by Tina Whittle
It looked like ordinary camo to me, splotches of dark green mixed with slate gray, but I was stunned to see it on Trey. His wardrobe consisted of black Italian suits and white shirts and workout clothes in the same colors. Price spotted us in the car, turned her head to Trey. Her lips moved, and he nodded. She looked our way again, assessing. Then Trey stopped suddenly and said something that made Keesha Price turn on her heel. She put her hands on her hips while Trey spoke, her face a mask.
I smacked my forehead with an open palm. “Now he decides to accuse her of taking his files? Now?”
Trey continued talking. She stared at him like he was sprouting horns. She said something abruptly, and Trey’s eyes narrowed. He spread his feet hip-width and folded his arms across his chest.
“Uh oh,” I said. “I know that look.”
“You and me both.” Garrity shook his head. “Even a bulldozer couldn’t budge him now.”
She was arguing in full force, one hand gesturing violently, chopping motions like she was decapitating someone, most likely Trey. And then he said a single word. I was no lip reader, but I knew that word, knew how much it meant when he dropped it.
Please.
I saw her exhale sharply. Shake her head at him, but not in denial this time. She looked over her shoulder to where Garrity and I sat, then strode our way, pushing up her sleeves. Trey followed, silent and subdued. Garrity rolled down the window, and she leaned inside.
“Are you a part of this half-assed ambush, Dan Garrity?”
“Nope. I just brought the sandwiches.” He jerked his chin in my direction. “This is Tai.”
I sat up straighter. “Good to meet you, Sergeant Price.”
She examined me with those sniper eyes. “It’s Keesha. Seaver here says you will be joining our little lunch hour. If it’s okay with me.”
“Is it?”
She straightened. “Come to the table and find out.”
Trey and I followed her down the trail away from the rest of the trainees, two fewer than the day before. I was pleased to see that the guy who’d paintballed me was not among them. Trey carried the cooler; I took the box of sandwiches. Keesha took her time, not looking back. Once we got to the lakes, the sky opened above us, pastel blue with skeins of white clouds. Handmade signs proclaimed that only trash found in the park could be repurposed as community art. No outside garbage allowed.
Keesha led us across the boardwalk over muddy, flat pond water, hanging a left at Doll’s Head Trail. The entrance was marked by—what else?—a grinning baby doll’s face displayed in a broken TV set. It was a particularly creepy specimen, one bright blue eye open, fishing lures dangling from its rodent-chewed ears. I wondered why so much of the park’s trash was disembodied doll parts. Plastic heads mounted on billiard pins, legs strung up on wires, torsos crowning stacks of bricks like strange altars.
“Did you know this training was in the woods when you signed up?” I said.
Trey switched the cooler to his left hand. “I did.”
“And you came anyway?”
“Yes.”
We continued to the picnic area, the only sounds the rustle of leaves, the hum of insects, police boots on wooden boards. Keesha led us to a rickety table in the shade. At the roots of the tree, four plastic doll arms sprouted from the ground, hoisting a toy dump truck high. The placard proclaimed: Giving Daddy a Hand.
Whatever. I sat, unwrapped one of the sandwiches, and dug in.
Trey got his food and sat next to me. I snuck a glance at Keesha. I’d met her mother once, the head of special collections at the Atlanta Public Library. Her daughter had her sharp eyes and her straightforward, no-nonsense demeanor. Definitely her intellect too. Snipers were the Beta Club of SWAT. Trey told me that he and Keesha had both carried a tiny book of equations in a compartment on their rifles—minute of angle calculations, temperature and wind resistance algorithms.
She sent a scathing look Trey’s way. “Fucking Nicholas Talbot. Seriously, Seaver, why are you still carrying a hard-on for this guy?”
“I’m not.” Trey pulled a bottled water from the cooler. “I haven’t looked at the case in years.”
“Then why now?”
“I told you why.”
