Fallen

by Karin Slaughter

  Her words slurred. “Sh’sleeping.”

  Sara wrapped her hands around Emma’s waist. Gently, she lifted the baby from Faith’s shoulder. “Look at her. She’s gotten so big.” Sara did a cursory exam, looking into Emma’s eyes, checking her fingers and toes, then her gums. “I think she’s a little dehydrated.”

  Mrs. Levy offered, “I’ve got a bottle ready, but she wouldn’t let me give it to her.”

  “Why don’t you go get it now?” Sara motioned for Will to come over. He took Emma. She was surprisingly heavy. He put her on his shoulder. Her head fell against his neck like a moist sack of flour.

  “Faith?” Sara spoke succinctly, as if she was trying to get an old person’s attention. “How are you feeling?”

  “Took her to the doctor.”

  “You took Emma?” Sara cupped Faith’s face in her hand. “What did the doctor say?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Can you look at me?”

  Faith’s mouth moved like she was chewing gum.

  “What’s today, sweetie? Can you tell me what day of the week it is?”

  She pulled away her head. “No.”

  “That’s all right.” Sara pressed open Faith’s eyelid. “When’s the last time you had something to eat?”

  She didn’t answer. Mrs. Levy came back with the bottle. She handed it to Will, and he cradled Emma in his arm so that she could drink.

  “Faith? When is the last time you had something to eat?”

  Faith tried to push Sara away. When that didn’t work, she pushed harder.

  Sara kept talking, holding down Faith’s hands. “Was it this morning? Did you eat breakfast this morning?”

  “Go ’way.”

  Sara turned to Mrs. Levy. “You’re not diabetic, are you?”

  “No, dear, but my husband was. Passed away almost twenty years ago, bless his soul.”

  Sara told Will, “She’s having an insulin reaction. Where’s her purse?”

  Mrs. Levy supplied, “She didn’t have it when they brought her here. Maybe she left it in the car.”

  Again, Sara directed her words to Will. “She should have an emergency kit in her purse. It’s plastic. It says ‘Glucagon’ on the side.” She seemed to remember herself. “It’s oblong, about the size of a pen case. Bright red or orange. Get it for me now, please.”

  Will took the baby with him, jogging toward the front door and out into the yard. The lots in Sherwood Forest were larger than most, but some of them were long and narrow rather than wide. Will could see directly into Evelyn Mitchell’s bathroom from Mrs. Levy’s carport. He could see a man standing in the long hallway. Will wondered not for the first time how the old woman hadn’t heard the gun-fight next door. She wouldn’t be the first witness who didn’t want to get involved, but Will was surprised by her reticence.

  It didn’t occur to him until he was a few feet from the Mini that Faith’s car was part of the crime scene. There were two cops standing on the other side of the car, four more in the carport. Will scanned the interior. He saw the plastic case Sara had told him about mixed in with various lady items on the passenger’s seat.

  He told the cops, “I need to get something out of the car.”

  “Tough shit,” one of them shot back.

  Will indicated Emma, who was sucking on the bottle like she’d been on a ten-mile hike. “She needs her teething thing. She’s teething.”

  The cops stared at him. Will wondered if he’d screwed up. He’d changed his share of diapers at the children’s home, but he had no idea when babies got their teeth. Emma was four months old. All her food came from Faith or a bottle. As far as he could tell, she didn’t need to chew anything.

  “Come on.” Will held up Emma so they could see her little pink face. “She’s just a tiny baby.”

  “All right,” one of them relented. He walked around the car and opened the door. “Where is it?”

  “It’s that red plastic thing. Looks like a pen case.”

  The cop didn’t appear to find this odd. He picked up the kit and handed it to Will. “She all right?”

  “She was just thirsty.”

  “I meant Faith, dipshit.”

  Will tried to take the kit, but the man wouldn’t let go.

  He repeated his question. “Is Faith going to be okay?”

  Will realized there was more going on here. “Yes. She’s going to be fine.”

