Rasmussen speaks up. “Give us the names of the people who were with you and we’ll recommend manslaughter to the prosecutor.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Best-case scenario,” the sheriff says, “you get probation.”
“No jail time?” Steele asks hopefully.
Rasmussen shrugs. “We can’t make any promises, Willie. All we can do is let the court know you cooperated and make a recommendation.”
“Juries like it when defendants cooperate with the police,” I add.
Steele looks like a trapped animal, one that’s thinking about chewing off its own leg to get free. One more small push and he’s going to start gnawing.
Tomasetti removes the handcuff key from his pocket and bends to unfasten the cuffs. “Better?” he asks.
“Yeah.” Rubbing his wrists, Steele flexes his fingers and stares down at his hands as if wondering what they’re capable of.
Taking Tomasetti’s cue, I rise and go to the coffee station, pour coffee into a Styrofoam cup, and slide it across the table to Steele. “You need creamer?” I ask.
“Black’s fine.” After a couple of minutes, he raises his head, looks at Tomasetti. “You sure you guys aren’t trying to fuck me over?”
“We need your help,” Rasmussen says. “Do the right thing. Help us out here. And we’ll help you as much as we can. You have my word on that.”
Steele picks up the cup and slurps. His hands shake so violently, he ends up spilling some. No one seems to notice.
We wait.
After a moment, Steele raises his gaze to Tomasetti. His forehead is so swollen and misshapen that his eyes look slightly crossed. “We didn’t mean for no one to get hurt.”
“I understand,” Tomasetti says. He’s the good cop now, the guy you can confide in without worrying that he’ll use it against you.
Steele blows out a breath. “We killed them sheep. The ones that belong to that nasty old Amish broad.” He goes silent.
“What else?” I ask.
He stares at his hands. “Tossed a Molotov cocktail into a buggy.” Incredibly, he laughs. “You shoulda seen that fuckin’ horse go.” At the last moment, he remembers whom he’s dealing with and sobers.
“Willie,” I say, pressing. “Tell us the rest.”
“We beat that fat Amish guy. Tied him to his buggy.” He shifts in his chair. “Every time we hit him, that fuckin’ guy spewed Bible shit. Like God was going to swoop down from heaven and rescue him.”
I stare at him, wondering if he’s so stupid that he doesn’t realize that kind of commentary isn’t exactly inspiring our collective sympathies.
“What about the barn?” Rasmussen asks.
Steele’s gaze snaps to his. “That wasn’t my idea. I swear to God. I didn’t want to do it. It was a nice damn barn.”
Tomasetti’s eyes glint. He looks like a predator toying with some half-dead prey. “Whose idea was it?” he asks.
Grimacing, Steele touches the bump on his forehead, checks his fingers for blood. “James Springer.”
Recognition sparks in my brain. I’ve heard the name before. Some long-buried memory tugs at me. I turn the name over in my head, churning through the years. That’s when I recall going to school with a boy by the name of James Springer. An Amish boy. He was nearly ten years my junior. I remember him because I always thought he looked like a cute little puppy. “He’s Amish?” I ask.
“He ain’t no more,” Steele replies. “They kicked him out. For doing drugs, I think. You know, meth got ahold of him, so it wasn’t really his fault. Now he’s broke. Family won’t talk to him. Can’t get a girl. He’s pretty pissed. Blames the Amish for everything that’s happened to him.”
“Who else helped torch the barn?” Tomasetti asks.
Steele’s gaze skitters away. “Ain’t no one else.”
Tomasetti slams his hands down on the table so suddenly, Steele jumps. “I’m an inch away from throwing your lying ass in jail.”
Steele hangs his head, looks down at the tabletop. “Aw, man.”
“Protecting someone isn’t worth going to prison for the rest of your life,” I tell him.
Cursing under his breath, Steele lifts his gaze to mine. “This ain’t fuckin’ easy.”
“You should have thought of that before you started your own personal crime wave,” Tomasetti snaps.
Steele’s face screws up and he begins to cry. “My brother, man. My fuckin’ kid brother. He’s only seventeen.” He presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. “Don’t tell him I told you. I don’t want him to hate me.”
