Cathy put her hand on Sara’s arm. “That’s the part that hurts, isn’t it? The part where you feel like you don’t matter to him as much as you used to.”
Sara nodded, trying to remember to breathe. Her mother had hit the nail on the head. She prompted, “What did Daddy do when you said this?”
“Told me to get up off the porch and come in for some breakfast.” Cathy put her hand to her chest, patting it. “I don’t know how Eddie found it in his heart to forgive me, he’s such a proud man, but I’m thankful he did. It made me love him even more to know that he could forgive me for something so horrible like that; that I could hurt him to the core and he could still love me. I think starting out like that made the marriage stronger.” The smile intensified. “Of course, then, I did have a secret weapon.”
“What’s that?”
“You.”
“Me?”
Cathy stroked Sara’s cheek. “I was seeing your father again, but it was so strained. Nothing was like it was before. Then I got pregnant with you, and life just took over. I think having you between us made your father see the big picture. Next thing Tessie was here, then you were both in school, then you were both grown and off to college.” She smiled. “It just takes time. Love and time. And having a little redheaded hellion to chase after is a good distraction.”
“Well, I’m not going to get pregnant,” Sara countered, conscious of the edge to her tone.
Cathy seemed to think out her answer. “Sometimes it takes thinking you’ve lost something to realize the real value of it,” she said. “Don’t tell Tessie.”
Sara nodded her agreement. She stood, tucking her T-shirt into her pants. “I told him, Mama,” she said. “I left the transcript for him.”
Cathy asked, “The trial transcript?”
“Yeah,” Sara said, leaning against the chest of drawers. “I know he’s read it. I left it in the bathroom for him.”
“And?”
“And,” Sara said, “he hasn’t even called. He hasn’t said anything to me all day.”
“Well,” Cathy said, her mind obviously made up. “Fuck him, then. He’s trash.”
22
Jeffrey found 633 Ashton Street easily enough. The house was dilapidated, no more than a square made of cinder blocks. The windows seemed to be an afterthought, none of them the same size. A ceramic fireplace was on the front porch, stacks of papers and magazines piled to the side of it, probably to use for kindling.
He took a look around the house, trying to act casually. Wearing a suit and tie, driving the white Town Car, it wasn’t like Jeffrey fit in with the surroundings. Ashton Street, at least the part Jack Wright lived on, was rundown and seedy. Most of the houses in the vicinity were boarded up, yellow posters warning they were condemned. Kids played in the packed dirt yards of these houses, their parents nowhere to be seen. There was a smell to the place, not exactly sewage but something in that same family. Jeffrey was reminded of driving past the city dump on the outskirts of Madison. On a good day, even when you were downwind, the smell of decomposing trash still reached your nose. Even with the windows up and the air on.
Jeffrey took a few breaths, trying to get used to the smell as he approached the house. The door had a heavy mesh screen over it with a padlock securing it to the frame. The actual door had three dead bolts and one lock that looked like it required a puzzle piece to open it rather than a key. Jack Wright had been in prison a great deal of his life. This was obviously a man who wanted his privacy. Jeffrey took a look around before walking over to one of the windows. It, too, had a wire mesh and a heavy lock, but the casing was old and easily broken. A couple of firm pushes dislodged the entire frame. Jeffrey glanced around before removing the window, casing and all, and slipping into the house.
The living room was dark and dingy, with trash and papers stacked around the room. There was an orange couch on the floor with dark stains dripping down. Jeffrey could not tell if it was from tobacco juice or some kind of body fluid. What he did know was an overpowering odor of sweat mixed with Lysol permeated the room.
Edging the top of the living room walls like a decorative border were all kinds of crucifixes. They varied in size from something you would get out of a candy vending machine to some that were at least ten inches long. They were nailed into the wall, edge to edge, tight up against one another in one continuous band. Continuing the Jesus theme, posters on the wall that looked like they had been taken from a Sunday school room showed Jesus and the disciples. In one, He was holding a lamb. In another, He was holding out his hands, showing the wounds in His palms.
Jeffrey felt his heart rate quicken at the sight of this. He reached to his gun, taking the strap off his holster as he walked toward the front of the house to make sure no one was coming up the drive.
In the kitchen, plates were stacked in the sink, crusted and foul-looking. The floor was sticky, and the whole room felt wet from something other than water. The bedroom was the same way, a musky odor clinging like a wet washrag against Jeffrey’s face. On the wall over the stained mattress was a large poster of Jesus Christ, a halo behind His head. Like the poster in the living room, Jesus held His palms out to show the wounds on His hands. The crucifixion motif continued around the periphery of the bedroom, but these were larger crosses. Standing on the bed, Jeffrey could see that someone, probably Wright, had used red paint to exaggerate Jesus’ wounds, dripping the blood down the torso, enhancing the crown of thorns resting on his head. Black X s were across the eyes on every Jesus Jeffrey could see. It was as if Wright had wanted to stop His eyes from watching him. What Wright was doing that he felt needed to be hidden was the question Jeffrey needed to answer.
Jeffrey stepped off the bed. He looked through some of the magazines, taking the time to put on a pair of latex gloves from his pockets before touching anything. The magazines were mostly older editions of People and Life. The bedroom closet was stacked floor to ceiling with pornography. Busty Babes sat beside Righteous Redheads. Jeffrey thought of Sara and a lump came to his throat.
