Page 61 of An Evil Heart
It’s midmorning when Glock and I arrive in Massillon. June Rossberger lives in a small house a few blocks from the public library. Usually, when tragedy strikes a family, friends and extended family rally. When I pull up to the house and park curbside, I’m surprised to find a single car in the driveway.
Glock notices, too. “Locals did the notification?” he asks.
I shut down the engine. “Detective said he would.”
“Hate it that there’s no one here to be with her,” he says as we get out.
“Maybe they’ve already come and gone.” It seems like an optimistic statement as I take in the aged Corolla in the driveway. “We’ll make this quick.”
The sidewalk and driveway are a jigsaw puzzle of broken concrete with weeds jutting from the cracks. We take the steps to the small porch and I knock.
The thump of feet sounds and the door swings open. I find myself looking at a middle-age woman with thin brown hair shorn nearly to the scalp. She’s wearing sweatpants and a flannel shirt. Her face is devoid of makeup. She doesn’t look happy to see us standing on her front porch.
“Haven’t you people given me enough bad news for one day?” she says in a gruff voice.
Her face is ruddy, her eyes bloodshot, but I can’t tell if she’s been crying. I identify myself. “June Rossberger?”
“That’s me.”
“Have you spoken to Detective Davidson, ma’am?”
“He told me.” She’s got a smoker’s voice, as rough and deep as a quarry. “Left an hour ago.”
“I’m very sorry for your loss.”
Her eyes soften a little when Glock removes his cap. She seems oddly unemotional for having just lost her daughter. Of course, people deal with loss and grief in different ways. I wonder if they were close.
“I hadn’t seen her in a few days,” she tells me. “Left all her stuff—what little she had—and went off on whatever kind of binge them kids go on nowadays.”
“I’m trying to figure out what happened to her,” I say. “Can we come in and talk for a few minutes?”
“I gotta be at work in an hour.” She looks from me to Glock and back to me. “I suppose if you make it quick. I got a long shift ahead.”
I feel Glock’s eyes on me as we enter. The house is uncomfortably warm and smells of burnt toast and cigarette smoke. Rossberger moves like a woman who spends too much time on her feet and leads us to a living room furnished with secondhand furniture and wall-to-wall carpet from the 1990s. She motions me to a ragtag sofa and offers a chair to Glock, but he declines and takes up his position in the doorway.
“Suit yourself.” She falls into an overstuffed chair across from me and props her feet on the matching ottoman. “Detective said she was murdered. That true?”
“The coroner hasn’t made the official ruling just yet,” I tell her. “But, yes, we believe it was a homicide.”
“You the cop going to be investigating?” Her eyes flick over my uniform and she laughs. “A woman?”
“Her body was found in Painters Mill, where I’m chief. The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the Holmes County Sheriff’s Department are involved, too. I want you to know we’re going to do everything we can to find the person responsible.”
“I hope you get him. Paige wasn’t exactly a good girl, but she sure didn’t deserve to get killed.”
I pull out my notepad. “When’s the last time you saw her?”
“Four days ago. She comes and goes. More going than coming, I guess.”
“Did she have any ties to Painters Mill?” I ask. “Did she ever travel there or mention Holmes County?”
“Not that I recall. She wasn’t exactly the Amish-country type, if you know what I mean.”
I recall the probation officer telling me Paige had landed a job. “I understand she worked part-time.”
The woman frowns at me. “You know she did.”
It takes me a second to understand the meaning of her response. “I mean a regular job,” I clarify. “Her probation officer said she was working at a grocery store. Is that correct?”
