Page 50 of Breaking Silence

CHAPTER 10

An outdoor scene that’s been trampled and is spread over a large area is extremely difficult to process. Tomasetti called his office and requested a CSU, but none of us are too optimistic they’ll glean anything useful. Sheriff Rasmussen arrived a short while after the ambulance left. We’re basically standing around doing nothing, so I call Glock and send him and Pickles out to canvass the area farms, in the hope that one of the neighbors saw something. But with the area being heavily wooded and the houses more than a mile apart, the prospect of a witness is not very promising.

It’s nearly noon when my cell phone chirps. Pickles says, “Chief, Glock and I are out here at Dickey Allen’s place. We were asking him about the buggy incident, and we got to talking about the Slabaughs. He told us Solly Slabaugh used to hire a guy by the name of Ricky Coulter to do odd jobs around the farm. I ain’t run him through LEADS yet, but if I recall, he’s had some problems with the law.”

That’s the way cases usually go. You get a break from some unlikely source when you’re least expecting it. It’s kind of like falling in love, without all the insanity. “I’ll go talk to him.” I pull out my keys, make eye contact with Tomasetti, and motion toward my vehicle. “Any of the neighbors see anything?” I ask Pickles.

“Not a damn thing.”

“Keep at it.”

I ring off, clip my phone onto my belt. I’m walking fast, energized by the possibility of a break in the case. Tomasetti falls in beside me. “You get something?”

“The name of a guy who did some work for Slabaugh.”

“Sounds promising.”

“A break would be nice.”

We reach the Explorer. “What about your vehicle?” I ask.

“I’ll pick it up after we talk to Coulter.”

“Fair enough.” We climb inside and I pull onto Township Road.

“Wouldn’t be the first time some lowlife killed the guy who signed his paycheck,” Tomasetti says.

“Who says crime doesn’t pay?”

* * *

I call Lois for Coulter’s most current address as I head toward the highway. She punches his name into LEADS and discovers he did time at the Mansfield Correctional Institution for burglarizing his place of employment, a tire shop, where he stole some tools and two hundred dollars in petty cash.

“Raiding the till to triple murder is one hell of a leap,” Tomasetti comments.

“Yeah, but not implausible.”

“What’s your theory?”

“Maybe Coulter planned to rob Slabaugh. Maybe he wasn’t expecting the brother to be there. Abel was visiting, remember? Anyway, let’s say Coulter showed up. The three men had a confrontation. Things got physical. Coulter pushed them into the pit, then panicked and ran.”

Tomasetti takes over. “Rachael Slabaugh shows up. Tries to save her husband, but the methane gets to her and she falls into the pit.”

“What about the missing cash in the mason jar?” I ask.

“Maybe he hit the house on the way out, once everyone was in the barn.”

“Pretty cold-blooded.”

“Yeah.”

We look at each other, our minds churning. It’s a good supposition. But is it right?

Coulter lives in a small frame house a block from the railroad tracks and grain elevator. The dank, salty smell of the nearby slaughterhouse wafts into the Explorer as I pull up to the curb. An old Ford Thunderbird with wide tires, aluminum wheels, and oxidized black paint sits in the driveway, a tribute to the muscle cars of the 1970s.

“He work?” Tomasetti asks.

“Third shift at the oil-filter factory in Millersburg.”