  “Tell her Brad says we’re gonna find her mom.” He let go of the kit and slammed the door.

  Will didn’t give the man time to change his mind. He jogged back to the house, trying not to jostle the baby. Mrs. Levy still stood sentry at the door. She opened it before Will could knock.

  The scene inside had changed. Faith was lying on the couch. Sara was cupping the back of her head, making her drink from a can of Coke.

  Sara immediately started in on Will. “You should’ve called in the medics first thing,” she admonished. “Her blood sugar is too low. She’s stuporous and diaphoretic. Her heart is racing. This isn’t something you play around with.” She took the kit from him and popped it open. Inside was a syringe filled with a clear liquid and a vial of white powder that looked a lot like cocaine. Sara cleaned the needle with a cotton ball and some rubbing alcohol that she had obviously gotten from Mrs. Levy. She talked as she pressed the syringe into the vial and squirted in the liquid. “I’m assuming she hasn’t eaten since breakfast. The adrenaline from the confrontation in the house would’ve giving her an enormous sugar kick, but it made the crash harder, too. Considering what happened, I’m surprised she didn’t slip into a coma.”

  Will took her words as hard as they were meant to be. No matter what Amanda said, he should’ve pulled an EMT in here half an hour ago. He had been worried about Faith’s career when he should’ve been worried about her life. “Is she going to be okay?”

  Sara shook the vial, mixing the contents before drawing them back into the syringe. “We’ll know soon enough.” She lifted Faith’s shirt and swabbed a patch of skin on her belly. Will watched the needle go in, the rubber stopper sliding down the plastic cylinder as the liquid was injected.

  Sara asked, “Are you worried they’ll think she was impaired when she shot those two men?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Her comedown was probably hard and immediate. She would’ve been slurring her words. She probably appeared intoxicated.” Sara cleaned up the kit, putting everything back in its place. “Tell them to look at the facts. She shot one man in the head and one in the back, probably from a distance, with two innocent bystanders downrange. If she’d been impaired, there’s no way she would’ve been able to make those shots.”

  Will glanced at Mrs. Levy, who probably didn’t need to be hearing this conversation. She waved off his concerns. “Oh, don’t worry about me, dear. I don’t remember much of nothin’ these days.” She held out her arms for Emma. “Why don’t you let me take care of the little lamb?” Carefully, he transferred the baby to Mrs. Levy. The old woman walked off toward the back of the house. Her bedroom slippers made a slapping sound on her dry heels.

  Will asked Sara, “What about the diabetes? Can they say it was that?”

  Her tone was businesslike. “How was she acting when you got here?”

  “She looked …” He shook his head, thinking he never wanted to see Faith that bad off again. “She looked like she’d lost her mind.”

  “Do you think a mentally or chemically altered person could’ve killed two men with a single shot to each?” Sara put her hand on Faith’s shoulder. Her tone softened. “Faith, can you sit up for me, please?”

  Slowly, Faith moved to right herself. She looked groggy, as if she had just woken from a long nap, but her color was coming back. She put her hands to her head, wincing.

  Sara told her, “You’ll have a headache for a while. Drink as much water as you can tolerate. We need your tester to see where you are.”

  “It’s in my purse.”

  “I’ll tr
y to get another one from one of the ambulances.” She took a bottle of water off the coffee table and twisted off the cap. “Switch to water. No more Coke.”

  Sara left without looking at Will. Her back felt like a wall of ice. He didn’t know what to do with that, so he ignored it, sitting on the coffee table in front of Faith.

  She took a long drink of water before she spoke to him. “My head is killing me.” The shock of what happened came back to her like a bolt of lightning. “Where’s my mother?” She tried to stand, but Will kept her down. “Where is she?”

  “They’re looking for her.”

  “The little girls—”

  “They’re fine. Please, just stay here for a second, okay?”

  She looked around, some of her wildness returning. “Where’s Emma?”

