Page 23 of Fallen

“I wrote the book,” she corrects.

“Your name isn’t on the cover,” Tomasetti points out.

Her smile turns brittle. “Well, it should have been, but then that was Rachael for you. She wanted the limelight. I ended up in the acknowledgments.”

“Big of her,” he says. “Did you get angry about that?”

Matson rolls her eyes. “I got over it. By then we were friends. I didn’t want anything so petty to get between us.”

I keep moving. “Did she know anyone in Wooster? Did she ever go there? To meet anyone?”

“Wooster?” She shakes her head. “Never heard her mention it.”

“We’re going to need a DNA sample,” Tomasetti tells her. “Prints too.”

Her eyes narrow, so I add, “We need to rule you out so we don’t waste anyone’s time.”

“Sure. Whatever.” She shakes her head. “I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe she’s gone.”

Tomasetti taps the screen of his cell phone. “Where can we reach you if we need to get in touch?”

She rattles off a cell phone number and I punch it into my phone.

“If you go back to Cleveland, you need to keep yourself available in case we need to talk to you again,” I say.

Her mouth tightens again. “I’m not going anywhere until I get some answers. How’s that for guilty?”

“That’ll do just fine,” Tomasetti says.

CHAPTER 10

It’s fully dark by the time the scene is cleared and the BCI crime scene truck pulls out. The motel manager called in a professional crew to clean the room, but they won’t start until morning. According to Tomasetti, the agents retrieved a plethora of potential evidence, including DNA, fibers, blood evidence, hair, fingerprints, and footwear marks. They were able to cast a single decent tire imprint in the parking lot, ostensibly from a vehicle that had parked next to Rachael Schwartz’s Lexus at some point. Everything was couriered to the police lab in London, Ohio. Fingerprint data should come back quickly. And while we won’t get DNA results right away, we will likely find out soon if any of the blood is secondary—which could indicate the killer injured himself in the course of the attack. Conceivably, we could have a second set of DNA.

Tomasetti left for Cleveland to question Jared Moskowski. I’m standing at the doorway to room 9, procrastinating going inside. From where I stand, I can still discern the faint smell of blood. I can’t help but think that last night at this time, Rachael Schwartz was enmeshed in the mundane of everyday life. What she would have for dinner. If she had time for a manicure. Wondering what to wear. She had a future and dreams and people who loved her. People she loved in return. Who saw fit to take all of that away?

Every light in the room burns, illuminating a still-macabre scene. As usual, the CSU left behind quite a mess. Many of the surfaces are covered with fingerprint powder. Drawers have been left open or pulled out and set on the floor. The bedsheets are gone. Bloodstains on the mattress and the single remaining pillow. Several squares have been cut out of the carpet and removed, likely to retrieve blood evidence. One of the curtains has been removed, probably for the same reason.

I think about Rachael as I enter the room. I take in the carnage and try to imagine a scene I don’t want in my head. Rachael Schwartz may have been raised Amish, but she’d been English long enough to be well versed in the ways of the world. Not the kind of woman who would leave her door unlocked at night, even in a town like Painters Mill. More than likely, a knock sounded, after hours. Had she been sleeping? Surfing the internet on her cell? I look at the door, spot the peephole. Did she make use of it? Recognize the person on the other side? Or was she half asleep and simply opened the door?

I walk to the bathroom and look around. A high-tech curling iron sits on the counter. Her blow dryer. Her overnight case and handbag were transported to the lab to be gone through. Eventually, all of it will be released to her family. I leave the bathroom and cross to the bed. A small square of material has been cut out of the mattress. The hole is surrounded by blood that’s soaked into the fabric. More blood on the wall, small droplets the color of red brick.

From all indications, Rachael was in bed and heard a knock at the door. She got up to answer. She greeted him. Words were exchanged. An argument? She turned away, and he struck her from behind. Midway to the night table, she fell as her killer struck her repeatedly in a frenzied, violent attack. She made it to the night table. Scrambled across the bed. Fell to the floor on the other side. Tried to crawl to the door. But the assault kept coming.…

“You knew him, didn’t you?” I whisper.

She’d fought her attacker. Fought for her life. I think about the position of her body. Facing the door. Arm outstretched, fingers clutching. And I suspect in the final minutes of her life, she’d known her life was going to end.

“Why did he do this to you?” I say aloud.

The only answer is the buzzing of the lamp and the strum of a hundred more unanswered questions running through my brain.

It’s ten P.M. when I pull out of the gravel lot of the Willowdell Motel and head toward home. I’m beyond tired, in need of a shower and food and a few hours of sleep. With a killer on the loose and the unanswered questions coming at me like rapid fire, I don’t think I’ll get much in the way of shut-eye.

Why was Rachael Schwartz in Painters Mill? According to the people who knew her—Loretta Bontrager and her parents—she hadn’t been back in months. No one knew she was in town. Who was she here to see? I think about the note with the scrawled address in her car. The farm where Tomasetti and I live is just south of Wooster. Too wired to sleep, I figure my time might be better spent stopping by the bar to see if anyone remembers seeing Rachael Schwartz. I drive past the township road that will take me home and continue north on Ohio 83. On the outskirts of Wooster, I pull over at Fisher Auditorium, punch the address into my GPS, and I head that way.

The Pub is located on the northwest side of town. It’s a freestanding redbrick building set in a gravel lot littered with potholes and mud puddles. The no-name gas station next door is brightly lit, its green and white neon sign touting cigarettes, beer, and diesel. Farther down the street, the railroad-crossing lights flash red, the arms coming down to block traffic. It’s prime time for a semirural dive bar like this one, but there are only four vehicles in the lot. I drive around to the rear. A Ford Escort is parked a few yards from the door. A blue dumpster sits at a cockeyed angle in the side lot, trash bags overflowing, a couple of cats scrounging for food.

I idle back around to the front lot and park next to an older F-150. The distant whistle of the train sounds as I head toward the front door.