"Broken" - читать интересную книгу автора (Slaughter Karin)

CHAPTER NINE

WILL FELT LIKE A THIEF AS HE SNEAKED ACROSS THE LINTON YARD and climbed into his Porsche. At least the driving rain gave him an excuse to keep his head down and move quickly. He jammed the key in the lock and was inside the car before he realized there was something trapped under his windshield wiper. Will groaned. He pushed open the door and tried to reach around to the wiper, but his arm wasn’t long enough. His sleeve was nearly soaked through by the time he got out of the car again to retrieve the plastic sandwich bag.

Someone had left him a note. The paper was folded in two, safe inside the plastic. Will glanced around, trying to see up and down the street. No one was milling about, which was unsurprising, considering the awful weather. There were no parked cars with the engines running. Will unzipped the bag. He caught a whiff of a familiar scent.

Fancy soap.

He stared at the folded piece of paper, wondering if Sara was playing some kind of joke. He’d paced the floor of her family’s romper room half the night, replaying in his mind the last five minutes of their conversation. She hadn’t said anything, really. Or had she? There was definitely a look in her eyes. Something had changed between them, and it wasn’t a good change.

Other than Will’s wife, there were only two people in his life who knew about his dyslexia. Both of them had found their own special ways to make him miserable about it. Amanda Wagner, his boss, threw out occasional bon mots about him being professionally incompetent at best and mentally incapacitated at worst. Faith was more well-meaning, but she was too nosy for her own good. Once, she’d peppered Will with so many questions about the disorder that he’d stopped talking to her for two whole days.

His wife, Angie, was a combination of both responses. She had grown up with Will, helped him write school assignments and work on papers and fill out applications. She’d been the one who reviewed his reports and made sure he didn’t sound like a backward chimp. She was also prone to dangling her help in exchange for things she wanted. And they were never good things. At least not good for Will.

In their own way, all three women made it clear that they thought something was wrong with him. Something not quite right with his head. With the way he thought. With the way he handled things. They didn’t pity him. He was pretty sure Amanda didn’t even like him. But they treated him differently. They treated him like he had a disease.

What would Sara do? Maybe nothing. Will wasn’t even sure if she had figured it out. Or he could just be fooling himself. Sara was smart-that was part of the problem. She was a hell of a lot smarter than Will. Had he tripped up? Did she have some kind of special doctor’s tool to trap unsuspecting morons? He must have said something or done something that had given himself away. But what?

Will glanced back at the Linton home to make sure no one was watching him. Sara had developed a weird habit of lurking behind closed doors. He unfolded the notebook paper. There was a smiley face at the bottom.

Did she think he was a child? Was she out of gold stars?

He pressed his fingers to his eyes, feeling like an idiot. There was nothing sexy about a barely literate thirty-five-year-old man.

He looked back at the note.

Thankfully, Sara didn’t write in cursive. She didn’t write like a doctor, either. Will put his finger under each letter, moving his lips as he read. “Fun…” His heart did a weird double beat in his chest, but quickly he realized his mistake. “Funeral.” He knew the next word, and numbers had never been a problem for him.

He stared back at the front door. The window was clear. He checked the note again. “Funeral home 11:30.”

And a smiley face, because apparently she thought he was intellectually disabled.

Will stuck his key into the ignition. Obviously, she was talking about the time for the autopsies. But was this also some kind of test to see how well he could read? The thought of Sara Linton examining him like a lab rat made him want to pack his bags and move to Honduras. She would feel sorry for him. Worse, she might try to help him.

“Hello?”

Will jumped so hard he slammed his head into the ceiling. Cathy Linton was standing outside his car with a pleasant look on her face. She had a large umbrella over her head. She motioned for him to roll down the window.

“Good morning, Mr. Trent.” She was all smiles again, but he had fallen for her sweet-southern-lady crap once before.

“Good morning, Mrs. Linton.”

Her breath was visible in the cold. “I hope you slept well.”

He looked back at the house, wondering why this was the only time Sara wasn’t lurking behind the door. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”

“I just went for my walk. Exercise is the best way to start the morning.” She smiled again. “Won’t you come in and have some breakfast with us?”

His stomach rumbled so loudly he was sure the car was shaking. The energy bar he’d found at the bottom of his suitcase this morning hadn’t exactly hit the spot. A woman like Cathy Linton would know how to make a good biscuit. There would be butter and ham. Probably grits. Eggs. Sausage patties. It was like she was inviting him into the woods to visit her cottage made of candy.

“Mr. Trent?”

“No, ma’am. I need to get to work, but I appreciate it.”

“Dinner, then.” She had a way of saying things that sounded like a suggestion at first but ended up being a strict order. “I hope the apartment wasn’t too horrible last night.”

“No, ma’am. It was fine.”

“I’ll just slip up there later and do some dusting. Eddie and I haven’t used the place since the girls were here. I cringe to think of the state it must be in.”

Will thought about the dirty clothes he’d left piled on the couch. He’d packed in Atlanta thinking he’d wash everything at the hotel. “That’s all right. I-”

“Nonsense.” She tapped her hand on the car door like a judge passing down an edict. “I can’t have you breathing in all that dust.”

He knew there was no way to stop her. “Just… uh… Just ignore my mess. Please. I’m sorry.”

Her smile changed to something much kinder than he’d seen before. He could see now where Sara got her beauty. Cathy reached into the car and gently rested her hand on his arm. Sara had touched him on the arm a lot last night. They were obviously a touchy-feely kind of family, which was just as foreign to Will as if they were from Mars.

She squeezed his arm. “Dinner’s at seven-thirty sharp.”

He nodded. “Thank you.”

“Don’t be late.” Her smile changed back to the one he was more familiar with. She winked at him before turning on her heel and walking back toward the house.

Will rolled up his window. He put the car in gear and headed up the road, too late remembering that he was going in the wrong direction. Or maybe not. Sara had told him that Lakeshore was just a big circle. Will had lately gone around in enough circles to last a lifetime, but he wasn’t going to risk driving past the Linton home again.

The road was empty, he assumed because of the early hour. Will was timing his arrival at the police station so that he’d get there before most of the cops came on shift. He wanted to look eager and alert. He wanted them to feel like he was stepping on their toes.

He slowed his car as he rounded a curve. The road was more like a stream, rainwater flooding across the asphalt. He maneuvered the Porsche into the opposite side of the street to keep his floorboards from flooding. Will had spent ten years of his life and a chunk of his savings restoring the 9-11 by hand. Most of that time, he was bent over manuals and schematics, trying to figure out how the car was supposed to work. He’d learned to weld. He’d learned to do body work. He’d learned that he wasn’t particularly fond of either.

The engine was solid, but the gears were temperamental. He felt the clutch slip as he downshifted. Once he was out of the floodwaters, he idled the car, thinking he’d let the undercarriage drain, wondering if such a thing was even possible. Up ahead, a blue mailbox with an Auburn University logo painted on it rocked in the strong wind. He recalled the first house number Sara had written on the outside of the folder when she was giving him directions to her parents’ house. Will had always been good at remembering numbers.

In Atlanta, Sara lived in the old dairy factory, one of those industrial complexes that had been turned into luxurious lofts back during the real estate boom. He’d remarked then that the place didn’t really seem like her type of home. The lines were too hard. The furniture too sleek. He had imagined she lived somewhere warm and welcoming, more like a cottage.

He had been right.

The Auburn mailbox belonged to a shotgun-style, one-story home with plants overflowing in the front yard. Sara had lived on the lake, and the sky was just light enough so that Will could see the glorious aspect of her backyard. He wondered what Sara’s life had been like when she lived here. She didn’t strike him as the kind of wife who would have dinner and a dry martini waiting when her husband got home, but maybe occasionally she had filled the role out of kindness. There was something about her that indicated a tremendous capacity for love.

The porch light came on. Will put the car in gear and continued around the lake. He missed the turnoff for Main Street and had to back up. He felt his wedding ring on his hand, making a mental note that the turn would be on that side. Over the years, he had trained his mind to recognize his watch, not the ring. Probably because the watch was more permanent.

Will had met Angie Polaski when he was eight years old. Angie was three years older, thrown into the system because her mother had overdosed on a nasty combination of heroin and speed. While Diedre Polaski lay comatose in the bathroom, Angie was being looked after by her mother’s pimp in the bedroom. Finally, someone had called the police. Diedre was put on life support at the state hospital, where she remained to this day, and Angie was sent to the Atlanta Children’s Home for the remaining seven years of a childhood that had already been lost. Will had fallen in love with her on sight. At eleven, she’d had a chip on her shoulder and hell in her eyes. When she wasn’t giving boys handjobs in the coat closet, she was beating the snot out of them with her unsurprisingly quick fists.