  “She’s with Mrs. Levy. She’s asleep. I called Jeremy at the school—”

  Her mouth opened. He could see her life coming back to her in spurts. “How did you tell him?”

  “I talked to Victor. He’s still the dean of students. I knew you wouldn’t want me to send a cop to Jeremy’s classroom.”

  “Victor.” Faith pressed her lips together. She had dated Victor Martinez for a while, but they had broken up almost a year ago. “Please tell me you didn’t mention Emma.”

  Will couldn’t remember exactly what he’d told Victor, but he guessed Faith hadn’t gotten around to telling the man that he had a daughter. “I’m sorry.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” She put down the bottle of water, her shaking hands spilling some onto the carpet. “What else?”

  “We’re trying to track down your brother.” Dr. Zeke Mitchell was a surgeon in the Air Force, stationed somewhere in Germany. “Amanda reached out to a friend at Dobbins Air Reserve. They’re cutting through some of the red tape.”

  “My phone …” She seemed to realize where she’d left it. “Mama has his number by the phone in the kitchen.”

  “I’ll get it as soon as we’re finished,” Will promised. “Tell me what happened.”

  She took a stuttered breath. He could see her struggle with the knowledge of what she had done. “I killed two people.”

  Will held both her hands. Her skin was still cold and clammy. She had a slight tremor, but he didn’t think it was from her blood sugar issues. “You saved two little girls, Faith.”

  “The man in the bedroom—” She stopped. “I don’t understand what happened.”

  “Are you confused again? Do you need me to get Dr. Linton?”

  “No.” She shook her head for so long he thought maybe he should get Sara anyway. “She’s not bad, Will. My mom is not a dirty cop.”

  “We don’t need to talk about—”

  “Yes, we do,” Faith insisted. “Even if she was, which she’s not, she’s been retired for five years. She’s not on the job anymore. She doesn’t go to the fundraisers or the events. She doesn’t talk to anybody from that old life. She plays cards on Fridays with some of the ladies in the neighborhood. She goes to church every Wednesday and Sunday. She watches Emma while I’m at work. Her car is five years old. She just made the last mortgage payment on the house. She’s not mixed up in anything. There’s no reason for anybody to think …” Her lip started to tremble. Tears threatened to fall.

  Will told her the concrete things he could point to. “There’s a mobile command center outside. All the highways are being watched. Evelyn’s photo is on all the news stations. Every cruiser policing the metro area has her picture. We’re lighting up all the snitches to see if they’ve heard anything. They’ve trapped and traced all your phones in case any ransom demands are made. Amanda pitched a fit, but they put one of their detectives in your house to monitor all mail and calls. Jeremy’s at your house. They’ve got a plainclothes assigned to him. You’ll get somebody, too.”

  Faith had worked kidnapping cases before. “Do you really think there’s going to be a ransom demand?”

  “It could happen.”

  “They were Texicanos. They were looking for something. That’s why they took her.”

  Will asked, “What were they looking for?”

  “I don’t know. The house was turned upside down. The Asian said he’d trade my mother for whatever they were looking for.”

  “The Asian said he’d trade?”

  “Yes, he had a gun on the Texicano—the one in the backyard.”

  “Hold on.” They were doing this the wrong way. “Work with me, Faith. Treat your memory like a crime scene. Start from the beginning. You had that in-service this morning, right? Computer training?”

  She started to nod. “I was late getting home by almost two hours.” She laid out every detail from her morning until now, how she had tried to call her mother, how she’d heard music playing in the house when she got out of her car. Faith hadn’t realized that something was wrong until well after the music stopped. Will let her run through the story—the torn-up house, the dead man she’d found and the two that she had killed herself.

  When she was finished, he played it all back in his head, seeing Faith standing in the carport by the shed, going back to her car. Despite her recent medical issues, her memory seemed crystal clear now. She had called dispatch, and then she had gotten her gun. Will felt this detail picking at a spot in his brain. Faith knew that Will was home today. They had talked about it yesterday afternoon. She was complaining about having to go do computer training, and he told her he was going to wash his car and take care of the yard. Will lived 2.3 miles away from where they were sitting. He could’ve gotten here in under five minutes.

