Page 76 of Shamed

“He able to tell you anything?”

I shake my head. “I don’t think he’s going to be talking any time soon.”

We study the blood for a moment, our beams sweeping left and right, from puddle to puddle, trying to figure out exactly where the shooting took place.

“According to his wife,” I say, “the bishop was on his way home from the Helmuth place.” I set my beam on the ground, find a spot of blood that’s been run over by a buggy wheel. Glock drops a cone next to it.

“He would have been traveling north,” I tell him.

“That helps.” Setting his hands on his hips, Glock pauses, looks around, motions with his eyes to the woods where the trees are thick. “If I wanted to ambush someone and I thought they might be coming this way, I’d take cover in those trees over there.”

I follow his gaze to the place where I’d found him when I arrived. “He would have had decent cover.”

“And a clean shot,” he adds.

We traverse the ditch and reenter the woods. Though most of the trees have lost their leaves, the trunks are close together and the underbrush is thick, making it difficult to maneuver. The ground is spongy beneath my boots, layered with fallen leaves and rotting foliage. We reach a clearing and split up, moving slowly, our beams sweeping left and right as we make our way more deeply into the forest.

It’s so cold I can see my breaths puff out in front of me. I take my time, keeping my eyes on the ground, looking for the gleam of a cartridge or ground that’s been disturbed. I check the trees and brush I pass by for broken branches or threads from clothing. Any sign that someone has been here recently. My beam illuminates wet leaves, fallen branches, dozens of naked saplings. I don’t venture too far from the road. Chances are, whoever shot Bishop Troyer stood just inside the tree line or possibly a clearing. Well covered, but not seen …

“What did you leave for me, you son of a bitch?” I whisper.

I step over a rotting log, veer left toward the road. I notice something light-colored on the ground to my right. My beam illuminates a rock the size of a tire. I hear Glock moving through brush behind me, heading in the opposite direction. I keep going, seeking anything that looks out of place.

I’ve gone about twenty yards when a speck on the ground snags my attention. I stop, set my beam on it. A tiny white scrap of what looks like tissue paper or fabric is nestled beneath a bush. I go to it, kneel for a closer look, and my heart begins to pound.

The piece of paper is about the size of a dime. It’s actually gray in color. Darker and tattered around the edges. Burned, I realize. Wet from the drizzle. It’s the kind of thing most people wouldn’t notice. Not even a cop. Nothing more than a piece of litter. But I’ve seen these scraps of paper before. My datt was an avid hunter and put venison on our table twice a year. His rifle of choice was a muzzle-loader.

I hit my shoulder mike. “Glock, I got something.”

“On my way.”

I stand, shine my beam in a circle. I find a freshly broken branch on a sapling. A tuft of grass that’s been crushed beneath a shoe or boot. Six feet away, there’s a narrow patch of earth where rain has washed away most of the leaves. Sure enough, the faint mark of a shoe imprint with a waffled sole. It’s a partial, the rear half set in an inch or so of rotting leaves.

Brush rustles as Glock approaches. “Brass?”

“Partial shoe imprint.” I shift my beam to the scrap of paper.

“What the hell is that?” he asks. “Wrapper of some sort?”

“Wadding from a muzzle-loader,” I tell him.

He laughs. “Damn good find, Chief.”

We kneel for a closer look. “My dad had a muzzle-loader,” I tell him. “I saw plenty of those little scraps of paper when I was a kid. Or else I wouldn’t have recognized it.”

His eyes meet mine. “So our shooter is probably Amish.”

“We figured as much, but this is one more indication that we’re right.” I stand, look around, and sigh. “It isn’t much, but more than what we had.”

“I wonder if there’s any way we can use that wadding to ID the weapon,” he says.

“Firearms guy at BCI might know.”

He pulls an orange cone from his coat and sets it on the ground next to the scrap of paper. “Hopefully, it’ll help us stop this motherfucker.”

It’s ten P.M. and the Painters Mill Police Department bustles with frenetic activity. Everyone except Skid and my off-duty dispatcher is here, including Tomasetti, Sheriff Mike Rasmussen, and a trooper with the Ohio State Highway Patrol. The task force is meeting and I’m five minutes late, so I snag my legal pad off my desk and head that way.

“Any word on the bishop?” I call out as I pass the dispatch station.