving. He’s tough and loyal, sometimes to a fault. Last January, when we were investigating the Slaughterhouse Killer case, he risked his job to support me after I was fired by the town council. Above and beyond the obvious, one of the things I admire most about him is that he will give his honest opinion—even when he knows it’s not what I want to hear.

“Are you telling me you think someone else came in here, shot them, and then made it look as if the father did it?” he asks.

“Sounds like a crazy theory when you put it that way.”

Glock looks down at the body, but I feel the weight of his attention on me. “When I was a stationed in North Carolina, this crazy fucker cut up his kids and put them in a Crock-Pot with sweet potatoes. Later, when the shrink asked the guy why he did it, he told him he loved them too much to let them live.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

He shrugs. “That’s my point. You can’t make sense of something that doesn’t, no matter how hard you try.”

I know he’s right. Crimes like this baffle the mind. They break your heart. They’ll tear you up inside if you let them. One of the old timers I worked with as a rookie once told me it’s the cops who spend too much time trying to figure it out who end up going the way of Amos Plank.

“You don’t want to get inside a mind like that,” Glock says. “Talk about a scary fuckin’ place.”

The slamming of the kitchen door garners my attention. I look over to see the coroner, Dr. Ludwig Coblentz, standing in the kitchen, holding a suitcase-size medical bag. Wearing a cream-colored windbreaker over a flannel pajama top and tan Dockers, he looks like a cross between the Michelin Man and the Pillsbury Doughboy. But what he lacks in physical presence, he makes up for by being damn good at what he does. He’s one of five doctors in Painters Mill and has been acting coroner for nearly eight years.

“Tell me this isn’t as bad as what it sounded over the phone,” he says.

“It’s probably worse.” I meet him in the kitchen and we shake hands. “Thanks for getting here so quickly.”