Sara glanced around the apartment, which was upside down. Pillows on the floor. Rugs rolled up. Dog toys scattered around. Enough fur to build a new greyhound. “Are you at City Hall East?”
“As always.”
“I’m on my way.”
Sara ended the call and tossed the receiver onto the couch. She checked her reflection in the mirror. Her hair was frizzed with sweat. Her skin was blotchy. She was wearing jeans that were torn at the knees and a Lady Rebels T-shirt that had looked great back when she was in high school. Will worked in the same building as Pete, but he was on the Southside all day, so there was no chance of running into him. Sara grabbed her keys and left the apartment. She took the steps down to the lobby, and didn’t stop until she saw her car.
There was another note tucked under the windshield wiper. Angie Trent had changed things up. Along with the familiar “Whore,” the woman had kissed the white notebook paper with her heavily lipsticked mouth.
Sara folded the note in two as she got into her car. She rolled down the window and tossed the paper into the trashcan by the automatic gate. Sara supposed Angie parked on the street and walked under the gate to put these notes on her car. Up until a few years ago, Angie had been a cop. Apparently, she had been one of the best undercover agents that the Vice Squad had ever had. Like many former police officers, she didn’t worry about petty crimes such as trespassing and terroristic threats.
A horn beeped behind her. Sara hadn’t noticed the gate go up. She waved her hand in apology, pulling out into the street. If thinking about Will was a futile endeavor, thinking about his wife was a lesson in self-hatred. There was a reason Angie had so easily passed for a high-class call girl. She was tall and curvy and had that secret pheromone that let every interested man—or woman, if the stories were true—know that she was available. Which was why Will was going to be wearing a condom until his final blood test came back.
That was, if they lasted that long.
City Hall East was less than a mile from Sara’s apartment. Housed in the old Sears department store building on Ponce de Leon Avenue, the space was as sprawling as it was dilapidated. The metal windows and cracked brickwork had been pristine at one time, but the city hadn’t the money to maintain such a vast structure. It was one of the largest buildings by volume in the southeastern United States, which only partially explained why half the complex stood vacant.
Will’s office was on one of the upper floors that had been taken over by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. The fact that Sara had never seen his office was one of the many things she tried to push from her mind as she navigated the large loop down to the underground parking lot.
Despite the mild climate, the parking garage was not as cool as it should’ve been, considering it was belowground. The morgue was even more subterranean, but like the garage, was mildly warmer than expected. There must’ve been something wrong with the air circulation, or maybe the building was so old that it was doing its best to force the inhabitants to let it go.
Sara took the cracked concrete stairs down to the basement. She could smell the familiar odors of the morgue, the caustic products that were used to clean the floors and the chemicals used to disinfect the bodies. Back in Grant County, Sara had taken the part-time job of medical examiner to help buy out her retiring partner at the children’s clinic. The work in the morgue was sometimes tedious, but generally a lot more fascinating than the tummy aches and sniffles she treated at the clinic. That Grady Hospital was only marginally more challenging was yet another thought she pushed from her mind.
Pete Hanson’s office was adjacent to the morgue. Sara could see him through the open door. He was bent over his desk, which was piled high with papers. His filing system wasn’t one Sara would’ve chosen, but many times, she’d seen Pete pluck exactly what he needed from a random pile.
She knocked on the door as she walked into the office. Her hand stopped midair. He’d lost weight recently. Too much weight.
“Sara.” He smiled at her, showing yellow teeth. Pete was an aging hippie who refused to give up his long braided hair, even though there was considerably less of it. He favored loud Hawaiian shirts and liked to listen to the Grateful Dead while he performed procedures. As medical examiners went, he was fairly typical, which was to say the bottled specimen of an eighteen-year-old victim’s heart that he kept on a shelf above his desk was only in aid of his favorite joke.
She set it up for him. “How are you doing, Pete?”
Instead of telling her that he had the heart of an eighteen-year-old, Pete frowned. “Thanks for coming by, Sara.” He indicated an empty chair. Pete had obviously prepared for her. The papers and charts that were normally piled on the chair had been placed on the floor.
