The exit wound is jagged and large and is located just a few inches above the neck. The flesh has begun to deteriorate, the edges turning red-brown. I can see white chips of bone inside the wound. “The bullet shattered the C1 vertebra as it left the body.”

“Can you clarify that for me?”

“The trajectory is at a slightly downward angle. With a suicide, the trajectory is usually upward. The bullet would pass through either the parietal or occipital lobe and exit the rear of the skull. Autopsy will be more definitive, but I would say whoever shot this man was above him. This victim was probably kneeling, the shooter standing, therefore the bullet angled down, shattered the spinal cord at C1 and exited high on the neck.”

“I concur.” Doc Coblentz takes off his glasses. “Combined with the bruising on the wrists, we’re going to rule the manner of death a homicide.”

Though I had anticipated this, I’m still shocked by the images running through my mind. Amos Plank kneeling. A killer standing over him, holding a gun in the Amish man’s mouth. An execution-style murder is unfathomable. But for someone to be cold enough to look into another human being’s eyes and pull the trigger is pure, unadulterated evil.

CHAPTER 10

Dusk falls softly in October. The hard glare of the afternoon sun acquiesces to the cool hush of the night layer by layer. Darkness will not arrive peacefully tonight. Sitting at my computer in my cramped office at the station, I watch a bank of storm clouds to the west steal the final snatches of light from the horizon. Lightning flickers, outlining the silhouettes of massive thunder-heads. I feel a storm of a different nature roiling inside me.

The Plank family has been dead for about eighteen hours. I should be relieved Mary Plank’s autopsy uncovered evidence that could conceivably solve the case. Once DNA is extracted and CODIS comes back, we could have a name. I can’t quiet the nagging voice in my head telling me it’s not going to be that easy.

In order for CODIS to spit out a name, the perpetrator must already be in the system. He must have been arrested at some point in his lifetime. And the data must have been entered into the database, which doesn’t always happen. What if he’s got a previously clean record?

Of course the DNA and fibers will help me build a case, particularly if we make the arrest and it goes to trial. But if I’ve learned anything in my years of law enforcement, it’s that nothing ever gets handed to you. We’re a long way from making an arrest. I don’t even have a suspect yet. That salient responsibility falls heavy on my shoulders tonight.