Will asked, “Why would he do that?”
“Because that is what he does. He works angles. He manipulates people. The guy is a spoon.” Lena struggled to put the glass on the coffee table. Her stomach was in the way.
Will did it for her.
“Thanks.” She sat back with a long exhale of breath. Her hands rested on her stomach. “Nesbitt had two appeals. They both failed. Then he sued Jeffrey’s estate. We’re talking less than three months after Jeffrey died. I worked with the DA behind the scenes to buy Nesbitt off. Sara was a wreck back then. We all were.”
“‘Buy him off.’” Faith had her notebook and pen ready. She was finally in the game. “What happened?”
Lena said, “Nesbitt was living on borrowed time. His disability skewed his PULHESDWIT. Then he clocked an attempted murder off a CO and hit all fours.”
She was talking about the rating system that the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison used to assign inmates to facilities. A score of mostly ones put you in minimum security. Mostly fours meant closed, or maximum, security. The first part of the PULHESDWIT ranked physical condition: upper and lower body strength, hearing and vision. The latter part got into the nitty-gritty: sentencing, psychiatric history, disability, work ability, impairment, transportability. Nesbitt had started with a deficit because of his amputation, but there was some leeway in the system. The attempted murder would’ve drawn him the high card.
Lena said, “I’m not surprised he’s figured out how to get the GBI involved. Nesbitt knows how to work the system. The civil suit was his way of getting a county jail vacation. The state paid us to warehouse his sorry ass during the trial. They didn’t want to foot the bill for transport every time there was a hearing or a motion.”
Faith asked, “So, how did you buy off Nesbitt?”
“Frank Wallace, he was interim chief after Jeffrey, went straight to the DA. We didn’t want Nesbitt in our jail. In addition to being a spoon, he was rubbing a raw nerve. The asswipe wouldn’t shut up about me, about Jeffrey. It was like he wanted someone to take him out.”
Will waited for her to get to the part where she had done something about it.
Lena said, “The DA was able to get the governor’s office involved. When a dead cop’s widow is being harassed, people return your phone calls. The day the trial was slated to start, we got Nesbitt to drop the suit in return for reclassifying him to medium security. The governor signed off. GDOC signed off. The judge dismissed the suit.”
Will rubbed his jaw. He was inclined to believe Lena was a liar, but she was offering concrete, provable details. Sara hadn’t mentioned any of this during their first phone call. Then again, that was a lot of information to convey in less than a minute.
Lena seemed to pick up on Will’s thoughts. “Sara didn’t know what was happening behind the scenes. Like I said, she was a wreck back then. There’s no doubt Nesbitt would’ve lost the suit. He had no evidence, no witnesses. I’m surprised he was able to find a lawyer, but he was getting money from somewhere. If it had been up to me, I would’ve fought Nesbitt to the fucking grave, but Sara could barely keep her head up. Frank and I had a talk about it. Jeffrey would’ve wanted us to take care of Sara. So, we took care of Sara.”
Will felt a tickling at the back of his neck. He knew how Lena worked. She was being reasonable, almost compassionate, but history told him the sentiments would not last.
Faith said, “Sometimes, inmates file civil suits to get information on their criminal cases. It gives them a chance to depose witnesses on the record. They can subpoena case files and internal reports. And they can get your notebooks.”
“Yeah,” Lena said. “They can.”
There was a subtle shift in her tone. Will could practically see Lena’s antenna go up.
Faith had obviously picked up on it, too. She adjusted her approach. “Why did Nesbitt ask for medium security instead of minimum?”
“There’s no way he would’ve gotten minimum. Not with attempted murder of a CO on his jacket.” Lena shrugged. “Like I said, the guy knows the system. And he plays the long game. He’s too smart to be where he is. We’re lucky we caught him on the child porn.”
Faith said, “About that—”
“If you’re going to ask me about the computer, I stand by my initial report and my depositions and my sworn testimony at trial. I was looking for weapons in the desk drawers. I accidentally bumped the laptop. I saw several photos of nude children on the screen. You can read the appeals court transcripts. The judges were unanimous. They said there was no doubt that I was telling the truth.”
