Karin Slaughter - Triptych

“She spells her name correctly-the more common way-when she signs it. She probably changed the spelling when she hit the streets.” Angie kept talking and he couldn’t stop listening. “Postmark says she mailed it two weeks ago. There’s a stamp that says they returned the letter because she didn’t put enough postage on it. I guess the cross probably put it over the weight limit or maybe it got caught in one of the machines.” She paused. “Are you going to talk to the mother? This zip code isn’t far from here, probably about ten miles. I wonder if she even knows her daughter is dead.”

Will turned around. Angie held the envelope in her hand, flipped it over to make sure she didn’t miss anything on the back. She looked up, saw him staring at her, and asked, “Will?”

He told her, “If I could snap my fingers and make it like I’d never even met you, I’d do it.”

She put down the envelope. “I wish you could, too.”

“What are you doing with a guy like that?”

“He can be charming when he wants to.”

She meant Michael. “Was it before or after you found out he was using the girls?”

“Before, you asshole.”

He gave her a sharp look. “I don’t think you’ve got a right to be angry at me right now.”

She gave in. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“So Shelley’s a pedophile?”

She smiled, like it was funny. “And a murderer.”

“You think this is some kind of joke?”

She leaned her elbows on her knees, giving that coy smile that said she was open to anything. “Don’t be mad at me, baby.”

“Don’t put sex in the way of this.”

“It’s the only way I know how to communicate with people,” she joked, something a psychiatrist had once told her. Will wasn’t sure whether or not Angie had slept with the woman, but the observation was dead-on.

“Angie, please.”

“I told you this was a bad night for you to be here.” She stood up and put the envelope in his hand. “Come on, Willy,” she said, pulling him toward the door. “You need to go home.”

Angie remembered Gina Ormewood from Ken’s retirement party. She was a mousy woman who seemed oblivious to the fact that heavy makeup made acne worse and a hair stylist who charged less than ten dollars wasn’t exactly doing you a favor. If Angie hadn’t fucked the woman’s husband the same night, she probably wouldn’t remember a thing about her. As it was, she knew that Gina worked at Piedmont Hospital, which in a roundabout kind of way you could say was on the way to Angle’s work-if that was what you could call the strip in front of the liquor store on Cheshire Bridge Road.

She had called the hospital to make sure Gina Ormewood would be there. The woman’s shift started in twenty minutes, but Angie didn’t have anything better to do than wait. When she got to the hospital, she was glad she’d come early. Cars were backed up into the street and parking space on the deck seemed to be unavailable. After a while, Angie gave up. She flashed her badge to the rent-a-cop standing outside the ER and parked in a handicapped space.

There were a dozen people standing around the entrance of the ER, all with cigarettes dangling out of their mouths. Angie held her breath as she passed through the smoke. She hated cigarettes because they always reminded her of the burns on Will’s body. Someone had spent hours searing the flesh around the angles of his shoulder blades, creating obscene patterns along the lines of his ribs.

She shuddered at the thought.

The man behind the counter didn’t even look up when Angie stood in front of him. “Sign in, take a seat.”

She slid her badge under his nose and he still didn’t give her the courtesy of making eye contact. “You need to talk to the hospital administrator if you want records.”

She looked at his name badge. “No records, Tank. I’m here for Gina Ormewood.”

He looked up then. “What do you want Gina for?”

“It’s about her husband.”

“I hope the bastard’s dead.”

“Get in line.” Her words were automatic, but she didn’t lose sight of the fact that the man obviously hated Michael.

Tank stood, taking her in with his eyes. Angie was dressed for work, which meant she looked like a whore. She was still a cop, though, and this guy wasn’t an idiot.

She asked, “When do you think Gina will be in?”

“You’re not going to mess with her.” He wasn’t asking a question.

“I’m going to talk to her,” Angie told him.

He kept his eyes locked on hers, as if he could tell just by looking at her whether she was going to be trouble. Working at a place like this, he probably had the instincts. “Give her another ten minutes,” he said. “She’s always early.”

“Thank you.” Angie dropped her badge back into her purse and took the only seat available in the crowded waiting room.

There was an older man and woman across from her who had probably been Angie’s age when they came in. The woman gave Angie a look of disgust. The man gave Angie one of interest. Jesus, the guy had to be eighty and he was probably wondering how much money he had in his wallet. His wife blew her nose into a well-worn tissue. She looked ready to fall over. Angie spread her legs wide and the man blanched. The wife looked like she was about to have a heart attack.

Before they could move away, Angie stood up and went to the magazine rack. God, this place was depressing. The waiting room was a cesspit of germs and disease. Anybody who thought America didn’t have socialized medicine should spend a couple of hours in their local ER. Someone was paying for the uninsured and indigent to see a doctor, and it sure as shit wasn’t the uninsured and indigent. Hell, you were better off without insurance these days. You got the same crappy care but you paid less.

She skimmed a Field amp; Stream then a Ladies Home Journal from the Christmas before last as she waited for Gina Ormewood to show up. Michael had gone too far yesterday. He’d grinned at her like a monkey while they worked through his Vice records and now she knew why. It was one thing to fuck with Angie-hell, she probably deserved it-but the fact that he’d gotten Will upset was unforgivable. Michael must have said something, let a few words slip that told Will he’d banged Angie. She worked with men all day, arrested the fuckers, even, and she knew how their little minds worked. A second couldn’t go by without them either thinking about sex or talking about it, and the fact that Michael had fucked Angie was very good gossip. He’d probably even told that turdball Leo Donnelly. The whole squad must know by now. No wonder Will felt humiliated.

God, she had to stop listening to the girls so much. No one hated men as much as a prostitute. They spent hours talking about what low-life scum men were, and then they had to go off with the first asshole who flashed a little green in their face. Angie had enough issues with men without starting to think about them like a whore.

The doors opened and she glanced up as a couple of guys came in. She looked back at the magazine, not really seeing the fruitcake recipe. Her head hurt with thoughts of Ormewood, the disappointment on Will’s face, the way he had looked at her the night before when she’d gently pushed him out the front door. He must have been seething when Michael started bragging about it, telling the intimate details of his conquest.

Angie flipped to a different page, a different recipe. If Michael was going to screw around with the one person Angie cared about, then she was going to give it right back to him. Nothing distracted a man more than trouble at home.