Triptych

by Karin Slaughter

  John wasn’t sure how to respond. “He’s crazy to let you go.”

  “Well, there’s more to it than my side of the story,” she admitted. “I’m a real bitch, in case you hadn’t noticed. What about you?”

  John gave a startled “Me?”

  “You have a girlfriend?”

  He laughed. “Are you kidding me? I went in when I was sixteen. The only woman I ever saw was my mother.”

  “What about…” Her voice trailed off. “You were a kid, right? When you got to prison?”

  John felt his jaw work. He nodded without looking at her, trying not to let his mind conjure up the image of Zebra, those black-and-white teeth, those hands clamping down on the back of his neck.

  If she saw his acknowledgment, she didn’t comment. Instead, she blew on her coffee and finally took a sip, saying, “Damn, it’s cold.”

  John signaled for the waitress.

  “How y’all doing here?” the woman asked.

  “Fine, thank you,” John told her, letting her fill his cup with more coffee. He wasn’t used to so much caffeine in the morning and his hands were sweating. Or maybe he was just nervous because Robin was here. She was talking to him like they knew each other. John couldn’t remember if there had ever been a time in his life when he’d had a conversation like this.

  The waitress said, “Y’all let me know if you need anything.”

  Robin waited for the woman to leave before asking, “So, John, what have you been doing since you got out?”

  “Reconnecting with my family,” he answered. He couldn’t help but add, “I’ve been looking for my cousin. There’s some things we need to talk about.”

  Robin looked over his shoulder at a man sitting alone in the corner booth. John checked the guy’s reflection in the mirror, wondering if he was one of her johns. The man was wearing a three-piece suit. He was probably a lawyer or a doctor with a family at home.

  “John?” He looked back at Robin. She surprised him by asking, “What kind of trouble are you in?”

  “No kind of trouble.”

  “You said somebody was blackmailing you.”

  He nodded. “I did.”

  “Who?”

  John put his hands on either side of his cup. He wanted to answer her, to tell her everything that had happened, but Robin had enough in her life without him adding to the burden. What’s more, he didn’t have Joyce’s optimism about Aunt Lydia doing the right thing. Michael was still her son, even if he was a sadistic murderer. There was no telling what he was capable of doing. John wouldn’t be able to live with himself if something bad came down on Robin because of him.

  He told her, “I can’t get you caught up in all of this.”

  Her hand went to his thigh. “What if I want to be involved?” John’s breath caught as she moved her hand higher. “I know you’re a good guy.”

  His mouth opened so that he could breathe. “Maybe you shouldn’t…”

  “I know you don’t have anybody to talk to,” she said, her hand firm on his leg. “I just want you to know that you can talk to me.”

  He shook his head, whispering, “Robin…”

  She rubbed her hand back and forth. “It’s been a long time, huh?”

  Never, John thought. It’s been never.

  “You wanna go somewhere and talk?”

  “I don’t…” He couldn’t think. “I don’t have any money to—”

  She moved closer to him. “I told you. I’m off the clock.”

  If her hand went any higher, he was going to have to ask the waitress for a towel. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to find some strength.

  He put his hand over hers. “I can’t.”

  “You don’t want me?”

  “There’s not a man alive who doesn’t want you,” he said, thinking there were no truer words ever spoken. “I care about you, Robin. I know that’s stupid. I know I don’t even know you. But I can’t get you involved in my problems, okay? There’s already been too many people hurt. If something happened to you, if you got hurt, too…” He shook his head. He couldn’t think about it. “When this is over,” he said. “When this is over, I’ll find you.”

  Robin had taken her hand away. She held her cup up to her mouth and repeated the question. “Who’s blackmailing you, John?”

  Her tone had changed. He couldn’t exactly pinpoint how, but it reminded him of the guards in prison, the way they asked a question knowing that you had to answer them or they’d throw you in the hole.

