The Will Trent Series 7-Book Bundle

by Karin Slaughter

  Amanda felt a thickness in her throat. “Male.”

  Holly dropped the pen. “You want to go back there and talk to a black man?”

  “Dwayne Mathison.”

  “My God, Mandy. Are you crazy? He killed a white woman. He already confessed.”

  “I just need a few minutes.”

  “No.” She vehemently shook her head. “Keller would have my scalp. And rightfully so. I’ve never heard anything so crazy. Why on earth would you want to talk to him?”

  Not for the first time, Amanda realized that she would be better served to plan out her explanations in advance. “It’s for one of my cases.”

  “What case?” Holly sat down at the desk to organize the papers. There were two more bottles of bourbon on the blotter, one of them almost empty. The cut-crystal glass between them showed a permanent ring from Keller’s constantly replenishing his drink throughout the day. Crude renderings of a penis and a pair of breasts were carved into the soft wood of the desk.

  Holly looked up at her. “What is it?”

  Amanda pulled around another chair, just as Trey Callahan had this morning at the Union Mission. She sat across from Holly. Their knees were almost touching. “There are some missing girls.”

  Holly stopped collating. “You think the pimp killed them, too?”

  Amanda didn’t outright lie. “Maybe.”

  “You should tell Butch and Rick. It’s their case. And you know they’re going to hear about this.” She put one hand on her heart and held up the other, as if swearing allegiance. “They won’t hear about it from me or my girls, but you know it’ll get around.”

  “I know.” There was nothing more prevalent in any police force than gossip. “But I want to do it.”

  “Mandy.” Holly shook her head, as if she couldn’t understand what had happened to her friend. “Why are you inviting trouble?”

  Amanda stared at her. Holly Scott had a dancer’s lean body. She ironed her long red hair straight. Her makeup was expertly applied. Her skin was perfect. Even in this miserable heat, she could be photographed for a magazine ad. That she took near-perfect dictation and could type 110 words a minute were probably factors Keller had not even considered when he’d hired her.

  Amanda reached back and closed the door. The typewriters were just as loud, but it engendered a feeling of confidentiality.

  She told Holly, “Rick Landry threatened me.” She didn’t feel right bringing Evelyn’s name into this, but Amanda was telling the truth when she said, “He called me a slit in front of my boss. He cursed at me. He told me I should stay the … the F away from his case.”

  Holly’s lips pressed together in a straight line. “Aren’t you going to listen to him?”

  “No,” Amanda said. “I’m not. I’m tired of listening to them. I’m tired of being scared of them and doing all their bidding when I know better than they do.”

  The words were said quietly, but there was an air of revolution about them.

  Holly nervously glanced over Amanda’s shoulder. She was afraid of being heard. She was afraid of being any part of this. Still, she asked, “Have you ever been into men’s holding?”

  “No.”

  “It’s awful down there. Worse than the women’s side.”

  “I assumed it would be.”

  “Rats. Feces. Blood.”

  “Don’t oversell it.”

  “Keller will be furious.”

  Amanda forced up her shoulders in a shrug. “Maybe this will give him that heart attack you’ve been waiting for.”

  Holly stared at her for a good long while. Her blue eyes glistened with tears that did not fall. She was visibly afraid. Amanda knew she had a kid and a husband who worked two jobs so they could live in the suburbs. Holly went to school at night. She helped out at church on Sundays. She volunteered at the library. And she came here five days a week and put up with Keller’s advances and innuendo because the city was the only employer around that followed the federal law mandating women be paid the same salary as men.

  And yet, Holly held Amanda’s gaze as she reached over for the phone on Keller’s desk. Her finger found the dial. There was a slight tremor in her hand. She didn’t have to look down as she dragged the rotary back and forth. Holly put through calls for Keller all day long. She was silent as she waited for the line to engage. “Martha,” she said. “This is Holly up in Keller’s office. I need you to have a prisoner transferred to holding for me.”

