The Kept Woman (Will Trent 8)

by Karin Slaughter

  This wasn’t the first or last time he had risked his life for Angie Polaski. It had taken Will years to break the hold she had over him. But was that hold really broken? Was he just understandably upset that someone he’d known for almost the entirety of his life was probably dead?

  Sara could not stop going back to the lipstick. That’s all she could focus on, because the additional violations the lipstick signified were too much to handle. Will knew that Angie was breaking into his house. He could lay down his life for her, but he couldn’t be bothered to protect Sara’s privacy.

  She shook her head. At least she knew where she fell on his list of priorities: right behind Betty.

  Sara put her phone back in her pocket. She unhooked her glasses from her collar. The lenses were smeared. The building was insufferably hot. Everything was covered in sweat. She found a tissue in her pocket and rubbed the lenses with purpose.

  She supposed one good thing about picking up Betty was that Will would eventually have to come by and get her. Which was ludicrous. Why had Sara given him so much power? She was a grown woman. She shouldn’t feel like she was waiting for some boy to check yes or no on a note that she had slipped inside his locker.

  Sara checked the lenses. She squinted at a smudge, about to curse herself for ruining another pair of glasses when she realized the smudge was not on the lens. It was on the unicorn behind it.

  She slid on her glasses. She took a closer look. The unicorn was life-sized, if you could assume a unicorn was the same size as a horse. His head was tilted slightly as he gazed down the stairs. The creature’s rainbow eye was about her shoulder height. Centered on the green and blue stripe in his iris was a hole that was around the size of a dime. Specks of gray concrete were chipped out, which is what she had taken for a smudge on her lens. Sara looked down at the ground. Concrete dust covered cigarette butts and crack pipes. The dust had fallen recently.

  ‘Charlie?’ she called.

  He poked his head out of one of the rooms. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Can you come over here with your camera and some tweezers?’

  ‘That’s the most interesting proposition I’ve had all week.’ He went back into the room and came out with his camera in one hand and a CSU kit in the other.

  Sara pointed to the unicorn’s eye. ‘Here.’

  Charlie shuddered. ‘Two things that have always freaked me out: unicorns and eyeballs.’ He took a magnifying glass from the kit and leaned in for a better look. ‘Oh, I see. Excellent catch.’

  Sara stood by while Charlie photographed the pierced eye, using a small metal ruler to capture scale. He did the same with the dust below the unicorn, then changed lenses to get a wider view. When he’d finally documented the creature, he handed Sara a pair of needle-nose tweezers. ‘You do the honors.’

  Sara was mindful that she could do a lot more harm than good if she didn’t take her time. She was also mindful that she had never lost a game of Operation. She rested the heel of her hand just below the unicorn’s eye. She opened the tweezers just wide enough to still clear the sides of the hole in the iris. Slowly she inserted the blades until she felt something solid. Instead of opening the tweezers, she narrowed them, fairly certain that there would be something to grip. She was right. The tip of the blades caught the flattened rim of what turned out to be a hollow-point bullet.

  Charlie said, ‘They shoot unicorns, don’t they?’

  Sara smiled. ‘Thirty-eight special?’

  ‘Looks like it.’ Charlie told her, ‘The G43 was unfired. The clip and chamber had nine-mill American Eagle, full metal jackets.’ Charlie’s mustache twisted to the side in thought. ‘This could be from a revolver.’

  ‘Could be,’ Sara agreed. A cop of Dale Harding’s age might prefer a revolver to a nine-millimeter. ‘You haven’t found another gun?’

  ‘Maybe it melted in his car. I’ll let the techs know to look for it.’

  Sara sniffed the spent cartridge, picking up the lingering odors of sawdust, graphite and nitroglycerine. ‘Smells recent.’

  Charlie took a sniff. ‘I think so. No blood, though.’

  ‘The bullet would’ve been hot enough to cauterize any bleeding as it went through the body, but there could be microscopic traces.’

  ‘Kastle-Meyer?’

  Sara shook her head. The field blood test was known for false positives. ‘We should let the lab do a wash. I’d hate to be told we used the only viable sample and they can’t test for DNA.’

