Karin Slaughter - Broken

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.