Sara sat down. “What’s wrong?”
He turned back to his computer and tapped the space bar on his keyboard. A digital radiograph was on the screen. The frontal chest X-ray showed a large white mass in the middle portion of the left lung. Sara looked at the file name at the top. Peter Wayne Hanson.
“SCLC,” he told her. Small-cell lung cancer, the deadliest kind.
Sara felt like she’d been punched in the gut. “The new protocol—”
“Doesn’t work for me.” He clicked the file closed. “It’s already metastasized to my brain and liver.”
Sara delivered bad news to her patients on a daily basis. She seldom found herself on the other end. “Oh, Pete, I’m so sorry.”
“Well, it’s not the best way to go, but it beats slipping in the tub.” He sat back in his chair. She saw it clearly now—the gauntness in his cheeks, the sallow look in his eyes. He indicated the jar on the shelf. “So much for my eighteen-year-old heart.”
Sara laughed at the inappropriate humor. Pete was a great doctor, but his best trait was his generosity. He was the most patient and giving teacher Sara had ever had. He was delighted when a student managed to pick up on a detail he’d missed—a rare trait among physicians.
He said, “At the very least, it’s given me a wonderful excuse to take up smoking again.” He mimicked puffing a cigarette. “Unfiltered Camels. My second wife hated them. You’ve met Deena, right?”
“I only know her by reputation.” Dr. Coolidge ran the forensics lab at GBI headquarters. “Do you have any plans?”
“You mean a bucket list?” He shook his head. “I’ve seen the world—at least the parts of it I want to see. I’d rather make myself as useful as I can with what little time I have left. Maybe plant some trees at my farm that my great-grandchildren will climb on. Spend time with my friends. I hope that includes you.”
Sara willed herself not to tear up. She looked down at the cracked tile floor. There was so much asbestos in the building, she wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Pete’s cancer was down to more than cigarettes. She glanced at the pile of papers by the chair. A manila envelope was on top of the pile, faded red tape sealing it closed. The evidence was old. Deep creases maintained the accordion fold of the envelope. The areas that weren’t yellowed with age were smeared black.
Pete followed her gaze. “Old case.”
Sara noted the date, which was over thirty years ago. “Very old case.”
“We were lucky they found it in evidence, though I’m not sure if we’ll need it after all.” He picked up the envelope and put it on his desk. The black dust transferred to his fingers. “The city used to purge closed cases every five years. We did some crazy stuff back then.”
Sara could tell the case meant something to him. She knew the feeling. There were still victims she’d worked on back in Grant County that would haunt her memories until the day she died.
Pete asked, “How are things at Grady?”
“Oh, you know.” Sara didn’t know what to say. She was called “bitch” so often that she turned her head whenever anyone yelled the word. “Swimming pools and movie stars.”
“In nearly fifty years, I’ve not once had a patient talk back or file a complaint against me.” He raised an eyebrow. “Yo
u know they’ll need someone to take my place when I’m gone.”
Sara laughed, then saw that he wasn’t joking.
“Just a thought,” he told her. “But this brings me to a favor I need to ask.”
“What can I do?”
“I’ve got a case that just came in. It’s very important. It has to hold up.”
“Does it have anything to do with that?” She indicated the dirty envelope on his desk.
“Yes,” he admitted. “I can do all the heavy lifting, but I need to make sure that six months, a year from now, someone’s around to testify.”
“You’ve got dozens of people working under you.”
“Just four at the moment,” he corrected. “Unfortunately, none of them possess the length and breadth of your experience.”
“I don’t—”
“You’re still credentialed. I checked with the state.” He leaned forward. “I’m not a duplicitous man, Sara. You know that about me. So you’ll understand that I’m being brutally honest when I tell you that this is a dying man’s last request. I need you to do this for me. I need you to go to court. I need you to speak directly to a jury and put this man back where he belongs.”