Will had loved her for her fierceness, and when her fierceness had worn him down, he had clung to her for her familiarity. Last year, she had married him on a dare after years of empty promises. She cheated on him. She pushed him to the breaking point, then sank her claws into his flesh and yanked him back. His relationship with Angie was more akin to a twisted hokey pokey. She was in Will’s life. She was out. She was in. She was shaking him all about.

Will found Main Street after a couple of wrong turns. The rain wasn’t coming down in sheets anymore, so he could make out the small shops lining the road. One place was obviously a hardware store. The other looked like a shop to buy ladies’ clothing. Directly across from the station was a dry cleaners. Will thought about his dirty laundry piled on the couch. Maybe he could find time to sneak back and get it. He usually wore a suit and tie to work, but he hadn’t had a lot of options this morning. There was just one T-shirt and a pair of boxers left. His jeans were clean enough to last another day. The sweater was the one he wore last night. The cashmere blend hadn’t responded well to the rain. He felt the material tighten every time he flexed his shoulders.

Will pulled into the farthest space from the front door, backing in so that the Porsche was facing the street. Catty-corner to the station, he saw a low office building with glass brick on the front. The faded sign out front had a teddy bear holding some balloons. Probably a daycare center. A squad car rolled down the street but didn’t stop, going ahead through the gates of what must have been the college. Will’s was the only car in the lot. He supposed Larry Knox was inside the station, or maybe they’d given him a relief when Will left last night. Either way, he wasn’t going to spend the next twenty minutes standing in the rain outside the locked door.

He dialed Amanda Wagner’s number, holding out slim hope that she wasn’t in the office yet.

His luck took a nasty turn. Amanda answered the phone herself.

“It’s Will,” he said. “I’m outside the station house.”

Amanda never gave anyone the benefit of the doubt, not least of all Will. “Did you just get there?”

“I got in last night.” He felt a slight bit of relief. In the back of his mind, he’d been worried that Sara would call Amanda and ask that Will be taken off the case. She would want the best the GBI had to offer, not a functional illiterate with a suitcase full of dirty laundry.

Amanda’s tone was clipped. “Run it down for me, Will. I haven’t got all day.”

He told her Sara’s story: that she had gotten a call from Julie Smith, then Frank Wallace. That she had gone to the jail and found Tommy Braham dead. He didn’t tell her about Sara’s beef with Lena Adams, instead skipping ahead to the Cross pens that Jeffrey Tolliver had given his staff. “I’m pretty sure the ink cartridge Braham used came from one of those pens.”

“Good luck finding out whose.” Amanda picked at the same thread Will had spotted. “There’s no way of knowing exactly when Tommy Braham died-before or after Frank Wallace called Sara.”

“We’ll see what the autopsy brings. Dr. Linton is going to do it.”

“There’s a bright spot in a bleak day.”

“It’s good to have someone down here who knows what they’re doing.”

“Shouldn’t that be you, Will?”

He let the remark go unanswered.

She asked, “What’s your impression on the Allison Spooner homicide?”

“I’m fifty-fifty. Maybe Tommy Braham did it. Or maybe her killer’s assuming he got away with murder.”

“Well, figure it out and get back here fast, because they’re not going to like you very much if you prove he’s innocent.”

She was right. One thing cops hated more than bad guys was being proven wrong about the bad guys. Will had seen an Atlanta detective nearly go into convulsions as he argued that the DNA exonerating his suspect had to be wrong.

Amanda told him, “I called Macon General this morning. Brad Stephens had to be taken back into surgery. They missed a bleeder the first time.”

“Is he all right?”

“Prognosis is guarded. They’re keeping him sedated for the time being, so he’s not going to talk to anyone anytime soon.”

“I’m pretty sure he’s not going to remember anything useful except that his fellow officers saved his life.”

“Be that as it may, he’s still a cop. You need to go over there at some point and share in the camaraderie. Donate some blood. Buy him a magazine.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What’s your game plan?”

“I’m going to rattle some cages this morning and see if anything falls out. Faith is working on the paper trail for Julie Smith and Carl Phillips. Talking to them is my priority, but we’ve got to find them first. I want to check out the lake where Spooner was found, then go see the garage where she lived. It feels like her murder is at the center of this. Whatever they’re hiding from me goes back to her death.”

“You don’t think they’re tap-dancing because of the suicide?”

“They might be, but my gut is telling me something else is going on.”

“Ah, your famous women’s intuition.” Amanda never missed an opportunity to insult him. “What about Adams?”

“I’ll keep her close by.”

“I met her once. She’ll be a hard nut to crack.”

“So I hear.”

“Loop me in at the end of the day.”

She hung up the phone before Will could respond. He rubbed his fingers through his hair, wondering if the damp was from the rain or his own sweat.

For the second time that morning, Will jumped when someone knocked on the window of his car. This time the knocker was an older black man, and he stood at the passenger door, grinning at Will’s reaction. He made a rolling motion with his arm. Will leaned over and opened the door.

“Come in out of the rain,” Will offered, thinking the man was the first nonwhite face he’d seen since he’d arrived in Grant County. He didn’t want to make assumptions, but he would’ve bet half his paycheck that the African Americans in town didn’t make a habit of approaching investigators outside the police station.

The man groaned as he climbed into the bucket seat. Will saw that he walked with a cane. His leg was stiff, and bent awkwardly at the knee. Rain dripped from his heavy coat. A slight mist clung to his salt-and-pepper beard. He wasn’t as old as Will had first thought-maybe early sixties. When he spoke, his voice was like sandpaper scratching through gravel.

“Lionel Harris.”

“Will Trent.”

Lionel took off his glove and they shook hands. “My father was named Will. Short for William.”

“Me too,” Will told him, though his birth certificate said no such thing.

Lionel pointed up the street. “Daddy worked at the diner for forty-three years. Old Pete closed it down back in oh-one.” He rubbed his hand along the leather dashboard. “What year is this?”

Will assumed he meant the car. “Seventy-nine.”

“You do all the work yourself?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Nah,” he said, though he’d found the kink in the leather under the handle of the glove box. “You did a good job, son. Real good job.”

“I take it you’re interested in cars?”

“My wife would tell you I’m too interested for my own good.” He glanced pointedly at Will’s wedding ring. “You known Sara long?”

“Not too long.”

“She took care of my grandson. He had asthma real bad. She’d rush over in the middle of the night to help him. Sometimes she’d still be in her pajamas.”

Will tried not to think of Sara in her pajamas, though he imagined from Lionel’s story that they were probably not the ones his mind had conjured.

“Sara’s from good people.” He ran his finger along the trim on the door, which, thankfully, Will had done a better job covering. Lionel seemed to agree. “You learned from your mistakes. Got a good fold on this corner here.”

“It took me half the day.”

“Worth every minute,” he approved.

Will felt foolish even as he asked, “Your son isn’t Carl Phillips, is he?”

Lionel gave a deep, satisfied laugh. “’Cause he’s black and I’m black-”

“No,” Will interrupted, then, “Well, yes.” He felt uncomfortable even as he explained, “There doesn’t seem to be much of a minority population around here.”

“I guess coming from Atlanta, you’ve had a bit of a culture shock.”

He was right. In Atlanta, Will’s white skin made him a minority. Grant County stood as a stark contrast. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right. You aren’t the first person to do that. Carl goes to my church, but I don’t know him other than that.”

Will tried to steer the conversation away from his own stupidity. “How do you know I’m from Atlanta?”

“License plate says Fulton County.”

Will smiled patiently.

“All right, you got me,” Lionel relented. “You’re here to look into that stuff with Tommy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“He was a good kid.”

“You knew him?”

“I saw him in town a lot. He’s the kind of kid got thirty different jobs-mowing lawns, walking dogs, hauling trash, helping people move house. Just about everybody in town knew him.”

“How do people feel about him stabbing Brad Stephens?”

“About how you’d expect. Confused. Angry. Torn between thinking there was some mistake and thinking…” His voice trailed off. “He was a bit tetched in the head.”

“He’d never been violent before?”

“No, but you never know. Maybe something set him off, turned on the crazy.”

In Will’s experience, people were either prone to violence or not. He didn’t think Tommy Braham was an exception. “Do you think that’s what happened-he just snapped?”

“I don’t know what to think about nothin’ anymore, and that’s the God’s honest truth.” He gave a weary sigh. “Lord, I feel old today.”

“The weather gets into your bones,” Will agreed. He’d broken his hand many years ago, and every time it got cold like this, his fingers ached. “Have you lived here all your life?”

