Triptych

by Karin Slaughter

  Will almost laughed at the thought of someone thinking Angie wanted to be in a serious relationship. He continued down the stairs, asking, “You think she’s making it up?”

  “I think hell hath no fury, you know?”

  “Yeah,” Will agreed. “But why would she make up something like that?”

  Leo took a few seconds to think of an answer. He finally shrugged. “Women, you know?”

  “Didn’t you tell me the other day that Gina filed a restraining order against Michael for beating her?”

  “Well…” Leo stopped again. “Yeah. So?”

  Will kept walking. “You didn’t seem to think she was making that up.”

  “No,” Leo admitted. He rubbed his thumb along his chin, a tell Will had picked up on within minutes of meeting the detective. He hoped the man never played poker. “It’s like this,” Leo eventually said, “Mike called me last night and asked me how the case was going.”

  “He called me, too.”

  “What’d you tell him?”

  Will opened the door to the second floor. “Probably the same as you. We don’t have anything to go on.”

  “Yeah, but then I mentioned that you’d asked me to pull the sex offenders list. He got all hot and bothered about it. Said it was fucking brilliant.” Leo gave Will an apologetic half-smile. “I don’t think I’m squeezing your toes when I say that going through those files was a Hail Mary if there ever was one.”

  Will nodded. Shelley had been included in his group of registered offenders, but the parole sheet lacked the details Caroline had pulled for him. If Angie hadn’t asked Will to look into the man, then Shelley would probably still be out in the street.

  Of course, Michael Ormewood had been the one who told Angie about Shelley in the first place.

  Leo’s stride was shorter than Will’s. He struggled to keep up as they walked down the hallway, saying, “Point is, Mike’s been on the job almost as long as me. He knows it’s a long shot, too.” Will slowed his pace. “And he also knows that some smack-head pross living in the projects ain’t gonna be keeping no tidy house.”

  Will stopped, thinking maybe he’d underestimated Leo Donnelly.

  The detective said, “I’d bet my left one that place was scrubbed down before we got there.”

  “You mentioned this to Michael?”

  “He argued with me,” Leo admitted. “Mike’s usually an easygoing guy, you know? But he got real pissed when I said the place had been cleaned. He wouldn’t even put it in his report.”

  “Maybe he was just being careful?”

  “Careful is when you leave out the fact that you found your name in the bitch’s little black book, not when you forget to notice somebody’s rubbed down the place with a gallon of Clorox.”

  Will tucked his hands into his pockets. “What are you doing now?”

  Leo shrugged. “I got a couple’a three other cases I’m working. Why?”

  “You mind going over to Michael’s?”

  “What for?”

  “Pay him a call,” Will said. “Make sure he’s doing okay.”

  “I gotta say,” Leo began, “the way he’s been acting, I’m thinking right now I don’t give a shit one way or the other if the guy is okay.”

  “Just check on him,” Will insisted, putting his hand on Leo’s shoulder. “I want to know where he is.”

  Leo stared up at him for a few seconds, then nodded. “Sure,” he finally said. “Okay.”

  Will put his hand on the doorknob to the interrogation room but didn’t open it. He closed his eyes, trying to center himself. While he was in that room, he couldn’t think about Angie or Michael or Jasmine or anything else that would throw him off his game. John was the target and Will would not settle for anything less than a direct hit.

  He knocked once on the door and walked into the room without waiting to be invited. John Shelley sat at the table. His lawyer was leaning across him, holding both his hands in hers.

  They moved apart quickly when Will entered the room.

  Will said, “I apologize for interrupting.”

  The woman stood up. Her voice was strong, indignant. She might have specialized in real estate, but she was still a lawyer. “Is my client under arrest?”

  “I’m Special Agent Will Trent,” he told her. “And you are?”

  “Katherine Keenan. Can you tell me why my client is here?”

  “I believe you’re a real estate lawyer,” Will said. “Are you representing Mr. Shelley in an acquisition?”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Is he under arrest or not?”