  He said, “It’ll all be settled soon.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I’m just taking care of it,” he told her. “I can’t say anything else about it right now.”

  “You’re not going to tell me anything?”

  “Nope,” he told her.

  “Are you sure, John?”

  She was so serious. He gave her a questioning smile, said, “Let’s talk about something else.”

  “I need you to talk to me,” she said. “I need to know what’s going on.”

  “What’s this all about?”

  “It’s about your life, John. Can’t you be up-front with me?”

  The hairs on the back of his neck went up. “I don’t like where this is going.”

  Robin put down her mug. She stood up, her expression turning hard. “I tried to help you. Remember that.”

  “Come on,” he said, not knowing what he’d done wrong. “Robin—”

  He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see the man in the three-piece suit standing behind him.

  John said, “What’s going on?”

  The man looked at Robin, so John did, too.

  “I’m sorry, John,” she said, and she really seemed to be, but he did not know why. She reached into her purse and pulled out her wallet. Stupidly, he thought she was going to pay the bill. He opened his mouth to tell her not to worry about it, but by then he caught the glint of gold as she flipped open her badge.

  As if he couldn’t see for himself, she told him, “I’m a cop.”

  “Robin—”

  “It’s Angie, actually.” The man behind him tightened his hand on John’s shoulder. “Let’s do this outside.”

  “No…” John could feel his body starting to shake, his muscles turning to liquid.

  “Outside,” she ordered, her hand digging up under his arm, making him stand.

  He walked like an invalid, leaning against her as the man opened the door. The Decatur cops had done the same thing to him when they had dragged him out of his bedroom. They had taken him down the stairs, into the front yard and cuffed him in front of the whole neighborhood. Somebody had screamed, and when he looked behind him, he realized it was his mother. Emily had fallen to her knees, Richard not even trying to hold her up, as she sobbed.

  The sun in the parking lot outside the diner was brutal, and John blinked. He realized he was panting. Jail. They were taking him to jail. They’d take away his clothes, strip-search him, fingerprint him, throw him in a cell with a bunch of other men who were just waiting for John to show back up, waiting to show him exactly what they thought about a child-raping con who couldn’t make it on the outside.

  “Will.” She was talking to the man behind John. “Don’t.”

  John saw the silver cuffs the man held in his hand.

  “Please…” John managed. He couldn’t breathe. His knees buckled. The last thing he saw was Robin moving forward to break his fall.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  8:55 AM

  Angie felt dirty. Even after a scalding hot shower, she felt like she would never get rid of the filth inside.

  The look on John’s face, the fear, the sense of betrayal, had cut her heart like a jagged piece of metal. Will had carried John to the car, helped him into the backseat like a child getting ready for a trip to the store. Angie had stood there thinking, Here are the two men whose lives I’ve ruined the most.

  She left before Will could stop her.

  What was it abo
ut John Shelley that made her want to save him? Maybe it was because he was all alone in the world. Maybe it was because he wore his loneliness like a suit of armor that only Angie could see. He was like Will. Exactly like Will.

  Despite the fact that she had cleaned her house top to bottom a few days before, Angie put on her gloves and went to work. She used half a gallon of bleach in the bathroom, scrubbing the glistening white grout with a toothbrush. Will had laid the tile for her, putting it on a diagonal because he knew instinctively that this would make the room look larger. He had painted the walls a creamy yellow and used an off-white oil on the trim while Angie had chided him about his decorating skills.

  She should call him. Will was just doing his job. He was a good cop, but he was also a good man and it wasn’t right for her to punish him because John Shelley had gotten mixed up in something bad. As soon as she finished cleaning the house, she would call Will’s cell, make sure he knew it was the situation she hated, not him.

  Angie started on the kitchen next, taking out pots and pans, wiping out all the cabinets. She kept going over what had happened this morning, trying to think if there was a way she could have made it easier.