  Amanda watched her carefully as Holly relayed Dwayne Mathison’s information. She had to shuffle through the papers from Keller’s desk to get his arrest record, which had his booking number. Her hands steadied as they performed the familiar task. Her nails were short and clear-coated, like Amanda’s. Her skin was almost as white as Jane Delray’s, though of course absent any track marks. Amanda could see the thin blue lines of the veins in the back of the other woman’s hand.

  She looked down at her own hands, which were clasped in her lap. Her nails were neatly trimmed, though she hadn’t bothered with polish the night before. The skin along the side of her palm was scratched. Amanda didn’t remember injuring herself. Maybe she’d scraped off the skin while she was cleaning her father’s house. There was a piece of metal sticking out of the refrigerator that always caught her hand when she cleaned it out.

  Holly put down the phone. “He’s being transferred. It’ll be about ten minutes.” She paused. “I can call them back, you know. You don’t have to go through with this.”

  Amanda had other things on her mind. “Can I use the phone while I wait?”

  “Sure.” Holly groaned as she hefted the phone around. “I’ll be outside. I’ll let you know when they’re ready.”

  Amanda found her address book in her purse. She should be scared about coming face-to-face with Juice again, but looking at her scratched hand had put a question in her mind.

  She kept an index card in the back of her address book that listed the numbers she used on a daily basis. Butch was constantly leaving out details in his notes. Amanda had to call the morgue at least once a week. She usually talked to the woman who handled the filing, but today she asked for Pete Hanson.

  The phone was picked up on the third ring. “Coolidge.”

  Amanda considered hanging up, but then she had a flash of paranoia, as if Deena Coolidge could somehow see her. The jail was only a few buildings down from the morgue. Amanda glanced around nervously.

  Deena said, “Hell-o?”

  “It’s Amanda Wagner.”

  The woman let some time pass. “Uh-huh.”

  Amanda looked out into the typing pool. All the women were hard at work, backs straight, heads slightly tilted, as they typed the pages of a handbook that would more than likely be used as toilet paper by half the force and target practice by the other. “I had a question for Dr. Hanson,” Amanda said. “If he’s around?”

  “He’s in court all day testifying on a case.” Deena seemed to lose some of her wariness. “May I help you with something?”

  Amanda closed her eyes. This would be so much easier with Pete. “I had a question about the piece of skin found under the victim’s fingernail.” Amanda looked down at the scratch on her palm. “I was wondering—” She couldn’t do this. Maybe she would wait for Pete. He would probably be back in the office tomorrow. Jane Delray wouldn’t be any more dead by then.

  Deena said, “Come on, girl. Don’t waste my time. Spit it out.”

  “Pete found something under the girl’s fingernail on Saturday.”

  “Right. Skin tissue. She must’ve scratched her assailant.”

  “Did you analyze it yet?”

  “Not yet. Why?”

  Amanda shook her head, wishing she could just melt into the chair. It was probably best to just blurt it out. “If the attacker was Negro, wouldn’t the skin under the girl’s fingernail be black?”

  “Hm.” Deena was quiet for a few seconds. “Well, you know, Pete’s got this special light. You shine it on the ski
n sample and it glows this kind of orange if it’s from a Negro.”

  “Really?” Amanda had never heard of such a thing. “Did he test the skin yet? Because I think—”

  At first, she thought Deena was crying. Then Amanda realized the woman was laughing so hard that she had started gulping for air.

  “Oh, very funny,” Amanda said. “I’m hanging up now.”

  “No, wait—” Deena was still laughing, though she was obviously trying to get it under control. “Wait. Don’t hang up.” She kept laughing. Amanda looked down at Keller’s desk. Cigarette butts spilled out of the ashtray. His coffee cup was rimmed in an orange nicotine stain. “Okay,” Deena said. “All right.” And then she started laughing again.

  “I’m really hanging up now.”

  “No, wait.” She coughed a few times. “I’m good now. I’m good.”

  “I was asking a sincere question.”

  “I know you were, honey. I know.” She coughed again. “Listen, you know that Pure and Simple lotion ad, shows the different layers of skin?”