Lionel smiled again, showing his teeth. “When I was a boy, people called where we lived Colored Town.” He turned to Will. “Can you believe that? Colored Town, and now I live on a street with a bunch of professors.” He gave a deep laugh. “A lot’s changed in fifty years.”

“Has the police force?”

Lionel stared openly at Will, as if he was trying to decide how much to say. Finally, he seemed to make up his mind. “Ben Carver was chief when I left town. I wasn’t the only young black man who thought it was a good idea to leave while the gettin’ was good. Joined the army and got this for my trouble.” He knocked on his leg. There was a hollow sound, and Will realized the man wore a prosthetic. “Laos. Nineteen and sixty-four.” Lionel paused for a minute as if to reflect on the loss. “There was two kinds of living for people back then, just like there was two kinds of law under Chief Carver: one for black and one for white.”

“I heard Carver retired.”

Lionel nodded approvingly. “Tolliver.”

“Was he a good cop?”

“I never met the man, but I can tell you this: A long while back, my father was working at the diner when a lady professor from the college got killed. Everybody saw a black face and made their assumptions. Chief Tolliver spent the night at Daddy’s house just to make sure he woke up the next morning.”

“It was that bad?”

“Chief Tolliver was that good.” Lionel added, “Allison was a good girl, too.”

Will got the feeling that they had finally reached the point of Lionel’s impromptu visit. “You knew her?”

“I own the diner now. You believe that?” He shook his head as if he still could not believe it himself. “I came back a few years ago and took it off Pete’s hands.”

“Is business good?”

“It was slow at first, but most days now we’re full up. My wife works the books. Sometimes my sister pitches in but it’s better if she doesn’t.”

“When was the last time you saw Allison?”

“Saturday night. We’re closed on Sundays. I guess except for Tommy, I was one of the last people to see her alive.”

“How was she?”

“Same as usual. Tired. Glad to be getting off work.”

“What sort of person was she?”

His throat worked, and he took a few moments to collect himself before he could continue. “I never hire kids from the college. They don’t know how to talk to people. They just know how to type into their computers or their phones. No work ethic and nothing’s ever their fault no matter how red-handed you catch ’em. Except for Allison. She was different.”

“How so?”

“She knew how to work for a living.” He pointed to the open gates at the end of Main Street. “Not a kid in that school knows how to do an honest day’s work. This economy is their wake-up call. They’re gonna have to learn the hard way that a job is something you earn, not something you’re given.”

Will asked, “Did you know much about Allison’s family?”

“Her mama was dead. She had an aunt she didn’t talk about much.”

“Boyfriend?”

“She had one, but he never bothered her at work.”

“Do you know his name?”

“She never mentioned him except in passing, like I’d ask what she was going to do over the weekend and she’d say she was going to study with her boyfriend.”

“He never called her or dropped by? Not even once?”

“Not even once,” he confirmed. “She was mindful that I was paying for her time, you see. I never saw her on her cell phone. She never had her friends come in and take up her time. It was work for her, and she knew that she had to take care of business.”

“Did she make a good living?”

“Hell no.” He laughed at what must have been a surprised look on Will’s face. “I don’t pay much and my customers are cheap-mostly old men and cops, sometimes students from the school who think it’s funny to run out on the bill. Or, try to run out. Pretty stupid thinking you’re gonna stiff the check in a room full of cops.”

“Did she carry a purse or book bag with her?”

“She had this pink book bag with a tassel on the zipper. Left it in her car when she was at work. Except her wallet. She wasn’t one’a them primpin’ girls, can’t stay away from a mirror.”

“Was there anyone suspicious hanging around her? Customers who were too attentive?”

“I would’ve taken care of that myself. Not that I’d need to. That girl was street-smart. She knew how to take care of herself.”

“Did she carry a weapon? Maybe pepper spray or a pocket knife?”

“Not that I ever saw.” He held up his hands. “Now, don’t get the impression she was hard. She was a real sweet girl, one’a them who just wanted to go along to get along. She didn’t take to confrontation, but she stood up for herself when it mattered.”

“Had her attitude changed lately?”

“She seemed a little more stressed than usual. She asked me a couple of times could she study when we were slow. Don’t get me wrong-I’m an easy man to work for so long as you do your job. I let her crack open her books when we weren’t busy. I made sure she had a hot meal before she went home.”

“Do you know what kind of car she drove?”

“Old Dodge Daytona with Alabama plates. You remember those? Based on the Chrysler G platform. Front-wheel drive, kind of low to the ground.”

“Four door?”

“Hatchback. The pistons were blown. She kept the trunk tied down with a bungee cord. I think it’s a ’92, ’93.” He tapped his head. “Mind ain’t as good as it used to be.”

“What color?”

“Red, you could say. Mostly it’s primer and rust. Spits out smoke from the tailpipe every time she cranks it.”

“Where did she park?”

“Behind the diner. I checked this morning. It’s not there.”

“Did she ever walk home from work?”

“Sometimes when the weather was good, but it ain’t been good in a long while, and she wasn’t making her way home.” He pointed behind them. “The lake’s back there. Behind the station. Behind the diner.” He pointed across the street. “When she walked home, she always went that way, out the front door.”

“Do you know Gordon Braham?”

“I believe he works for the power company. He also dates the woman who works at the five and dime across from the diner. They come in for lunch every couple’a three days.”

“You seem to know a lot about people.”

“This is a small town, Mr. Trent. Everybody knows a lot about everybody else. That’s why we live here. Cheaper than cable TV.”

“Who do you think killed Allison?”

Lionel didn’t seem surprised by the question, but he gave the expected answer. “Police say it was Tommy Braham.”

“What do you say?”

He looked at his watch. “I say I’d better go fire up the grill before the breakfast crowd comes in.” He put his hand on the door, but Will stopped him.

“Mr. Harris, if you think somebody-”

“I don’t know what to think,” he admitted. “If Tommy didn’t do it, then why’d he stab Brad? And why’d he kill himself?”

“You don’t think he did it.” Will wasn’t asking a question.

Lionel gave another weary sigh. “I guess I’m a bit like old Chief Carver. There’s good people and there’s bad people. Allison was good. Tommy was good. Good people can do bad things, but not that bad.”

He started to leave again.

“Can I ask you-” Will waited for him to turn back around. “Why did you come to talk to me?”

“Because I knew Frank wouldn’t be knocking on my door. Not that I’ve been able to tell you much, but I wanted to say something on the girl’s behalf. She ain’t got nobody speaking up for her right now. It’s all about Tommy and why’d he do it, not about Allison and what a good girl she was.”

“Why do you think Chief Wallace wouldn’t want to talk to you?”

“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

Will knew he didn’t mean Jeffrey Tolliver. “Ben Carver?”

“Frank and Ben-they were cut from the same cloth. White cloth, if you catch my drift.”

“I think I do.”

Lionel still had his hand on the door handle. “When I got back to town after Daddy died, I saw a lot of people had changed. On the outside, I’m talking-not on the inside. You gotta go through a special kind of hell or a special kind of love to change who you are inside. Outside’s a whole different story.” He rubbed his beard, probably thinking about the gray in it. “Now, Miss Sara, she got prettier. Her daddy Mr. Eddie got more hair sprouting out of his eyebrows. My sister got older and fatter, which ain’t never a good combination for a woman.”

“And Frank?”

“He got careful,” Lionel said. “I may not be living in Colored Town anymore, but I still remember what it feels like to have that man’s foot on my neck.” He pulled the handle on the door. “You get you a heat gun and work it just the tiniest little bit around that leather on your glove box and you’ll be able to get that kink out.” He picked up his leg so he could get out of the car. “Just a tiny bit, though. Too much heat, and you’ll burn a hole right through.” He stared his meaning into Will. “Not too much heat, son.”

“I appreciate your advice.”

Lionel struggled to get out of the Porsche, finally gripping the roof and pulling himself up. He steadied himself on the cane and held out his hand, giving Will a gymnast’s finish and a “tah-dah,” before gently closing the door.

Will watched Lionel lean heavily on the cane as he made his way up the street. He stopped in front of the hardware store to talk to a man who was sweeping debris from the sidewalk. The rain had died down, and they seemed to be taking their time. Will imagined they were talking about Allison Spooner and Tommy Braham. In a place as small as Grant County, there wouldn’t be anything else to occupy people’s minds.

An old Cadillac pulled into the parking lot. Even from a distance, the gospel music hummed in Will’s ears. Marla Simms parked her car as far from Will’s as she could. She checked her makeup in the mirror, arranged her glasses-did all of the things that made it obvious she was ignoring him-before getting out of the car.

