Karin Slaughter - Fallen

Will told her, “Evelyn was duct-taped to a chair while they searched her house. I found an arrowhead drawn underneath the seat. She used her own blood to do it.”

“Where was it pointing?”

“Into the room. At the couch. Into the backyard.” He shrugged. “Who knows? We didn’t find anything.”

Sara thought about it. “Just the head of an arrow? That’s all?”

He fanned out the powdered sugar again and drew the shape.

Sara studied the symbol, silently debating how to proceed. She finally decided the truth was her only option. “It looks like a V to me. The letter V .”

He was quiet in a way that changed the air in the room. She thought he was going to change the subject, or make a joke, but he told her, “It wasn’t perfect. It was smudged at the top.”

“Like this?” She drew another line. “Like the letter A ?”

He stared at the figure. “I guess Amanda wasn’t pretending when she said she didn’t know what I was talking about.”

“She saw it, too?”

He brushed the powdered sugar into his hand and dropped it into the bag with the last doughnut. “Yep.”

She put the plate of eggs in front of him. The toaster popped up. The bread was almost black. “Oh, no,” she mumbled. “I’m so sorry. You don’t have to eat this. Do you want me to get the hot dogs out of the trash?”

He took the burned toast from her and dropped it on the plate. It made a sound like a brick scraping concrete. “Some butter would be nice.”

She had fake butter. Will dipped a knifeful out of the tub and coated the bread until it was soggy enough to fold in his hand. The eggs were closer to taupe than yellow, but he started in on them anyway.

Sara told him, “The name ‘Amanda’ starts with an A. Almeja starts with an A . And now Evelyn might’ve drawn an A on the bottom of her chair.”

He put down the fork. His plate was clean.

She continued, “ Almeja sort of sounds like ‘Amanda.’ The same number of syllables. The same first and last letter.” He would’ve missed the alliterative. Most dyslexics couldn’t rhyme two words if you put a gun to their heads.

He edged his plate away. “Amanda isn’t telling me everything. She’s not even admitting that the corruption case has anything to do with Evelyn’s situation.”

“But she told you to go over all your case files.”

“Either she needs the information or she’s trying to keep me busy. She knows this will take me all night.”

“Not if I help you.”

He picked up his plate and walked over to the sink. “Do you want me to wash this before I go?”

“I want you to tell me about the crime scene.”

He rinsed his plate, then started to wash his hands.

“That’s the cold,” Sara said, and then because it was pointless to tell him that because she was left-handed, she’d switched the hot water valve to the right-hand side, she leaned in and adjusted the temperature for him.

Will opened his hand so that she could squirt some soap onto his palm. “Why do you smell like lemon furniture polish?”

“Why did you let me believe Betty belongs to your wife?”

He lathered the soap in his hands. “There are some mysteries that will never be solved.”

She smiled. “Tell me about the crime scene.”

Will told her what they had found: the upturned chairs and broken baby toys. He segued into Mrs. Levy and Evelyn’s gentleman caller, Mittal’s theory about the blood trail, and Will’s own divergent theory about the same. By the time he got to the part where they had found the gentleman in the trunk, Sara had managed to get him to sit down at the dining room table.

She asked, “Do you think Boyd Spivey was killed because he talked to Amanda?”

“It’s possible, but not likely.” He explained, “Think about the timing. Amanda called the warden two hours before we got to the prison. The prison doc said a serrated knife was used. That’s not something you can make out of your toothbrush. The camera was disabled the day before, which indicates this was planned at least twenty-four hours in advance.”

“So, it was coordinated. Evelyn is taken. Boyd is killed a few hours later. Are the other men from her team safe?”

“That’s a very good question.” He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. “Do you mind if I make some calls?”

“Of course not.” She got up from the table to give him some privacy. The frying pan was still warm, so she ran cold water over it. The eggs were seared to the metal. She picked at the slime with her thumbnail before giving up and sticking it on the top rack of the dishwasher.

Sara opened Boyd Spivey’s file again. Will had used a pink star to identify him, perhaps as a joke. The man looked the part of a corrupt cop. His moon-shaped face indicated steroid use. His pupils were barely discernible in his beady eyes. His height and weight were closer to a linebacker’s.

She skimmed the details of Spivey’s arrest while listening with half an ear as Will talked with someone at Valdosta State Prison. They discussed whether or not to move Ben Humphrey and Adam Hopkins into solitary confinement, and agreed that it would be best just to step up their monitoring.

Will’s next call was more complicated. Sara assumed he was talking to someone at GBI headquarters about locating the remaining two men through their parole officers.

She opened Spivey’s file and found his personnel record behind the arrest report. Sara read through the details of the man’s professional life. Spivey had joined the academy fresh out of high school. He’d gone to night school at Georgia State in order to earn a BA in criminal science. He had three children and a wife who worked as a secretary at the Dutch consulate on the outskirts of the city.

Spivey’s promotion onto Evelyn’s team was a coup. The drug squad was one of the most elite in the country. They had all the best weapons and facilities, and enough high-profile bad guys in the Atlanta area to win them plenty of commendations and press time, which Spivey in particular seemed to enjoy. Will had collected newspaper clippings on the team’s most noteworthy busts. Spivey was front and center of every news story, even though Evelyn was the leader of the team. One photo showed a clean-shaven Spivey with enough ribbons on his chest to decorate a girl’s bicycle.

And it still had not been enough.

“Hey.”

Sara looked up from her reading. Will had finished his phone calls.

“Sorry about that. I wanted to make sure they were safe.”

“It’s fine.” Sara wasn’t going to pretend she hadn’t been listening. “You didn’t call Amanda.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Give me some more files to read.”

“You really don’t have to do this.”

“I want to.” Sara was no longer being kind or trying to spend more time in his company. She wanted to know what had made a man like Boyd Spivey turn into such a lowlife.

Will stared at her long enough to make her think he was going to say no. Then he opened one of the boxes. There was an ancient Walkman nestled in a pile of audio cassette tapes. None of them had labels, unless you counted the colored, star-shaped stickers. Will explained, “These are recordings of all the interviews I had with each suspect. None of them said much in the beginning, but they all ended up making deals to cut time off their sentences.”

“They ratted each other out?”

“Not a chance. They had some information on a couple of local councilmen to trade. It gave them some leverage with the prosecutor.”

Sara couldn’t pretend to be shocked over politicians with drug problems. “How much leverage?”

“Enough to get them talking, not enough to make them give up the big fish.” He opened the next box and started pulling out files. As with everything else, they were color-coded. He handed her the green ones first. “Witness testimony for the prosecution.” He stacked the red ones, which were fewer in number. “Witnesses for the defense.” He took out the blue ones. “High-dollar busts—anything where more than two thousand dollars was seized.”