She managed to nod again. “Yeah.”
Jeffrey wasn’t satisfied. “Is that clear, Detective?”
“Yes, sir,” Lena repeated.
Jeffrey put the car back into gear. The tires caught as he accelerated, leaving a good deal of rubber on the road. Both hands gripped the wheel so hard that his knuckles were white. Lena kept quiet, hoping his anger would pass. He had every right to be pissed, but she did not know what to say. An apology seemed as useless as treating a toothache with honey.
Jeffrey rolled his window down, loosening his tie. Suddenly, he said, “I don’t think Will did it.”
Lena nodded her head up and down, afraid to open her mouth.
“Even if he did have this episode in his past,” Jeffrey began, anger coming back into his voice, “Frank failed to mention that this thing with his wife was twenty years ago.”
Lena was silent.
“Anyway”—Jeffrey waved this off—“even if he had it in him, he’s at least sixty, maybe seventy years old. He couldn’t even get into his chair, let alone overpower a healthy thirty-three-year-old woman.”
Jeffrey continued, “So that leaves us with Pete in the diner, right?” He didn’t wait for her answer; he was obviously just thinking aloud. “Only I called Tessa on the way over here. She got there a little before two o’clock. Will was gone, and Pete was the only one there. She said Pete stayed behind the cash register until she placed her order, then he grilled her burger.” Jeffrey shook his head. “He might’ve slipped into the back, but when? When did he have time? That’d take, what? Ten, fifteen minutes? Plus the planning. How did he know it would work out?” Again these questions seemed rhetorical. “And we all know Pete. I mean, Jesus, this isn’t the kind of thing a first-timer would pull.”
He was silent, obviously still thinking, and Lena left him alone. She stared out the window, processing what Jeffrey had said about Pete Wayne and Will Harris. An hour ago these two men had looked like good suspects to her. Now there was nobody. Jeffrey was right to be angry at her. She could have been out with Brad, tracking down the men on their list, maybe finding the man who had killed Sibyl.
Lena’s eyes focused on the houses they were driving by. At the turn, she checked the street sign, noting that they were on Cooper.
Jeffrey asked, “You think Nan will be home?”
Lena shrugged.
The smile he gave her said he was trying. “You can talk now, you know.”
Her lips came up, but she couldn’t quite return the smile. “Thanks.” Then, “I’m sorry about—”
He held up his hand to stop her. “You’re a good cop, Lena. You’re a damn good cop.” He pulled the car to the curb in front of Nan and Sibyl’s house. “You just need to start listening.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t,” he said, but he did not seem angry anymore. “Your whole life has turned upside down and you don’t even know it yet.”
She started to speak then stopped.
Jeffrey said, “I understand needing to work on this, needing to keep your mind occupied, but you’ve got to trust me on this, Lena. If you ever cross that line with me again, I will bust you so low you’ll be fetching coffee for Brad Stephens. Is that clear?”
She managed to nod her head.
“Okay,” he said, opening the car door. “Let’s go.”
Lena took her time taking off her seat belt. She got out of the car, adjusting her gun and holster as she walked toward the house. By the time she reached the front door, Nan had already let Jeffrey in.
“Hey,” Lena offered.
“Hey,” Nan returned. She was holding a ball of tissue in her hand, the same as she had been last night. Her eyes were puffy and her nose was bright red.
“Hey,” Hank said.
Lena stopped. “What are you doing here?”
Hank shrugged, rubbing his hands together. He was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt, and the needle tracks up his arms were on full display. Lena felt a rush of embarrassment. She had only seen Hank in Reece, where everybody knew about his past. She had seen the scars so many times that she had almost blocked them out. Now she was seeing them through Jeffrey’s eyes for the first time, and she wanted to run from the room.
Hank seemed to be waiting for Lena to say something. She stumbled, managing an introduction. “This is Hank Norton, my uncle,” she said. “Jeffrey Tolliver, chief of police.”