“Nothing you say will leave this room.” Tomasetti, I realize, is a master liar when he’s got the law to back him up. I wonder if he’s as good when he’s in rogue mode.
The room falls silent, the only sounds the buzz of the fluorescent lights overhead and Steele’s nervous fidgeting. We watch him, giving him a chance to pull himself together.
“Did you and your buddies murder Solomon and Abel Slabaugh?” Tomasetti’s voice is low, but the question echoes like a gunshot.
Steele looks as if he swallowed his tongue. I see his throat working. His hands clench into fists on the tabletop in front of him. When his voice finally comes, it’s a strangled sound I barely recognize. “We didn’t kill no one. You can’t pin that on us.”
“Don’t lie to me,” Tomasetti says in an ominous tone.
“I ain’t fuckin’ lying!” Steele jumps to his feet. “I swear!”
Next to me, Rasmussen puts his hand on his baton.
“Sit down and calm the hell down,” Tomasetti says.
“How can I calm down when you’re accusing me of something I didn’t do? That’s some serious shit!” Steele is literally frothing at the mouth. Spittle flies from his lips, a speck landing on his chin. “I didn’t kill them people! Don’t try to put that on me!”
“Is it possible your brother or Springer did it?” I ask.
He turns his attention to me. For an instant, I think he’s going to attack me, and I wonder about the wisdom of removing the cuffs. “They ain’t killers, neither,” he says. “They just want to cause problems for those dirty Amish pricks.”
“Where were you three nights ago?” Tomasetti asks.
Steele snaps his gaze to him. “I worked a double. You can fuckin’ check.”
“I fuckin’ will,” Tomasetti replies smoothly.
“You cops can’t pin them murders on us. We didn’t do it.” Steele makes a strangled sound, getting himself worked up again. “You said if I talked, you’d help me out, not railroad me.”
“If you’re telling the truth, you don’t have anything to worry about,” Rasmussen says.
“What about the Amish boy?” I ask. “The teenager?”
Steele raises his gaze to mine. His face is red and blotchy from crying. “What Amish boy?”
“The teenage boy you beat the crap out of this afternoon.”
“We didn’t beat no Amish kid.”
“For God’s sake, Willie, you’ve already confessed to manslaughter, arson, and felony assault. A misdemeanor beating is the least of your worries.”
“It’s a lesser charge,” Tomasetti explains.
“Kid probably won’t even press charges,” Rasmussen puts in.
“I don’t know anything about no Amish kid,” he insists. “I swear.”
I stare at him, wondering why he would lie about a misdemeanor charge when he’s already confessed to multiple felonies. “You need to think real hard before you start lying to us.”
“I ain’t got no reason to lie. I told you what we done. I ain’t going to say I did something I didn’t just to get on your good side. I got enough fuckin’ problems.”
I consider that for a moment. “What about Springer and your brother? Could they have done it without your knowledge?”
“I don’t think so.” But he doesn’t seem quite so sure of himself now. “Me and Springer … we’re some kind of unit. We done most of it. My br
other … not so much.”
Tomasetti crosses to him, sets his hand on Steele’s shoulder. “Well, Willie, I’m glad you and Springer are pals because chances are you’re going to be cell mates for the next couple of decades.”
CHAPTER 16
By the time we round up James Springer and Kevin Steele, it’s 4:00 A.M. They weren’t very happy when we rolled them from their beds and slapped on the cuffs. Unlike their counterpart, both men refused to talk to us without lawyers, so I handed them off to Rasmussen, who booked them into the Holmes County Jail.
Tomasetti, Skid and I are sitting in my office. On the credenza behind me, my desktop computer rattles like an old refrigerator. I’ve got a couple of reams of arrest-related paperwork spread out on my desk, but I’m too tired to finish reports tonight.
But it’s a good tired, the kind that comes in the wake of a righteous bust and the knowledge that we got three criminals off the street in a single fell swoop. I don’t like the idea of letting Willie Steele off on lesser charges; he’s no less guilty than the other two men. But if that small concession will guarantee his cooperation and convictions for the other two, then it’s a compromise I’m willing to make.