He walked across the lot to meet her, putting as much cheer into his voice as he could manage. “Good morning, Mrs. Simms.”

She tossed him a wary look. “No one’s here yet.”

“I see that.” He held up his briefcase. “I thought I’d go ahead and get set up. If you wouldn’t mind bringing me the evidence from the lake and anything collected from Tommy Braham’s person?”

Marla didn’t bother to acknowledge him as she threw back the bolt on the door. She turned on the lights and walked into the lobby. Again, she leaned over the gate and buzzed herself through. Will caught the door before it latched closed.

“Cold in here,” Will said. “Something wrong with the furnace?”

“The furnace is fine,” she said defensively.

“Is it new?”

“Do I look like I work for the furnace company?”

“Mrs. Simms, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that you look like you know everything that goes on in this station, if not the entire town.”

She made a grumbling noise as she took the carafe from the coffeemaker.

“Did you know Tommy Braham?”

“Yes.”

“What was he like?”

“Slow.”

“What about Allison Spooner?”

“Not slow.”

Will smiled. “I should thank you, Mrs. Simms, for those incident reports you sent to my partner last night. It shows an interesting pattern with Tommy. He’d had some trouble with his temper lately. Is that what you wanted me to know?”

She gave him a look over her glasses, but her mouth stayed closed as she walked to the back of the room. Will watched her push open the heavy steel door. She’d left him alone in the dark.

He went to the fax machine and checked under the table, giving Marla Simms the benefit of the doubt. There were no loose pages underneath, no 911 transcript that had fallen through the cracks. He opened the copier and saw the glass staring back at him. Something sticky was in the center. Will used his thumbnail to pry off the substance, which would transfer to every copy made on the machine. He held it up to the light. Glue, maybe? Gum?

He flicked it into the trashcan. None of the copies Sara had made for him yesterday showed a mark. Maybe someone else had used the machine after her and unwittingly transferred the gum onto the glass.

The office on the side of the squad room was empty, just as he’d thought. Will tried the knob. The door was unlocked. He went in and opened the blinds, giving him a nice view of the desks where the detectives sat. There were nail holes in the walls. In the slim ray of light coming through the outside window, he could see the shadows where photographs had once been. The desk was empty but for a telephone. All the drawers were cleaned out. The chair squeaked when he sat down.

If he was the betting type, Will would have put ten bucks on this being Jeffrey Tolliver’s old office.

He opened his briefcase and set out his files. Finally, the overhead lights flickered on. Will saw Marla through the glass in the wall. She stared at him, mouth open. With her tight bun and dirty glasses, she looked like one of those beady old ladies from a Gary Larson comic strip. Will plastered a smile on his face, tossed her a wave. Marla gripped the handle of the carafe so hard he could almost feel her desire to smash the glass into his face.

Will reached into his pocket and found his digital recorder. Every cop in the world kept a spiral notebook in which to record details of their investigations. Will did not have that luxury, but he’d learned to compensate.

He checked the window for Marla before putting the recorder to his ear and pressing play. The volume was low, and he heard Faith’s voice reading Tommy Braham’s confession. Will had not wasted the entire night worrying about his schoolgirl crush on Sara Linton. He’d prepared himself for the day by reading every single word in the reports and listening to Tommy Braham’s confession over and over again until he had memorized almost every word. He listened to the whole thing again in the office, the cadence of Faith’s voice so familiar that he could have spoken along with her.

Her tone was dispassionate, offering no inflection. “‘I was in Allison’s apartment. This was last night. I don’t know what time. Pippy, my dog, was sick. It was after I took her to the doctor. Allison said she would have sex with me. We started to have sex. She changed her mind. I got mad. I had a knife on me. I stabbed her once in the neck. I took the extra chain and lock and drove her to the lake. I wrote the note so people would think she had killed herself. Allison was sad. I thought that would be reason enough.’”

There were murmurs in the squad room. Will glanced up to find a couple of uniformed cops staring at him in disbelief. One of them started toward the office, probably to confront him, but his partner stopped him.

Will leaned back in the chair, hearing the squeak again. He took out his cell phone and called Faith. She picked up on the fourth ring. Her hello was more like a grunt.

“Did I wake you up?”

“It’s seven-thirty in the morning. Of course you woke me up.”

“I can call back.”

“Just gimme a minute.” He heard her moving around. She yawned so loudly that Will felt his own jaw twitching to open. “I pulled up some info on Lena Adams.”

“And?”

She yawned again. “Let me get to my laptop.”

Will couldn’t stop his own yawn. “I’m sorry I got you out of bed.”

“You’ve got me until four this afternoon. That’s when I meet my doctor at the hospital.”

Will started talking so she wouldn’t explain the procedure again. “That’s great, Faith. I guess your mom is driving you. She must be excited. What about your brother? Have you called him?”

“You can shut up now. I’m at my computer.” He heard keys being tapped. “Salena Marie Adams,” Faith said, probably reading from the woman’s personnel file. “Detective first grade. Thirty-five years old. Five-four and a hundred and twenty pounds.” Faith mumbled a curse. “God, that’s enough to make me hate her right there.”

“What about her history?”

“She was raped.”

Will was taken aback by her abruptness. He’d been expecting date of birth, maybe some commendations. Sara had said that she suspected Lena had been raped by her ex-boyfriend, but he’d been under the impression no formal charges had been filed. He asked Faith, “How do you know that?”

“The case came up when I cross-referenced her file. You really should Google more.”

“When did it happen?”

“Ten years ago.” He heard her fingers pecking the keyboard. “Her file is pretty clean. She’s worked some interesting cases. You remember that south Georgia pedophile ring awhile back? She and Tolliver broke it open.”

“Does she have any black marks?”

“Small-town forces don’t air their dirty laundry on paper,” Faith reminded him. “She took some time off the job six years ago. She worked security at the college less than a year, then went back on the job. That’s all I’ve got on her. Have you found anything else?”

“I had an interesting conversation with the man who runs the diner this morning.”

“What did he say?”

“Not a whole lot. Allison was a good kid. Hard worker. He didn’t know much about her personal life.”

“Do you think he killed her?”

“He’s sixty-something years old with a fake leg.”

“A real fake leg?”

Will thought about Lionel knocking on the prosthesis, the hollow sound. “I’ll see if I can confirm it, but he was putting on quite an act if the leg is real.”

“You never know with those small towns. Ed Gein was a babysitter.”

Faith was never one to miss an opportunity to compare a kindly old man to one of the twentieth century’s most notorious serial killers.

She said, “Spooner’s background check didn’t offer much, either. She’s got a bank account with eighteen dollars and change. She must be a cash-and-carry gal. The only checks she’s written in the last six months are to the college and the campus bookstore. The statements are delivered to the Taylor Drive address. Other than that, she’s got no credit cards. No utilities in her name. No credit history. No cell phone on record. No car.”

“The old guy at the diner says she drove a Dodge Daytona with Alabama plates.”

“It must be registered in someone else’s name. Do you think the locals know about it?”

“I don’t know. My source also says that Allison had a pink book bag she kept in the car when she was working.”

“Hold on a second.” Faith was obviously doing something on her computer. “All right, I’m not finding any BOLOs for the car coming out of Grant County or any towns in the vicinity.” If Frank Wallace knew about Allison’s car, he would have posted a “be on the lookout” to all neighboring counties.

Will said, “Maybe they already know where the car is but they don’t want me to find it.”

“I’m posting a BOLO around the state right now. Your chief will have to tell his boys to look for it during their briefing this morning.”

“It’s an old car. Allison’s lived here a couple of years without changing the plates.”

“College town. Wouldn’t be odd to have cars with out-of-state tags. The only reason not to register a car is because it’s not insured,” Faith pointed out. “I’d buy that. This girl was living on the margins. She barely made a blip on the radar.”

Will saw that the squad room was filling up. The crowd of cops had gotten bigger. A more fearful man might call them a growing mob. They kept stealing looks at Will. Marla was pouring them coffee, glaring at him over her shoulder. And then, as if on cue, they all looked toward the front door. Will wondered if Frank Wallace had deigned to make an appearance, but quickly saw this was not the case. A woman with olive skin and curly, shoulder-length brown hair joined the group. She was the smallest in the bunch, but they parted for her like the Red Sea.

Will told Faith, “I think Detective Adams has decided to grace us with her presence.”

“How does she look?”

Lena had spotted him. Her eyes burned with hatred.

He said, “She looks like she wants to rip out my throat with her teeth.”

“Be careful. You know you have a weakness for bitchy, spiteful women.”

