Damon had done what he could. He’d planted the seeds, gotten his hands as dirty as he dared. Still, he didn’t know how this was going to play out. If he’d been smarter, he would have cut ties with Colorosa a long time ago. He would have cut her off. Gotten her fired. Now, all he wanted was for her to be gone.
The one thing life had taught him was that while you couldn’t undo mistakes that had already been made, if you had the right tools, you could change history—and that was exactly what he’d done. Would it be enough?
At nine A.M. he left his wife in the kitchen and went to his small office off the foyer. He logged in to the Division of Police computer system and checked email. He brooded. He stewed. Most of all, he worried. He was in the process of finishing up a report for an upcoming court appearance when the call he’d been waiting for came in on his cell.
“You find her?” he asked without preamble.
“No, but I got a lead,” Ken Mercer said.
Rising from his desk chair, Bertrand crossed to the French doors that separated his office from the foyer and closed them. “For God’s sake, it had better be good,” he said, settling back behind his desk.
“There was a cop she used to be tight with, back when she was a rookie. They lived together for a while. You remember a young cop by the name of Kate Burkholder?”
“Vaguely. She was religious or something.”
“Yeah, the original odd couple, right? Burkholder left the department ten years ago. I started digging around and found out she took a job as chief in a small town about an hour and a half east of here.”
Bertrand thought of the last ping from Colorosa’s phone. At the time they hadn’t been able to figure out where she’d been headed. He sat up straighter. “A fucking chief of police?”
“I pulled up what I could find on Burkholder. She’s had a couple of high-profile cases in the last few years. That’s how I found her. She’s in Painters Mill, Damon. Holmes County.”
“I’ve been through there. A lot of Amish out that way.” He sighed unhappily. “That would explain that last ping on Colorosa’s cell.”
“Burkholder’s from that area.”
“What else do you know about her?”
Papers crinkled on the other end of the line. “It’s a small department. Podunk town. From what I can tell she’s kept her nose clean.”
“If she hung out with Colorosa for any length of time, she’s probably not that clean.” He rubbed the stubble on his chin, thinking. “Did Burkholder leave the department on good terms? Is there anything on her record we can use against her if we need some leverage?”
“I checked. Her record’s good.”
“Do you think Colorosa’s in Painters Mill?”
“I think it’s the best lead we’ve got.”
Bertrand let the news settle. A dozen scenarios played in his head. None of them ended well.
“This isn’t exactly good news,” he said.
“We’re going to have to deal with it. It’s all we’ve got.”
“We need to find out if she’s there.”
The two men went silent, the phone line whispering dark possibilities. “What kind of police chief takes in a fugitive and doesn’t notify the appropriate law enforcement agency?” Bertrand said.
“Good question.”
“That fucking Colorosa is spilling her guts.”
“The big question is whether Burkholder is listening.”
The loose ends that had tormented Bertrand most of the night unraveled a little more, sharp strands settling around his neck like a garrote. He looked around, felt the walls of his office closing in. “I never trusted that bitch. She wasn’t one of us. We never should have brought her in.”
“Hindsight,” Mercer mutters.
“A fucking chief of police.” Leaning forward, feeling as if he needed air and light, Bertrand opened the blinds, looked out at the snow beyond. “This is a worst-case scenario.”
“Look, if there’s a silver lining to any of this, it’s that Painters Mill isn’t exactly on the map. Small town usually means small-town mentality. I say we get a warrant and go pick her up. We’ve got enough dirt on her to put her away for a long time.”
Bertrand didn’t think it was going to be that simple. What had Colorosa told Burkholder? Who else had she talked to? What had she said? Had she named names?
Mercer wasn’t finished. “Look, Colorosa might be talking to some small-town police chief, but she has zero credibility, especially now that she’s been implicated in the murder of Eddie Cysco.”
Bertrand closed his eyes, wishing he’d handled the situation differently. Wishing he’d tied off that loose end the moment it frayed. “I’ll take care of the warrant.”
The beat of silence that followed told a dark and eloquent story. One he’d heard a hundred times in the last twenty years. One he didn’t want to partake in again. This time, he didn’t have a choice.
“Roads are open,” Mercer said. “For now. But we got weather on the way, buddy.”
“In that case, we’d better move,” Bertrand said. “I’ll pick you up downtown as soon as we can get out. Pack an overnight bag.”
CHAPTER 14
I graduated from the police academy and became a police officer when I was twenty-one years old. I’d been living in Columbus for three years, earned my GED, a criminal justice degree from the community college—and a whole new sense of my non-Amish self. For the first time in my life, I had accomplished something. I was going to actually be the person I wanted to be, and I charged into my new life with the gusto of a kid plunging off the high dive and wanting to do it again. I was free and I had been transformed. No longer was I the awkward and self-conscious Katie Burkholder. I had become Kate Burkholder, a woman with an important job and an exciting future.
I’d seen my family just once since leaving Painters Mill, and though my life was full and I’d made a slew of new friends, I was secretly lonely. I didn’t talk about it, didn’t tell a soul, in fact. But I missed my family with a desperation I’d never known. Though I was doing exactly what I wanted to do, fulfilling dreams that had seemed out of reach for so long, my parents and two siblings were still the center of my universe.
Some days I felt as if the world was spinning too fast, not always in the right direction, and no matter how hard I tried, I’d never be able to keep up. Late at night, when I was sleepless and reflective, the loneliness a bottomless ache, I acknowledged that I had failed my parents. I was afraid I’d never see my brother, Jacob, or my sister, Sarah, ever again. I’d committed a serious transgression in the eyes of the Lord, and there was no question in my mind He had abandoned me. While those dark moments were usually pretty short-lived, they were part of the Kate Burkholder I had become.
Because Gina and I were rookies with no seniority, we were assigned the graveyard shift, which runs from midnight to eight A.M. I worked in the Patrol North Subdivision, Zone 1, which basically covered the north part of the city. Gina was assigned the Patrol South Subdivision, Zone 5, which encompassed the central part of the city, including the downtown area. Graveyard shift was tough, not only because of the odd hours and resultant sleep deprivation, but because it was also a busy shift in terms of calls and incidents, especially after the drinking establishments close. While there were fewer people on the street overnight, the ones who were awake during those wee hours were oftentimes up to no good.