I’m at the police station, feeling out of place because I’m not in uniform, pacing the hall outside the interview room, pissed because the goddamn door is closed. Tomasetti, Adam Slabaugh, Sheriff Rasmussen, and a young attorney who doesn’t look old enough to have graduated from law school are inside, questioning Salome. The need to know what’s happening is like a bamboo sliver being slowly wedged beneath my fingernail.
I’ve just reached the end of the hall, and I’m staring, unseeing, into the reception area when the door clicks open. I spin and see Rasmussen emerge, looking like he’s just been roused from a nap. His hair is mussed, as if he’s been running his fingers through it. “I figured you’d have a path worn in that floor by now,” he says.
Trying to turn down my intensity, I cross to him. “No budget for new flooring.”
He’s looking at me a little too closely, the way people do when they know something isn’t quite right about you. “How are you holding up?”
I’m so focused on learning the outcome of the interview with Salome, it takes me a moment to realize he’s asking about the shooting. “I’m fine.” I say the words with a little too much attitude. But no cop is going to admit she’s spent the last twenty-four hours bouncing off the walls. That would be the ultimate bad form after a shooting. You can drink and you can fight, but you can’t admit it’s messing with your head.
“Good to hear.”
I don’t waste any time getting to the point. “What did Salome have to say?”
“Jesus, Kate. That kid’s been through hell, that’s for sure.”
That isn’t what I expected to hear. “Did she incriminate herself?”
“Every time she started to talk, that fuckin’ attorney shut her down.” He sighs tiredly, gives me a grim look. “She claims her dad was molesting her. Going into her bedroom at night and raping her since she was twelve. She confided in Mose about it. She thinks Mose confronted their father and they might have gotten into an argument the morning Slabaugh ended up in that pit.”
“That doesn’t explain why her brothers told Tomasetti and me that she’s the one who pushed them into the pit. It doesn’t explain how the uncle got into the pit. Or why she started having sex with Mose.”
He looks at me as if I should have a little more compassion for a girl who’s been through so much, and I get a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. “She says she doesn’t know how any of them got in the pit. She hinted around that maybe the uncle went in to rescue Solly and that Mose couldn’t get him out. That’s how it usually happens. One person goes in, the would-be rescuers succumb to the lack of oxygen and follow suit. An unconscious man would be very difficult for a seventeen-year-old boy to extract from that pit.” He shrugs. “If Mose had gone in after them, he probably would have ended up dead, too.”
“Do you believe that?”
“It’s hard to know what happened, since everyone is dead.”
“Not everyone.” I can’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice. “How did the two little boys end up in the pit?”
“Salome says Mose did it. She was afraid he might, so she threw in the ball for them to use as a floatation device just in case. But she didn’t know Mose had actually done the deed until after the fact.”
“That’s not what those boys told me and Tomasetti.”
“Look, Kate, they’re just kids. They’ve been through a lot. They’ve been traumatized, lost their parents, their brother. They’re confused. Hell, maybe they’re looking for someone to blame.” Rasmussen motions toward the closed door. “I’m inclined to cut that poor girl in there some slack. I think the judge will, too. I think there were some awful things going on in that house that no one knew about.”
I shouldn’t be surprised by this, but I am. I stare at Rasmussen, realizing with a keen sense of dismay that he’s been sucked in by Salome’s innocence and beauty, just like everyone else. Just like me. And all I can think is, She’s good.
“She blamed everything on Mose?” I say, hearing the incredulity in my voice.
“Not at first. In fact, she defended him.”
“Deception is a lot more effective when you initially defend the person you intend to hang.”
“I’m not reading it that way, Kate. She says she loved him and that he was only trying to protect her from being raped.”
I stare at him, unsettled by the news, because neither Mose nor Solomon is here to defend himself. “You realize Mose is the perfect scapegoat, don’t you?”
“I don’t think that girl in there killed her parents. Do you?”
“I think she’s capable. I think she manipulated Mose into doing it for her.”
“We don’t have any proof.”
“So why did those boys tell us Salome is the one who put them in the pit?”
The sheriff is ready with an answer. “They’re confused. Mose probably coached those boys. He beat them to keep them in line. Hit them in places where the bruises wouldn’t show. He threatened them constantly. Those boys were afraid of him.”
“That’s bullshit. Mose is dead. They know he can’t hurt them now. I think they’re afraid of her.”
“Look, Kate, I’m not saying the girl isn’t in this pretty deep. Sure, she made some bad decisions. She probably knows more than she’s letting on. But I don’t think she’s a cold-blooded killer.”
“She’s a classic sociopath. Those tears she’s crying all over you? They’re called ‘crocodile tears,’ in case you missed that day in the Academy.”
Rasmussen flushes red. “With all due respect, Chief, maybe you ought to take a big step back from this. I think you’re a little bit too emotionally involved.”
My jaw clamps and I hear my teeth grind. “She’s playing you. She’s playing all of us.”
“I don’t understand why you’re chomping at the bit to fry a fifteen-year-old Amish kid.”
In that instant, the terrible moments leading up to my shooting Mose replay in my mind’s eye: the truck roaring toward me, raising my weapon and firing, the windshield splintering. Then I turned and looked at Salome. Initially, I misinterpreted her expression as horror. It wasn’t until this morning that I recognized it for what it was: a chilling smile of secret satisfaction.
She was getting off on playing the role of victim. Getting off on seeing Mose gunned down after he’d served his purpose and she no longer needed him to further her goal. The scenario is so bitter and cold, I can’t wrap my brain around it. But I trust my instincts; I know I’m right. The question is, How do I prove it?
“I just want the truth,” I say.
“Sounds to me like you want to hang all this on an innocent girl.”
“She’s not innocent. I think she killed her parents. I think she’s capable of killing anyone who gets in her way.”
“She’s as much a victim as those two little boys.” He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Or maybe you think they’re in on this big conspiracy, too.”
“I think she’s got just about everyone snookered, including you.”
His flush is darker this time, and I realize behind all that good-old-boy charm, the sheriff has a temper. His gaze searches mine, as if he’s looking for some ulterior motive for the view I’ve taken on this. “We have no evidence to support anything you’ve said.”
“The word of those two boys.”
“Thoughts you may have inadvertently planted to suit your own agenda.”