  Will started to sit, asking, “Do you mind?”

  “Detective, I don’t care whether you sit or stand or levitate into the air. Just stop dicking me around and answer my question.”

  John looked down at the table, but not before Will saw him smile.

  “All right.” Will sat down across from them, telling the lawyer, “But, if you don’t mind, it’s actually Special Agent Trent. Detectives work in local PD. I’m with State. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Perhaps you’ve seen us on the news?”

  Keenan was obviously at a loss to the relevance, but John seemed to realize what that difference meant. State turned up the heat. Either the locals couldn’t handle the case or the crime involved several jurisdictions.

  John said, “I’m not answering any questions.”

  Will told him, “That’s fine, Mr. Shelley. I don’t have any questions for you. If I did, I might ask something like, ‘Where were you the evening of December third of last year?’ Or maybe I’d ask about October thirteenth.” If the dates meant anything to John, he wasn’t letting on. Will continued, “Then, I might get curious about last Sunday.” Now, there was a reaction. Will pushed a little more. “You’d remember that day because of the Super Bowl. And the next day, the sixth. That was a Monday. Maybe I’d ask you where you were last Monday.”

  Keenan said, “He doesn’t have to answer any of your questions.”

  Will spoke directly to John. “You need to trust me.”

  John stared at Will the way he might stare at a blank wall.

  Will sat back in his chair and listed it off for both of them. “I’ve got a dead hooker, a dead teenager and two little girls north of here who are trying to figure out how to live the rest of their lives after having their tongues bitten off.”

  Will was watching the lawyer as he said this. She wasn’t as practiced as John, hadn’t learned how to hide her emotions as well.

  Will continued, “I’ve also got a missing little girl. Her name is Jasmine. She’s fourteen. Lives at the Homes with her little brother, Cedric. Last Sunday, a white man with brown hair paid her twenty dollars to make a phone call.”

  John clasped his hands together on the table.

  “The funny thing is, this man gave her a dime to make the call.” Will paused a moment. “I don’t think pay phones have cost a dime since at least nineteen eighty-five.”

  John worked his hands.

  Will told the lawyer, “Ms. Keenan, this is the question that keeps coming up: How does John Shelley know Michael Ormewood?”

  She literally gasped at the name.

  “Kathy,” John cautioned.

  Will explained the situation. “Last Monday, a fifteen-year-old girl died. Somebody cut her tongue out. I can’t help thinking, Mr. Shelley, that twenty years ago, you cut out another little girl’s tongue.”

  Keenan couldn’t take it anymore. “It wasn’t cut!”

  “Kathy,” John said. “Wait outside.”

  “John—”

  “Please,” he told her. “Just wait outside. Try to find Joyce.”

  She obviously didn’t want to go.

  “Please,” he repeated.

  “All right,” she told him. “But I’ll be right outside.”

  “Actually,” Will began, standing, “you’re not allowed to wait in the hall, Ms. Keenan. Government office, terrorists, you know how it is.” He opened the door for her. “There’s a roo
m for attorneys one floor down, right by the vending machine. You can make some calls there, maybe get a snack.”

  She shot daggers at Will as she left the room. If anything, her departure heightened the tension rather than alleviated it.

  Will took his time closing the door before sitting back down. He crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for John Shelley to speak. At least five minutes of silence ticked by. Will waited a little longer, then decided to give in. “How do you know Michael?”

  John’s fists were still clasped on the table, and the fingers tightened. “What did he say?”

  “I’m not asking him. I’m asking you.”

  John stared all his anger straight into Will.

  Will asked, “Is Joyce your sister?”

  “Leave her out of this.”

  “It must’ve been hard all those years. You being in prison like that, her on the outside.”

  “She knows I didn’t do it.”

  “That must have made it even harder.”

  “Stop trying your psychology bullshit on me.”

  “I was just curious about what it was like.”