  ‘Excellent point.’ Charlie looked down at the floor. ‘I’m no doctor, but if the bullet hit anything big, like an artery, we’d be able to see blood somewhere in this area.’

  ‘Agreed.’ Sara found a small plastic evidence bag in the CSU kit. Charlie took over the labeling because his handwriting was better.

  He said, ‘Just so you know, Amanda authorized rushes on everything, including the DNA.’

  ‘Twenty-four hours is better than two months.’ Sara studied the bullet hole in the unicorn’s eye. ‘Does this hole look more oval to you?’

  ‘I saw that when I was taking pictures. We’ll call in the computer geeks to do a rendering, calculate the trajectory, velocity, angles. I’ll let them know about the rush. We should have something back in a few days.’

  Sara took a Sharpie pen out of the CSU kit and slid it into the hole. The clipped cap pointed back toward the balcony at a slight angle. ‘Do you have two levels and some string?’

  Charlie laughed. ‘You’re a regular MacGyver.’

  Sara waited for Charlie to retrieve a ball of string from one of the duffel bags. He tied it to the end of the Sharpie. He took his phone out of his pocket and pulled up a spirit level app.

  ‘Oh, good thinking.’ Sara pulled out her iPhone. She thumbed through her apps until she found the level. ‘The other side of the balcony is how many yards?’

  ‘Twenty-eight.’

  Sara said, ‘An airborne projectile is subject to the forces of air resistance, wind and gravity.’

  ‘No wind inside of here. Resistance would be negligible at this distance.’

  ‘Which leaves gravity.’ Sara placed her phone on top of the Sharpie. The app showed an old-fashioned Stanley level with a digital number below the bubble. ‘I’ve got seven-point-six degrees.’ She placed the phone against the side of the pen for the second reading. The number kept jumping up and down. ‘Let’s call it thirty-two.’

  ‘Fantastic.’ Charlie started walking backward, rolling out the string, keeping the line tight. Occasionally he stopped and checked the level on his phone against the top and side of the string to make sure he was still on target. As long as he kept the angles consistent, the string would roughly indicate the point at which the bullet had left the muzzle of the gun.

  Charlie glanced behind him as he walked, stepping around yellow plastic markers. His hand was too high to reasonably assume an average person had held a gun and fired it from that level. He passed the murder room, the stacked drywall. His hand started to move lower. He didn’t stop until he was at the top of the stairs.

  ‘Wait.’ Sara looked at the level on her phone. ‘You’re pulling way left.’

  ‘I have a theory.’ Charlie went down one stair, then another. He looked back at Sara. The hand holding the ball of string went lower, then lower still. Sara kept the pen steady. The string had moved away from the balcony, tensing in the open air like a tightrope, until Charlie’s hand was at his ankle. He used the level to make an adjustment. His hand slid back until it was pressed against the wall. He checked the angles one last time. ‘This is the end of the line, as it were.’

  Sara studied the path of the string. Charlie’s theory was as good as any. Whoever had fired the gun would’ve been standing somewhere on the stairs. Or not standing. Charlie’s hand was low, about three inches away from the tread. Two stairs down was the impact point where the woman—likely Angie—had hit the back of her head.

  Sara said, ‘They struggled for the gun there.’

  ‘Angie and
Harding.’ Charlie picked up her train of thought. ‘Angie has a gun. She’s running up the stairs. Harding grabs her, bangs the back of her head against the tread. She sees tweety birds. He reaches for the gun. Maybe he bangs the back of her hand into the concrete and she squeezes off a shot.’

  ‘Angie is right-handed.’ Sara hated that she knew this. ‘If she was on her back, for your theory to work, the gun would have to be in her left hand, which means the bullet would be on that side of the stairs, not here.’

  ‘She could’ve twisted to her side?’

  Sara shrugged, because there weren’t a lot of absolutes considering they were using a ball of string and a free app.

  ‘Let’s think about this.’ Charlie started rolling up the string. ‘Angie is running away from Harding, revolver in her hand because her Glock somehow got jammed out in the parking lot. She’s almost at the top of the stairs. Harding catches her. The gun goes off. Angie gets away. She goes to the room. Shuts the door. To be continued.’ He held up his finger. ‘Problem is, how would the gun go off? A cop wouldn’t have her finger on the trigger while she ran up the stairs. They’re trained out the wazoo that you rest your finger on the guard until you’re ready to shoot. You don’t unlearn that when you take off your badge.’

