Page 65 of Breaking Silence

He swigs beer, eyeing me over the top of the bottle. “Let’s go back to Coulter a sec.” He looks down at his beer, and I know he’s trying to work through the details of it, just as I am. “Takes a lot of effort to frame someone.”

“He’s the perfect candidate. He’s worked for Slabaugh. He’s been to the house.” I shrug. “He’s an ex-con. All of that is pretty much common knowledge in a small town.”

“That makes him vulnerable. They plant the rifle, knowing we’ll follow up on the connection.”

“How’d they plant the rifle in Coulter’s house?”

“Maybe they broke in. Hell, maybe the Coulters don’t lock their doors. Some folks don’t around here. The killer went in through an unlocked door or window. I’ll check with the wife to see if she remembers anything.”

We fall silent. But it’s a comfortable silence. We sip our beers, thinking, listening to the music. After a while, Tomasetti says, “How are you holding up, Chief?”

“I’m fine.” The words come out a little too fast, and we both notice. I’m not very good at talking about myself, even worse about discussing my feelings. Maybe it’s because over the years I’ve honed my ability to keep secrets, raised it to an art form.

“Cases like this can take a toll on a cop,” he says. “Especially if you care.” He pauses. “You care, Kate.”

“That’s kind of ironic, isn’t it?”

“What’s that?”

“When we first met, I was the one who had my shit together. You were pretty much a walking disaster.”

“An attractive walking disaster.”

That makes me smile, and I’m thankful I have Tomasetti to help me keep things in perspective.

His gaze sharpens on mine. “So talk to me.”

I’m careful about the information I reveal to other people. I don’t like anyone knowing too much about what’s inside my head. Or, God forbid, in all those deeper, darker recesses. But Tomasetti isn’t just other people. He’s a friend. My lover. I trust him. I know about his past, he knows most of mine, and we’ve been through a lot together. But old habits die hard, and I find myself wanting to close the lid on the can he’s trying to open.

“I’ve guess I’ve sort of put these kids on a pedestal,” I admit. “Because they’re Amish. All of it’s gotten kind of tangled up inside me.”

“Hmmm. Sounds like you might be human. Have you had that checked?”

That makes me smile, because I know he feels a lot more than he lets on. He smiles back, far too comfortable with all this, and leans back in the booth to watch me squirm.

McNarie brings two more beers. Tomasetti passes him a couple of bills and slides a Killian’s across the table to me.

“You came down pretty hard on Mose tonight,” I say.

“He deserved it.”

“You lost your temper with a kid. That’s not like you.”

“That’s exactly like me.” He tips the bottle and takes a drink. “I wanted to knock his fucking block off.”

“Maybe I’m not the only one who has some emotional stake in this case.”

Something flashes in his eyes, some dark emotion I can’t quite identify. A warning, telling me not to go there. “My kids were girls,” he says after a moment. “Younger, but still…”

The statement shocks me. In all the months I’ve known Tomasetti, he’s never broached the subject of his family. What little I know, I’ve had to pry out of him. It happened back when he was with the Cleveland Division of Police. There was a home invasion. His wife and two young daughters were raped, murdered, and then burned when the house was torched—all this the result of a career criminal seeking revenge. I know Tomasetti spent some time in a psychiatric hospital, but he got through it. He holds his emotional cards close to his chest. Keeps the rest of it locked down tight, off-limits even to those he trusts.

What happened to his family is always in the backwaters of my mind. Only now do I realize that dealing with these Amish kids has brought that part of his past to the forefront, too. “I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “I know that. I didn’t mean to dredge—”

“You didn’t,” he says easily. “It’s bound to come up from time to time.”

I don’t know what to say. Copping out, I take another drink of beer, look down at the bottle in my hands.

“Donna would have been eleven this year. Kelly would have been ten.” He shrugs. “When I saw Mose in the loft with Salome, I wanted to take his head off.”