She rested her hand on his arm before going to the closet. Will had been right. There was a darkroom set up in the small space. He stood in the doorway, careful not to block her light as she thumbed through a stack of five-by-seven photographs. Her hands had a slight tremor, but she seemed steady on her feet.
She explained, “Mr. Levy never set much store by my hobbies, but he was called onto a crime scene one day and they asked if anyone knew a photographer. Twenty-five dollars they paid—just for taking pictures! The old bastard wasn’t going to say no to that. So he called me and told me to bring my camera. When I didn’t faint over the mess—this was a shotgun incident—they said I could do it again.” She nodded toward the bed. “That Brownie Six-16 helped keep this roof over our heads.”
He knew she meant the box camera. It looked worn but well loved.
“I moved into surveillance work later on. Mr. Levy had drunk himself off the job by then, and of course I’m a woman, so it took some time for them to understand I wasn’t there for flirting and screwing.”
Will felt his face start to redden. “Was this with the Atlanta Police Department?”
“Fifty-eight years!” She seemed as surprised as Will that she’d lasted that long. “I may be a bag of bones now, but there was a time Geary and his ass-kissers would’ve snapped to instead of brushing me off like a speck of lint on their shiny trousers.” She picked through another pile of five-by-sevens. Will saw black-and-white shots of birds and various household pets, all taken from a vantage point that implied they were being spied upon rather than admired. “This little so-and-so’s been digging in my flower bed.” She showed Will a picture of a gray and white cat with dirt on its nose. The lighting was harsh in the black-and-white print. The only thing missing was a board over his chest with his name and inmate number.
“Here.” Finally, she found what she was looking for. “This is him. Evelyn’s gentleman friend.”
Will looked over her hunched shoulder. The photo was grainy, obviously taken from behind the blinds covering the front window. The lens pressed open thin, plastic slats. A tall, older man leaned against a black Cadillac. His palms rested on the hood, forearms twisted out. The car was parked in the street, its front tires turned against the curb. Will parked his car the same way. Atlanta was a city of hills, resting on the piedmont of the Appalachian Mountains. If you drove a car with a manual transmission, you always banked the wheels against the curb to keep the car from rolling.
“What is it?” Faith stood in the doorway. Will passed her the baby, but she seemed more concerned with the photograph. “Did you see something?”
“I was showing him Snippers.” Mrs. Levy had somehow pulled a sleight of hand. The photo of the man was gone and in its place was the flower-garden-digging cat.
Emma shifted in Faith’s arms, obviously picking up on her mother’s troubled mood. Faith kissed her on the cheek with several quick smacks and made faces until the baby smiled. Will knew Faith was putting on a show. Tears filled her eyes. She hugged the infant tightly to her chest.
Mrs. Levy spoke. “Evelyn’s a tough old bird. They won’t break her.”
Faith swayed back and forth with the baby the way mothers automatically do. “You didn’t hear anything?”
“Oh, darlin’, you know if I’d’a heard something, I would’ve been over there with my hogleg.” Will recognized the slang for a large-caliber handgun. “Ev’s going to come out of this just fine. She always lands on her feet. You can take that to the bank and cash it.”
“I just—” Faith’s voice caught. “If I’d gotten here sooner, or—” She shook her head. “Why did this happen? You know Mama’s not mixed up in anything bad. Why would someone take her?”
“Sometimes there’s no rhyme or reason to the stupid things people get up to.” The old woman’s shoulders twisted in a slight shrug. “All I know is that you’re gonna eat yourself alive if you keep going down that road asking what if I did this or what if I did that.” She pressed the back of her fingers to Faith’s cheek. “Trust in the Lord to look over her. ‘Lean not into thine own understanding.’ ”
Faith nodded, solemn, though Will had never known her to be religious. “Thank you.”
Amanda’s heels thudded down the carpeted hallway. “I can’t stall them anymore,” she told Faith. “There’s a cruiser outside waiting to take you to the station. Try to shut up and do what your lawyer says.”
“The least I can do is watch the baby,” Mrs. Levy offered. “You don’t need to take her down to that filthy station, and Jeremy wouldn’t know which end the diaper goes on.”