Will didn’t bother to argue. Lena Adams had the same color skin and hair as Angie, though she was obviously of Latin descent, whereas Angie’s origins were vaguely Mediterranean. Lena was shorter, more athletic. There was none of Angie’s womanliness about her-Lena was too cop for that-but she was an attractive woman. She also seemed to share Angie’s talent for stirring things up. Several of the cops were staring at Will with open hostility now. It wouldn’t be long before someone grabbed a pitchfork.

Faith asked, “What’s this email from you?” She answered her own question. “Julie Smith. All right, I’ll see if I can trace the number. The warrant for Tommy Braham’s phone records shouldn’t be a problem considering he’s dead, but I may need an official cause of death before we get access.”

Will kept his eyes on Lena. She was saying something to the group. Probably telling them to check their weapons. “Can you fudge that a little? Julie Smith told Sara that Tommy texted her from jail. The transcript might help find out who she is. Maybe Amanda can call in some favors.”

“Oh, great. Just who I want to talk to first thing in the morning.”

“Can you get her to rush through a search warrant for the garage, too? I want to show the locals what proper procedure looks like.”

“I’m sure she’ll fall over herself trying to accommodate your requests.” Faith gave a heavy groan. “Anything else you want me to ask her?”

“Tell her I want my testicles back.”

“They’re probably already at the bronzer.”

Lena took off her jacket and threw it on a desk. “I need to go.” Will hung up the phone just as the detective stomped toward the office.

Will stood up. He gave one of his winning smiles. “You must be Detective Adams. I’m so glad to finally meet you.”

She stared at the hand he offered. He thought for a minute she might rip it off.

“Is there something wrong, Detective?”

She was obviously so angry she could barely speak. “This office-”

“I hope you don’t mind,” Will interrupted. “It was empty, and I want to make sure I stay out of your way.” His hand was still extended between them. “We’re not to that point yet where you can’t shake my hand. Are we, Detective?”

“We passed that point the minute you sat behind that desk.”

Will dropped his hand. “I was expecting Chief Wallace.”

“Interim Chief,” she corrected, just as raw as Sara on the subject. “Frank’s at the hospital with Brad.”

“I heard Detective Stephens had a rough night, but he seems all right this morning.”

She didn’t answer him, which was just as well. Her accent was full of south Georgia twang, and anger made her words blend like cake batter.

Will indicated the chair. “Please have a seat.”

“I’ll stand.”

“Hope you don’t mind if I sit.” The chair squeaked as he settled back in it. Will steepled his fingers together. He noticed that a pen was clipped to Lena’s breast pocket. It was silver, a Cross just like the one Larry Knox had clipped to his shirt last night. Will glanced at the group of officers who were milling around the coffee machine. They all had pens clipped to their chest pockets, too.

Will smiled. “I’m sure your chief already told you why I’m here.”

He saw her eye twitch. “Tommy.”

“Right, Tommy Braham, and by extension, Allison Spooner. I hope we can wrap this up quickly. I’m sure we’d all rather have this off our plate going into Thanksgiving.”

“This good-guy bullshit isn’t really going to work with me.”

“We both have badges, Detective. Don’t you think you should try to cooperate so we can get to the truth of this matter?”

“You know what I think?” She crossed her arms high on her chest. “I think you’re down here where you don’t belong, sleeping in places you have no right, and trying to get a lot of good people into trouble for shit that’s beyond their control.”

There was a loud knock at the open door. Marla Simms stood ramrod straight, a medium-sized cardboard box gripped between her hands. She walked to the desk and dropped the box with a thud in front of Will.

“Thank you,” he told her retreating back. “Mrs. Simms?” She didn’t turn, but she stopped. “If you don’t mind, I need the audiotape of the 911 call reporting Allison Spooner’s alleged suicide.”

She left without acknowledging the request.

Will looked over the top of the box, eyeing the contents. There were several plastic evidence bags, obviously taken from the scene of Allison Spooner’s death. A pair of white sneakers was in one. Streaks of mud went up the sides and stuck into the treads.

The ring and watch mentioned in Lena’s report were in the other bag. He studied the ring, which was cheap, the sort of thing you gave a girl when you were fifteen and spending fifty dollars on a piece of jewelry from the locked display at Walgreens was a big deal.

He held up the ring. “I gave my wife one of these when we were kids.”

Lena’s nasty look resembled the same one Angie had shown Will when he’d given her the ring.

He pulled another bag out of the box. There was a closed wallet inside. Will managed to pry it open through the plastic. He found a photo of an older woman beside a young girl and another photograph of an orange cat. There were some bills in the cash compartment. Allison Spooner’s student ID and driver’s license were tucked in the back sleeves.

Will looked at the girl’s picture. Faith had guessed right. Allison was very pretty. She also looked younger than her given age. Maybe it was her size. She seemed delicate, almost fragile. He flipped back to the photograph of the older woman, realizing now that the girl beside her was Allison Spooner. The picture had obviously been taken a few years ago. Allison looked like a teenager.

He asked Lena, “Is this all you found in the wallet?” He listed it out for her. “Two photos, forty bucks, the license, and student ID?”

She was staring at the open wallet in his hands. “Frank catalogued it.”

Not exactly an answer, but Will knew that he’d need to choose his battles. He saw there was one more evidence bag in the box. He guessed it contained the contents of Tommy Braham’s pockets. “Gum, thirty-eight cents, and a metal Monopoly game piece of a car.” He looked back up at Lena. “He didn’t have a wallet on him?”

“No.”

“Cell phone?”

“Is there one in the bag?”

Her combative answers were telling him more than she realized. Will asked, “What about his clothes and shoes? Any blood on them? Any stains?”

“Per protocol for a suicide in custody, Frank sent them to the lab. Your lab.”

“The Central GBI lab in Dry Branch?”

She nodded.

“What about the sheath?”

She seemed confused.

“In Tommy’s confession, he said he had a knife on him when he killed Allison. I imagine he had a sheath on his belt? A knife sheath?”

She shook her head. “He probably got rid of it.”

“He doesn’t mention in his confession what kind of knife he used.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“Did you find any knives in the house where Tommy lived?”

“We can’t search his house without a warrant or permission from his father, who’s the owner of the property.”

Well, at least she knew the law. That she was choosing to follow it now was a bit of a mystery. “Are you assuming Tommy used the same knife to stab Detective Stephens that he used to kill Allison Spooner?”

Lena was silent for a few seconds. She had conducted enough interviews to recognize what a corner felt like when it was pressing against your back. “I’ve found in my career that it’s better not to make assumptions about what a suspect will and will not do.”

“That’s a valuable lesson for any officer,” he allowed. “Any reason why the Spooner evidence wasn’t sent to Central?”

She hesitated again. “I assume because the case is closed.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Tommy ran from the police. He stabbed a police officer. He confessed to the crime. He killed himself because he couldn’t take the guilt. I’m not sure how you do it in Atlanta, but down here we generally stop throwing money at an investigation once it’s closed.”

Will rubbed the back of his neck. “I really wish you’d sit down. This is going to take a while and I don’t think I can keep looking up at you without getting a crick.”

“What’s going to take a while?”

“Detective Adams, perhaps you don’t comprehend the import of this investigation. I’m here to interview you about the death of a prisoner who was in your custody, in your jail, in your town. In addition to that, a young woman was murdered. A police officer was badly wounded. This isn’t going to be a quick chat over coffee and doughnuts, not least of all because I’ve been advised not to take any food from y’all that isn’t sealed in a container.” He smiled. She didn’t smile back. “Would you please sit down so we can talk to each other like rational people?” She still didn’t move, and Will took it a step further. “If you’d rather go to one of the interrogation rooms instead of being in your dead chief’s office, then I’d be more than happy to accommodate you.”

Her jaw tightened. They had a long, drawn-out staring match that Will nearly lost. Lena was hard to look at. Her pain and exhaustion showed on every line of her face. Her eyes were swollen, the whites shot through with red. Her hand was resting on the chair in front of her, yet still she swayed, as if her knees wanted to give out.

Finally, she said, “Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I think you’re the enemy.” Still, she pulled out the chair and sat down.

“I appreciate your candor.”

“Whatever.” She kept opening and closing her fist. He saw two flesh-colored Band-Aids wrapped around the palm of her hand. Her fingers looked swollen.

He asked, “That happen yesterday?”

She didn’t answer.

Will took a red folder out of his briefcase and left it unopened on the desk. Lena glanced down nervously. “Would you like a lawyer present?”

“Do I need one?”

“You should know better than to ask an investigator for legal advice, Detective. How about your union rep?”

She gave a short, sharp laugh. “We don’t have unions down here. We barely have uniforms.”

