“You fucking bitch! I wish I’d killed you, too!”
The next thing I know, she’s across the table, coming at me with claws and teeth. An instant too late, I push back, but she’s already got me. Her nails sear down my face. Her left hand fists in my hair. As if in slow motion, I see Tomasetti rounding the table, rushing at us. Adam Slabaugh makes a wild grab for his niece as she goes over the tabletop. Thornsberry reels back, his mouth opening and closing like that of a beached catfish.
And then I’m falling backward in my chair, with Salome on top of me, like a cougar intent on mauling its prey.
CHAPTER 21
My chair goes over backward and I slam into the floor so hard, my head bounces off the tile. Stars fly before my eyes. I try to kick away the chair and get my legs under me, but my feet are tangled in the rungs. Before I can move, Salome is on top of me, hair flying, nails slashing at my face.
“You bitch!” She lands a blow to my left cheekbone, sending another scatter of stars to my eyes. “You ruined everything!”
When I look into her eyes, I see a total disconnect from reality. Animalistic screeches tear from her throat. “Why couldn’t you just go away! I wish you were dead! Dead!”
Vaguely, I’m aware of movement all around me—chairs scudding across the floor, the shuffle of feet. In my peripheral vision, I catch sight of Tomasetti kicking aside the chair. “Get off her!”
I hear the attorney’s ineffective “Hey!”
Salome’s fingernails rake across my left temple, dangerously close to my eye. “I hate you! I fucking hate you!”
I raise my hands to shove her away, but she’s too close. I can’t get any leverage. My training kicks in. I bring my elbow up hard, striking her beneath the chin. I hear her teeth click together. Her head snaps back. Stiff-armed, I jam the heel of my hand against her chest as hard as I can. A strangled scream tears from her throat as she reels back. I hear her head strike the table. Twisting, I wriggle out from beneath her, roll, bring up my feet to mule-kick her away.
Before I can, Tomasetti yanks her back. She twists and goes after him like a wild animal. He curses. Her attorney’s shouting in a tinny, alarmed voice. All of it is punctuated by Salome’s strangled screams. “She’s lying! I hate her! She killed Mose!” Her eyes are wild when they find mine. “Murderer!”
As abruptly as the ruckus began, the room goes silent and still. I use the fallen chair to get to my feet. I’m aware of the blood roaring in my ears, the drumbeat thud of my heart, the burn of a cut on my face. A few feet away, Tomasetti has Salome bent over, face against the table, while he cuffs her hands behind her back. A visibly shaken Adam Slabaugh stands to my right, shaking, breathing as if he just ran the Boston Marathon.
Tomasetti pulls Salome back from the table by the scruff of her neck and looks at me. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I say automatically.
“You’re bleeding.” Slabaugh pulls a couple of tissues from the box on the table and hands them to me.
“Thanks.” I blot at the burning sensation at my left temple, and the tissue comes away red.
“She’s obviously going to need psychiatric evaluation.”
All heads turn toward Colin Thornsberry, Salome’s attorney. He looks like he just survived a tornado—barely—and I wonder if this is his first brush with a violent offender. He’s looking at Salome as if he doesn’t want to get too close.
The door swings open and I see Glock standing there at the ready. His eyes sweep the room, lingering on me a moment and then going to Salome and Tomasetti. “Everything okay in here?” he asks.
“It is now,” I say, and start toward the door.
*
There’s a universal truth in law enforcement. It’s one I’ve struggled with for years and probably will for more years to come. Some cases turn out badly no matter how good the police work. Even though you make the arrest, get the bad guy off the street, and make the world a safer place, there is no justice done. The end result can be as sad and troubling as the crime itself.
In the case of the Slabaugh family, two Amish parents are still dead, along with an uncle who was trying to help. Two little boys will grow up without their mother and father and siblings. A seventeen-year-old boy is dead. And a fifteen-year-old Amish girl is probably going to prison, where an innocent baby will be born into a system that is far from perfect.