“No. You told me the circumstances. You have not explained why you feel it necessary to drag me into this.” She pointed a potato chip at him. “Now that I’m up for promotion. Now that I got a microscope on my life.”
He shook his head more firmly. “I am not asking you—”
“The hell you’re not. You know all this gets dragged up, I get dragged into it. No way to do this clean.”
“I simply want the files.”
“You assume I have them.”
“The secretary at the church reported a woman matching your description—”
“A black woman in Westview?” She laughed and attacked her sandwich. “You gotta do better that that, Seaver.”
He folded his hands on the table. “A black woman in Westview who knew where I kept the key to my file cabinet.”
She didn’t argue the point. I heard the splash of a fish. Or perhaps a snake. I chewed and kept quiet.
Trey unwrapped his sandwich. “You won’t be involved.”
“You don’t know that. And unlike you, the walking talking poster child for white boy privilege, it will cost me. So don’t even start.”
“I need them for the information, not for any official action. Your name is redacted.”
“You know that doesn’t matter.” She stabbed the chip in punctuation. “If I took those files—not that I’m saying I did—it was for your own good. And if I had them—not that I’m saying I do—I would keep them for the same damn reason.”
He exhaled and pulled his sandwich apart, removed the pickles and put them on my plate. Then he started scraping the mayonnaise off with a plastic knife.
She flicked her eyes at me, hard like onyx, but kept talking to Trey. “And what about her? What’s she got to do with this?”
Trey reached for his water. “She’s my partner.”
“In what?”
“In everything.”
He said it matter-of-factly, but Keesha caught the weight of the word as much as I did. Yes, I was his partner in life, partner in bed, partner in crime. And he was mine. Equal and always.
“Justice was not served,” he said. “You know this.”
“You intend to serve some? You think that’ll help you sleep better?”
“I sleep well already.”
She examined him steadily. “What’s in those files you don’t already know?”
“My OPS transcripts. My preliminary reports. My testimony before the grand jury. I can remember what happened. Mostly. But I can’t put it into any context. And I need to do that before I meet with Nicholas Talbot.”
“Which you are set on doing, come hell or high water.”
“Maybe. Depending on what I find in those files.”
“I’m not sticking my head out again, and you shouldn’t either. You need to drop this thing.” She picked up her trash, nodded my way. “Nice to meet you, Tai. See you in field, Seaver.”
She balled up the wax paper and chucked it into the can from twenty feet, a slam dunk. She headed off into the woods without looking back.
I sighed. “Well, that went peachy.”
Trey watched her go. “Yes, it did.”
“I was being sarcastic.”
“I’m not.”
Keesha vanished into the trees. Soon he’d be out there with her, hiding. He had a balaclava and a jacket in the same camouflage pattern, concealment from head to toe, but his most effective weapon was patience. Trey was the most steadfast, unwavering man I knew.
“You seriously think that went well?” I said.
“I do. Considering what I’m asking of her.”
<
br /> I examined his expression. This was an old pattern with them. Whatever was in those files, she didn’t want it out of her control. But she did want it resolved. I could see the tension. The question was, did she trust Trey to resolve it? And me?
“So now what?”
He finished chewing the last bite of his sandwich. “Now I wait.”
He gathered his things—the jacket, the water bottle, a compass. He looked like he wanted to say something. I felt a stirring, not entirely uncomfortable, tingly like the leading edge of a thunderstorm. It was what I felt every time I found a mystery that needed solving, a puzzle that needed unpuzzling. Finn had delivered one to my doorstep. But another was standing right in front of me.
I ran a finger along the patterned fabric of his pants. “I gotta say, you have surprised me in many ways, but I never thought I’d see you in camo.”
He looked a little offended. “It’s ATACS.”
“Whatever.” I stood up, plucked a piece of pine straw out of his hair. “I always knew you had a little redneck in you.”
Chapter Eleven
I spent the rest of the afternoon updating my ATF records and filing paperwork, which took longer than I expected. By the time I got inside Trey’s apartment, it was almost dark, but the place was empty. Every sound echoed against the black hardwood floor and blank white walls.