  “What was it like?” John repeated, some of his anger starting to seep out. “What was it like to ruin my family, send my mother to an early grave? What was it like to be treated like some kind of fucking pariah by my own father? What do you think, man? What the fuck do you think?”

  John’s words hung in the air, his voice echoing in Will’s ears. What did Will think? He thought that the pieces were finally fitting into place.

  He said, “I want you to do something for me.”

  John’s shoulders went up in a noncommittal gesture.

  Will had kept a copy of Aleesha Monroe’s letter in his pocket, sort of like a talisman to help him in the case. He unfolded the paper, slid it across the table to John. “Can you read this for me? Out loud, please.”

  The man gave him a strange look, but curiosity won out. He leaned over the table, not touching the paper as he read it to himself first.

  John looked up at Will, confused. “You want me to read this out loud?”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  John cleared his throat. Obviously, he didn’t know what was going on, but Will took it as a sign of trust when the man actually started reading it.

  “ ‘Dear Mama,’ ” John began, but Will stopped him.

  “Sorry. Third line down,” he said. “If you could start with that.”

  John gave him another look that said he was only going to let Will go so far with this. “ ‘The Bible tells us that the sins of the parent are visited on the child. I am the outcast, the untouchable who can only live with the other Pariah, because of your sins.’ ” He stopped, staring at the words like he knew he was missing something that was right under his nose.

  John asked, “Who’s Alicia?”

  “Aleesha Monroe,” Will told him, and the expression on John’s face showed him everything he needed to know. “I talked to her mother yesterday morning. I had to tell her that her daughter was dead.”

  John swallowed visibly. “Dead?”

  “Aleesha Monroe was raped. Beaten. Her tongue was bitten out.”

  “It was…” John whispered, more to himself. He picked up the letter, stared at Aleesha’s words to her mother.

  “She wrote pariah twice,” Will said, knowing that now was his only chance to get John to trust him. “The first time, she used a lowercase p. The second time, she capitalized it. Pariah, not pariahs. She meant one person, not a group.”

  John’s eyes scanned the page, and Will knew the line he was reading. The untouchable who can only live with the other Pariah.

  Will leaned forward over the table, made sure he had John’s attention. “Who is the Pariah, John?”

  He was still staring at the letter. “I don’t know.”

  “It’s somebody Aleesha knew way back when. Somebody she’s having to live with now.” Will’s phone rang in his pocket, but he ignored it. “I need you to tell me who the Pariah is, John. I need to hear it from you.”

  John knew the answer, had figured it out. Will could see it in his eyes.

  All the man said was, “Your phone is ringing.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Will said. “Who’s the Pariah?”

  He shook his head, but Will could tell he was right on the edge.

  “Tell me what she’s talking about.”

  The phone kept ringing. Will didn’t move to turn it off. He saw John starting to slip away, the ringing acting like some kind of warning bell reminding the con to keep his mouth shut.

  “John,” Will prodded.

  John stood, wadding up the note and throwing it in Will’s face, screaming, “I said I don’t know!”

  Will sat back in his chair, cursing Angie for picking now to return his call. He flipped open the phone, demanding, “What?”

  “Trent,” Leo Donnelly said. “I’m at Mike’s place.”

  “Hold on,” Will said, then pressed the phone to his chest as he told John, “I’m going to step out and take this call for a minute, okay?”

  John shook his head. “Whatever.”

  Will left the room, putting the phone to his ear as he closed the door. “What is it, Leo?”

  “I went to Mike’s house like you said.”

  Will felt a spark of anger. John had been about to crack. If the stupid phone hadn’t rung, he’d be laying out the whole story right now.

  “I’m knocking on the door, knowing Mike’s home because I see his car in the street.”

  Will leaned against the wall, feeling his sleepless night catch up with him. “And?”

  “No answer, but then a DeKalb PD cruiser pulls up with Gina right behind him. Gina’s the wife, right? She called them for protection while she gets some of her stuff out of the house.”