Sitting across from her, Will couldn’t tell whether or not she was lying, but he felt like Lena was one hundred percent certain that she was being honest. Which was one of the many quandaries of being Lena Adams. She was always her own victim.
“We’re not here to question how you found the porn,” Faith lied. “We want to look at the original investigation. Do you have your files, or maybe your notebooks from the case?”
“No.”
“No?” Faith echoed, because cops did not get rid of their notebooks. Will’s were stored in his attic. Faith kept hers at her mother’s house alongside the notebooks her mother had kept dating back to the 1970s, when she’d first joined the Atlanta Police Department. There was no telling when a case would come back and bite you in the ass.
Lena said, “I shredded all of my notebooks before I moved to Macon.”
“Shredded?” Faith and Will said the same word with the exact same amount of shock.
“Yeah, I wanted to put it all behind me.” She winked at Will. “Fresh start.”
He knew why Lena had wanted to make a fresh start. There were only so many bridges you could burn before your feet got singed. The Grant County force had been toxic when Will had investigated it. Lena was lucky that Macon hadn’t smelled the taint.
But shredding her notebooks was not a fresh start. It was destroying possibly incriminating evidence.
Faith asked, “When exactly did you shred them?”
“Exactly?” Lena shook her head. “Don’t remember.”
Faith asked, “Was it before or after the civil suit?”
“Could’ve been before? Or maybe not?” Lena kept shaking her head, but her sly smile said she was enjoying the game. “You know how it is, Faith. Pregnancy brain. I’m in a fog right now.”
Faith nodded, but not in agreement. Lena had figured her out. There was no need to pretend anymore.
Faith said, “Nesbitt would’ve subpoenaed your notebooks as part of the civil suit.”
“I’m sure he did,” Lena said. “All of my official reports were in the mainframe at the station.”
“But, your notebooks would have the underlying documentation.”
“Right.”
“Your notebooks are also where you would’ve recorded anything that seemed odd, but didn’t have enough foundation to make it into your report.”
“Correct.”
“But your notebooks are gone.”
“Shredded.” She was no longer trying to hide her smile. The real Lena seemed happy to finally be out. “Is there anything else I can do for the GBI today?”
Faith’s eyes narrowed. She wasn’t going to give up that easily. “Rebecca Caterino. Do you remember her?”
“Vaguely.” Lena stifled a yawn. “Sorry, y’all, I’m really tired.”
“This won’t take much longer.” Faith searched through her notebook for a detail. “You were looking at Nesbitt for the attacks on Beckey Caterino and …”
“Leslie Truong,” Lena said, providing the name of the second Grant County victim. “She was a nice kid. I remember that about both of them. They were both on the honor roll. Both well-liked, but not really popular. My sister taught both of them, which wasn’t unusual. Sibyl was the low man on the department totem pole back then. Organic Chemistry was a required class. I think Leslie had a steady boyfriend. Beckey had broken up with a girlfriend a year or so before
, but according to her friends, she hadn’t dated or hooked up with anybody.”
Will followed Lena’s sight line. She was staring at the photograph of her sister. Sibyl’s eyes were closed as she kissed her girlfriend. She looked very happy. The twins had shared the same Latinx features. They had been identical, down to the matching moles on the sides of their noses. Lena must have felt like she had lost a part of herself when her sister died.
Lena said, “It’s ludicrous, because the thing I remember most about that time was being mad at Sibyl. I was really worried that people would find out that she was gay. And now I think, ‘who the fuck cares?’ I mean, honestly. All I want for this baby growing inside my belly is for her to be healthy and happy.”
Faith gave her a moment before asking, “You said you were worried about Sibyl. Was she involved with Beckey?”
“Oh, hell no. Sibyl was one hundred percent committed to Nan.” Lena admitted, “The gay thing was my hang-up. You know how it is when you’re a cop. And a woman. I was still fresh, a year younger than Jared is now. Frank and Matt, they were the two senior detectives. They were old school. Very conservative unless they were cheating on their wives or bailing on their kids or drinking on the job. I was worried if they found out about Sibyl, they wouldn’t accept me. I was so young. I really needed people to accept me. Now, I’m, like, you should be worried that I don’t accept you.”