  “Fuck,” Angie cursed. She needed shelf liner. It was stupid to wipe out the cabinets when there was probably all kinds of trash underneath the liner. She picked at the corner of the sticky vinyl on the bottom of the sink cabinet, ripping it up in two pieces. The base was clean, but she had already ruined the liner. Angie stood to get more, realizing before she even reached the pantry that she was out.

  “Fuck,” she cursed again, snapping off her cleaning gloves. She threw them into the sink, offering a few more expletives as she looked for her keys.

  Ten minutes later, she was in her car, driving not to the grocery store, but straight up Ponce de Leon toward Stone Mountain. She knew where Michael lived. After they fucked, or, more to the point, after Michael fucked her, Angie had gotten a little obsessed. She had driven by his house a couple of times, seen his wife and kid in the driveway, caught sight of Michael washing his car. This behavior hadn’t lasted long—maybe a week—before she realized she was acting like a deranged person. It wasn’t Michael she was furious with, but herself, for getting into another bad situation.

  The Ormewoods lived in a ranch house that fit the other houses in the neighborhood. Angie parked in the empty driveway. If any of the neighbors noticed her black Monte Carlo SS was out of place, they didn’t come running. Every inch of her skin tingled as she got out of the car.

  She was dressed in her usual cleaning attire: a pair of cutoffs, one of Will’s old shirts and some pink flip-flops she had slid into as she left the house. The shoes made a popping sound against her soles as she walked up to the garage. The wind was blowing, and Angie wrapped her arms around her waist to fight the chill. She stood on tiptoe as she peered into the garage.

  The windows had been blacked out with paint.

  A car drove by, and Angie followed it with her eyes, making sure it didn’t slow, before heading to the front door. She rang the bell and waited, relishing the thought of Michael’s surprise when he opened the front door and saw her standing here. She was going to tell him that John had been arrested, then she was going to ask Michael how he knew John Shelley, why he had told her and the girls to look out for the recently released murderer.

  Angie knocked, then rang the bell again.

  Nothing.

  She tried the door, but it was locked. Forcing herself not to look over her shoulder or do anything else that might make her look like a thief, she walked casually around the house to the backyard, keeping her pace slow, glancing at the windows as if she was a friend who had just dropped by for a visit. She wished she had her cell phone as a prop, but she’d left it at home to charge.

  A dog door was cut into the back door. The door looked old and she figured it had come with the house. Michael hated dogs. She remembered this from their first bust together. One of the girls had a mutt that wouldn’t stop barking and Michael had pulled his gun when the animal lunged at him. The prostitute had laughed, and so had Angie. Come to think of it, this same prostitute was the girl who had told Angie that Michael was getting freebies.

  Angie got on her knees and twisted her shoulders so she could get through the door. Her breeder’s hips caught—thank you, Mother—but she managed to pull herself through. She crawled inside and stood in place, straining her ears, making sure no one was home. For the first time since she had left her own house, she wondered what the hell she was doing. Why would she break into Michael’s house? What did she expect to find?

  Maybe Will was right. Michael was certainly a jerk, and he beat his wife, and he had probably raped Angie that night she had been too drunk to know better, but that didn’t mean he was mixed up in all of this. So why was she here?

  “Shit,” she hissed, turning around to crawl back out the way she’d come. She stopped mid-crouch as she heard a noise. A whimper? Was that what she had heard? Did Michael have a dog now?

  Angie froze, listening. The sound didn’t repeat itself, and she wondered for a half second if she was losing her mind. The fact that she had broken into a man’s house did bring her sanity into question.

  Still, Angie stood up. She might as well finish what she started. She left her shoes by the door. She hated being barefooted, but she didn’t want the flip-flop sound to follow her through the house.

  She stopped midway through the kitchen, hearing a car drive by. Angie listened, her ears straining. A door opened and slammed shut, but it was across the street. She heard somebody call a hello, a conversation start up, and she unclenched her ass. Christ, all she needed was for Michael to come home and find her snooping around his house.