  “Okay.”

  “She backs into the driveway and it’s not like I can duck under a bush, so I go up to her, ask her how she’s doing. She looks at me like I’m a turd in her cereal, I guess thinking I’m Mike’s buddy.”

  Will thought about John, sitting in the interrogation room. “Is this going somewhere?”

  “You think I’m tugging your root, junior? I got at least ten years on you.”

  “You’re right,” Will allowed, leaning back against the wall, wondering how long this was going to take. “Go ahead.”

  “So,” Leo continued. “DeKalb’s not happy to see me, right? Apparently, Mike’s been giving them the runaround about the dead neighbor. Won’t talk to them, won’t give a statement, won’t let them look in his house.”

  He had Will’s undivided attention now.

  “My thinking is they jumped on Gina’s call so they could get a peek around.”

  “And?”

  “After she figured out Mike wasn’t home, she wouldn’t let them into the house.” Leo added with some appreciation, “She may hate his fucking guts, but she’s still a cop’s wife. She knows you don’t let nobody poke around unless they’ve got a paper from the judge.”

  “What am I missing here?”

  “Lemme finish,” Leo cautioned. “This cop, Barkley, he’s pretty pissed standing around with his dick in his hand. So, he takes it out on me, tells me to get the fuck off the property.” Will heard a lighter flick open as Leo lit a cigarette. “Me, I mosey out into the street. It’s a free country, right? Barkley don’t own the street.”

  Will could imagine the scene. You didn’t tell a cop to leave unless you wanted him to hang around your neck for the rest of your natural life.

  Leo continued, “I’m poking around Mike’s car, wondering why it’s parked across the street and not in his drive, when the neighbor pulls up with her groceries. Real nosy bitch, but I ask her where Mike is, and she says—” Leo paused to take a drag on his cigarette. “She says that Mike was there about an hour ago. She was getting her mail when he pulled up. He asked her about the car parked in his driveway.”

  Will stood away from the wall. “What car?
”

  “Some car in the driveway,” Leo answered. “Mike wanted to know how long it had been there. She tells him five, maybe ten minutes, then he just walks away, doesn’t even say thank you.”

  “Then what?”

  “The neighbor got inside her house, gets her grocery list and heads back out.” Leo took another drag. “Only she notices that now the car in the driveway is facing the other direction. It’s backed up to the garage now. She sees Mike standing there, closing the garage door.”

  “Shit.”

  “He throws her a wave, closes the trunk, gets in and drives off.”

  Closes the trunk, Will echoed in his head. Michael had put something in the trunk.

  Will asked, “Did she say what kind of car it was?”

  “Black. She don’t know models.”

  His heart wasn’t beating anymore. “Leo, is the cop still there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Gina’s car is still backed into the driveway?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I need you to go into the driveway and look under the back of her car. Tell me if there’s fresh oil on the concrete.”

  “You want me to get my dick shot off?”

  “You’ve got to do this,” Will insisted, his throat hurting from the effort it took to speak. “Tell me if there are any fresh oil stains.”

  “Jesus,” Leo muttered. Will heard him blow out a stream of smoke. “All right, hold on.”

  Will squeezed his eyes closed, picturing Leo walking across the street into Michael’s driveway. There was a man’s voice, probably the cop named Barkley, then a few groans as Leo must have struggled to get down on the ground. More yelling from the local cop, Leo yelling back. Finally, he got back on the phone. “Yeah, there’s fresh oil. Can’t be from Gina’s car because she backed into the drive—”

  Will snapped the phone closed, tucking it into his pocket as he slammed into the interrogation room.

  John saw him and backed up, saying, “What the—”

  Will twisted the man’s arm around behind his back and smashed his face into the wall. He put his mouth an inch from John’s ear to make sure the bastard heard every word.

  “Tell me where he is.”

  John screamed in pain, going up on his toes.