I’m standing alone in that darkness tonight. It’s unforgiving and covers my soul from end to end. That my victim was a child only deepens the black crevasse that’s split my mind right down the middle. The weight of it is slowly smothering me.
The degree of dysfunction a cop experiences after the use of deadly force depends on the cop. Some are capable of distancing themselves completely. Others can’t handle it and turn to alcohol or other vices. More than a few cops’ marriages end up in divorce. Others end up eating a bullet to end their misery. I’m one of the lucky ones; I fall somewhere in the middle. I don’t feel very lucky tonight.
The first night is always the worst, when you’re alone and tired and the images from the day are fresh in your mind. The instant you made the conscious decision to kill runs through your head over and over again, like some bad movie with a skip. That’s when the second-guessing begins, and you ask yourself, Could I have done something differently? The if onlys usually follow. If only I’d seen it coming. If only I’d waited a few more seconds. If fucking only. I can’t escape it. Mose is still dead, and his blood is still warm on my hands.
He isn’t the first person I’ve killed. When I was fourteen years old, an Amish man by the name of Daniel Lapp came into our farmhouse and raped me. I grabbed my datt’s rifle and shot him in the chest. It was a clear case of self-defense. Of course, when you’re fourteen and traumatized beyond anything you’ve ever imagined, it doesn’t matter. I had committed the consummate sin, and I would pay for my offense against God the rest of my life.
My datt covered up the crime, swore all of us to silence, and the entire incident was swept under the rug. I’ve learned to live with my demons, but it’s not a comfortable cohabitation. To this day, I can’t drive past the old grain elevator where Lapp’s bones are slowly turning to powder without remembering what he did. Without remembering what I did. What all of us did.
After the shooting this morning, Tomasetti drove me to the sheriff’s office in Millersburg. Rasmussen, Tomasetti, a representative from the Ohio State Highway Patrol, and I spent four hours in an interview room, where they took my statement. Though the men did their best to reassure me that I hadn’t done anything wrong, I felt as tainted and guilty as a criminal. I had, after all, taken the life of a seventeen-year-old boy. The irony that he was Amish doesn’t elude me.
For four hours, I answered the same questions a hundred different ways, a hundred times over. I ranted and cursed and slammed my fist down on the tabletop. I did everything cops do in situations like this. Everything but cry, anyway. That’s the one thing I haven’t been able to do.
They stripped me of my gun and relegated me to administrative duty. With pay, of course. After the debriefing, Tomasetti drove me home. Wise to the ways of guilt, he did his best to keep me talking. I didn’t cooperate and fell into a black silence that echoed inside me like a scream. He wanted to stay with me. I wanted him to stay, too. More than I could admit, more than he could know. But the case had just busted wide open; we both knew he had to work.
The Slabaugh case now takes precedence over the hate crimes, though Tomasetti will work both with equal fervor. The cops will want to know if Mose killed his adoptive parents and uncle. They’ll want to know if Salome was involved. If she was, they’ll want to know to what extent. Good luck with all that, Tomasetti.
It killed me to stay behind. More than anything, I needed to see this through. This is my case. My town. It was my goddamn bullet that killed Mose. I wanted to finish this. Too bad, Kate.
Of course, none of that matters, because when a cop is on leave, he’s basically no longer a cop. He’s a civilian and is treated as such. The only thing Tomasetti asked of me before he left was that I lay off the booze. I figured we both knew he should have taken the bottle with him. Thank God he didn’t, because the demons came knocking the instant he closed the door.
It’s almost 10:00 P.M. now. The pain in my shoulder is back, so I took three aspirin from a bottle that expired two months ago. So far, it’s not helping, but then maybe I deserve to hurt tonight. I’ve showered and put on a ratty pair of sweats and a T-shirt from my academy days. I turned on the TV, turned it back off. Did the same with the radio. I wish I could do it with my mind. Turn it off, crank down the volume, unplug the damn thing. I’m wired, but exhausted. I can’t sit. Can’t stand. Can’t eat. Can’t sleep. It’s like my skin is too tight. My mind is wound like a top and at any moment it’s going to spiral out of control.