  But Faith hadn’t called him.

  “What is it?” she asked. “Did I miss something?”

  He cleared his throat. “What was the song that was playing when you pulled up?”

  “AC/DC,” she said. “ ‘Back in Black.’ ”

  The detail seemed strange. “Is that what your mom usually listens to?”

  She shook her head. She was obviously still in shock, her mind reeling from what had happened.

  He wrapped his hands around her arms, trying to get her to concentrate. “Think this through, all right?” He waited for her to look at him. “There are two dead men in the house. Both are Asian. The guy in the backyard is Mexican. Los Texicanos.”

  She focused herself. “The Asian in the bedroom—he was wearing this loud Hawaiian shirt. He sounded southside.” She meant his accent. “He had a gun on the Texicano. He was threatening to kill him.”

  “Did he say anything else?”

  “I shot him.” Her lip started to tremble again.

  Will had never seen Faith cry and he didn’t want to now. “The guy in the shirt had a gun pointed at someone’s head,” he reminded her. “The Texicano was already beaten up, possibly tortured. You feared for his life. That’s why you pulled the trigger.”

  She nodded, though he could see self-doubt brimming in her eyes.

  He said, “After Hawaiian Shirt went down, the Texicano ran out into the yard, right?”

  “Right.”

  “And you chased after him, and he raised his gun toward those little girls and fired, so you shot him, too, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You were protecting the hostage in the bedroom and you were protecting those two girls in your neighbor’s backyard. Right?”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice stronger. “I was.”

  She was getting back to her old self. Will allowed himself to feel a little bit of relief. He dropped her hands. “You remember the directive, Faith. Deadly force is authorized when your life or the lives of others are at stake. You did your job today. You just have to articulate what you were thinking. People were in danger. You shoot to immediately stop the threat. You don’t shoot to wound.”

  “I know.”

  “Why didn’t you wait for backup?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “The dispatcher told you to wait outside. You didn’t wait outside.”

  Faith still didn’t answer.
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  Will sat back on the table, hands between his knees. Maybe she didn’t trust him. They had never talked openly about the case he’d built against her mother, but he knew Faith assumed that it was the detectives on the squad, not the captain in charge, who had messed up. As smart as she was, she was still naïve about the politics of the job. Will had noticed in every corruption case he’d worked that the heads that tended to roll in this business were the ones that didn’t have gold stars on their collars. Faith was too low on the food chain to have that kind of protection.

  He said, “You must’ve heard something inside. A yell? A gunshot?”

  “No.”

  “Did you see something?”

  “I saw the curtain move, but that was after—”

  “Good, that’s good.” He leaned forward again. “You saw someone inside. You thought your mother might be in there. You sensed an immediate danger to her life and went in to secure the scene.”

  “Will—”

  “Listen to me, Faith. I’ve asked a lot of cops these same questions, and I know what the answer is supposed to be. Are you listening to me?”

  She nodded.

  “You saw someone inside the house. You thought your mother might be in serious danger—”

  “I saw blood on the carport. On the door. A bloody handprint on the door.”

  “Exactly. That’s good. That gives you cause to go in. Someone was badly injured. Their life was at stake. The rest of it happened because you were provoked into a situation where deadly force was justified.”

  She shook her head. “Why are you coaching me? You hate when cops lie for each other.”

  “I’m not lying for you. I’m trying to make sure you keep your job.”

  “I don’t give a shit about my job. I just want to get my mother back.”

  “Then stick to what we just talked about. You won’t do anybody any good sitting in a jail cell.”

  He could read the shock in her eyes. As bad as things were right now, it had never occurred to her that they could get worse.

  There was a loud knock at the door. Will started to get up, but Mrs. Levy beat him to it. She sashayed down the hall with her arms swinging. He guessed she’d put Emma in one of the beds and hoped she’d thought to stack some pillows around her.