  The living room was what she would expect: an overstuffed couch and a big-screen television. She glanced down the hallway, but Angie didn’t want to go into the bedrooms. She didn’t want to see where Michael screwed his wife, know that this was the place where he probably beat Gina.

  Had he beaten Angie? She didn’t know. Her arms were bruised the next day, her privates on fire with pain. She had passed out in the car and he had done whatever he wanted to do. The stupid fucker. Couldn’t he tell by looking at her that she could do pretty much anything? It wasn’t like he had to wait for her to pass out.

  There was a door at the back of the living room. A hasp lock bolted it shut. She tried to orient herself, figuring the garage was on the other side of the door. Why would he have such a serious lock on the garage door when anybody could come in through the dog door? And why would the windows be blacked out?

  Angie walked over to the door, put her ear to the cool metal. The hinge on the lock squeaked as she pried it open. She put her hand on the knob and opened the door. The room was pitch-black, and she groped along the wall for the light switch. The fluorescent bulbs flickered on and off several times, and in the strobe she saw a workbench, a lawn mower, a pool table.

  The lights stayed on. A naked young girl was tied to the pool table. Her mouth was gagged, her face bloody. Her eyes opened wide at the sight of Angie, the whites showing in a complete circle around her irises. Except for the rapid rise and fall of her chest, she wasn’t moving.

  Angie’s breath caught. She felt a sharp, searing pain at the back of her skull, then saw a blinding explosion as she crumpled to the floor. She heard the girl sobbing, a man laughing, and then nothing at all.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  10:13 AM

  Will leaned back in his chair, looking out at the dismal view his office afforded. He picked up his phone and tried Angie’s cell again, waiting until it went over into voice mail before disconnecting. He’d been trying to call her for the last hour, first on her home line, then on her cell. She’d told him she was going straight home, and it wasn’t like her not to answer when he called. Even if she was mad at Will, Angie would have picked up the phone at least to cuss him out and tell him to stop calling.

  She had been right about one thing at lea
st. John Shelley hadn’t said a word from the moment Will had put him in the car.

  Leo Donnelly knocked on Will’s office door, opening it before he was told to. “Lawyer’s here.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Claims she’s a friend of his sister’s.”

  Will stood up, slipped on his jacket. “You don’t believe her?”

  Leo handed Will a business card, saying, “She’s a real estate lawyer.” He lowered his voice. “Hot-looking dyke.”

  Will didn’t know what he was expected to say. He stared at the card for an appropriate amount of time before tucking it into his vest pocket.

  Leo walked beside Will up the hallway. “I gotta tell you, she’s a big loss for our side. Know what I mean?”

  Will didn’t want to have this conversation, so he asked, “Have you ever heard Michael mention John Shelley?”

  “The perp?” Leo pursed his lips, thought about it. “Nope.”

  “There’s a woman who works in Vice—Angie Polaski.”

  Leo’s mouth shot up in a knowing grin. “Yeah, I know her.”

  Will opened the doorway to the stairs. Leo didn’t look pleased that they weren’t taking the elevator down the two flights to the interrogation rooms, but the man should be glad Will wasn’t punching that grin off his face.

  He told Leo, “Detective Polaski said that a couple of months ago, Michael warned her and some of the girls to look out for a con named John Shelley.”

  Leo’s smile faltered as they reached the landing. “Mike knew about this guy before?”

  “Seems like it.”

  Leo continued down the stairs, his fingers trailing the handrail. He stopped on the landing and Will turned around.

  “Listen,” Leo said. He glanced over the railing, lowered his voice. “This Polaski chick…Mike threw her a bone a while back. He’s a married guy, you know, really loves his wife but it’s not like he’s gonna say no to getting his knob polished, especially by something like that. Know what I mean?”

  “What happened?”

  “Polaski didn’t understand the rules. She was looking for something a little more permanent. Mike tried to let her down easy, but she’s had a real hard-on for him ever since.”