Karin Slaughter - Skin Privilege

Sara let Jeffrey answer. 'No problem. Is there anything I can do to help?'

'No,' Valentine said, a little too quickly, his tone a little too high, as if he was afraid Jeffrey would offer to come along. He seemed to realize this and added, 'Thank you, though,' then made a hasty exit, almost jogging to the door.

Jeffrey said, 'Well, at least we know why he wanted you to do the autopsy.'

Sara looked at the body, calculated the time it would take to dissect the poor creature. 'We'll be tied up here for most of the day.'

'What's he trying to keep us away from, though?' They heard the sheriff's car start, wheels crunching on gravel. Jeffrey said, 'Either that bastard's really sharp or really stupid. I can't figure which.'

'Policemen aren't known for their stunning intelligence.'

He cut his eyes at her. 'You're feeling better.'

Sara didn't know how to take the comment. Beyond his obvious sarcasm, the fact was that she did feel better. Whether it was from last night's heavy sleep or yesterday's outburst, she felt as if she had gotten some sense of herself back. She had walked into the morgue without any hesitation. Her assessment of the body had come like second nature. She had not second-guessed herself or worried about being told she was wrong or stupid or incompetent. She had simply done her job.

He said, 'If I'd known it was going to help this much, I would've rustled up a dead body sooner.'

She laughed because he probably had a point. 'Some husband you are.'

'I'm not going to apologize.'

She knew he was talking about yesterday. She also knew from being with him for what seemed like the past million years that the world was not going to come to an end if they were annoyed with each other.

She told him, 'I'm not going to apologize, either.'

That settled, Jeffrey indicated the burned remains in the SUV. 'So, it's not Hank.'

'No, it's a woman.'

'I guess that's a relief.'

'Yes,' she agreed. 'But it raises the bigger question-'

He finished her sentence. 'Who is she, and how is she connected to Lena?' He leaned over for a better look at the body. 'What do you think?'

Sara gave him an honest answer. 'I think I'd rather be home digging up the patio.'

He glanced back at her. 'It's not too late to back out.'

'You know I can't do that.'

'Did you see this?' he asked, pointing toward the neck. 'What do you think it is?'

Sara was about to ask what he meant but as she turned the light caught the glint of a thin gold chain seared into the flesh. 'A necklace of some kind. We really need X-rays.'

'I could look up Fred Bart in the phone book and give him a call. Try to get an idea of when he's going to be here.'

Sara knelt down beside the SUV so she could see how the seat was anchored. Fred Bart had obviously handled his share of auto accidents. If Jeffrey was right and Jake Valentine had thrown the autopsy to Sara in order to keep an eye on them, Bart would probably not be too eager to help out. She told Jeffrey, 'We can go ahead and get her out before he comes.'

'You're sure it's a woman?'

'Unless I've forgotten basic anatomy,' she answered. 'Jake didn't seem too curious about my findings.'

Jeffrey shrugged.

'Am I imagining things, or did it seem like he didn't care one way or the other?' Jeffrey shrugged again, so she continued, 'Or, maybe he already knows who this is? And if you shrug again-'

'I don't know, Sara. I can't tell you anything because I just don't know.'

She stared at him, wondering why she kept forgetting how irritatingly stubborn he could be. Probably for the same reason he kept forgetting how persistent she was.

Sara turned her attention back to the car. 'Can you look for a large wrench?' She studied the bolts holding down the seat more closely. 'On second thought,' she told him. 'Look for a torch.'

This was going to be a long day.

Lena pulled into the teachers' parking lot at the high school, noticing that her eight-year-old Celica was the best car in the lot. She had once teased Sibyl about the fact that after spending a zillion years working on various college degrees, her professor's salary at Grant Tech had been just five thousand dollars more a year than what Lena made as a cop. Sibyl had pointed out that Lena ran the risk of getting shot for five thousand dollars less a year than a college professor made and it had stopped being so funny.

It was no secret that Lena hadn't exactly been a star student at Elawah High. She'd made straight Bs and Cs until high school, or more specifically, until puberty, then everything went downhill from there. She had flunked algebra twice, spending two summers making it up so she could graduate on time. The thought of quitting had never occurred to her, but she knew from Hank that the current dropout rate at Elawah was almost fifty percent. Not many kids saw the point in applied physics when they were pretty much going to end up at the tire plant slinging rubber anyway.

Charlotte Warren's husband worked at the plant. Of course, she wasn't Charlotte Warren anymore. Larry Gibson had graduated the same year as Charlotte. When Sibyl had left for college, the two had obviously started seeing each other.

Three kids later and Larry was middle management at the tire plant while Charlotte bided her time teaching. They were well on their way to the American dream except for the fact that, according to the letters Lena had found in Hank's office, the woman was miserable.

'What is wrong with me?' Charlotte had written. 'Why can't I be happy?'

Lena couldn't focus on Charlotte 's marital misery now, though. She was here to find out information about Hank and what had caused him to slip back into his old ways. She needed to find out why he had lied to them and what had happened to her mother. Charlotte Warren might know his secrets. You didn't write about the kind of secrets Charlotte had revealed in her letters to a stranger. Though the last letter Lena found was dated over a month ago, Charlotte had pretty much poured out her heart to Hank. Lena was betting Hank had returned the favor. If she couldn't get answers from her uncle, then she would get them from his confidant.

There was no guard at the school's front entrance and Lena was able to walk right in. There was a directory of classrooms on the front wall and Lena found Charlotte Gibson's easily enough.

Like many rural schools, the building was a one-story structure with plenty of room to grow but no money to make it happen. Ten trailers, or 'temporary classrooms' were stacked along the back of the building and overlooking the football field. Lena stood at the open back door and looked at the sorry trailers. They might be calling them temporary, but Lena knew that at least two of them dated from her time as a senior. Some of them were on poured concrete slabs but most of the classrooms were on stilts. Weeds shot up between empty soda cans and wadded-up sheets of paper that students had thrown underneath them. Rickety wooden stairs led to open doors and she wondered if the buildings were air-conditioned. They couldn't have been more than eight feet by fifteen and knowing the county, the school was packing kids in there like meat. No wonder the dropout rate was so high. Lena had been here for less than five minutes and she was already anxious to leave.

She walked along the concrete walkway that fronted the trailers, thinking it was strange that Charlotte had been slotted back behind the school. Surely she had enough seniority to warrant a real classroom inside the building. Then again, the woman was lucky to have her job. Judging from the letters Lena had found, Hank had been Charlotte 's AA sponsor. Up until a year ago, it'd taken the woman a swig of gin just to get out of bed.