“I think I’m going to head back out.” Skid rises and stretches. “Leave you two all the fun paperwork.”
“Should be quiet now that the three-man crime wave is off the street,” I tell him.
“Hell of a bump on Steele’s forehead,” Skid comments. “Never seen anything like it in my life.”
“The moral of the story is, Never ram your forehead into an immovable object,” Tomasetti says.
“Going to have to remember that.” Giving us a mock salute, he saunters out of my office.
For a moment, neither of us speaks. I shut down my computer and arrange the paperwork into a couple stacks. “I’ll tackle these reports first thing in the morning,” I say.
Tomasetti eyes me from across the desk. “It already is first thing in the morning.”
I smile. “Postsleep.”
He doesn’t move, and I get the impression he’s got something on his mind. “What do you think?” he asks.
“I think you’re welcome to sleep at my house.” The words come with surprising ease.
“Do we have to sleep?”
“We probably should.”
“Should usually doesn’t stop us.”
Despite the comfortableness of the moment, I blush. When he smiles, the now-familiar thrill moves through me, and it shocks me all over again that two people as wounded as we are have come this far in a relationship neither of us believed possible.
“What do you think about Steele?” he asks after a moment.
“I think he might be telling the truth.”
“Leaves us with a couple of loose ends.”
“Leaves the Slabaugh case open.”
He sighs. “You think Steele and friends did the Slabaughs?”
I consider the question, let it roll around in my head a moment. “I think they’re at the top of the suspect list.”
He nods, but I can tell my words didn’t alleviate whatever it is that’s troubling him. I don’t think we’re going to solve it tonight, so I reach for my coat and rise.
Tomasetti stands, too, and we start toward the door. “So if Steele and his goons didn’t beat the crap out of Mose, who did?” he asks as we pass through the reception area.
I wave at Mona. “Maybe James Springer and Kevin Steele did it. Maybe we’ll get more out of them after they’ve spent the night in jail.”
Tomasetti nods, but as he leaves me and starts toward his Tahoe to follow me home, he still looks troubled.
* * *
The events of the day follow me into the disjointed world of my dreams. I’m at the Slabaugh farm, in the barn, standing a few feet from the manure pit. I’m holding a baby in my arms, and though I’ve never had a child, I know the baby is mine. I feel the connection as surely as I feel my heart beating in my chest, the blood running through my veins. James Springer stands before me. Only this apparition is not Springer. His eyes are the color of blood, and I see hatred in them, a barely controlled rage.
“Dirty Amish bitch,” he says.
He’s looking at my baby. His eyes burn red, and I see the veins pulsing in his face. I’m aware of the child’s warmth against my breast, and I know Springer wants to take him from me. He wants to hurt him. Kill him. I’m willing to die—or kill—to keep either of those things from happening.
When he lunges, I’m not fast enough to get away. I’m not strong enough to stop him. I feel hands on my arms and look over to see Willie Steele and his brother, Kevin, on either side of me. They yank me back, so violently that my head snaps forward and my teeth clack together. I lose my footing. Springer jerks the baby from my arms. Then the baby is falling into space. I struggle against the talonlike hands, fingers digging into my skin. I hear my own scream, so loud that it rattles my brain. But the hands that catch the baby are not mine.
Springer grins and looks down at the baby in his arms. I see rotting black teeth. He smells of death and decay. He stares down at the baby as if he wants to tear into it with his teeth, devour it, consume it. And in that moment, I know I’m going to kill him.
I reach for my sidearm, but my fingers fumble the grip. I grapple with my holster. I know my .38 is there, but I can’t get my hand around it. My certainty that I have the upper hand evaporates. Ten feet away, Springer holds the baby by its tiny foot, dangling it over the manure pit. The infant’s face is red. His cries ring in my ears, shatter my heart.
“Don’t kill my baby!” I scream.
Then I’m running toward them, but I’m not moving. When I look down, I see that my feet are immersed in black muck. And I know I’m not going to get there in time to save the baby. Already I feel the horrific loss the child’s death will cause; it’s like a baseball bat slamming into my body. The terrible shock of that is almost too much for my mind to bear.