Hank held out his hand, and Lena cringed to see the raised scars on his forearms. Some of them were half an inch long in places where he had jabbed the needle into his skin, looking for a good vein.
Hank said, “How d’you do, sir.”
Jeffrey took the offered hand, giving it a firm shake. “I’m sorry we had to meet under these circumstances.”
Hank clasped his hands in front of him. “Thank you for that.”
They were all silent, then Jeffrey said, “I guess you know why we’re here.”
“About Sibyl,” Nan answered, her voice a few octaves lower, probably from crying all night.
“Right,” Jeffrey said, indicating the sofa. He waited for Nan to sit, then took the space beside her. Lena was surprised when he took Nan’s hand and said, “I’m so sorry for your loss, Nan.”
Tears welled into Nan’s eyes. She actually smiled. “Thank you.”
“We’re doing everything we can to find out who did this,” he continued. “I want you to know if there’s anything else you need we’re here for you.”
She whispered another thank-you, looking down, picking at a string on her sweatpants.
Jeffrey asked, “Was anybody angry at you or Sibyl, do you know?”
“No,” Nan answered. “I told Lena last night. Everything’s been the same as usual lately.”
“I know that Sibyl and you chose to live kind of quietly,” Jeffrey said. Lena got his meaning. He was being a lot more subtle than she had been last night.
“Yeah,” Nan agreed. “We like it here. We’re both small-town people.”
Jeffrey asked, “You can’t think of anybody who might have figured something out?”
Nan shook her head. She looked down, her lips trembling. There was nothing else she could tell him.
“Okay,” he said, standing. He put his hand on Nan’s shoulder, indicating she should stay seated. “I’ll let myself out.” He reached into his pocket and brought out a card. Lena watched as he cupped it in one hand and wrote on the back. “This is my home number,” he said. “Call me if you think of anything.”
“Thank you,” Nan said, taking the card.
Jeffrey turned to Hank. “Do you mind giving Lena a ride home?”
Lena felt dumbstruck. She couldn’t stay here.
Hank was obviously taken aback as well. “No,” he mumbled. “That’s fine.”
“Good.” He patted Nan on the shoulder, then said to Lena, “You and Nan can take tonight to put together a list of the people Sibyl worked with.” Jeffrey gave Lena a knowing smile. “Be at the station at seven tomorrow morning. We’ll go over to the college before classes start.”
Lena didn’t understand. “Am I back with Brad?”
He shook his head. “You’re with me.”
Wednesday
11
Ben Walker, the chief of police before Jeffrey, had kept his office in the back of the station, just off the briefing room. A desk the size of an upended commercial refrigerator was in the center of the room with a row of uncomfortable chairs in front of it. Every morning, the men on the senior squad were called into Ben’s office to hear their assignments for the day, then they left and the chief shut his door. What Ben did from this time until five o’clock, when he could be seen scooting down the street to the diner for his supper, was a mystery.
Jeffrey’s first task when he took over Ben’s job was to move his office to the front of the squad room. Using a skill saw, Jeffrey cut a hole in the Sheetrock and installed a glass picture window so that he could sit at his desk and see his men and, more important, so th
at his men could see him. There were blinds on the window, but he never closed them, and for the most part, his office door was always open.
Two days after Sibyl Adams’s body had been found, Jeffrey sat in his office, reading a report that Marla had just handed him. Nick Shelton at the GBI had been kind enough to rush through the analysis on the box of tea. Results: it was tea.
Jeffrey scratched his chin, looking around his office. It was a small room, but he had built a set of bookshelves into one of the walls in order to keep things neat. Field manuals and statistical reports were stacked alongside marksman trophies he had won at the Birmingham competitions and a signed team football from when he had played at Auburn. Not that he really played. Jeffrey had spent most of his time on the bench, watching the other players build careers for themselves.