  Amanda couldn’t tell whether or not she was setting up another joke.

  “I’m serious, girl. Listen to me.”

  “Okay, I know the ad.”

  “The skin basically has three layers. All right?”

  “All right.”

  “Usually, when you scratch someone, you get the upper dermis, which is white no matter who you are. In order to get the pigmented layer of skin, the black part, you’d have to scratch to the subcutis, which means the fingernail would have to go deep enough to cause some serious bleeding. And it wouldn’t be a sliver of skin you’d have to scrape out from under the fingernail. It’d be a chunk.”

  Amanda detected Pete’s patient teaching tone in the woman’s words. “So, there’s no way to tell if the girl from Friday scratched a black assailant or a white one?”

  Deena was quiet again, though this time, she wasn’t laughing. “You’re talking about that pimp they arrested for killing that white girl, aren’t you?”

  Amanda saw a guard standing by Holly’s desk. He was gangly, with an untrimmed mustache and dark hair. Holly waved Amanda over. Juice was ready.

  “Amanda?” Deena asked. “I’m not playing now. You best think about what you’re doing.”

  “I assumed you’d be eager to help one of your own kind.”

  “That murdering bastard ain’t got nothing to do with me.” She lowered her voice. “I’m eager to keep my head attached to my shoulders, is what I am.”

  “Well, thank you for answering my question.”

  “Wait.”

  Holly’s waving took on an urgency. She was probably afraid Keller would return. Amanda held up her finger, indicating she needed a minute. “What is it?”

  “Be careful. The same people protecting you right now are gonna be the same ones coming after you when they find out what you’re doing.”

  There was a long silence after that. Both of them reflected on the words.

  “Thank you.” Amanda tried not to read anything into Deena’s gruff goodbye. She hung up the phone. Her heart was thumping in her chest. The woman was right. Duke would be furious if he knew what Amanda was doing. So would Keller. So would Butch and Landry and possibly Hodge. Add the whole department to that if they found out she was trying to help a black man get out of jail. A black man who’d already confessed to murder.

  Holly came to the doorway. “Hurry up, Mandy. Phillip’s going to take you down and stay with you.” She lowered her voice. “He’s not so bad.”

  Amanda felt the urge to flee. Her bravado was going up and down like a piston engine. “I’m ready.”

  She stood from the desk. She forced a smile onto her face as Phillip came into the office. He was wearing the dark blue uniform of the prison guards, a set of keys hanging from one side of his belt and a nightstick dangling from the other.

  He was younger than Amanda, but he talked to her as if she was a child. “You sure you wanna be doing this, gal?”

  Amanda swallowed past the lump in her throat. She wished that Evelyn were there to give her strength. Then she felt guilty, because Evelyn had been taking the brunt of the anger lately—not just from Rick Landry, but from Butch and whoever had transferred her into Model City.

  Maybe Evelyn was right. Maybe people were careful with Amanda because they were afraid of Duke. Instead of being afraid of him herself, Amanda should be taking advantage of it. At least for as long as she could.

  “I’m not sure we’ve met.” Amanda walked toward the man, hand extended. “I’m Amanda Wagner. Duke’s daughter.”

  His eyes shifted to Holly, then to Amanda as he shook her hand. “Yeah, I know Duke.”

  “He’s friends with Bubba.” Amanda never called Keller by his first name, but the guard needn’t know that. She took her purse out of the chair and dug around for the new pen and spiral-bound notebook she’d brought from home. She handed her bag to Holly. “Mind holding on to this for me?”

  Holly stared wide-eyed as Amanda walked out of the office. She forced herself to keep a steady pace as she passed through the typing pool. The constant spinning and pecking of the Selectric balls seemed to match the erratic beats of her heart, but Amanda forced herself to keep walking. Going into the men’s jail was likely the same as going into a swimming pool. You either jumped in and experienced that quick shock of cold or you dragged it out, walking in slowly, your skin prickling with goose bumps, your teeth chattering.

  Amanda jumped right in.

