“Norm,” I say gently. “I need you to come with me.”

“I can’t leave her like this. Look at her. He . . . gutted her. My little girl. How could someone do that? She was so beautiful.”

Tomasetti comes up beside me. I glance sideways at him. His jaw is clamped tight, the muscles working. “Mr. Johnston,” he says. “Go with Chief Burkholder. We’ll take good care of your daughter for you.”

“Can’t leave her like this.” He rocks back and forth. “Look at what he did to her.”

“She’s gone, sir.”

“Please don’t make me leave her.”

“You need to let us do our jobs. We’ve got to protect the scene.”

Norm looks at him, his face screwed up. “Why her?”

“I don’t know.” Tomasetti nudges me aside, and I let him. “But you can bet we’re going to get him.”

Taking the man’s arm, Tomasetti helps him to his feet. “Pull yourself together, Mr. Johnston. Go with Chief Burkholder. She’s got some questions for you.”

Johnston is like a zombie. I make eye contact with Tomasetti, but I can’t read his expression. I don’t know what to do with Norm. He’s in no condition to be questioned, and I’m not very good at comforting. But he needs a friend and there’s no one else to do it so I take his arm and lead him toward the dam. “Let’s walk.”

“Chief Burkholder!”

An odd sense of relief skitters through me when I see Nathan Detrick and Deputies Hunnaker and Barton come over the crest of the dam. As recently as yesterday, I would have resented his presence. Today, everything else is secondary to stopping this killer.

Detrick reaches us, his eyes flicking from me to the body of the victim. “Holy Mother,” he says in a guttural voice.

“I’ve got officers setting up a perimeter.” I hear my own words as if someone else is speaking them. “The killer may still be in the area. Probably on a snowmobile.”

Detrick speaks into his radio. “I want every man on a perimeter around Miller’s Pond. Rockridge Road. Folkerth Road. County Road Fourteen. Subject may be on a snowmobile.” Clipping the radio to his belt, he addresses his deputies. “Get this area cordoned off. Get some tape up.” He looks at me and shakes his head. “I got here as quick as I could.”

“I appreciate it. We’re stretched pretty tight.”

His gaze drifts to Johnston, and he raises his brows.

I lower my voice. “His daughter.”

“Aw, hell.” Detrick sets his hand on the man’s shoulder and squeezes. “I’m sorry as hell, Norm.” His eyes land on me. “I can take over here, if you want to get him home.”

“Thank you.” I touch Norm’s arm. “We could use a ride to the station.”

“No problem.” Putting his fingers to his mouth, Detrick whistles for one of his deputies.

I call Norm’s wife on the way to the police station and ask her to meet us there. My call frightens her, but I will not relay news of her daughter’s murder over the phone. I can only hope she doesn’t hear about it elsewhere before she arrives.