For the first time in a long time, I wish I could cry. It’s as if the tears are stuck in my throat and they’re slowly choking me. At the same time, the fist lodged in my chest is twisting my heart and lungs into knots, until I can’t draw a breath. Even though the temperature hovers around freezing outside, I throw open the kitchen window and stand by the sink, sucking in great mouthfuls of air. I need Tomasetti, but I won’t call him. I swore long ago the one thing I would never be is the clinging-vine female.
On a brighter note, in the last couple of hours every member of my small police force has called at least once: Glock, Mona, Lois, Pickles, T. J., even Skid, who doesn’t have a compassionate bone in his body. We ended up talking about the weather. They’re my officers, but they’re also my friends. My family. They believe me when I tell them I’m all right. I say it so often, I almost believe it myself. Then that fist inside me tightens and I realize I’m about as okay as a dog that’s just been run over by a bus.
By midnight, my resistance wears down, and I go to the cabinet above the fridge and pull out the bottle of Absolut. The intellectual side of my brain knows alcohol won’t help. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s going to make everything worse. But some nights are simply too dark to face without the sustenance of booze.
Snagging a glass from the cabinet, I set it on the counter and pour. Cold air spills in through the open window. That reminds me I can still breathe, and I’m comforted by that. I barely taste the vodka when I drink, so I pour again.
After the second shot, I take my tumbler and the bottle to the living room. Settling onto the sofa, I top off my glass. I’m a woman on a mission, bound for oblivion, and by God I’m going to get there. I tip the bottle, fill the glass halfway, and take a long pull. Pour and drink. Pour and drink.
But when I close my eyes, I’m back on that dirt road. Mose is in the truck. Silver rain slashes in the beam of the single headlight. I’m aware of the gun in my hand, the roar of the engine in my ears. Salome’s screams echoing in my head.
You could have let him go, a little voice says. You could have let him run.
“Kate.”
The sound of Tomasetti’s voice yanks me back to the present. I open my eyes. He’s standing above me, his expression concerned. That’s when I realize I’m lying on the floor, with absolutely no idea how I got here. I see my glass a few feet away, lying on its side in a puddle of vodka.
The first thought that registers is that I don’t want him to see me like this. I don’t want him to know I’ve been drinking. I struggle to a sitting position and the room dips violently right and then left.
He kneels beside me. “I’m sorry I was gone so long.”
“S’okay.”
“Sure it is.” He sets his hand on my back. “Are you all right?”
“I’m good,” I reply, but my words are slurred.
“How did you get on the floor?”
“Uh … no idea.”
“Are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so.”
Grasping my biceps, he rises and pulls me to my feet. The room does a single sickening spin and then tilts left. My quadriceps feel weak. I’m nauseous, and my head pounds like some bad rock song.
“I told you to lay off the booze,” he says, but there’s no reprimand in his voice.
“It was pretty good advice.”
“Easy to give when you’re on the outside looking in, I guess.”
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
Putting his arm around me, he
helps me into the bathroom. He flips up the seat on the commode. I slide to my knees and throw up twice. I set my hands on the floor, but my arms are shaking. A flash of heat rushes over me and a cold sweat breaks out on my neck and face. “I’m sorry,” I say.
“It’s okay,” he replies softly. “I shouldn’t have left you.”
That brings me back to the reason behind all this misery. Thinking of Mose and Salome, I struggle to my feet. “Did you talk to Salome?”
Tomasetti helps me to the sink and lets me lean against him while I splash water on my face and rinse my mouth. “Rasmussen and I took her statement.”
Leaning heavily against the sink, I turn to him, ask the question I’ve been dreading. “Did Mose kill the parents?”
His gaze searches mine, then he nods. “She thinks he might’ve done it.”
