Karin Slaughter - Skin Privilege

Jeffrey still could not see the logic behind Lena 's silence. 'What did the shrink say?'

'She wouldn't talk to him, either,' the sheriff answered. 'Far as I know, she hasn't said one dang thing this whole time. Just lays there staring at the ceiling. I even tried to get Darla to draw her out. Nothing.'

'Could be post-traumatic stress? Shock?' Jeffrey suggested.

Valentine looked as dubious as Jeffrey felt.

'Did you tell her I was coming?'

'Nope. Thought it'd be best to let her sit and stew for a while.'

Jeffrey tried to put himself in the other man's shoes, to look at the case from all angles. 'Do you have an ID on the corpse?'

'The car was too hot to tow off the field until this afternoon.'

'Has your coroner seen this kind of thing before?' Jeffrey asked. The burned corpse was crucial; the body was the only thing that might offer an explanation of what had happened on that football field. In Georgia, the job of county medical examiner was an elected position usually held by the local funeral director or anyone else who wasn't afraid to touch a dead body. The fact that Sara, a medical doctor, had taken the job in Grant County was very rare. There was no telling who the local body handler was.

Valentine offered, 'Fred Bart's a good man. He'll let me know anything he finds. I gotta say he wasn't too optimistic. Body like that – it's hard to even say whether it's a man or a woman, let alone how they; died.' He shrugged, gave a goofy smile. 'What am I saying? I'm sure you know how this works.'

Valentine hadn't exactly answered the question. Jeffrey tried to tread lightly as he fished for Bart's qualifications. 'Sara's the coroner back home. She's a pediatrician, too.'

'Oh.' Valentine shifted away from the shelves, flashed a smile at Sara. 'That's nice. My wife's a schoolteacher. All she does is correct my grammar and tell me to sit up straight.'

Jeffrey had more questions, but something told, him Valentine wouldn't answer them. 'What made you call me?'

'Common sense,' Valentine answered. He had seemed ready to leave it at that, but then he added, 'I'll be straight with you, Chief. Your detective's just a little thing. Doesn't seem like she'd hurt a fly. I can't see her doing this. There's gotta be something more to the story. I figured if I couldn't get it out of her, maybe you could.' He paused. 'At the very least, you can save us a lot of time and money if you'd find out who's in that car.'

Jeffrey doubted he would prove to be any help, but he said, 'All right. Let me see her.'

Again, Valentine let Jeffrey and Sara go first. Sadly, Jeffrey guessed this was more because the younger man's parents had always told him to respect his elders than out of any deference to rank.

As they walked toward Lena 's room, Jeffrey tried to process what the sheriff had just told them. The facts were simple. Lena had been found at a crime scene where a car was torched and a body was burned beyond recognition. Why was she on the football field? What connection did she have to the dead person? Who had caused the explosion?

He heard Sara's earlier question echo in his mind: What has she done now?

Despite Valentine's newness to the job, Jeffrey could not fault the man on the arrest. Based on the circumstances, Jeffrey would've arrested Lena, too. She was an obvious suspect, and her silence wasn't helping matters. Not that Lena had ever fostered a reputation for being helpful.

He could still remember the first time he'd seen her. She was in the police academy gymnasium, hanging halfway up the climbing rope, determined to make it to the top even though she was sweating so hard that her hands could barely keep their grip. No one else was around – this was something Lena was doing on her own time – and Jeffrey had watched her trying and failing to reach the top of the rope for nearly half an hour before he went to the commandant's office and asked for her file.

The mayors of the three cities that comprised Grant County had brought in Jeffrey as police chief to shake things up, to help force the department into the twenty-first century. Lena was the first non-secretarial woman hire in the town's history. Jeffrey had pinned everything on her, determined he had made the right choice even when sometimes the facts said otherwise. When Frank Wallace, his most senior detective, had announced a few weeks ago that he was finally going to take retirement at the end of the year, Jeffrey had taken the news in his stride, thinking Lena was ready to tackle some added responsibilities. Had he been wrong about her? In the nearly fifteen years that he'd known her, had Lena been living some kind of lie?

There had to be a reason for all this. Every crime had an explanation, a motivation. Jeffrey just had to find it. The sheriff was right about one thing. Lena was not a cold-blooded killer.

'Here we go.' Valentine indicated a closed door, and Jeffrey could plainly see Lena 's name on the sign. She was at the back end of the hall in a corner room. If Jeffrey and Sara hadn't followed that stupid blue stripe off the elevator, they would've found Lena without having to go through Cook.

Jeffrey suggested, 'Maybe Sara and I should go in alone.' If Lena was going to talk, it certainly wouldn't be in front of the man who had arrested her.

'Well…' Valentine began, scratching his chin. He took his time mulling it over. Down the hall, they heard the elevator doors ding. Probably Cook going out for more crackers.

'Let's just go inside,' Jeffrey insisted, tired of waiting for the sheriff.

Like the hallway, the room was deep in shadow. Lena lay in bed just as Valentine had described: on her back, motionless. Velcro bands attached her wrists to the bed rails. Her hands hung limply, fingers brushing the mattress. Her eyes were closed, but Jeffrey did not know if she was sleeping or biding her time. She was just as battered-looking as the young sheriff had said. Blood crusted her bottom lip. The skin was scraped off down the side of her cheek. The dark bruises on her face must have stopped them from trying to wipe off the blood and soot; she looked filthy, beaten down.

Jeffrey felt speechless. He was glad when Sara stepped forward, asking, ' Lena?'

Lena 's head snapped around in surprise, eyes widening as she saw Jeffrey and Sara in the room. She bolted up in bed, jerking against the restraints

as if she felt cornered, threatened. The bedsheets tangled around her feet as she pushed against the mattress, backing as far away from them as she could.

'No,' Lena whispered. 'You can't be here. No.'

'Well, now.' The sheriff's sloppy grin indicated that he was pleased with himself. 'I knew you could talk.'

'No,' Lena repeated, ignoring everyone in the room but Sara. Her voice was venomous. 'Get out. Get out now.'

Jeffrey tried, ' Lena -'

All her hatred seemed to focus on Sara. 'Are you stupid? I said get the fuck out of here! Go!'

Sara's mouth opened in surprise. Jeffrey felt a white-hot fury spark inside him, and he spoke through clenched teeth when he ordered, ' Lena, back off.'

'Get out!' she screamed, jerking against the restraints. 'Get her out of here!' she begged the sheriff. 'I'll tell you whatever you want. Just get her outV

Valentine seemed at a loss. He indicated the door with a nod of his head. 'Maybe she should-'

'No,' Sara insisted. She spoke so quietly that Jeffrey wasn't sure she'd actually said the word until she turned to the two men, asking, 'Could you give us a moment alone?' She asked Jeffrey, 'Please?'

Sara did not wait for an answer. She slipped Lena 's chart out of the holder at the foot of the bed and studied it as she waited for them to leave. Jeffrey could tell she was forcing herself to do this, that if she could snap her fingers, she would've been anywhere but here. He just wasn't sure why she wanted to stay.