Sara was momentarily at a loss. This was the last thing she’d been expecting. Her apartment looked as if it had been hit by a tornado. She still had Will to deal with. She was dressed more suitably for a pickup softball game than for work. Still, she knew that she didn’t have a choice. “There’s already a suspect?”
“Yes.” He shuffled the papers around and found a yellow file folder.
Sara scanned the preliminary report. There wasn’t much. A dead Jane Doe had been found outside a Dumpster in a fairly upscale part of town. She’d been beaten to death. Her wallet was absent cash. The bruising around her wrists and ankles indicated that she’d been tied up, possibly kidnapped.
Sara looked up at Pete. She had an awful, sinking feeling. “The missing Georgia Tech student?”
“We don’t have positive ID yet, but I’m afraid so.”
“Death penalty case?” Pete nodded. “Is the body here?”
“They brought her in half an hour ago.” Pete looked up at the doorway. “Hello, Mandy.”
“Pete.” Amanda Wagner’s arm was in a sling. She looked worse for the wear, though she still kept up the formalities. “Dr. Linton.”
“Dr. Wagner,” Sara returned. She couldn’t help but look over the woman’s shoulder for Will.
Amanda asked Pete, “Did Vanessa come by?”
“First thing this morning.” He explained to Sara, “The fourth Mrs. Hanson.”
Amanda said, “Dr. Linton, I hope we can avail ourselves of your expertise?”
Sara felt a bit managed. She asked the obvious question. “Is this Will’s case?”
“No. Agent Trent is absolutely not assigned to this case. Which doesn’t explain why I’ve spent the last three hours of my day walking up and down every hallway in a twelve-story office building talking to people who have better things to do than watch us chase our tails.” She paused for a breath. “Pete, when did we get so old?”
“Speak for yourself. I always told you I was going to die young.”
She laughed, but there was a sad edge to the sound.
“I can still remember the first time you came into my morgue.”
“Please, let’s not get maudlin. Try to go out with some dignity.”
He grinned like a cat. There was a moment between them, and Sara wondered if Amanda Wagner had fallen somewhere along the timeline of the many Mrs. Hansons.
The moment passed quickly. Pete stood from his desk. He reached out, bracing himself against the chair. Sara jumped up to help him, but he gently pushed her away. “Not to that point yet, my dear.” He told Amanda, “You can use my office. We’ll go ahead and get started.”
Pete indicated that Sara should leave ahead of him. She pushed open the doors to the morgue, resisting the urge to hold them for Pete. He seemed more diminished in the large tiled room. The office had served as a buffer against his wasted appearance. In the bright lights of the autopsy theater, there was no hiding the obvious.
“A bit cool in here,” Pete mumbled, taking his white lab coat off the hook. He went to the cabinet and handed Sara one of his spares. His name was stitched over the pocket. Sara could’ve wrapped the coat around her body twice. But then, so could Pete.
“Our victim.” He indicated a draped body in the center of the room. Blood had permeated the sheet, which was unusual. Circulation stopped when the heart stopped beating. Blood congealed. Sara couldn’t help but feel some guilty excitement. She relished a difficult case. Working at Grady, dealing with the same types of ailments and injuries over and over again, could become a bit mind-numbing.
Pete said, “We’ve already photographed and X-rayed her. Sent her clothes to the lab. Do you know we used to just cut them off and throw them in a bag? And rape cases.” He laughed. “My God, the science was flawed from the beginning. There was no taking the victim’s word for it. If we didn’t find semen in the suspected attacker’s underwear, then we couldn’t legally sign off on a charge of rape.”
Sara didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t imagine how awful things used to be. Thankfully, she didn’t have to.
Pete looped his braid on top of his head and pulled on an Atlanta Braves baseball hat. He was in his element inside the morgue, visibly more animated. “I remember the first time I talked to an odontologist about bite marks. I was certain we were looking at the future of crime solving. Hair fibers. Carpet fibers.” He chuckled. “If I have one regret about my impending doom, it’s that I won’t live to see the day when we’ve got everyone’s DNA on an iPad, and all we have to do is scan some blood or a piece of tissue and up pops a current location for our bad guy. It’ll end crime as we know it.”
