Karin Slaughter - Broken

“But there’s not. You’re married and I’m—”

His smile was more of a wince. “The truth isn’t much help in these types of situations. You must know that.”

Sara looked back at his office supplies. He had separated the rubber bands by color. Even the paper clips were turned in the same direction.

Will said, “Something is going on here. I’m not sure if it’s what you think, but something’s not right at that station house.”

“What is it?”

“I don’t know yet, but you need to prepare yourself for some bad reactions.” He spoke carefully. “Cases like this, where the police get questioned. They don’t like that. Part of the reason they’re good at their jobs is because they think they’re right about everything.”

“I’m a doctor. Trust me, it’s not just cops who feel that way.”

“I want you to be prepared, because when we get to the end of this, whether I find out Tommy was guilty, or Detective Adams screwed up, or if I find out nothing was wrong at all, people are going to hate you for bringing me down here.”

“They’ve hated me before.”

“They’re going to say you’re dragging your husband’s memory through the mud.”

“They don’t know anything about him. They have no idea.”

“They’ll fill in the blanks themselves. It’s going to get a lot harder than it is now.” He turned his body toward her. “I’m going to make it harder. I’m going to do some things on purpose to get them mad enough to show their hand. Are you going to be okay with that?”

“What if I say no?”

“Then I’ll find another way to do it that doesn’t upset you.”

She could see that his offer was genuine, and felt guilty for questioning his motives before. “This isn’t my home anymore. I’m leaving in three days no matter what happens. Do what you have to do.”

“And your family?”

“My family supports me.” Sara wasn’t certain about a lot of things these days, but this, at least, was true. “They may not agree with me, but they support me.”

“All right.” He looked relieved, as if he’d gotten the hard part out of the way. “I need to get Julie Smith’s phone number from you.”

Sara had anticipated the request. She took a sheet of folded paper out of her pocket and handed it to Will.

He pointed to the Princess phone beside the couch. “Is this the same line as the house?”

She nodded.

“I wanted to make sure the caller ID was the same.” He picked up the phone and stared at the rotary dial.

Sara rolled her eyes. “My parents don’t exactly embrace technology.”

He started spinning the dial, but the rotary slipped out from under his finger in the middle of the number.

“Let me,” she offered, taking the phone before he could protest. She spun the dial, the motion coming back to her more quickly than she wanted to admit.

Will put the receiver to his ear just as an automated squawk blared down the line. He held the phone between them so they both could hear the recorded voice advising the caller that the line he was trying to reach had been disconnected.

Will put the phone back on the hook. “I’ll have Faith do a trace tomorrow. My bet is that it was a throwaway phone. Do you remember anything else about Julie? Anything she said?”

“I could tell that she was calling from a bathroom,” Sara told him. “She said that Tommy had texted her that he was in jail. Maybe you can get the transcript from his phone?”

“Faith can do that, too,” he offered. “What about Julie’s voice? Did she sound young? Old?”

“She sounded really young and really country.”

“Country how?”

Sara smiled. “Not like me. At least I hope not. She sounded more like the wrong side of the tracks. She used the word ‘you’uns.’”

“That’s mountain talk.”

“Is it? I’m not up on dialects.”

“I had an assignment in Blue Ridge a while back,” he explained. “Do you hear that word around here much?”

She shook her head. “Not really. Not that I can remember.”

“All right, so we’ve got someone young, probably a transplant from north Georgia or Appalachia. She told you that she was Tommy’s friend. We’ll dump his phone line and see if they’ve ever called each other.”

“Julie Smith,” Sara said, wondering why it had never occurred to her that the girl might be using an alias.

“Maybe the phone taps will give us something.”

Sara indicated the photocopies she’d made. “Were these helpful?”

“Not in the way you’re thinking.” He thumbed through the pages. “I asked the station secretary, Mrs. Simms, to fax these to Faith. Can you look at them for me?”

Sara glanced through the pages. There were handwritten numbers at the top. She stopped on the eleventh page. Someone had written the number twelve in the corner. The two was backward. “Did you number these?”

“Yes,” he said. “When I got them back from Mrs. Simms, one of the pages was missing. Page eleven. The page right after Detective Adams’s field report.”

Sara thumbed back to the second page. The two was written the correct way. She checked the third and fifth page. Both numbers were facing the correct direction. The pen had been pressed so hard that the paper felt embossed.

He asked, “Can you remember what’s missing?”

Sara went through them again, concentrating on the content instead of the numbering. “The 911 transcript.”

“You’re sure?”

“There was another page from Lena’s notebook. It was taped on the sheet of paper by itself. She wrote down the contents of the 911 call.”

“Can you remember what it said?”

“I know that it was a woman’s voice. I can’t really remember the rest.”

“Did they trace the number she called from?”

“I didn’t see anything indicating they had.” She shook her head. “Why can’t I remember what else it said?”

“We can get it from the call center.”

“Unless they managed to lose it.”

“It’s no big deal,” he told her. “You got the file from Frank, right?”

“From Carl Phillips.”

“The booking officer?”

“Yes. Did you talk to him tonight?”

“He’s gone on vacation with his family. No idea when he’ll be back. No phone. No cell. No way to get in touch with him.”

Sara felt her mouth drop open.

“I doubt he’s really gone. They’re probably keeping him away from me. He might even be at the station tomorrow, hiding in plain sight.”

“He’s the only African American on the force.”

Will laughed. “Thanks for the tip. That narrows things down considerably.”

“I can’t believe they’re doing this.”

“Cops don’t like to be questioned. They circle their wagons, even if they know it’s wrong.”

She wondered if Jeffrey had ever done anything like this. If he had, it was only because he wanted to be the one to clean out his own house. He would never let someone come in and do his job for him.

Will asked, “Where did you make the copies?”

“At the front of the room.”

“The copier that’s on the table by the coffeemaker?”

“That’s right.”

“Did you get some coffee?”

“I didn’t want to dawdle.” Everyone had been staring at her like she was a monster. Sara’s only goal had been to make the copies and get out of there as soon as possible.

“So, you’re standing by the copier waiting for the pages to come out. That looked like an old machine. Does it make a noise?”

She nodded, wondering where this was going.

“Like a whirring or a clunking?”

“Both,” she answered, and she could hear the sound in her head.

“How much coffee was left in the pot? Did anyone come up?”