  ‘The footprints bother me,’ Sara said. ‘Why would her feet be bloody by the time she gets up the stairs?’

  ‘No shoes?’ Charlie guessed. ‘There’s a ton of broken glass down there, some of it covered with blood. Which reminds me, we found a small amount of dried blood on the floor downstairs. Looks like a bad nosebleed.’

  ‘That could fit with the drug paraphernalia, but we should take a sample anyway.’

  ‘Excuse me, sir.’ Gary, the cat-rescuing tech, walked up behind Charlie. ‘I couldn’t help but overhearing, and I was wondering about the struggle for the gun. Like, if she was twisted on her side when they struggled on the stairs, wouldn’t the muzzle of the gun be pointing up, more toward the ceiling?’ He tried to approximate the pose, hands in the air like Farrah Fawcett in a TV show that had been off the air for years before he was born.

  ‘More like this,’ Charlie said, striking his own pose. ‘And then the gun could turn this way . . .’ He tilted his hand. ‘I look like a Heisman Trophy, don’t I?’

  Sara’s laugh was more genuine this time, because they both looked ridiculous. ‘Maybe we should get the computer geeks in here.’

  Gary picked up a tray of vials. ‘I took samples from everywhere I saw blood. I also swabbed the trickle of blood on Harding’s neck. Dr Linton, do you mind if I watch you type the blood? I’ve never seen it done before.’

  Sara suddenly felt ancient. Forget Farrah Fawcett. Gary had likely been in diapers when O.J. Simpson’s lawyers had educated America about DNA. ‘I’d be happy to.’

  Gary practically skipped down the stairs. Sara followed at a more careful pace. She tried not to think about earlier when she’d glanced over at Will working the scissor lift. The funny way he’d seethed at Collier for checking her out, as if Sara would ever give another man the time of day.

  She asked Gary, ‘What do you know about blood types?’

  ‘There are four main groups,’ he answered. ‘A, B, AB and O.’

  ‘Correct. For the most part, all humans belong to one of those groups, which are based on genetically determined antigens that attach to red blood cells. The ABO test determines whether or not the antigen is present by using a reagent that agglutinates when it comes into contact with the blood.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Gary looked lost. ‘Thank you.’

  She tried again. ‘You basically drop blood on a pre-prepared card, mix it around, and it tells you what the type is.’

  ‘Oh.’ He took the clipboard from the cop standing inside the doorway and signed out. ‘That’s cool.’

  He opened the door. Sara was blinded by a blast of sunlight, so she couldn’t tell if Gary was really interested or just being polite. She scribbled her signature below his. Her eyes took their time adjusting as they walked across the parking lot. Gary took off his hairnet and tightened the band around his ponytail. He had already unzipped his Tyvek suit. His navy-blue GBI T-shirt had the sleeves tightly rolled up to his shoulders. More tattoos covered his arms. He wore a thick gold necklace with a medallion that caught the sunlight like a mirror.

  She glanced around the parking lot and adjacent buildings, telling herself that she wasn’t looking for Will or even Amanda, but still feeling disappointed when she didn’t find either. Sara looked down at her phone to see if Amanda had sent her Angie’s blood type. She hadn’t yet, which was strange. Amanda was usually quick. Sara touched her finger to the phone icon. This would be a legitimate reason to call. She could ask Amanda about Angie’s records and then casually question whether there was anything else going on, like had Will found Angie and carried her in his arms all the way to the hospital.

  Sara returned her phone to her pocket.

  She looked up, then quickly back down again. The sun was shining straight into her eyes. She guessed it was around ten o’clock, if she was remembering her Girl Scout training. The sunlight was so unrelenting that it brought tears into her eyes. She had to keep her gaze down as she made her way past Harding’s burned-out Kia. The car was being thoroughly examined by two techs who were on their knees with magnifying glasses. The blackened frame had only slightly cooled down. Sara could still feel the heat radiating off the metal as she walked by.