Faith obviously wanted to take her up on the offer, but she hedged, “I don’t know how long I’ll be.”
“You know I’m a night owl. It’s no bother.”
“Thank you.” Faith reluctantly handed the baby to the old woman. She smoothed down Emma’s crop of fine brown hair and kissed the top of her head. Her lips stayed there for a few seconds more, then she left without another word.
As soon as the front door closed, Amanda cut to the chase. “What?”
Mrs. Levy pulled the photograph from under her apron.
“Evelyn had a frequent visitor,” Will explained. Mrs. Levy had a good memory: The man was bald. His jeans were baggy. His shirt was wrinkled, the sleeves rolled up. She’d failed to mention a more important detail, which was that he was Hispanic. The tattoo on his arm was blurry, but Will easily recognized the symbol on his forearm that identified him as Los Texicanos.
Amanda folded the picture in half before sticking it into the pocket of her suit jacket. She asked Mrs. Levy, “Have the uniforms talked to you yet?”
“I’m sure they’ll get around to the little old ladies eventually.”
“I assume you’ll be as cooperative as usual.”
She smiled. “I’m not sure what I can tell them, but I’ll go ahead and lay out some fresh cookies in case they come calling.”
Amanda chuckled. “Careful, Roz.” She motioned for Will to follow her as she left the room.
Will reached into his wallet and pulled out one of his cards for Mrs. Levy. “This has all my numbers. Call me if you remember anything or if you need help with the baby.”
“Thank you, sonny.” Her voice had lost some of its old lady kindness, but she tucked the card into her apron anyway.
Amanda was halfway up the hall by the time Will joined her. She didn’t say anything about the photograph, or Faith’s condition, or the pissing contest she’d had with Geary. Instead, she started giving him orders. “I need you to review all of your case files from the investigation.” She didn’t have to tell him which investigation she meant. “Comb through every witness statement, every CI report, every jail-house snitch’s last hurrah. I don’t care how small it is. I want to know about it.” Amanda stopped. He knew she was thinking about his reading issues.
He kept his voice steady. “It’s not a problem.”
She wouldn’t let him off that easy. “Pull up your panties, Will. If you need help, speak up now so I can deal with it.”
“Do you want me to start now? The boxes are at my house.”
“No. We’ve got an errand to run first.” She stood in the foyer, her hands on her hips. She was a trim woman, and Will often forgot how short she was until he saw her straining her neck to look up at him. “I managed to pry some information loose while Geary was throwing his tantrum. The Texicano in the backyard has helpfully identified himself as Ricardo vis-à-vis the large tattoo on his back. We don’t have a full ID on him yet. He’s mid-twenties, approximately five-nine, and one hundred seventy pounds. The Asian in the bedroom is around forty years of age, slightly shorter and thinner than his Hispanic friend. I would guess he’s not from this part of town. He might’ve been brought in just for this.”
Will remembered, “Faith said he had a southern drawl.”
“That should help narrow things down.”
“He was also wearing a loud Hawaiian shirt. That’s not very gangsterish.�
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“We’ll add that to his list of crimes.” She glanced down the hallway, then looked back at Will. “Now, the Asian in the laundry room is an odd story, too, which we know courtesy of the wallet he carried in his back pocket. Hironobu Kwon, age nineteen. He’s a freshman at Georgia State. He’s also the son of a local schoolteacher, Miriam Kwon.”
“He’s not affiliated?”
“Not that we can find. APD swooped up Mama Kwon before we could get to her. We’ll have to find her tomorrow morning to see what she knows.” She pointed her finger at Will. “Softly, softly. We’re still not officially on the case. It’s just you and me until I can find a way in.”
He said, “Faith seems to think the Texicanos were looking for something.” Will tried to gauge Amanda’s expression. Usually it hovered somewhere between amused and annoyed, but now it was completely blank. “Ricardo was beaten to a pulp. He had a gun pointed at his head. He wasn’t looking for anything except to save his life. It’s the Asians we should be talking to first.”
“That seems entirely logical.”