  She held on to the railing as she walked down the stairs. She didn’t wait for Phillip to open the door. She pushed it with the palm of her hand. The cells. Holly was right. The men’s side was far worse than the women’s. Large cracks split the walls. Pigeons cooed from the rafters; their droppings littered the concrete floor. She stepped over a passed-out wino leaning against the wall. She ignored the catcalls and the stares. She kept her posture straight, her eyes ahead, until Phillip spoke.

  “It’s on the left.”

  Amanda stopped in front of a door. Someone had used a knife to carve INTERRORGATION into the thick lead paint. There was a square window at eye level, though the glass was nearly opaque with grime.

  Phillip took out a set of keys and searched for the right one. He swayed slightly, obviously from drink. Finally, he found the correct key. He slid it into the lock and pushed open the door. Amanda turned around, preventing him from going in.

  She said, “I’ve got it from here.”

  He laughed, then saw she was serious. “Are you nuts?”

  “I’ll call you if I need you.”

  “That ain’t gonna be enough time.” He indicated the door. “This thing locks when you close it. I can leave it cracked so—”

  “Thank you.” She pulled one of Rick Landry’s moves, closing the space between them, forcing him back without having to touch him. The last thing she saw of Phillip was the shocked expression on his face when she closed the door.

  The clicking of the latch echoed in the room. She caught a glimpse of the guard’s blue hat, just the rim, in the window, but nothing else.

  And then she turned around.

  Dwayne Mathison was sitting at the table. A bloody white bandage was wrapped around his head. One of his eyes was swollen shut. His nose was broken. He had pulled back his chair several feet, so it was almost touching the wall. Amanda recognized his clothes as the same he’d had on last week, though they were stained with blood and dirt now. His legs were wide apart. His arm hung over the back of the chair, fingers nearly touching the floor. She could see the Jesus tattoo on his chest. The mole on his cheek. The hate in his eyes.

  “Whatchu doin’ here, bitch?”

  It was a good question. Amanda had never before interviewed a suspect in a proper interrogation room. She was usually in the suspect’s home. His parents were in the room, sometimes a lawyer. The boys were always contrite, terrified to be talking to a police officer, though relieved it was just a woman. Their fathers ass
ured Amanda that it would never happen again. Their mothers revealed salacious details about the girl who’d made the allegations. Generally, it was over in less than an hour and the boy was left to get on with his life.

  So what was she doing here?

  Amanda hugged her notebook to her chest, then regretted the move. Juice would think she was covering her breasts. He would think she was scared. Both of which were true, but she couldn’t let him know that. She dropped her arms as she walked to the table. The room was small. It was just a few steps. She dragged back the empty chair and sat down. Juice was watching her the way an animal studies prey. Amanda pulled the chair closer to the table, though every muscle in her body was tingling with the desire to flee.

  In seconds, he could lurch across the table and snap her neck. He could punch her. Beat her. Try to rape her again. Amanda had always worried that if something bad happened—a man broke into her apartment in the middle of the night, an attacker cornered her in an alley—she would not be able to scream. She hadn’t screamed before when Juice had threatened her. Could she scream now if he lunged for her? Would Phillip even hear her? If he did, would he be able to find his keys in time to stop the worst of it?

  Amanda couldn’t generate enough saliva in her mouth to swallow. She opened her notebook. “Mr. Mathison, I understand that you’ve confessed to the murder of Lucy Bennett?”

  He didn’t answer.

  Water dripped from a hole in the ceiling. The drops had puddled on the floor. There was a dead rat in the corner, its neck broken by a trap. Cobwebs filled the corners. The air stank of sweat mixed with the distinctive ammonia smell of dried urine.

  She said, “Mr. Math—”

  “Mm-mm.” Juice slowly licked his tongue along his top lip. “You still a fine-lookin’ woman.” He made a tsking noise. “Shoulda took you when I had the chance.”

  Incongruously, Amanda felt a smile wanting to come to her lips. She could hear Evelyn’s voice, the way she’d mimicked Juice when they were at the Varsity.