A photograph of his mother was tucked into the far corner of the shelf. She was wearing a pink blouse and holding a small wrist corsage in her hands. The photo was taken at Jeffrey’s high school graduation. He had caught his mother giving one of her rare smiles in front of the camera. Her eyes were lit up, probably with the possibilities she saw in front of her son. That he had dropped out of Auburn a year from graduation and taken a job on the Birmingham police force was something she still had not forgiven her only child for.
Marla tapped on his office door, holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a doughnut in the other. On Jeffrey’s first day, she told him that she had never fetched coffee for Ben Walker and she wasn’t about to fetch it for him. Jeffrey had laughed; the thought had never occurred to him. Marla had been bringing him his coffee ever since.
“The doughnut’s for me,” she said, handing him the paper cup. “Nick Shelton’s on line three.”
“Thank you,” he said, waiting for her to leave. Jeffrey sat back in his chair as he picked up the phone. “Nick?”
Nick’s southern drawl came across the line. “How you?”
“Not so great,” Jeffrey answered.
“I hear you,” Nick returned. Then, “Got my report?”
“On the tea?” Jeffrey picked up the sheet of paper, looking over the analysis. For such a simple beverage, a lot of chemicals went into processing tea. “It’s just cheap store-bought tea, right?”
“You got it,” Nick said. “Listen, I tried to call Sara this morning, but I couldn’t find her.”
“That so?”
Nick gave a low chuckle. “You’re never gonna forgive me for asking her out that time, are you, buddy?”
Jeffrey smiled. “Nope.”
“One of my drug people here at the lab is hot on this belladonna. Not many cases come in, and he volunteered to give you guys a face-to-face rundown.”
“That’d be an awfully big help,” Jeffrey said. He saw Lena through the glass window and waved her in.
“Sara talking to you this week?” Nick didn’t wait for an answer. “My guy is gonna want to talk to her about how the victim presented.”
Jeffrey bit back the cutting remark that wanted to come, forcing some cheerfulness into his voice as he said, “How about around ten tomorrow?”
Jeffrey was noting the meeting on his calendar when Lena walked in. As soon as he looked up, she began speaking.
“He doesn’t do drugs anymore.”
“What?”
“At least I don’t think so.”
Jeffrey shook his head, not understanding. “What are you talking about?”
She lowered her voice, saying, “My uncle Hank.” She held her forearms out to him.
“Oh.” Jeffrey finally got it. He had not been sure if Hank Norton was a past drug addict or had been in a disfiguring fire, his arms were so scarred. “Yeah, I saw they were old.”
She said, “He was a speed freak, okay?”
Her tone was hostile. Jeffrey gathered she had been stewing on this since he had left her at Nan Thomas’s house. So, this made two things she was ashamed of, her sister’s homosexuality and her uncle’s past drug problem. Jeffrey wondered if there was anything in Lena’s life other than her job that gave Lena pleasure.
“What?” Lena demanded.
“Nothing,” Jeffrey said, standing. He took his suit coat off the peg behind his door and ushered Lena out of the office. “You got the list?”
She seemed irritated that he did not want to chastise her for her uncle’s old drug habit.
She handed him a sheet of notebook paper. “This is what Nan and I came up with last night. It’s a list of people who worked with Sibyl, who might have talked to her before she…” Lena did not finish the sentence.
Jeffrey glanced down. There were six names. One had a star drawn beside it. Lena seemed to anticipate his question.
She said, “Richard Carter is her GTA. Graduate teaching assistant. She had a nine o’clock class at the school. Other than Pete, he’s probably the last person who saw her alive.”
“That name sounds familiar for some reason,” Jeffrey said, slipping on his coat. “He’s the only student on the list?”
“Yes,” Lena answered. “Plus, he’s kind of weird.”
“Meaning?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I’ve never liked him.”
Jeffrey held his tongue, thinking that Lena did not like a lot of people. That was hardly a good reason to look at someone for murder.
He said, “Let’s start with Carter first, then we’ll talk to the dean.” At the entrance, he held the door open for her. “The mayor will have a heart attack if we don’t go through the proper protocols with the professors. Students are fair game.”
