In all those pages of teenaged angst, not once did she mention her lover’s name. Not once did she reveal the kind of car he drives, the name of the club they frequented, the location of the houses they visited, or what he does for a living. At this point, I’m not even sure he had anything do with the murders. But I’m suspicious as hell. If Mary Plank forewarned her lover of her father’s plan to go to the police, he had a big motive to do away with not only her, but her entire family.

I’m a firm believer that people are responsible for their actions. They are masters of their universe. There’s no doubt Mary used poor judgment. Her only saving grace is that she was a kid. Raised Amish, she lacked the skills to deal with the world into which she let herself get dragged.

I’m betting the man she fell for was quite a bit older, much more experienced, and knew exactly what he was doing: taking advantage of her innocence, her lack of sophistication, her naïveté. Not to mention her love for him. That alone makes him a bastard in my book. It makes me want to find him and tear him apart with my bare hands.

CHAPTER 12

The clip-clop of a hundred or more shod hooves fills the cold, late-morning air. Clouds of vapor spew from the flared nostrils of dozens of horses, frisky from the first cold front of the season.

I’ve spent the last two days in wait mode. Waiting is a big part of police work—the most difficult aspect as far as I’m concerned—and I’ll never be good at it. I’ve walked the crime scene a dozen times now, talked to the same neighbors and asked the same questions a hundred different ways. But I always get the same answers: No one saw anything. Frustration has been my constant companion. I haven’t slept much. Forget to eat half the time. And so I wait. For preliminary autopsy results. For various lab results. For fingerprints. For footwear imprint matching. Cartridge casings and bullet striation results. Hurry up and goddamn wait.

T.J. and I sit in my Explorer, the windows midway down, watching the somber procession. Black buggies, the sides of which are marked with chalk designating their order in the convoy, stretch as far as the eye can see. Some of the mourners come from as far away as Zanesville and Western Pennsylvania, and probably began their journey as early as two or three A.M.

Drizzle floats down from a glowering sky the color of charcoal. The smells of horses, wet grass and the tang of dry autumn leaves waft through the window. T.J. and I have been here since daybreak, when Bishop Troyer swung open the gate to the graabhof, or cemetery, and the gravediggers began their sad task.