He should have remembered. “Do I need to remind you of your Miranda rights?”

“No.”

“Should I mention that lying to a state investigator during the course of an active investigation is a felony that can result in fines and imprisonment up to five years?”

“Didn’t you just do that?”

“I guess I did. Where was she stabbed?”

He’d caught her off guard. “What?”

“Allison Spooner. Where was she stabbed?”

“Here.” She put her hand to the back of her neck, her fingers resting a few inches from the spine.

“Was that the only wound?”

She opened her mouth, then closed it. Finally, she answered, “As you said, Frank noticed ligature marks around her wrist.”

“Did you notice them?”

“The body was in the water for a long time. I’m not sure what I saw except for the knife wound in the neck.”

The detail bothered him, mostly because it was the first point where Frank Wallace’s story didn’t dovetail with Lena’s. “Have you found Spooner’s car?”

“She doesn’t have one.”

“That strikes me as odd.”

“It’s a college town. Kids walk everywhere or drive their scooters.” Lena shrugged. “If they need to go somewhere, they can usually bum a ride.”

“Could Allison have a car without you knowing about it?”

“Not at the school. They’ll tow you if you take up two spaces. They’re really good about policing the campus. And, there aren’t a lot of places around town to ditch a car, either. I can put out a BOLO at the morning briefing if you want, but it’s a dead end. This isn’t Atlanta. If people see abandoned cars, they call the police.”

Will studied Lena, trying to read any deceit. “What about Allison’s boss at the diner? Have you talked to him?”

“Lionel Harris. Frank said he talked to him last night. He doesn’t know anything.”

Either Frank had lied or Lena was making things up as she went along.

Will asked, “How does Mr. Harris look for the murder?”

“He’s got one leg and he’s older than Jesus.”

“I’ll take that as an unlikely.” Will opened the red folder. The photocopy of Tommy Braham’s confession was on top. He saw a flash of recognition in Lena’s eyes. “Take me through it.”

“Which part?”

He knew she was expecting him to get straight to the point-the stabbing, what went down outside the garage. He went the opposite direction, hoping to throw her off. “Let’s start with you bringing Tommy Braham into the station and work our way forward. Did he say anything in the car?”

“No.”

Will hadn’t yet seen the booking pictures or the crime scene photos Sara had taken of Tommy Braham in the cell, but he knew that a cop had been stabbed while two other able-bodied officers were at the scene. He hazarded a guess about what happened next. “What condition was Tommy in at this time?”

She stared at him blankly.

“Did he fall down a couple of times during the arrest?”

Again, she took her time. “You’ll have to ask Frank about that. I was tending to Brad.”

“You saw Tommy in the car. What kind of state was he in?”

Lena pulled a spiral-bound notebook out of her back pocket. She slowly flipped to the pages she wanted. Will saw the paper was taped back into the notebook and assumed these were the originals Sara had photocopied last night.

Lena cleared her throat. “I brought in the suspect, Thomas Adam Braham, at approximately eight-thirty yesterday morning.” Lena scrutinized him. “You’re not going to take notes?”

“Why, do you want to let me borrow your pen?”

Her composure cracked just a tiny bit, and Will saw what he had been looking for from the minute Lena walked into the room. No matter what she thought about Tommy Braham, she was upset about his death. Not upset because it might get her into trouble, but upset because he was a human being who had been in her care.

Will said, “I’ve already read your notes, Detective. Tell me the parts that aren’t on the pages.”

She started picking at the Band-Aid.

“Who did the death notifications?”

“I did.”

“On both Spooner and Braham?”

She nodded. “Elba, where Allison’s from, is a small town. The detective I talked to went to school with her. He says her mother died eight years ago. The father’s unknown. There’s an aunt, Sheila McGhee, but she’s not home much. She works for a crew that’s remodeling roach motels along the Panhandle. The detective’s going to try to track her down. I left a message on her answering machine, but she won’t hear it until she gets home or calls to check her messages.”

She was actually sounding like a detective now. Will asked, “No cell phone?”

“Not that I can find.”

“Was there an address book in Allison’s apartment?”

“We didn’t have time to do a search.” Her tone became clipped again. “A lot was going on yesterday. My partner was bleeding to death in the street.”

“I’d like to know when Ms. McGhee returns your call.”

She nodded.

“What about Tommy’s relations?”

“There’s just his dad, Gordon. I talked to him early this morning, told him what happened.”

“How did he take it?”

“No father wants to hear that his son’s confessed to murder.”

“How did he take the suicide?”

“About how you’d expect.” Lena looked down at her notes, though Will could tell she was buying time to collect herself. “Gordon’s driving up from Florida right now. I don’t know how long that’ll take. Seven, maybe eight hours.”

Will wondered where Frank Wallace was in all of this, and why the hardest parts of the case had fallen to Lena. He asked, “Did you know Allison Spooner?”

“Half the town did. She worked at the diner down the street.”

“Did you know her?”

“I never met her.”

“You don’t go to the diner?”

“Why does that matter?” She wasn’t looking for an answer. “Tommy laid it all out. You’ve got his confession right in front of you. He said that he wanted to have sex with her. She didn’t. So he killed her.”

“How long did it take for him to confess?”

“He dicked around for about an hour, then I got it out of him.”

“Did he offer an alibi? Initially, I mean.”

“He said he was at the vet. He’s got this dog, Pippy. She swallowed a sock or something. Tommy took her to the emergency vet over on Conford. The office staff can’t vouch for him being there the entire time.”

“Does he have a car?”

“A green Chevy Malibu. It’s at the shop. Tommy said the starter’s been acting up. He dropped the keys in the lockbox at Earnshaw’s yesterday morning.”

Will hadn’t been expecting that. “Earnshaw?”

“Sara’s uncle.”

“Is there security footage of the lot?”

“No, but I called the garage. The car is there.” She shrugged. “Tommy could’ve left it there after he killed Allison.”

“Have you searched the car?”

“I planned on doing that today.” Her tone indicated that Will was the major obstacle standing between her and doing her job.

Will didn’t back down. “How did Tommy know Allison?”

“She rented space from his dad-a converted garage apartment.” Lena looked at her watch.

“What was Tommy like?”

“Stupid,” she told him. “Slow in his thinking. I’m sure Sara’s already told you all about it.”

“According to Dr. Linton, Tommy’s IQ was around eighty. He wasn’t bright, but he held down a job at the bowling alley. He was a good kid. Good except for the trouble he’d been in lately.”

“I’d call murder a bit more than trouble.”

“I was referring to the incident reports.”

She hid her surprise well, but he could see the flicker of a question in her eyes.

“There are three reports detailing altercations over the last month. Mrs. Simms was kind enough to provide them.” She remained silent, so he asked, “You knew about them, right?”

Still, Lena didn’t respond. Will slid the incident reports across the desk so she could see them.

She skimmed the summaries. “Small problems. He obviously had a temper.”

“Who told you to arrest Tommy for Allison’s murder?”

“Frank-” She looked like she wanted to take back the word. “Frank and I discussed it. It was a joint decision.”

At least he knew what she looked like when she was lying. The bad news was that her lying face looked a lot like her honest one. “When did you first hear there was a body in the lake?”

“Brad called me around three yesterday morning. I woke everybody else up, started the investigation.”

“Have you talked to any of Allison’s teachers at school?”

“They’re all off for Thanksgiving break. I’ve got phone numbers for them, but I haven’t made any calls yet. Most of them are local. They’re not going anywhere. I was going to track them down this morning, but…” She held out her arms, indicating the space between them.

“What else were you going to track down?” He listed out her plans so far. “Talk to the teachers. Maybe talk to the office staff at the vet. Look at Tommy’s car. Try to track down Allison’s known associates. I guess you’d get that through the school, maybe Lionel Harris?”

She shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Were you planning on talking to Tommy again? Had he lived, I mean.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to get his confession on tape. He was a compelling witness against himself.”

“But everything else made sense to you-his motivations, stabbing her in the neck?”

“There were things I wanted to clear up. Obviously, I wanted to find the murder weapon. I assume it’s in his garage somewhere. Or his car. He must have taken Allison to the lake. There would have been trace evidence. Stop me if any of this reminds you of something you might have read in a textbook when you were in GBI school.”

“That’s a good word to use for it-‘textbook.’” He pointed out, “Seems like a lot of work for a case you considered closed. Isn’t that what you told me a few minutes ago, that it was closed?”

She stared at him again. Will knew she was waiting for him to ask about the 911 call.