“It points to a larger problem,” he continued. “The Texicanos I can understand, but what would the Asians want with Evelyn? What’s their play?”
“That’s the million-dollar question.”
He put a finer point on it. “Evelyn headed the drug squad. Los Texicanos control the drug trade in Atlanta. They have for the last twenty years.”
“They certainly have.”
Will felt the familiar sting of his head hitting a brick wall. This was the same run-around Amanda always gave him when she had information that she wasn’t going to share. Somehow, this time was worse, because she wasn’t just screwing with his head, she was covering for her old friend.
He tried, “You said that the guy in the Hawaiian shirt was probably brought in for ‘this.’ What’s ‘this’? Kidnapping? Finding whatever Evelyn had hidden in her house?”
“I don’t think anyone is finding what they’re looking for today.” She paused to let her meaning sink in. “Charlie’s helping out the locals with the crime scene, but they’re not as weak to his charms as I’d like. His access has been very limited and closely supervised. They say they’ll share lab results. I’m iffy on their ME.”
The Fulton County medical examiner. “Has he shown up?”
“He’s still combing through that apartment fire in People’s Town.” Budget cuts had left the medical examiner’s office devastated. If there was more than one serious crime happening within the city limits, that usually meant the detectives were in for a long wait. “I’d love to get Pete on this.”
She was referring to the GBI’s medical examiner. Will asked, “Can’t he make some phone calls?”
“Unlikely,” she admitted. “Pete’s not exactly covered up in friends. You know how strange he is. He makes you look normal. What about Sara?”
“She’ll keep her mouth shut.”
“I’m aware of that, Will. I saw your do-si-do in the street. I meant do you think she knows anyone in the ME’s office?”
Will shrugged.
“Ask her,” Amanda ordered.
Will doubted Sara would welcome the call, but he nodded his agreement anyway. “What about Evelyn’s credit card statements, phone records?”
“I’ve ordered them pulled.”
“Does she have GPS in her car? On her phones?”
She didn’t really answer him. “We’re going through some backdoor channels. As I said, this isn’t exactly aboveboard.”
“But what you told Geary is right. We’ve got original jurisdiction over drug cases.”
“Just because Evelyn was in charge of the narcotics division doesn’t mean this is drug-related. From what I’ve gathered, they’ve found no indication of drugs in the house or on any of the dead men.”
“And Ricardo, the dead Texicano, of the drug-related Texicanos?”
“Odd coincidence.”
“How about the living, breathing, drug-related Texicano who drives a black Cadillac that Evelyn Mitchell has no qualms about getting into and going for a ride?”
She feigned surprise. “You think he’s affiliated?”
“I saw the tattoo in the photograph. Evelyn’s been seeing a Texicano for at least four months.” Will tried to moderate his tone. “He’s older. He must be higher up in the organization. Mrs. Levy says the visits have stepped up over the last ten days. They’ve been going somewhere together in his car, usually out by eleven and back by two.”
Again, Amanda ignored his point and made her own. “You busted six detectives on Evelyn’s squad. Two of them were paroled for good behavior last year. Both transferred out of state—one to California, one to Tennessee, which is where they were this afternoon when Evelyn was taken. Two are in medium security at Valdosta State, four years away from release and no good behavior in sight. One is dead—drug overdose, which is what I call the thinking man’s karma. The last one is waiting to get his dance card punched at D&C.”
The Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison. Death row. Will reluctantly asked, “Who’d he kill?”
“A guard and an inmate. Strangled a convicted rapist with a towel—no loss there—but then he beat the guard to death with his bare hands. Claimed it was self-defense.”
“Against the guard?”
“You sound like the prosecutor on his case.”
Will tried again. “And Evelyn?”
“What about her?”
“I investigated her, too.”
“You did.”
“We’re not going to talk about the elephant in the room?”
“Elephant? For chrissakes, Will, we’ve got the entire goddamn circus in here.” She opened the front door. The sun cut through the dark house like a knife.
Amanda slipped on her sunglasses as they walked across the lawn toward the crime scene. A pair of uniformed cops were making their way toward Mrs. Levy’s house. They each glowered at Will and gave Amanda a curt nod.
