Greg Iles - Turning Angel

Mia gazes down Washington Street, one of the most beautiful in the city, and shakes her head as though dismissing some useless thought. Mia’s father left her mother when Mia was two, and he’s hardly seen his daughter since. Economic support was the bare minimum dictated by the courts, and even that came on a sporadic basis.

“As far as Kate dying,” Mia says, “I guess I can’t really believe it yet. It just doesn’t make sense. It’s so random. ”

“High school kids die in accidents like everyone else.”

“I know, but this is different.”

“Why?”

“After I called you, I got a few more calls. People are saying it wasn’t an accident at all. They’re saying somebody killed Kate. Did you know that?”

Could Drew be right? “Why are they saying that?”

“Some of the nurses at the hospital said it looked like Kate was strangled and hit on the head.”

Despite my friendship with Drew, an image of him choking Kate fills my mind, and I shudder. “You know Natchez and gossip, Mia. Anything could have happened to Kate’s body while she was floating down that creek.”

“But why was she half naked? And why from the waist down? I suppose she could have been skinny-dipping, but with who? She wasn’t with Steve-or at least he claims she wasn’t. It makes me wonder if maybe Steve was right.”

At this point Kate’s classmates probably know twice as much about her death as the police department. “Right about what?”

“About Kate having another boyfriend. Someone none of us knew about. Someone who might get mad enough or crazy enough to kill her.”

“Can you see Kate making someone that angry?”

“Oh, yeah. When Kate got on her high horse, she could piss you off beyond belief. And as far as making someone crazy-a guy, I mean-she was a very sexual person. We talked a few times about it. She really thought she might be a nymphomaniac.”

“That term isn’t even used anymore, Mia. A lot of girls first experimenting with sex probably feel that way.”

She gives me a knowing look. “I’m not talking about experimentation. I’m no saint, okay? But Kate knew about things I’d never even heard of. She was as intense as any person I ever met, and she believed in giving herself pleasure. She, uh, this is kind of embarrassing, but she showed me a couple of toys once, and it shocked me. I know she freaked Steve out with some of the things she asked him to do, and that was over a year ago.”

Sex toys? Drew’s words come back to me with fresh impact: These kids aren’t like we were, Penn. You have no idea…

“I know you want to look in on Annie,” Mia says, picking up her backpack and slinging it over her shoulder. “I’ll get out of your hair. Sorry if I was too frank about that stuff.”

I step to my left and give her plenty of room to pass. “Don’t worry. I’ve seen just about everything in my day.”

She gives me a sly look that belies her age. “Have you? I figured you for a straight arrow. I asked my mom about you, but she won’t tell me anything. She obviously likes you, but she gets all cryptic when I bring you up.”

I feel myself flush. “Be careful driving. Your mind’s not going to be on the road.”

Mia takes her cell phone from her purse and holds it to her ear. It must have been set to vibrate. “She did?…No way…That’s just weird …I will. Later.” She puts the phone back in her purse and stares blankly up the street again.

“What is it?” I ask.

Mia’s eyes betray a puzzlement I’ve never seen in them before. “That was Laura Andrews. Her mom’s one of the nurses who tended to Kate. She just told Laura that Kate was raped.”

“What?”

“She said Kate had a lot of trauma-down there, you know?”

My thoughts return to Drew. If Kate was raped, I hope he never has to know it. But of course he will, like everyone else in town. It suddenly occurs to me that by hoping to protect Drew from this knowledge, I’m assuming he is innocent of the crime. That’s a dangerous assumption for any lawyer to make, but I’ve already made it. I simply cannot imagine Drew Elliott raping any woman, much less a high school girl.

“Let’s hope that’s not true,” I murmur, recalling the shattered rape victims I tried to avenge as a prosecutor in Houston.

“Yeah,” Mia echoes. “That’s too horrible even to think about.”

“So don’t. Think about driving.”

Mia forces a smile. “No worries. Do you need me tomorrow?”

“I may, if you can spare the time.” I’m thinking of Drew and his request for help.

“Just call my cell.”

She walks to her car, a blue Honda Accord, and climbs in. I watch to make sure she gets safely away, then walk up the steps into my house. As I close the door, my study phone rings. I trot to my desk and look at the caller ID:ANDREW ELLIOTT, M.D.

“Drew?” I answer.

“Can you talk?” he asks, his voice crackling with anxiety.

“Sure. What is it?”

“I’m at Kate’s house. I just got a call on my cell phone.”

“From who?”

“I don’t know. But he told me to leave a gym bag with twenty thousand dollars in it on the fifty-yard line of the St. Stephen’s football field. He said if I don’t, he’ll tell the police I was screwing Kate Townsend.”

Shit. “You told me nobody knew about the affair.”

“Nobody did. I have no idea who this could be.”

My mind is whirling with memories of similar situations when I worked for the D.A. in Houston. “When does he want the money?”

“One hour from now.”

“Penn?” Drew says, breathing shallowly. “Are you there?”

My old friend’s words have paralyzed me in the study of my house. “Twenty thousand dollars cash in an hour? At nine o’clock at night? That’s crazy. That’s impossible.”

“No, it’s not. I have the cash. We have a safe here in the house. Three, actually. One for documents, one for guns, one for cash and jewelry.”

I should have guessed. Drew Elliott lives in a stunning Victorian palace sited on five acres in one of the affluent subdivisions near St. Stephen’s, a mansion that contains every technological gadget known to man. “Do you think the blackmailer knows that?”

“He said he knew I had the money.”

“Did you recognize the voice?”

“No. But it sounded like a black kid.”

“A black kid? Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure. He asked for drugs, too.”

“Drugs?”

“Prescription drugs. Painkillers. Anything I have. He said I should consider this drop as a down payment. His words. A sign of good faith.”

“I hear something in your voice I don’t like, Drew.”

“I know what you’re going to say, but-”

“You’re not delivering that money, brother. You have two choices. Ignore the call, or phone the police and tell them everything right now.”

Drew is silent for too long. “There’s a third choice,” he says.

“Drew, listen to me. There is no upside to paying this money. Just by showing up, you’d be admitting some guilt. You could also be taking your life into your hands.”

“Because the caller could be Kate’s killer? That’s what you were thinking, right?”

He has me. “I guess so.”

“That’s what I’m thinking, too.”

“Then you should call the cops. At this point, an act of God couldn’t keep your affair with Kate from becoming public. You have to think damage control now. It’s a hundred times better if the police learn the story from you than from someone else. Better for your family, too. Think of Tim.”

“I have until tomorrow morning to make that decision.”