Sara didn’t want to talk about Pete’s impending doom. She busied herself with her hair, tightening the band, tucking it into a surgeon’s cap so she wouldn’t contaminate anything. “How long have you known Amanda?”
“Since dinosaurs walked among us,” he joked. Then, in a more serious tone, he said, “I met her when she started working with Evelyn. They were both a couple of pistols.”
The description struck Sara as odd, as if Amanda and Evelyn had run around Atlanta like two Calamity Janes. “What was she like?”
“She was interesting,” Pete said, which was one of his highest compliments. He looked at Sara’s reflection in the mirror over the sink as he washed his hands. “I know it wasn’t great when you came up in medical school—what were there, a handful of women?”
“If that,” Sara answered. “But this last class was over sixty percent.” She didn’t mention that the ones who weren’t taking time off to have children were mostly funneling themselves into pediatrics or gynecology, the same as they had when Sara was an intern. “How many women were on the force when Amanda joined?”
He squinted as he thought about it. “Less than two hundred out of over a thousand?” Pete stepped back so Sara could wash her hands. “No one thought women should be on the job. It was considered man’s work. There was all kinds of grumbling about how they couldn’t protect themselves, didn’t have the cojones to pull the trigger. The truth was that everyone was secretly terrified they’d be better. Can’t blame ’em.” Pete winked at her. “The last time women were in charge, they outlawed alcohol.”
Sara smiled back at him. “I think we should be forgiven one mistake in almost a hundred years.”
“Perhaps,” he allowed. “You know, you listen to my generation these days, we were all free-loving hippies, but the truth is there were more Amanda Wagners than there were Timothy Learys, especially in this part of the country.” He gave her a twinkling smile. “Not to say it entirely passed us by. I lived in a glorious singles complex off the Chattahoochee. Riverbend. Ever hear of it?”
Sara shook her head. She was enjoying Pete’s reminiscing. His cancer was obviously compelling him to put his l
ife in perspective.
“A lot of airline pilots lived there. Stewardesses. Lawyers and doctors and nurses, oh my.” His eyes lit up at the memory. “I had a nice side business selling penicillin to many of the fine Republican men and women currently running our state government.”
Sara used her elbow to turn off the faucet. “Sounds like crazy times.” She had come of age during the AIDS epidemic, when free love started exacting its price.
“Crazy indeed.” Pete handed her some paper towels. “When was Brown v. the Board of Education?”
“The desegregation case?” Sara shrugged. Her high school history class was some time ago. “Fifty-four? Fifty-five?”
Pete said, “It was around that time that the state required white teachers to sign a pledge disavowing integration. They would lose their jobs if they refused.”
Sara had never heard of the pledge, but she wasn’t surprised.
“Duke, Amanda’s father, was away when the pledge was circulating.” Pete blew into a pair of powdered surgical gloves before putting them on. “Miriam, Amanda’s mother, refused to sign the pledge. So her grandfather—a very powerful man. He was a higher-up with Southern Bell—sent her off to Milledgeville.”
Sara felt her lips part in surprise. “He committed his daughter to the state mental hospital?”
“The facility was basically a warehouse back then, mostly for vets and the criminally insane. And women who wouldn’t listen to their fathers.” Pete shook his head. “It broke her. It broke many people.”
Sara tried to do the math. “Was Amanda born yet?”
“She was around four or five, I’d guess. Duke was still in Korea, so his father-in-law was in charge. I gather no one told Duke what was really going on. The minute he was back in Georgia, he grabbed Amanda and signed his wife out of Milledgeville. Never talked to his father-in-law again.” Pete handed Sara a pair of gloves. “Everything seemed fine, and then one day, Miriam went out into the back garden and hanged herself from a tree.”
“That’s awful.” Sara pulled on the surgical gloves. No wonder Amanda was so closed down. She was worse than Will.
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