I give him my cell phone number and disconnect. I wonder if the bishop will be able to shed any light on the Plank family. I wonder what he’ll have to say about Aaron Plank.

I’m ruminating the possibilities when my phone trills. I look at the LCD display to see that the main switchboard is buzzing me. Absently, I hit Speaker. “Yeah?”

“Chief, you’ve got a visitor.”

“Who is it?”

“Me.”

The voice goes through me like a blade. I look up to see John Tomasetti standing at my office door. I shouldn’t be surprised; I knew he was coming. A flurry of emotions whip through me anyway. Shock. Pleasure. Uncertainty. All of which are followed by a thrill that feels like a thousand volts of electricity. For a moment I’m dumbstruck and can’t think of anything to say. Then my brain is flooded with a jumble of words, none of which are appropriate.

I finally settle for, “What are you doing here?”

“I was in the neighborhood.”

I can’t tell if he’s serious, and a nervous laugh escapes me. “You live a hundred miles away. You can’t just be in the neighborhood.”

He has the poker face of a card shark. I’m adept at reading people, but not Tomasetti. It’s unsettling not knowing what he’s thinking. He stares at me, unblinking, his expression as inscrutable as stone. “I thought you might like some help with the case.”

Silence reigns for the span of a dozen heartbeats. Tomasetti looks away, shifts his weight from one foot to the other, and for a split second he looks as uncertain as I feel.

“In that case, have a seat.” I punctuate the words with a smile, then look down at my notes.

He takes the chair across from me. “So, what have you got?”

Relieved that we share the familiar ground of police work, I recap everything I know about the case.

“Do you think it’s possible this girl, Mary, embellished in the journal?” he asks.

“I don’t think so.” I fumble for the right words. “There was an earnestness to her writing. A naïveté that’s hard to fake.” I sigh. “She was in love with this guy.”

“So the lover is a suspect.”

“She was pregnant. A minor.”

“Could be a motive. Who else?”

“There’s Aaron Plank, but he’s not really a viable suspect at this point.” I glance at him over the top of my notes to find him staring at me intently. “That’s not to say he didn’t have issues with his parents. He was excommunicated when he was seventeen. That would have caused a lot of pain. Maybe even rage. Maybe he couldn’t let go.”

“Enough rage to shoot his brothers and torture his sisters?”

“That’s my stumbling block. I can’t see him doing that.”

“Okay, what else do you have?”