Will didn’t point out that she was closing the circle. Now that they were off the topic of her notebooks, the changeable Lena had changed back again.
She said, “One thing I remember is that Jeffrey talked to Truong’s mother a lot. He was good with people. Compassionate. Patient. He got a lot of incidental information off of her that didn’t make it into the formal reports.”
Will waited for Faith to say something pithy about this information being in Lena’s shredded notebooks, but Faith had the good sense to let her keep talking.
“Jeffrey was great at getting people to confide in him.” Lena shook her head, as if to rid herself of sadness. “Anyway, a week or so before Caterino was attacked, Leslie had called her mother in a tizzy. She thought her roommates were stealing from her. Which is possible, but stealing is what happens when you live with roommates, so who knows if it meant anything.”
Faith asked, “Was there something specific Leslie thought was stolen, or were a lot of things missing?”
“I’m not sure.”
“What about Rebecca Caterino? Was she missing anything?”
“Maybe? Maybe not?” Lena shrugged off the question. “Sorry. Eight years is a long time.”
“Right.” Faith drilled Will with a look that said, which is why you kept your notebooks.
Lena had caught the look. “Considering what we had on our hands, a sticky-fingered roommate was not a priority.”
Faith asked, “Do you remember when the Caterino case turned into an investigation?”
“Not specifically,” she admitted, another turn of events that would’ve been in her notebook. “Jeffrey kept saying from the beginning that it didn’t feel right. He was the best cop I ever worked with. When he said something wasn’t right, you listened.”
“Did you feel the same way about Caterino?”
“No. To be honest, I was too stupid about a lot of things back then. I don’t want to put it on Frank, but he was always saying crap like, ‘racial profiling happens for a reason.’ I mean, he said that to my face. My face.” Lena pointed to her brown face. “Another classic he used to throw around was, ‘I’ve never investigated a rape case where the woman was actually raped.’”
Faith looked appalled.
“Right?” Lena said. “Like, dude, statistically, how is that possible? You work in a college town with almost two thousand female students enrolled every year and you’re saying in your three decades on the job, no woman ever got raped?”
Faith nudged Lena back on track, “So, what tipped you over into believing Jeffrey was right about Caterino?”
“Leslie Truong,” she said. “That was one of the most horrific cases I’ve ever seen. And I’m in charge of the sex crimes division in a city that’s six times the size and full of some heinously bad men.”
Faith asked, “I thought you were assigned to the drug squad?”
“I asked for a transfer.” Lena rubbed her belly. “I felt like I could give more to assault victims.”
“Yeah,” Faith said. “Pregnancy really puts you in touch with your feminine side.”
“Maybe.” Lena clearly recognized the sarcasm, but she shrugged it off. “I was raped seven years ago. And now, I’m going to have a daughter. I can’t make the world easier for my baby girl, but I can try to make it safer.”
Will saw Faith’s throat work. This was one of Lena’s gifts: she had delivered a blow without even raising her fist.
Lena said, “Anyway, you didn’t drive all this way to get my philosophy on life. You want to know if I think Nesbitt is responsible for what happened to Rebecca Caterino and Leslie Truong? Absolutely. Can I prove it? No way. Why do I think he did it? Because it stopped when Nesbitt went to prison. That’s really all I can tell you about it.”
Faith had gone quiet, so Will took over, asking, “What if there are more cases? More victims?”
Lena looked askance. “Not in Grant County. Nesbitt had a signature. We never saw it again. And before you ask, Jeffrey made me personally go back through the previous five years of cases, not just in Grant but in the surrounding counties, to make sure there wasn’t another victim that we’d missed.”
Will had to begrudgingly admit that was good policing. He told Lena, “Nesbitt pointed us in the direction of eight more cases that’ve happened since he’s been incarcerated. He thinks they’re connected.”
“Really?” She laughed. “Okay. And you’re going to believe a pedophile who tried to murder a corrections officer because …?”
Faith said, “Nesbitt was only convicted on the child porn. The Caterino and Truong cases still technically remain unsolved.”