Even through the haze of my drunkenness, the news hits me like a punch. I didn’t want Mose to be guilty of that. It’s not how I want to remember him. “That must have been awful for her.”
Tomasetti nods. “She’s pretty broken up.”
“How are Ike and Samuel?”
“They’re going to be fine.” When I continue to stare at him, he sighs, knowing I want more. “The doctor at the emergency room says they were both suffering from hypothermia.”
“Hypothermia?”
“Evidently, they’d been in the manure pit for quite some time when we found them.”
“But how did they survive the methane gas?”
“Well, we drained the pit after the parents were found. Whoever pushed the boys in refilled it with water, in the hope they’d either suffocate or drown. But because of the added water, the muck was diluted and the methane wasn’t as concentrated.”
For the first time, I remember seeing the child’s ball floating on the surface. “They clung to the ball,” I murmur.
He nods. “Salome thought Mose might try to harm the boys, so she tossed the ball into the pit.”
“She saved their lives.”
“Looks that way.”
I nod, trying to digest the cold-bloodedness of Mose’s actions. “My God, Tomasetti, he tried to kill his little brothers.”
“Yeah.”
“Is Salome substantiating that?”
“She didn’t actually witness it, but she was obviously concerned about her brothers’ well-being.”
“How is she?”
“Sedated. But she’s going to be okay.”
All I can do is shake my head.
“Get this,” he says. “The day we found Mose beaten?”
“What about it?”
“It never happened. Mose gave Salome a buggy whip and forced her to mark him up.” She used a shoe on his face so she wouldn’t leave marks on her knuckles.
Recalling the extent of Mose’s injuries, I shudder. “Why?”
“Who knows. Maybe he’d heard about the hate crimes and decided he might be able to divert our attention from the Slabaugh murders. Make himself look like a victim. Garner our collective sympathies.”
“Jesus,” I say, reeling. “It almost worked.”
Tomasetti looks away in an uncharacteristic manner, which snags my attention despite the fact that I’m looped. “If it’s any consolation, Kate, I didn’t see this coming, either,” he admits. “Not this.” His tone reveals that bothers him a lot. “None of us did. It was staring us right in the face. Here we are, seasoned cops, and we didn’t even consider him a suspect.”
“Some things are almost too damn disturbing to consider,” I tell him.
“Yeah.”
I wish I could clear my head, wish I could think. But my mind is fogged. My thoughts are still circling around Mose and Salome and everything that’s happened. “Where is Salome?”
“Children Services placed her back with Adam Slabaugh for now.”
“Probably the best place for her.” But I sigh. “Samuel and Ike, too?”
He nods.
Relief swamps me that the three siblings are together. “Amish brothers and sisters are close. I’m glad.”
I feel Tomasetti’s eyes on me as I walk back to the living room. My balance is skewed, but I do my best to hide it. When he tries to help me, I shake off his hands. Twice I have to lean against the wall before making it to the kitchen. At the sink, I fill a glass with water and drink it down. A breeze wafts through the window, and I revel in the cold air on my face.
Tomasetti pauses at the doorway, his arms crossed, watching me in a way that makes me feel self-conscious.
Setting the glass in the sink, I face him. “I really am okay now.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“Then stop looking at me as if I’m going to fall apart. And don’t bother lecturing me about the booze.”
He takes my tone in stride, doesn’t even bother looking away. “I’m the last person to lecture, Kate. You know that.”
I do, but the knowledge doesn’t help. Drinking myself into a stupor was not only self-destructive but counterproductive. I’m stumbling drunk, but far from numb. The pain is still there, like an arrow sticking out of my back.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks after a moment.
“No.” I raise my gaze to his. “Thank you, but I really don’t.”
He crosses to the table, pulls out a chair, and sits down. After a moment, I join him. I can’t look at him, so I put my face in my hands.
“I think you had a lot of emotions tied up in this case,” he says. “Too many. And not just with Salome. You were getting close to Mose, too.”