The Grant Institute of Technology’s campus consisted of a student center, four classroom buildings, the administrative building, and an agricultural wing that had been donated by a very grateful seed manufacturer. Lush grounds surrounded the university on one side, with the lake backing up to the other. Student housing was within walking distance of all the buildings, and bicycles were the most common mode of campus transportation.
Jeffrey followed Lena to the third floor of the science classroom building. She had obviously met her sister’s assistant before, because Richard Carter’s face soured when he recognized Lena at the door. He was a short, balding man who wore heavy black glasses and an ill-fitting lab coat over a bright yellow dress shirt. He had that anal-retentive air about him that most of the college people had. The Grant Institute of Technology was a school for geeks, plain and simple. English classes were mandatory but not exactly difficult. The school was geared more toward turning out patents than socially evolved men and women. That was the biggest problem Jeffrey had with the school. Most of the professors and all of the students had their heads so far up their asses they couldn’t see the world in front of them.
“Sibyl was a brilliant scientist,” Richard said, leaning over a microscope. He mumbled something, then looked back up, directing his words to Lena. “She had an amazing memory.”
“She had to,” Lena said, taking out her notebook. Jeffrey wondered not for the first time if he should let Lena ride along with him. More than anything, he wanted her underfoot. After yesterday, he did not know if he could trust her to do what he told her to do. It was better to keep her close by and safe than let her go off on her own.
“Her work,” Richard began. “I can’t describe how meticulous she was, how exacting. It’s very rare to see such a high standard of attention in this field anymore. She was my mentor.”
“Right,” Lena said.
Richard gave her a sour, disapproving look, asking, “When’s the funeral?”
Lena seemed taken aback by the question. “She’s being cremated,” she said. “That’s what she wanted.”
Richard clasped his hands in front of his belly. The same disapproving look was on his face. It was almost condescending, but not quite. For just a moment, Jeffrey caught something behind his expression. Richard turned, though, and Jeffrey was not sure if he had been reading too much into things.
Lena began, “There’s a wake, I guess you’d call it, t
onight.” She scribbled on her pad, then ripped the sheet off. “It’s at Brock’s Funeral Home on King Street at five.”
Richard glanced down his nose at the paper before folding it neatly in two, then again, then tucking it into the pocket of his lab coat. He sniffed, using the back of his hand to wipe his nose. Jeffrey could not tell if he had a cold or was trying not to cry.
Lena asked, “So, was there anyone strange hanging around the lab or Sibyl’s office?”
Richard shook his head. “Just the usual weirdos.” He laughed, then stopped abruptly. “I guess that’s not altogether appropriate.”
“No,” Lena said. “It’s not.”
Jeffrey cleared his throat, getting the young man’s attention. “When was the last time you saw her, Richard?”
“After her morning class,” he said. “She wasn’t feeling well. I think I caught her cold.” He took out a tissue as if to support this. “She was such a wonderful person. I really can’t tell you how lucky I was that she took me under her wing.”
“What did you do after she left school?” Jeffrey asked.
He shrugged. “Probably went to the library.”
“Probably?” Jeffrey asked, not liking his casual tone.
Richard seemed to pick up on Jeffrey’s irritation. “I was at the library,” he amended. “Sibyl asked me to look up some references.”
Lena took over, asking, “Was there anyone acting strange around her? Maybe dropping by more than usual?”
Richard shook his head side to side again, his lips pursed. “Not really. We’re more than halfway through the term. Sibyl teaches upper-level classes, so most of her students have been here for a couple of years at least.”
“No new faces in the crowd?” Jeffrey asked.
Again Richard shook his head. He reminded Jeffrey of one of those bobbing dogs some people put on their dashboards.
Richard said, “We’re a small community here. Somebody acting strange would stick out.”
Jeffrey was about to ask another question when Kevin Blake, the dean of the college, walked into the room. He did not look happy.