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 brother … 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.”
“
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.
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.
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
