Page 9 of Rage

“Kids able to tell you anything?” he asks.

I recap the story of their finding the remains.

“Hell of a way to end a game of hide-and-seek,” he says. “Any neighbors around?”

“Farms are pretty spread out here. Pickles is talking to the farmer who lives down the road. Closest neighbor is actually a business. Tree nursery half a mile down the road. We haven’t talked to them yet.”

“Be nice if someone saw or heard something.” He thinks about that a moment. “Isn’t that the nursery where we bought those two dogwood trees?”

“I’m about to head that way,” I say. “Want to come?”

“I’ve been thinking about putting a cherry tree in the side yard.”

I roll my eyes. “I’ll drive.”

Yutzy’s Tree Nursery is a scant half mile down Sweet Potato Ridge Road. As I pull into the gravel parking area, I spot the horse and buggy in front of the old bank barn.

“Looks like someone’s here,” Tomasetti says.

I park beneath the shade of an ancient buckeye tree near the barn the owner uses as an office and to store equipment, and we get out. The big sliding door stands open about four feet. Heat hammers down from a cloudless blue sky.

“He’s got some nice-looking saplings,” Tomasetti comments as we start toward the barn.

“We could use a shade tree out by the firepit, too,” I say absently, our boots crunching in the gravel and dirt.

“Another dogwood in the back.”

Remembering our last tree-planting endeavor, we smile at each other as we enter the barn. “Hello?” I call out. “Mr. Yutzy?”

We stand there for a moment, glad to be out of the sun, listening for a response, taking in our surroundings. The only sounds that come back to us are the coo of a pigeon from the rafters above and the squeak of the wind vane mounted on the cupola overhead.

“Hello!” I call out again. “It’s Chief Burkholder with the police department! Anyone here?”

No reply.

Tomasetti looks at me and shrugs. “Maybe he’s out watering the trees?”

“Maybe.”

A beat-up wooden desk abuts the wall to my right. Next to it, a folding table holds a small cash register. A bulletin board covers the rustic plank wall. A calendar mounted above the desk tells us the date is three days ago.

“Let’s check outside,” I say.

“Hopefully, he didn’t have a damn heatstroke,” Tomasetti mutters.

We go through the door and back into the burning-hot sun. Tomasetti walks to the Explorer and hits the horn three times. I’m standing in the doorway of the barn, thinking about how to best locate him in the dozen or so rows of trees, when the buggy horse whinnies. I glance over, only giving the animal half of my attention. I notice immediately something isn’t right. There’s a large pile of manure on the ground below the horse’s tail. The gelding’s head is low. Flies crowd around the animal’s eyes and nose. Its flanks are deeply sunken. The flesh along its topline and neck is pimpled with hundreds of mosquito bites. At first glance, I’d assumed this horse was older, fifteen or twenty years of age. Now that I’m paying attention, I recognize the star on its forehead, and I realize this is the same horse the owner, Amishman Samuel Yutzy, was using last time Tomasetti and I were here, a five-year-old Standardbred he’d purchased off the track.

I’m aware of Tomasetti making his way toward the far side of the barn, where a coiled garden hose has been tossed on the ground. I go to the animal, slowly, my hand out. “Whoa,” I say. “Easy.”

The gelding barely acknowledges me. I set my hand on the animal’s withers, move closer, shoo the flies from its eyes. I look at his flanks, realize the horse is in distress.

“Tomasetti?” I call out.

He’s kneeling next to the hose and raises his gaze to mine.

“This animal has been without water for some time. His flanks are sunken. Eyes, too.” Even as I say the words, I pinch the horse’s skin above his withers between my thumb and forefinger. When I release the flesh, it doesn’t snap back into place quickly, which is a sure sign of dehydration.

Tomasetti cocks his head, wondering why I’m concerned about a thirsty horse when I have the much bigger problem of human remains on my hands. “Heat related?” he says.