I dropped my bag beside his desk and opened the French doors to the terrace. On the horizon I could see the skyline of Midtown and Downtown, the jagged line of the skyscrapers. Below me lay the heart of Buckhead with its exclusive clubs and organic spas and high-end boutiques. I couldn’t see Chastain Park, but I knew it was close, which meant the Talbot mansion was nearby. Two miles away, Finn had said, at the juncture where Tuxedo Road dead-ended into Powers Ferry.
Trey hadn’t lived in Buckhead when Jessica Talbot was murdered. He’d had an apartment in Edgewood, in a complex that was neither high end nor exclusive. Tuxedo Road was the ancestral home of the oldest of the old money, practically prehistoric money. But new money, Hollywood money, was buying its way into the club. Even Tuxedo Road couldn’t resist all those fresh green millions.
I left the door open and went back inside. Took off my shoes. Got a cold beer and a clean glass. Then I settled in on the couch with my computer in my lap. Files or no files, I was betting I’d find a goldmine of information just a few clicks away.
I was right.
My first search on Jessica Talbot brought up a vast image library, and I felt a stab of…I couldn’t even identify the emotion. She looked like Gabriella’s dissolute baby sister. Same red hair, same green cat eyes, same milky complexion. But she was raw where Gabriella was refined, and she lapped up the camera’s attentions, hungry for more.
Nick was on her arm in a couple of the photographs, the standard “fancy people arriving at the club” shots. He was good-looking in an over-ripened way, like a soft peach. His hair was his best feature, mahogany brown, long and curly and rakishly dipping over one eye. But his eyes were unfocused and his clothes rumpled, as if someone had pulled him out of the back of a limo and propped him upright.
Jessica Talbot. The one modeling success of Talbot Talent, which otherwise was a year of chaos and false starts. Nick had quickly assembled a client list, virtually all unknowns, then mismanaged it into bankruptcy, which, if I were to believe the gossip blogs, had mostly gone up his nose and straight to his liver. But before the crash and burn, they’d been living the life. Architecture Today featured the Talbot home in a slick, worshipful spread. Unlike most new-to-the-city moguls, they hadn’t built an estate. Instead they’d renovated one of the older homes, doubling the square footage with two soaring, sprawling additions. Then they’d painted everything stark white, including the barn-like guest house. With dogwoods blooming out front, it had a contrived arctic charm. But there was nothing welcoming about the place.
I couldn’t help making the comparison between the Talbot home and Trey’s dichromatic apartment. The sophisticated black-and-white palette soothed him, but without his presence, it felt lifeless and blank. What would the Trey of the past—the emotionally scorched Trey parked outside Gabriella’s empty bungalow, about to be called to a murder—think of this place? Of me? Of coming face-to-face with Nick Talbot again?
I took a deep breath and added the name Trey Seaver to the search box.
As I expected, the first hits came from newspapers all around the state. As the second responding officer, he’d testified about what he’d found at the scene. I clicked on the first link, an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It described him as “stoic” and his answers as “brief and plainspoken.” I clicked the image search button and held my breath.
And there he was, the Trey I’d never met. He wore his uniform, the long-sleeved navy serge with the APD seal on his bicep, the phoenix rising over the single word Resurgens. He was being sworn in, his right hand raised, fingers stiff and straight. He was huskier, his features less honed. No silver scars on his chin or at his temple—those would come later, artifacts of the accident. His eyes were still as blue as the top of the sky, though, and as serious as a heart attack.
Yes, he’d been the second responding. No, he’d seen nothing suspicious in Macklin’s behavior, not at the scene. Yes, the scene appeared to be consistent with a burglary at first glance, but upon further examination, it was clearly staged. I skimmed the articles, printed them out for deeper reading later. I did the same with the AJC articles about police misconduct. Trey was mentioned at the beginning of the coverage, but then disappeared as Macklin became the epicenter of the scandal. Not once was Keesha Price mentioned. Not even a hint of her involvement.