She mumbled to Will, “About time they got going,” as if she hadn’t been the cause of the delay.
He waited until the men started banging on the front door. “I guess you know Mrs. Levy from your days with the APD?”
“GBI. I investigated her for murdering her husband.” Amanda seemed to enjoy Will’s horrified expression. “Never could prove it, but I’m sure she poisoned him.”
“Cookies?” he guessed.
“That was my working theory.” An appreciative smile curved her lips as she picked her way across the grass. “Roz is a wily old coot. Seen more crime scenes than all of us rolled together, and I’m sure she took notes the entire time. I wouldn’t trust half of what she told you. Remember—the Devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.”
Amanda had a point, or at least Shakespeare did. Still, Will reminded her, “Mrs. Levy’s the one who told me about the Texicano visiting Evelyn. She took the picture of him.”
“She did, didn’t she?”
Will felt the question hit him like a slap to the back of his head. Considering Mrs. Levy’s artistic talent lent itself more to unflattering mugshots of household pets, it seemed strange that she just happened to have handy a photograph of the Texicano standing beside his black Cadillac. She was a sharp old lady. She’d been spying for a reason. “We should go back and talk to her.”
“Do you really think she’s going to tell us anything useful?”
Will silently conceded the point. Mrs. Levy seemed to like her games, and with Evelyn missing, they didn’t really have time to play them. “Does Evelyn know she killed her husband?”
“Of course she does.”
“And she still let her watch Emma?”
They had reached Faith’s Mini. Amanda cupped her hands to the glass and peered inside. “She killed a sixty-four-year-old abusive alcoholic, not a four-month-old baby.”
Will guessed somewhere in the world this kind of logic made sense.
Amanda headed toward the house. Charlie Reed was in the carport
talking to a bunch of other crime scene unit techs. Some were smoking. One was leaning against a tan Malibu that was parked nose-out to Faith’s Mini. They were all dressed in white Tyvek clean suits that made them look like various sizes of soiled marshmallows. Charlie’s handlebar mustache was the only thing that distinguished him from the clean-shaven men. He saw Amanda and broke away from the group.
She said, “Take me through it, Charlie.”
Charlie glanced back at a portly, dark man whose odd build made the Tyvek suit unflatteringly tight in all the critical areas. The man took a last puff on his cigarette and handed it to one of his co-workers. He introduced himself to Amanda in a clipped, British-sounding accent. “Dr. Wagner, I am Dr. Ahbidi Mittal.”
She indicated Will. “This is Dr. Trent, my associate.”
Will shook the man’s hand, trying not to cringe at the effortless way Amanda rolled out a degree they both knew he’d obtained from a dubious online school.
Mittal offered, “As a courtesy, I’m prepared to show you around the crime scene.”
Amanda gave a cutting glance to Charlie, as if he had any say in the matter.
“Thank you,” Will said, because he knew no one else would.
Mittal handed them each a pair of white booties for their shoes. Amanda grabbed Will’s arm to steady herself as she slipped off her heels and covered her stocking feet. Will was left to hop around on his own. Even without his shoes, his feet were too big, and he ended up looking like Mrs. Levy with her heels hanging off the back of her slippers.
“Shall we start in here?” Mittal didn’t wait for them to acknowledge his invitation. He led them around the back of the Malibu and into the house through the open kitchen door. Instinctively, Will ducked his head as he walked into the low-ceilinged room. Charlie bumped into him and mumbled an apology. The kitchen was small for four people, horseshoe shaped, with the open end facing the laundry room. Will caught the distinct odor of rusty iron that blood gave off when it congealed.
Faith was right—the intruders had been looking for something. The house was a mess. Silverware was scattered on the floor. Drawers had been thrown around. Holes were knocked in the walls. A cell phone and an older-looking BlackBerry were crushed on the floor. The wall phone had been smashed off the hook. Except for the black fingerprint powder and the yellow plastic markers the forensics team had used, nothing had been altered from what Faith said she’d first seen when she entered the house. Even the dead body was still in the laundry room. Faith must have been terrified, not knowing what was coming around the corner, terrified that her mother was injured—or worse.
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