Karin Slaughter - Blindsighted

"What's that?"

"You."

"Me?"

Cathy stroked Sara's cheek. "I was seeing your father again, but it was so strained. Nothing was like it was before. Then I got pregnant with you, and life just took over. I think having you between us made your father see the big picture. Next thing Tessie was here, then you were both in school, then you were both grown and off to college." She smiled. "It just takes time. Love and time. And having a little redheaded hellion to chase after is a good distraction."

"Well, I'm not going to get pregnant," Sara countered, conscious of the edge to her tone.

Cathy seemed to think out her answer. "Sometimes it takes thinking you've lost something to realize the real value of it," she said. "Don't tell Tessie."

Sara nodded her agreement. She stood, tucking her T-shirt into her pants. "I told him, Mama," she said. "I left the transcript for him."

Cathy asked, "The trial transcript?"

"Yeah," Sara said, leaning against the chest of drawers. "I know he's read it. I left it in the bathroom for him."

"And?"

"And," Sara said, "he hasn't even called. He hasn't said anything to me all day."

"Well," Cathy said, her mind obviously made up. "Fuck him, then. He's trash."

JEFFREY found 633 Ashton Street easily enough. The house was dilapidated, no more than a square made of cinder blocks. The windows seemed to be an afterthought, none of them the same size. A ceramic fireplace was on the front porch, stacks of papers and magazines piled to the side of it, probably to use for kindling.

He took a look around the house, trying to act casually. Wearing a suit and tie, driving the white Town Car, it wasn't like Jeffrey fit in with the surroundings. Ashton Street, at least the part Jack Wright lived on, was run-down and seedy. Most of the houses in the vicinity were boarded up, yellow posters warning they were condemned. Kids played in the packed dirt yards of these houses, their parents nowhere to be seen. There was a smell to the place, not exactly sewage but something in that same family. Jeffrey was reminded of driving past the city dump on the outskirts of Madison. On a good day, even when you were downwind, the smell of decomposing trash still reached your nose. Even with the windows up and the air on.

Jeffrey took a few breaths, trying to get used to the smell as he approached the house. The door had a heavy mesh screen over it with a padlock securing it to the frame. The actual door had three dead bolts and one lock that looked like it required a puzzle piece to open it rather than a key. Jack Wright had been in prison a great deal of his life. This was obviously a man who wanted his privacy. Jeffrey took a look around before walking over to one of the windows. It, too, had a wire mesh and a heavy lock, but the casing was old and easily broken. A couple of firm pushes dislodged the entire frame. Jeffrey glanced around before removing the window, casing and all, and slipping into the house.

The living room was dark and dingy, with trash and papers stacked around the room. There was an orange couch on the floor with dark stains dripping down. Jeffrey could not tell if it was from tobacco juice or some kind of body fluid. What he did know was an overpowering odor of sweat mixed with Lysol permeated the room.

Edging the top of the living room walls like a decorative border were all lands of crucifixes. They varied in size from something you would get out of a candy vending machine to some that were at least ten inches long. They were nailed into the wall, edge to edge, tight up against one another in one continuous band. Continuing the Jesus theme, posters on the wall that looked like they had been taken from a Sunday school room showed Jesus and the disciples. In one, He was holding a lamb. In another, He was holding out his hands, showing the wounds in His palms.

Jeffrey felt his heart rate quicken at the sight of this. He reached to his gun, taking the strap off his holster as he walked toward the front of the house to make sure no one was coming up the drive.

In the kitchen, plates were stacked in the sink, crusted and foul-looking. The floor was sticky, and the whole room felt wet from something other than water. The bedroom was the same way, a musky odor clinging like a wet washrag against Jeffrey's face. On the wall over the stained mattress was a large poster of Jesus Christ, a halo behind His head. Like the poster in the living room, Jesus held His palms out to show the wounds on His hands. The crucifixion motif continued around the periphery of the bedroom, but these were larger crosses. Standing on the bed, Jeffrey could see that someone, probably Wright, had used red paint to exaggerate Jesus' wounds, dripping the blood down the torso, enhancing the crown of thorns resting on his head. Black Xs were across the eyes on every Jesus Jeffrey could see. It was as if Wright had wanted to stop His eyes from watching him. What Wright was doing that he felt needed to be hidden was the question Jeffrey needed to answer.

Jeffrey stepped off the bed. He looked through some of the magazines, taking the time to put on a pair of latex gloves from his pockets before touching anything. The magazines were mostly older editions of People and Life . The bedroom closet was stacked floor to ceiling with pornography. Busty Babes sat beside Righteous Redheads . Jeffrey thought of Sara and a lump came to his throat.

Using his foot, Jeffrey kicked the mattress up. A Sig Sauer nine millimeter was resting on the boxspring. The weapon looked new and well cared for. In a neighborhood like this one, only an idiot would go to sleep without a gun handy. Jeffrey smiled as he pushed the mattress back. This could help him out later on.

Opening the dresser, Jeffrey did not know what he expected to find. More porn, maybe. Another gun, or some kind of makeshift weapon. Instead, the top two drawers were filled with women's underwear. Not just underwear, the silky, sexy kind that Jeffrey liked to see Sara in. There were teddies and thongs, French-cut panties with bows at the hips. And they were all extremely large; large enough to fit a man.

Jeffrey resisted the urge to shudder. He took out a pen to go through the contents of the drawers, not wanting to get stuck with a needle or anything sharp, not wanting to get a venereal disease. Jeffrey was about to close one of the drawers when something changed his mind. He was missing something. Moving aside a pair of dark green lace panties, he saw what he was looking for. The newspaper lining the bottom of the drawers was from the special Sunday section of the Grant County Observer . He had recognized the masthead.

Pushing aside the clothes, Jeffrey took out the sheet of newspaper. The front page showed a slow news day. A picture of the mayor holding a pig in his arms beamed back at Jeffrey. The date put the paper at more than a year old. He opened the other drawers, looking for more Observers . He found a few, but most of them carried innocuous stories. Jeffrey found it interesting that Jack Wright subscribed to the Grant County Observer .

He went back into the living room, checking out the stacks of papers on the floor with renewed interest. Brenda Collins, one of Wright's other victims after Sara, had been from Tennessee, Jeffrey remembered. A copy of the Monthly Vols , a newsletter for University of Tennessee graduates, was tucked in with some newspapers from Alexander City,

Alabama. In the next stack, Jeffrey found more out-of-state papers, all from small towns. Beside these were postcards, all from Atlanta, all showing different scenes around town. The backs were blank, waiting to be filled in. Jeffrey could not imagine what a man like Wright would be doing with the postcards. He did not strike Jeffrey as the type of person to have friends.