Karin Slaughter - Fallen

The Fulton County medical examiner. “Has he shown up?”

“He’s still combing through that apartment fire in People’s Town.” Budget cuts had left the medical examiner’s office devastated. If there was more than one serious crime happening within the city limits, that usually meant the detectives were in for a long wait. “I’d love to get Pete on this.”

She was referring to the GBI’s medical examiner. Will asked, “Can’t he make some phone calls?”

“Unlikely,” she admitted. “Pete’s not exactly covered up in friends. You know how strange he is. He makes you look normal. What about Sara?”

“She’ll keep her mouth shut.”

“I’m aware of that, Will. I saw your do-si-do in the street. I meant do you think she knows anyone in the ME’s office?”

Will shrugged.

“Ask her,” Amanda ordered.

Will doubted Sara would welcome the call, but he nodded his agreement anyway. “What about Evelyn’s credit card statements, phone records?”

“I’ve ordered them pulled.”

“Does she have GPS in her car? On her phones?”

She didn’t really answer him. “We’re going through some backdoor channels. As I said, this isn’t exactly aboveboard.”

“But what you told Geary is right. We’ve got original jurisdiction over drug cases.”

“Just because Evelyn was in charge of the narcotics division doesn’t mean this is drug-related. From what I’ve gathered, they’ve found no indication of drugs in the house or on any of the dead men.”

“And Ricardo, the dead Texicano, of the drug-related Texicanos?”

“Odd coincidence.”

“How about the living, breathing, drug-related Texicano who drives a black Cadillac that Evelyn Mitchell has no qualms about getting into and going for a ride?”

She feigned surprise. “You think he’s affiliated?”

“I saw the tattoo in the photograph. Evelyn’s been seeing a Texicano for at least four months.” Will tried to moderate his tone. “He’s older. He must be higher up in the organization. Mrs. Levy says the visits have stepped up over the last ten days. They’ve been going somewhere together in his car, usually out by eleven and back by two.”

Again, Amanda ignored his point and made her own. “You busted six detectives on Evelyn’s squad. Two of them were paroled for good behavior last year. Both transferred out of state—one to California, one to Tennessee, which is where they were this afternoon when Evelyn was taken. Two are in medium security at Valdosta State, four years away from release and no good behavior in sight. One is dead—drug overdose, which is what I call the thinking man’s karma. The last one is waiting to get his dance card punched at D&C.”

The Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison. Death row. Will reluctantly asked, “Who’d he kill?”

“A guard and an inmate. Strangled a convicted rapist with a towel—no loss there—but then he beat the guard to death with his bare hands. Claimed it was self-defense.”

“Against the guard?”

“You sound like the prosecutor on his case.”

Will tried again. “And Evelyn?”

“What about her?”

“I investigated her, too.”

“You did.”

“We’re not going to talk about the elephant in the room?”

“Elephant? For chrissakes, Will, we’ve got the entire goddamn circus in here.” She opened the front door. The sun cut through the dark house like a knife.

Amanda slipped on her sunglasses as they walked across the lawn toward the crime scene. A pair of uniformed cops were making their way toward Mrs. Levy’s house. They each glowered at Will and gave Amanda a curt nod.

She mumbled to Will, “About time they got going,” as if she hadn’t been the cause of the delay.

He waited until the men started banging on the front door. “I guess you know Mrs. Levy from your days with the APD?”

“GBI. I investigated her for murdering her husband.” Amanda seemed to enjoy Will’s horrified expression. “Never could prove it, but I’m sure she poisoned him.”

“Cookies?” he guessed.

“That was my working theory.” An appreciative smile curved her lips as she picked her way across the grass. “Roz is a wily old coot. Seen more crime scenes than all of us rolled together, and I’m sure she took notes the entire time. I wouldn’t trust half of what she told you. Remember—the Devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.”

Amanda had a point, or at least Shakespeare did. Still, Will reminded her, “Mrs. Levy’s the one who told me about the Texicano visiting Evelyn. She took the picture of him.”

“She did, didn’t she?”

Will felt the question hit him like a slap to the back of his head. Considering Mrs. Levy’s artistic talent lent itself more to unflattering mugshots of household pets, it seemed strange that she just happened to have handy a photograph of the Texicano standing beside his black Cadillac. She was a sharp old lady. She’d been spying for a reason. “We should go back and talk to her.”

“Do you really think she’s going to tell us anything useful?”

Will silently conceded the point. Mrs. Levy seemed to like her games, and with Evelyn missing, they didn’t really have time to play them. “Does Evelyn know she killed her husband?”

“Of course she does.”

“And she still let her watch Emma?”

They had reached Faith’s Mini. Amanda cupped her hands to the glass and peered inside. “She killed a sixty-four-year-old abusive alcoholic, not a four-month-old baby.”

Will guessed somewhere in the world this kind of logic made sense.

Amanda headed toward the house. Charlie Reed was in the carport talking to a bunch of other crime scene unit techs. Some were smoking. One was leaning against a tan Malibu that was parked nose-out to Faith’s Mini. They were all dressed in white Tyvek clean suits that made them look like various sizes of soiled marshmallows. Charlie’s handlebar mustache was the only thing that distinguished him from the clean-shaven men. He saw Amanda and broke away from the group.

She said, “Take me through it, Charlie.”

Charlie glanced back at a portly, dark man whose odd build made the Tyvek suit unflatteringly tight in all the critical areas. The man took a last puff on his cigarette and handed it to one of his co-workers. He introduced himself to Amanda in a clipped, British-sounding accent. “Dr. Wagner, I am Dr. Ahbidi Mittal.”

She indicated Will. “This is Dr. Trent, my associate.”

Will shook the man’s hand, trying not to cringe at the effortless way Amanda rolled out a degree they both knew he’d obtained from a dubious online school.

Mittal offered, “As a courtesy, I’m prepared to show you around the crime scene.”

Amanda gave a cutting glance to Charlie, as if he had any say in the matter.

“Thank you,” Will said, because he knew no one else would.

Mittal handed them each a pair of white booties for their shoes. Amanda grabbed Will’s arm to steady herself as she slipped off her heels and covered her stocking feet. Will was left to hop around on his own. Even without his shoes, his feet were too big, and he ended up looking like Mrs. Levy with her heels hanging off the back of her slippers.

“Shall we start in here?” Mittal didn’t wait for them to acknowledge his invitation. He led them around the back of the Malibu and into the house through the open kitchen door. Instinctively, Will ducked his head as he walked into the low-ceilinged room. Charlie bumped into him and mumbled an apology. The kitchen was small for four people, horseshoe shaped, with the open end facing the laundry room. Will caught the distinct odor of rusty iron that blood gave off when it congealed.

Faith was right—the intruders had been looking for something. The house was a mess. Silverware was scattered on the floor. Drawers had been thrown around. Holes were knocked in the walls. A cell phone and an older-looking BlackBerry were crushed on the floor. The wall phone had been smashed off the hook. Except for the black fingerprint powder and the yellow plastic markers the forensics team had used, nothing had been altered from what Faith said she’d first seen when she entered the house. Even the dead body was still in the laundry room. Faith must have been terrified, not knowing what was coming around the corner, terrified that her mother was injured—or worse.