He said, “You must be tired.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’ve had a pretty tough couple of days.” He indicated her field notes. “You got Brad’s call around three a.m. yesterday. Suspected suicide. You went to the lake. Found Spooner was dead, possibly murdered. Went to Spooner’s house and your boss got hurt, your partner got stabbed. You arrested Tommy. Got his confession. I’m sure you were at the hospital all night.”

“What’s your point?”

“Was Tommy a malicious person?”

She didn’t equivocate. “No.”

“Did he show any anger during your interrogation?”

She was silent again, gathering her thoughts. “I don’t think he planned to hurt Brad. But he did stab him. And he killed Allison, so…”

“So?”

She crossed her arms again. “Look, we’re just going in circles here. What happened to Tommy was bad, but he confessed to killing Allison Spooner. He stabbed my partner. Frank was hurt.”

Will carefully weighed her words. She obviously believed Tommy was guilty of killing Allison Spooner. She got sketchier when she talked about Brad Stephens being stabbed and Frank Wallace getting cut.

Lena checked her watch again. “Are we finished here?”

She was very good at this, but she couldn’t keep it up forever. “The lake is behind the station, right?”

“Right.”

“Between the college and Lover’s Point.”

“Not exactly between.”

“Do you think I can borrow a jacket?”

“What?”

“A raincoat. Jacket. Whatever you have.” Will stood up from the desk. “I’d like for us to go for a walk.”

THE RAIN HAD TURNED unrelenting, dark clouds rolling across the sky, tossing down buckets of water that all seemed to fall directly on Will’s head. He was wearing a police-issue jacket meant for a man with considerably more girth than Will carried. The sleeves hung down past his thumbs. The hood fell into his eyes. The reflective panels on the back and front slapped against him with every step.

Will had always had trouble finding clothes that fit, but usually the opposite was the problem: short cuffs, tight seams stretching against his shoulders. He had been expecting Lena to offer him one of her own coats as a sort of joke. Apparently, she had come up with a better idea. Will stared down at the stitching on the breast pocket as they made their way around the lake. The jacket belonged to Officer Carl Phillips.

He stuck his hands into the pockets as the wind picked up. He could feel some latex gloves, a measuring tape, a plastic pen, and a small flashlight. At least he hoped it was a small flashlight. Despite Lena’s worst intentions, the jacket was nice, a North Face rip-off with tons of zippered pockets and enough insulation to keep the wind out. Will had the brand-name version back at home. He hadn’t brought it because in Atlanta, cold weather never lasted more than a few days, and even then, the sun came up to burn off the chill. The thought of the jacket hanging in his closet gave him a longing to be back home that surprised him.

Lena stopped, turning back toward the police station. She raised her voice to be heard over the rain. “The college is back there, past the station.”

Will guessed they had been walking for about fifteen minutes. He could barely make out a bunch of buildings resting in the curve of the lake just beyond the police station.

Lena said, “There’s no reason for Allison to walk this way.”

“Where’s Lover’s Point?”

She pointed in the opposite direction. “That cove about a half mile away.”

Will followed the line of her finger to the indentation in the shoreline. The cove was smaller than he’d thought it would be. Or perhaps the distance made it seem that way. Large boulders were scattered along the shore. He imagined people built campfires when the weather was better. It looked like the kind of place a family might pull up a boat to for a long picnic.

“Are we just going to stand here?” Lena had her hands deep in her pockets, head down against the wind. Will didn’t need ESP to figure out she didn’t want to be out here in the pouring rain. It was so cold by the water that he had to fight to keep his teeth from chattering.

He asked, “Where are the roads again?”

She gave him a look that said she wasn’t going to play this game much longer. “There.” She pointed into the distance. “That’s the fire road. It hasn’t been used in years. We checked it when we pulled the body out of the lake. Nothing’s there.”

“That’s the only egress from here to Lover’s Point, right?”

“Like I showed you on the map back at the station.”

Will had never been good with maps. “That place over there.” He pointed to an area just past the cove. “That’s the second road that people normally use to get to the cove, right?”

“Empty, like I told you. We checked it, all right? We’re not total morons. We checked for cars. We checked for tire tracks, footprints. We checked both roads and neither one of them showed any signs of use.”

Will tried to get his bearings. The sun wasn’t doing much to help light the way. The sky was so dark that it could’ve been nighttime instead of smack in the middle of morning. “Where’s the residential area?”

She pointed across the lake. “That’s where Sara lives. Her parents. Over here”-she pointed farther along-“all of this shoreline, including where we’re standing, belongs to the State Forestry Division.”

“Do people take their boats out?”

“There’s a dock at the campus for the rowing teams. A lot of the homeowners go boating during the summer. No one would be stupid enough to be out here in this rain.”

“Except us.” Will put as much cheer into his voice as he could muster. “Let’s keep going.”

She trudged along ahead of him. Will could see her sneakers were soaked. The running shoes he had found in the back of his car weren’t faring much better. Allison’s shoes, or at least the ones found near her body, were dirty, but not caked in mud. If she had walked along the shore, the terrain had been a lot harder than the red Georgia clay that was sliding out from under his feet.

Will had checked the weekly weather report last night on his computer. Temperatures had been lower the morning Allison was found, but the same rain they were seeing now had been pounding down the night before. It was a good time to kill somebody. Trace evidence on the shore would be lost. The cold water would make guessing when the murder occurred next to impossible. Except for the 911 caller, no one would have known there was a body in the lake.

Lena slipped in the mud. Will reached out, catching her before she fell into the water. She was so light that he could almost pick her up with one hand.

“Christ.” She braced her hand against a tree. She was breathing hard. He realized she had been walking fast to keep a few paces between them.

Will asked, “Are you okay?”

She pushed away from the tree, a look of determination on her face. Will watched her feet as she picked her way across the large roots and fallen branches that riddled the shoreline. He had no way of knowing whether or not Allison had made her way to Lover’s Point along this same route. His goal was to get Lena Adams out of the station, out of her element, so that she would talk to him. Between the pounding rain and the rough going, he was thinking that it might be wise to set the bar lower. For instance, he could aim not to let them both freeze to death.

Lena was so certain that Tommy Braham had killed Allison Spooner-just as certain as Sara was that Tommy had not. Will felt caught in the middle, and was mindful that it would be wrong to let either woman influence his thinking. He supposed for Lena the question of Tommy’s innocence carried with it a lot more guilt than she wanted to shoulder. To believe otherwise would mean that the kid had killed himself for nothing. That she had given him the means-and the motivation-to take his life. For Sara’s part, admitting Tommy was a murderer would mean admitting that Lena wasn’t as ruthless as she wanted to believe.

Will didn’t feel the rain let up so much as hear it. The constant tapping of water against leaves died down to a gentle whisper. He heard a bird, a bunch of crickets. Up ahead, a large tree blocked the path. Thick roots jutted into the air, earth dripping from the tendrils. Lena lifted herself up and over. Will followed her, looking around, trying to get his bearings again. They were near the fire road. At least he thought they were.

“There,” she said, pointing to a pile of stacked logs. “That’s the end of the road.” She took off her hood. Will followed suit. Two strips of earth about the width of the front end of a car lined the road for about ten feet, then gave way to thick forest. He understood why Lena was convinced the road was untraveled. You’d need a bulldozer to get through.

She told him, “The road on the other side is the one most people use, but it’s about a hundred yards west of the cove. I told you, we had to clear out a path to get the emergency vehicles back here.”

Will guessed they hadn’t been looking for tire tracks on the way to a suicide. They had probably destroyed any evidence of another car out by the cove. He asked, “If Allison didn’t have a car, how did she get here?”

Lena stared at him. “Tommy brought her here.”

“But you just said you checked for cars.”

“He had a scooter. He could’ve used that.”

Will agreed, but he couldn’t see Tommy balancing a dead body on the handlebars while he maneuvered his way through the forest. “Where was she before Tommy killed her?”

“Home, waiting to be killed.” She stamped her feet to fight the cold. “All right. The school library closed at noon on Sunday. She could’ve been there.”

“What about work?”

“The diner’s closed on Sunday.”

“Would Allison go this way to get home?”

Lena shook her head. “She would go through the woods across from the station. She’d be home in ten minutes.”

At least she was being honest about that. Lionel Harris had told Will the same thing. He asked, “So, why was Allison here?”

Lena dug her hands into her pockets as the breeze picked up.

“Detective?”

“She was here because Tommy brought her here.” She started walking again, trudging through the mud. Her shoes made a sucking sound with every step.

Will’s stride was twice Lena’s. He caught up with her easily. “Let’s profile our killer.”

She snorted a laugh. “You believe in that shit?”

“Not really, but we’ve got some time on our hands.”

“This is stupid.” She slipped again, but caught herself. “Are you really going to make me walk all the way to the cove?”