  The GBI’s Department of Forensic Sciences mobile lab had been created inside a limousine bus that had been confiscated from a guy running a Medicare fraud. The seating had been torn out to accommodate a long desk with banks of computers and storage for various collection kits and evidence bags. Most importantly, the air conditioning had been left intact. Sara almost fell to her knees in relief when the cool air touched her skin.

  Gary put the tray of samples down on the desk. He pulled out a chair for Sara, then took his own. She tried not to stare at his necklace. The medallion read SLAM.

  He asked, ‘Can you tell sex or race with the kit?’

  She used a paper towel to wipe the sweat off her neck and face. ‘With sex, you’d need a DNA test for the presence or absence of a Y chromosome.’ She started searching the cubbies and drawers for the familiar EldonCard typing kits that she had ordered off Amazon because they were cheaper than the local supplier. ‘For race, you can fall back on statistics, but it’s not at all definitive. Caucasians have a relatively high number of As. Hispanics have a high number of Os. Asians and African Americans have a high number of Bs.’

  ‘What about people who are mixed race?’

  She wondered if he was asking the question because of Angie. She had Mediterranean features—olive skin and luxuriant brown hair and a curvaceous figure. The only time Sara had stood beside Angie, she’d felt like the proverbial gawky, redheaded stepchild.

  She told Gary, ‘Mixed race is a bit more complicated. Parents don’t always match their children’s blood type, but their alleles dictate the blood type. Two parents, type AB and type O, can have a child type A or B, but not O or AB. Two Os can only have an O, but nothing else.’

  ‘Wow.’ Gary scratched his goatee. ‘Most of the stuff they taught us about blood in school had to do with DNA. Collecting, processing. This is blowing my mind.’

  Sara wasn’t sure whether or not he was being genuine. Nerds had it so much easier now. At Gary’s age, she’d stuck out like a sore distal phalange.

  She offered, ‘I’ll do the first typing. You’ll do the second. I’ll make sure you have the hang of it and then you can do the others.’

  ‘Cool.’ He flashed a smile. ‘Thank you, Dr Linton.’

  ‘Sara.’ She sliced open the metal foil around the EldonCard. ‘This is the test card.’ She showed him the white index card with black print. At the top were four empty circles, or wells, each with a dot of reagent at their center. Beneath the circles were labels: ANTI-A, ANTI-B, ANTI-D, and a control.

 
‘Anti-D?’ Gary asked.

  ‘D tests for the Rh factor.’ Sara spared him another long lecture. ‘The absence or presence of rhesus gives you the positive or the negative after the blood type. So, if you see blood clotting in the A circle and blood clotting in the D, that means your blood type is A-positive. If there’s no clotting in the D, then it’s A-negative.’

  ‘Rhesus?’

  She snapped on a pair of gloves. ‘It’s named after rhesus monkeys, because they were initially used to create the anti-serum for typing blood samples.’

  ‘Oh,’ Gary said. ‘Poor monkeys.’

  Sara laid out some clean paper towels and emptied the kit onto the counter. She set aside the alcohol swab and lancet because they weren’t testing a live subject. She separated the four Eldon sticks—basically plastic Q-tips—and the tiny bottle of water that came with the kit. She told Gary, ‘Write on the card where the first sample came from.’

  Gary took a pen from his pocket and wrote LEFT STAIR TWO IMPACT, then the address for the building, date and time. His gold medallion tapped against the desk. Sara assumed he hadn’t met Amanda yet. She had once slapped a ruler to the back of Will’s neck to make sure that his hair was the regulation one inch off his collar.

  Sara put on her glasses. She laid the card flat on the paper towels. She squeezed a pin drop of water onto the four separate reagents in each circle. Gary opened one of the test vials, which contained a glob of tissue, probably scalp. Sara used a glass pipette to collect some blood. She dabbed the blood at the bottom of the control well. She used the Eldon stick to mix the blood and reagent inside the margins of the printed circle.

  Gary said, ‘Would it be clotting already?’

  ‘Not the control. It should always look smooth.’ Sara dropped more blood onto the first circle, marked ANTI-A, and swirled it around with a fresh stick. Then she did the same for anti-B and -D. She told Gary, ‘Next, you turn the card on its side, hold for ten seconds, then upside down for ten seconds, and so on until you make a full revolution to mix the blood with the reagent.’