But Macklin? He was crucified.
They’d used the same photo of him over and over, his official APD ID, probably because he looked like a villain. Light brown hair buzz cut, small mean eyes. An aquiline nose too big for his face. Tanned skin with white patches around his eyes from wearing sunglasses all the time. He was stocky, muscled. He was the kind of cop that civilians dreaded seeing in their rearview mirror.
I pulled his image from the printer, held it up so that I could look him in the eye. I had no problem seeing him shoot Jessica Talbot in cold blood. No problem seeing him shoot himself rather than face disgrace.
I heard the sounds of the first deadbolt flipping, and then the second, and then the keyswitch lock. I heard footsteps next, though not the quiet ones of leather lace-ups or running shoes. Heavy, trying not to be, the thump of boots. And then Trey’s silhouette in the door, duffel bag on shoulder.
I smiled. “Hey, you.”
Trey paused in the door frame. “Hey. I’m sorry I’m late.”
“It’s all right. I’ve been working.” I scooched to one end of the sofa. “Come sit with me.”
He hesitated. “I need a shower.”
“In a second. Talk to me first.”
He had that wary look he got when he was worried he’d done something wrong, but he took off his boots and socks and came over barefoot, perching on the very edge of the sofa. Up close, he smelled like gunpowder and sweat and dirt. He had a fresh bandage across his knuckles and a blood blister in the webbing between his thumb and forefinger that looked like he’d snagged it in the recoil of a semi-auto. It was a beginner’s injury, which meant he’d been caught off guard.
“Late day, huh?”
He nodded. “Price told me that if I could hide where she couldn’t find me, she’d consider giving me the files.”
“She admitted she had them.”
“She did.”
“Did she find you?”
“No.” Satisfaction laced his voice. He dropped his head forward and showed me the back of his neck, covered in a thick layer of calamine. “But I got into some poison oak. And mosquitoes.”
“Ouch.”
He raised his head. He still had black grease shadows u
nder his eyes, like a football player.
“So where are the files?” I said.
“I don’t have them.”
“But you said—”
“Price said she would consider giving them to me. She said she’d let me know as soon as she decided.”
He noticed my printouts on the coffee table. He picked up the image of himself on the witness stand and examined it, his expression guarded. This wasn’t about rules and regulations. This was deeper. There was injustice here, a seeping festering wound of it, and he was prepared to cauterize it. It was what he did. There was a victim, that much he was sure of, which meant there was a guilty party. Which meant there needed to be punishment.
I brushed his hair from his forehead and felt grit. Normally he came home from work as fresh and clean as he’d left, not with dirt under his fingernails and streaks of grime along his cheek. He was right. He had no business sitting on such a nice leather sofa as grungy as he was. But he was wearing that grunge as easily as he wore Armani.
He laid the photo back on the table, shaking his head. “It’s strange. I can remember the events, but I can’t remember…me. I was me, of course, but not. Does that make sense?”
And the thing was, it did. I understood completely and utterly.
Trey’s phone buzzed with an incoming text. He looked at the readout. “It’s Price. She said she’s bringing the files.”
“When?”
“Right now.”
I laughed a little. “Well, that was fast.”
Trey was thinking hard. He didn’t look settled.
“Why are you making that face? She’s giving you the files.”
“She didn’t say she was giving them to me. She said she was bringing them.” He closed his eyes wearily. “And that is an entirely different matter.”
Chapter Twelve
Thirty minutes later, Keesha met Trey at the front door with her sidearm on her hip. It was camouflaged by a flowing block-dyed vest the color of the ocean, but even in a sleeveless tank and frayed-hem jeans, she carried smackdown the way other women carried mace. Her only adornment was a tattoo on her bicep, a Latin phrase underneath a stylized square labyrinth. I recognized the image—Trey’s SWAT uniform bore a patch just like it—but not the Latin.