If Will could make her do anything, it would be for her to tell the truth. That didn’t seem to be an option, so he said, “Let’s do the profile.”

“Sure,” she muttered, pushing forward. “He’s a retarded kid between the ages of nineteen and nineteen and a half who drives a green Chevy Malibu and lives with his father.”

“Let’s take Tommy out of this for just a minute.”

She gave him a wary look.

Will asked, “What took place?”

Lena picked her way around another fallen tree.

“What took place?” he repeated.

She let her reluctance hang on every word. “You mean the murder?”

“Right. What happened?”

“Allison Spooner was stabbed in the neck Sunday night or early Monday morning.”

“Was it messy?”

She shrugged, but then said, “Probably. There’s all kinds of stuff in the neck. Arteries and veins. There would’ve been a lot of blood, which explains why Tommy had a bucket and sponge at Allison’s apartment. He was trying to clean up the mess.”

“Why did it happen?”

She laughed, incredulous. “This is profiling?”

Will’s version, at least. He didn’t share Lena’s certainty. She was so sure she was right about Tommy Braham that she hadn’t considered the possibility that a savage killer might be sharpening his knife for the next victim. “Why did the killer decide to kill? Anger? Opportunity? Money?”

“He killed her because she wouldn’t have sex with him. Did you actually read his confession?”

“I thought we were going to take Tommy out of this.” She shook her head, and Will tried again, “Just humor me, Detective. Let’s say there’s some mystery killer out there who wanted Allison dead. Other than Tommy Braham.”

“That’s quite a fantasy considering he admitted to doing it.”

He took her elbow to help her over a large puddle. “Did the murderer bring the weapon to the scene?”

Lena seemed to consider the question. “Maybe. He also had the cinder blocks, the chain, and lock.”

Will assumed the blocks and chain had been planted at the scene ahead of time, but now didn’t seem like a good time to bring up the theory. “So, this was premeditated.”

“Or, these were things lying around his house.” She added, “On Taylor Drive.”

Will didn’t rise to the bait. If Allison was killed at the lake rather than the garage, then Lena’s whole theory about Tommy’s guilt started to break down. He asked, “Was the killer angry?”

“The wound in her neck is pretty violent.”

“But not furious. That’s controlled. Deliberate.”

“He probably freaked out when he got a mouthful of blood back in his face.” She jumped over a puddle. “What else?”

“Let’s look at what we know: Our killer is organized. Not opportunistic. Has good knowledge of the area. He knows Allison. He drives a car.”

She nodded. “I’d buy that.”

“Go over the sequence of events.”

Lena stopped. They were about thirty feet away from the cove. “All right. Tommy, or your mystery guy, kills Allison, brings her here.” She squinted her eyes. “Probably he lays her down on the shore. He wraps the chains around her waist, ties her to the cinder blocks, then tosses her into the water.”

“Tosses her how?”

Lena stared at the cove. Will could almost hear her mind working. “He would have to carry her. She was found about fifteen feet out in the water, where the bottom drops off. The cinder blocks were heavy. Maybe he would’ve floated her out to the water, then bolted the chain and blocks around her. That makes more sense. There’s no way she could have been thrown in the water from the shore and ended up there.”

Will kept leading her along. “So, the killer walks her into the water, then chains her down. It was cold that night.”

“He’d need waders or something. He’d have to get back into his car to drive away. What’s the point of disposing of the body in water if you’re going to take the lake with you back into the car?”

“Being in the water wouldn’t necessarily be a bad idea.”

“Right. He would’ve been covered in blood.”

“Our killer didn’t want the body found. He walked her out to the deep end so she’d stay there. He weighted her down.”

Lena was silent again, but he knew she was too smart not to be thinking the same thing he was.

Will said it for her. “Someone wanted the body found. There was the call to 911.”

“Maybe one of Tommy’s neighbors saw something.”

“And followed him to the lake, watched him dump the body, and…”

“You think he had an accomplice?”

“What do you think?”

“I think at best we’ve got a material witness. We’ll need to talk to her at some point, but why does this matter when the guy who admitted to killing Allison is dead?”

Will looked around. They were standing in mud up to their ankles. The earth was darker here, turning almost black as it dipped into the water. Allison’s shoes had black mud on them, not red clay.

Will asked, “Did Tommy mention whether or not Allison had a boyfriend?”

“Don’t you think we’d be talking to him right now if he had?”

Will saw a fat squirrel scamper up a tree, tail twitching. Several twigs had been snapped in two. The ground covering was bent down. He heard a car in the distance. “Is there a road close by?”

“About a mile out.” She pointed in the direction of the noise. “There’s a divided highway.”

“Any residences?”

Lena pressed her lips together. She wouldn’t look at him.

“Detective?”

She stared down at the ground, knocked some mud off her shoe. “Tommy lived out that way.”

“So did Allison Spooner.” Will glanced back at the lake. The water was churning. The wind coming off the water was like ice against his skin. “Have you ever heard the name Julie Smith?”

Lena shook her head. “Who is she?”

“Did Tommy mention any friends? Either his or Allison’s?”

“That wasn’t the focus of the interview.” Her tone was terse. “I was trying to get him to confess to murder, not give me his life story.”

Will kept his eyes on the lake. He was looking at this the wrong way. Their killer was smart. He knew that water would get rid of trace evidence. He knew to walk the body into the deeper part of the lake. He had probably lured Allison out here after careful deliberation. The wet terrain, the mud and underbrush, all would serve to help cover his tracks.

Will rolled up the legs of his jeans. His shoes were already soaked, so he didn’t bother to take them off before walking into the lake. The cold water sloshed into his sneakers.

“What are you doing?”

He went out a few feet and scanned the shoreline, studying the trees, the underbrush.

Lena had her hands on her hips. “Are you crazy? You’re going to get hypothermia.”

Will studied each tree, each branch, each section of weeds and moss. His feet were completely numb by the time he found what he was looking for. He walked toward a large oak that was leaning away from the shore. Its knotty roots coiled into the lake like an open fist. At first, Will had thought he was seeing a shadow on the bark, but then he remembered you had to actually have sun or some other source of light to cast a shadow.

Will stood in front of the tree, his shoes sinking into the silt at the bottom of the water. The tree was deciduous, its bony canopy reaching up at least a hundred feet overhead. The trunk was about three feet around and bowed away from the water. Will wasn’t an arborist, but there were enough oaks around Atlanta so that he knew their red-brown furrows of bark turned the color of charcoal as the tree aged. The scaly bark had absorbed the rain like a sponge, but there was something else Will had noticed from his vantage point in the water. He scraped at a small section of bark with his fingernails. The wood left a wet, rust-colored residue. He rolled the grit between his fingers, squeezing out the moisture.

Blood really was thicker than water.

“What is it?” Lena asked. She kept her hands in her pockets as she leaned out into the water.

Will remembered the flashlight in his jacket pocket. “Look.” He traced the light along a dark stain that sprayed up the trunk. He thought about what Sara had said about Allison’s injury, that there would be a high-velocity spray, like a hose turned on full blast. Four to five pints of blood. That was over half a gallon.

Will said, “She must have been facedown on the ground, just shy of the water. Her blood spattered up and back in an arc. You can see the dispersement is thicker here at the base of the tree, closer to her neck. Then it starts to dissipate at the top.”

“That’s not-” Lena stopped. She saw it now. He could see from her shocked expression.

Will glanced up at the sky. The clouds were letting loose a few drops at a time. They hadn’t been given much of a reprieve. It didn’t matter. Short of scrubbing the bark, there was no way to completely clean the tree. The wood had absorbed the mark of death the same way it would absorb smoke from a fire.

Will asked, “You still think our murderer is a nineteen-year-old boy who lives with his father?”

The wind whipped off the lake as Lena stared at the tree. Tears came into her eyes. Her voice shook. “He confessed.”

Will quoted Tommy’s words back to her. “‘I got mad. I had a knife on me. I stabbed her once in the neck.’” He asked, “Did you find blood in the garage?”

“Yes.” She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. “He was cleaning it up when we got there. I saw a bucket, and there was…” Her voice trailed off. “There was blood on the floor. I saw it.”

Will rolled down the legs of his jeans. His shoes were sinking into the mud at the base of the tree. He saw there was a new color mixed in with the soil, a deep rust that soaked into the mesh on the toe of his sneaker.

Lena saw it, too. She fell to her knees. She stuck her fingers deep into the ground and grabbed a fistful of earth. The soil was soaked, but not just with rainwater. She let the dirt fall back to the ground. Her hand was dark red, streaked with Allison Spooner’s blood.