Don’t kill my baby!
It’s Salome’s voice screaming the words. I look around, but she’s not there. When I look down, I’m wearing her blue dress. Don’t kill my baby! It’s Salome’s voice, but my thoughts. It’s my heart that’s breaking. My life that will end with the death of that child.
Springer’s fist opens. The child flails, then tumbles headfirst into the black muck of the pit. I scream out a name I don’t recognize. Then I hear the terrible splash, and I tell myself my baby can’t be gone, because I know God would never be that cruel. Not twice in one lifetime.
Then I’m falling. Above me, I see the rafters of the old barn. I smell the stench of the liquid manure. I feel the methane gas stealing the oxygen from my lungs. Then the black ooze rushes up and slams into me, as cold and black as death. The noxious liquid sucks me down, like a huge, voracious mouth swallowing me whole.
Blackness closes over me, but it doesn’t silence the baby’s cries. Nothing will ever silence that tiny voice, because it’s inside me. Hearing those cries and not being able to reach the child is like dying a thousand tortuous deaths. I thrash and struggle against the muck. But it sucks me down, smothering and digesting me until I cease to exist.
“Kate.”
I’m still thrashing when I wake. Tomasetti is leaning over me. Even in the dim winter light slanting in through the window, I see concern on his face, and I realize I must have cried out. I blink at him, shaken and embarrassed. A cold slick of sweat covers my entire body. My hands and legs are shaking, and I can still feel the dark grip of the nightmare. For several disorienting seconds, I think I can still smell the muck of that terrible pit.
“Jesus.” Sitting up, I shove the hair from my face. “I’m sorry.”
“You okay?”
I draw a deep breath, willing myself to calm down. “I haven’t decided yet.”
“Must have been a bad one.” He sets his thumb beneath my chin and forces my gaze to his. “If I ask you how often that happens, would you tell me the truth?”
�
�Probably not.”
“Kate…”
I look at him, not liking the way he’s staring back at me, as if I’ve just been diagnosed with some fatal affliction. “It’s been a while,” I say after a moment.
He nods. “You want to talk about it?”
I try to smile but don’t quite manage to. “Think you could check under the bed first?”
“There’s no monster here.”
“Just you.”
“A monster with a heart.”
That makes me smile, and I feel the dream tumble into the backwaters of my mind.
Dipping his head, he kisses me, and I’m amazed that such a small thing can have such a profound effect.
A glance at the alarm clock tells me it’s not yet 7:00 A.M. We have a few minutes, so I lie back and snuggle close to him. He puts his arm around me, and in that instant his embrace is the safest place in the world. I love the way his arms feel when they’re around me. I give him a condensed version of the nightmare. When I’m finished, we go quiet, thinking, listening to the rain outside.
“Sigmund Freud would probably have a field day with that,” I say after a moment. “You know, baby envy and all that.”
“Freud was full of shit.”
That makes me grin. “I’m glad I have you to help me keep things in perspective.”
“Probably just the case working on your mind,” Tomasetti says. “Mixing it up with your past. Stress does that.”
“My sister, Sarah, had a baby,” I blurt. “Two months ago. I don’t know why, but I haven’t been able to make myself go to see the new baby. I’ve driven by their farm, but I never go inside. I just … sit out on the road like some weird stalker. I know my not showing up is hurting my sister. And there’s a part of me that wants to see my little niece. But…”
Lying next to me, Tomasetti goes still. I sense his mind sifting through everything I’ve said, and I kick myself for unloading on him. “I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “I shouldn’t have—”
“Kate.” He says my name with a slight reproof.
We fall silent. I can hear rain dripping off the eaves, slapping down on the ground. I know Tomasetti’s about to say something wise and profound. I know it’s going to hurt a little bit, but I’ll be better for it afterward. “This case has a lot of themes running through it,” he tells me. “Amish kids. The deaths of their parents. Babies. Pregnancy.” He pauses. “Might be dredging some things up for you.”
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