The words hurt, as if he reached out and twisted the arrow, drove it in a little deeper. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I can’t talk about this right now.”
“We don’t have to talk about it tonight. You don’t even have to talk to me about it. But at some point you’ll need to talk to someone.”
For the span of several minutes, the only sounds come from the rain pattering the windows, the water dripping off the eaves outside, the hiss of wind through the screen.
After a while, I raise my gaze to his. “I should have let him go.”
“You could have done that. Of course, if you had, Mose might’ve killed you. He might’ve killed Salome and her baby. He might’ve taken off in that truck and killed some family out for a drive, too.”
The logic behind his words should make me feel better, but it doesn’t. We fall silent. Even through the booze, I feel the tension in the room rise. “He was only seventeen years old,” I say in a small voice.
“That didn’t make him any less dangerous.”
“He was Amish. I can’t reconcile myself to that. He’ll never get the chance to live his life. Because of me, he’ll never—” The emotions grip me and shake me. Shocked by the power of them, I set both hands on the table, aware that my heart rate is elevated. Hoping Tomasetti doesn’t notice my distress, I walk to the window and gulp the wet winter air.
“Kate.”
Tomasetti’s voice reaches me as if from a great distance. I jump when he puts his hands on my shoulders. My first instinct is to shake him off and tell him I’m fine. The truth of the matter is, I need him. I’m a thousand miles from fine, and so far gone that I’m afraid I might never find my way back.
He squeezes my shoulders. “You’re going to be okay.”
I don’t turn to him. I feel as if I’m inching closer and closer to some precipitous edge. “I killed a kid today. How can I be okay?”
“If you hadn’t made the choice you did, a fifteen-year-old girl might be lying dead in the morgue instead. You might have been killed, too. You made a tough call, but it was the right one.”
“Nothing feels right about this case.”
“Sometimes that’s just the way it is. Sometimes no one wins, and people like us, the ones who are left to pick up the pieces, have to suck it up and move on.”
Everything I know about him scrolls through my mind: the murders of his wife and children, the vengeance he doled out in the aftermath of
their deaths. I want to ask him how he lives with it. But I already know the answer. He doesn’t. The things that happened to him—the things he did—eat at him the same way my guilt and regrets eat at me. Now he’s trying to save me from suffering the same fate.
He runs his hands up and down my arms. I’m hyperaware of his proximity, the warmth of his skin against mine. His fingertips are electric as they skim, and gooseflesh traces down my arms. When I shiver, he turns me to face him.
I don’t want to look into his eyes. I don’t want him to see the ugly things I’m feeling. I feel stripped bare, and I know if he sees my face, he’ll know something about me that I’ve been trying to hide. That dark stain that’s spread over my soul. The one that’s been there since I was fourteen years old. The one I made darker and larger today.
When I don’t look at him, he puts his palm against my face and forces the issue. “I know it doesn’t feel like it now, but you’re going to be all right,” he says softly.
I try to pull down that thick curtain I’m so good at keeping in place, but I don’t know if I manage to. I feel exposed and vulnerable beneath his gaze. So much so that I begin to tremble. I sense this is a profound moment, but I’m not sure why. I’ve had this man in my bed. He’s been inside me—my mind, my body, my heart. But now he’ll know all of those other facets. The ones I’ve never shared with him. The ones I’ve never shared with anyone.
“Maybe it’s just the getting there that’s so hard,” I whisper.
I see a rare compassion in his eyes, and it strikes me that he’s done time in the same dark place that haunts me tonight. And I realize he already knows about the other side of me. The imperfect part prone to dark moods and fits of rage. The part of me that drinks too much and courts danger and lies about it when I have to. In that moment, I know he gets it. He gets me. I’m thirty-one years old, and this is the first time anyone has ever given me the gift of true understanding. The knowledge moves me profoundly, relieves me because I finally know I no longer have to hide that.