Karin Slaughter - Triptych

“No.” She shook her head. “Read the rest.”

John read to himself this time. The doctor had indicated that John’s symptoms were not consistent with an overdose of cocaine and heroin. He suspected another drug was involved. Further blood tests were inconclusive, but testing was recommended on the powdered substance found at the scene.

The powdered substance. Michael had given him the baggie. John had never done heroin in his life. He had assumed good old Woody was trying to do him a favor, when in fact he had been trying to knock him out. Not just knock him out. Maybe there had been something else in that bag besides cocaine and heroin. John knew from prison talk that the labs could only find what they were specifically looking for. Michael could have spiked the speedball with something even more potent, something that would finish the job in case the volatile mixture didn’t.

“What?” Joyce asked.

John’s surprise must have registered on his face. He had been focusing on Mary Alice all this time. Had Michael meant to kill John, too? Had he thought to make it easier for himself to do whatever he wanted with Mary Alice and leave the blame at the foot of John’s grave?

Two days after Mary Alice’s body had been found, Michael and his mother had come by to visit. John was laid up in his room, feeling like shit, hiding behind a story he told to his mother about having a bad cold when in fact he could barely breathe every time he thought about Mary Alice’s body lying beside him in her bed.

Michael had been the same as always, at least as far as John could recall. His cousin had stayed with him in his room, talking about- what?-John couldn’t remember now. Something stupid, he was sure. John had fallen asleep. Was it then that Michael had planted the knife in his closet? Was it then that Michael had formed his plan? Or had somebody else worked it out from the beginning, sent Michael upstairs with the knife, told him to put it in John’s closet so that there would be something concrete that tied him to Mary Alice’s bedroom?

“Johnny?” Joyce said. She hadn’t called him that since they were kids. “What is it?”

He closed the folder. “What do you remember about Aunt Lydia?”

“She was your lawyer.” Joyce added, “She quit criminal law and went over to corporate after what happened to you. She said she lost her stomach for it. She never forgave herself for not being able to help you.”

“I’ll bet.”

Joyce was obviously taken aback by the hatred in his tone. “I’m serious, John. She came to see Mom at the hospital.”

“When was this?”

“I guess it was the day before Mom passed away. They had just put the tube down her throat so she could breathe.” Joyce paused, collecting herself. “She was in a lot of pain. They had her on a morphine drip. I’m not even sure she knew Kathy and I were there, let alone Lydia.”

“What did Lydia say to her?”

“I have no idea. We left them alone.” She added, “She looked really bad. Aunt Lydia, I mean. She hadn’t seen Mom in years but she couldn’t stop crying. I never thought they were close, but maybe during the trial… I don’t know. I was so upset back then that I wasn’t paying much attention to anybody.”

“You didn’t hear anything?”

“No,” Joyce said. “Well, just at the end. I came back too soon, I guess. Lydia was holding Mom’s hand. We’d told her the doctors said she didn’t have long, maybe a day at the most.” Joyce paused, probably thinking back on the scene. “Mom’s eyes were closed-I don’t even think she was aware that Lydia was there.” She tilted her head. “But Lydia was sobbing. Really sobbing, John, like her heart was broken. She was shaking, and she kept saying, ”I’m so sorry, Emily. I’m so sorry‘ “ Joyce concluded, ”She never forgave herself. She never got over losing your case.“

Right, John thought. Aunt Lydia was probably plenty over it now. Nothing like unburdening your sins to someone who wouldn’t live to tell them.

He asked, “How was Mom after she left?”

“Still out of it,” Joyce answered. “She slept all of the time. It was hard for her to keep her eyes open.”

“Did she say anything?”

“She couldn’t, John. She had the tube down her throat.”

John nodded. It was all making sense now. The first thing Aunt Lydia had done as his lawyer was sit John down and make him tell her everything about that night, everything that had happened. John had been terrified. He had told her the absolute truth, fuck whatever code of honor you were supposed to have about ratting out other kids. He told her about Michael tossing him the bag of what John thought was coke, about walking Mary Alice home and climbing through the window into her bedroom. He told her about the kiss, the way his brain had exploded like a rocket had gone off in his head. He told her about waking up the next morning lying in a pool of Mary Alice’s blood.

When John had finished telling her the story, Aunt Lydia had tears in her eyes. She took his hand-grabbed it, actually-so hard that it hurt.

“Don’t worry, John,” she had said. “I’ll take care of everything.”

And she did. The bitch certainly did.

Joyce was still looking at him, waiting. He could tell she was tired, maybe exhausted. Makeup couldn’t hide the dark circles under her eyes. Her shoulders were slumped in defeat. Still, John could not help but notice that she had stood here in her office talking to him for around thirty minutes without once yelling at him or accusing him of anything.

He asked, “Did they ever test the drugs? The white powder?”

“Of course. Lydia sent it to a private lab. Mom was on pins and needles for a week. They didn’t come up with anything unusual, though. It was cocaine and heroin.”

John felt a stabbing pain in his jaw. He had been clenching his teeth again.

“Johnny,” Joyce said, sounding tired. So tired. “Tell me.”

He closed his mother’s notebook, the last notebook she had used on his case, the last thing she had ever held in her hands that connected her to her son.

“Get Kathy back in here,” John said. “I think she needs to hear this, too.”

9:22 pm

Will sat in his office, trying not to twiddle his thumbs. He had paid a visit to Luther Morrison, Jasmine Allison’s… what? What did you call a thirty-year-old man who was having sex with a fourteen-year-old girl? Sick God damn bastard was what Will had decided on, and it had taken everything in him not to punch the animal in the face.

After that pleasant visit, Will had returned to City Hall East and caught up Amanda Wagner on the case. She hadn’t offered any staggering insight but neither had she taken him to task for not having a lot to say. Amanda could be demanding, but she knew a difficult case when she saw one.

The one thing she had told him was to not focus so much on the missing girl. Will’s case was the murder of Aleesha Monroe and how it connected to the other girls, not a runaway named Jasmine Allison. All he had was a ten-year-old boy’s story and a bad feeling, and while Amanda respected his gut instinct, she wasn’t about to waste time and resources based on either. She summed it up for him with her usual heartwarming pragmatism: the girl had a history of running away. She was dating a man who was twice her age. Her mother was in prison, her father was who knows where and most days, her grandmother couldn’t get out of a chair without assistance.

The only way this would be news is if she hadn’t run away. The DeKalb cops hadn’t moved an inch on Cynthia Barrett’s case and they weren’t keen to share their notes with Will. The DNA obtained from the vaginal swab Pete had taken was too contaminated to test. Toxicology had not yet come back, but Will wasn’t holding his breath for a miraculous revelation.