“This isn’t about a case. This is about Nesbitt going after Jeffrey’s reputation again.” Lena studied Will. Her eyebrow was arched. He picked up on her sudden paranoia a half-second before she asked the question. “Did Sara put you up to this?”
Will cleared his throat. He wasn’t going to feed her any information about Sara. “It’s unrelated.”
“The hell it is.”
“Lena—”
“I see it now. I was a little slow before, but—” Lena’s laugh was sharp, and like that, she had turned again. “Christ, talk about playing the long game. Sara thinks she’s found a weak spot, right? You’re both here to jam me up over Nesbitt. That’s why you want my notebooks. You think I was stupid enough to write down something that will land my ass in trouble.”
Faith took back over. “We’re here because we’re investigating a string of—”
“Mitchell,” Lena said, as if they’d just now been introduced. “How long have you two been partnered?”
Faith didn’t answer.
“You’d kill for him, right?” Lena nodded to herself like she already knew the answer. “Sara thinks she understands what it’s like, but she’s not a cop. Bad guys, the bosses, the thugs and criminals and civilians and even the victims, everything they do, every breath they take, is about winding you up. And then someone hurts you, or worse, hurts your partner, and you can’t unwind yourself. You shoot off in whatever direction vengeance points you in.”
Faith said, “The trick is to not let anybody get hurt in the first place.”
“You know it’s not that easy,” Lena said. “I’m trying to give you some advice, because I watched Jeffrey jump every time Sara snapped her fingers, and it ended up getting him killed.”
Will rubbed his jaw. He could see red clouds edging into the corners of his vision.
Faith said, “I’m not sure your memory is right on that one.”
Lena ignored her, telling Will, “Come on, dude. Grow so
me balls. Sara’s using Nesbitt to yank your chain.”
“All right.” Faith stuck her notebook into her purse. “Time to go.”
Lena smirked. “I gotta hand it to Sara. She comes off like a tight-assed goody-two-shoes, but that nasty bitch has got a snatch like a Venus flytrap.”
Will’s fists clenched. “Watch your fucking mouth.”
“Watch your back,” Lena said. “You’re just as cumblind as Jeffrey was.”
Will stood up so fast that his chair scraped back.
“Okay.” Faith was standing, too. “If anyone gets to punch the pregnant woman in the face, it’s going to be me.”
“Both of you need to leave.” Jared appeared behind Lena. He must’ve been listening from the hallway. He was wearing his uniform. His hand rested on the butt of his gun. “Now.”
Will threw back his jacket. He had a gun, too.
“Jesus! Okay, we’re leaving.” Faith kept her hand wrapped around Will’s arm as she pushed him toward the door. “Let’s go.”
Will let her move him, but only because he knew the alternative would end in bloodshed.
Jared goaded, “Tell Aunt Sara I said congratulations.”
Will’s hands itched to pummel the sneer off Jared’s face. Faith had to push him again to get him out the door, then down the stairs. Will glared back at Jared. He could beat the kid into the ground with one hand.
“Mitchell.” Lena stood in the doorway behind her husband. “I’ll let you know if I remember anything important. Too bad I don’t have my notebooks to jog my memory.”
“Oh my God,” Faith groaned. “Shut up.”
Will felt her hand pressing into his back. He let Faith lead him down the driveway, back up the sidewalk. She opened the passenger-side door. She waited for him to get in. She got behind the wheel. She threw the gear into drive. The Mini’s tires dug up a good portion of Lena and Jared’s front yard as she made a wide U-turn.
“Fucking motherfucker!” Faith strangled the steering wheel with both hands. “I hate that bitch so much. I mean, seriously. The hate is physically sucking the oxygen out of my blood.”
Will looked down at his fists. He was so furious right now that he could barely see. That fucking kid. And Lena. Especially Lena. Will had never hit a woman before. Even when his ex-wife had hounded him, he had never fully lost control. Now, it was taking every ounce of self-discipline not to go back and punch Sara’s name out of Lena’s filthy mouth.
The Silent Wife: From the No. 1 Sunday Times bestselling author comes a gripping new crime thriller (Will Trent Series, Book 10) Page 15