Using his foot, Jeffrey kicked the mattress up. A Sig Sauer nine millimeter was resting on the boxspring. The weapon looked new and well cared for. In a neighborhood like this one, only an idiot would go to sleep without a gun handy. Jeffrey smiled as he pushed the mattress back. This could help him out later on.
Opening the dresser, Jeffrey did not know what he expected to find. More porn, maybe. Another gun, or some kind of makeshift weapon. Instead, the top two drawers were filled with women’s underwear. Not just underwear, the silky, sexy kind that Jeffrey liked to see Sara in. There were teddies and thongs, French-cut panties with bows at the hips. And they were all extremely large; large enough to fit a man.
Jeffrey resisted the urge to shudder. He took out a pen to go through the contents of the drawers, not wanting to get stuck with a needle or anything sharp, not wanting to get a venereal disease. Jeffrey was about to close one of the drawers when something changed his mind. He was missing something. Moving aside a pair of dark green lace panties, he saw what he was looking for. The newspaper lining the bottom of the drawers was from the special Sunday section of the Grant County Observer. He had recognized the masthead.
Pushing aside the clothes, Jeffrey took out the sheet of newspaper. The front page showed a slow news day. A picture of the mayor holding a pig in his arms beamed back at Jeffrey. The date put the paper at more than a year old. He opened the other drawers, looking for more Observers. He found a few, but most of them carried innocuous stories. Jeffrey found it interesting that Jack Wright subscribed to the Grant County Observer.
He went back into the living room, checking out the stacks of papers on the floor with renewed interest. Brenda Collins, one of Wright’s other victims after Sara, had been from Tennessee, Jeffrey remembered. A copy of the Monthly Vols, a newsletter for University of Tennessee graduates, was tucked in with some newspapers from Alexander City, Alabama. In the next stack, Jeffrey found more out-of-state papers, all from
small towns. Beside these were postcards, all from Atlanta, all showing different scenes around town. The backs were blank, waiting to be filled in. Jeffrey could not imagine what a man like Wright would be doing with the postcards. He did not strike Jeffrey as the type of person to have friends.
Jeffrey turned around, making sure he had not missed anything in the cramped room. There was a television set tucked into the old fireplace. It looked fairly new, the kind you could buy on the street for fifty bucks if you did not ask too many questions about where it had come from. On top of the set was a cable converter box.
He walked back toward the front window to leave but stopped when he saw something under the couch. He used his foot to tilt the couch over, sending cockroaches scurrying across the floor. A small black keyboard was on the floor.
The converter box was actually a receiver for the keyboard. Jeffrey turned the set on, pressing the buttons on the keyboard until the receiver logged on to the Internet. He sat on the edge of the upturned couch as he waited for the system to make a connection. At the station, Brad Stephens was the computer person, but Jeffrey had learned enough from watching the young patrolman to know how to navigate his way around.
Wright’s E-mail was easy enough to access. Aside from an offer from a Chevy parts dealership and the requisite hot young teens looking for college money, the kind of E-mail that everyone in the world got, there was a long letter from a woman who appeared to be Wright’s mother. Another E-mail had a photo attachment of a young woman posed with her legs wide open. The sender’s E-mail address was a series of random numbers. Probably, he was a prison buddy of Wright’s. Still, Jeffrey wrote down the address on a scrap piece of paper he had in his pocket.
Using the arrow keys, Jeffrey went to the bookmarks section. In addition to various porn and violence sites, Jeffrey found a link for the Grant Observer on-line. He could not have been more shocked. There, on the television screen, was today’s front page announcing the suicide of Julia Matthews last night. Jeffrey punched the down arrow, skimming the article again. He went into the archives and performed a search for Sibyl Adams. Seconds later, an article on career day from last year came on-screen. A search for Julia Matthews brought up today’s front page, but nothing else. Over sixty articles came up when he typed in Sara’s name.
Jeffrey logged off and turned the couch right side up. Outside, he pressed the window back into the hole he had made. It did not want to stay, so he was forced to drag one of the chairs over to prop it in. From his car, it didn’t look like the window had been tampered with, but Jack Wright would know as soon as he walked on his front porch that someone had been in his house. As security conscious as the man seemed to be, this would probably be a good way to push his buttons.
The streetlight over Jeffrey’s car came on as he got in. Even on this hellhole of a street, the sunset dipping into the Atlanta skyline was something to behold. Jeffrey imagined but for the sun setting and rising, the people on this block wouldn’t feel human.
He waited for three and a half hours before the blue Chevy Nova pulled into the driveway. The car was old and dirty, flakes of rust showing through at the trunk and taillights. Wright had obviously tried to make a few repairs. Silver duct tape crisscrossed the tail end, and on one side of the bumper was a decal that said GOD IS MY COPILOT. On the other side was a zebra-striped sticker that said I’M GOING WILD AT THE ATLANTA ZOO.
Jack Wright had been in the system long enough to know what a cop looks like. He gave Jeffrey a wary glance as he stepped out of the Nova. Wright was a pudgy man with a receding hairline. His shirt was off, and Jeffrey could see he had what could only be described as breasts. Jeffrey guessed this was from the Depo. One of the main reasons rapists and pedophiles tended to go off the drug was the nasty side effect that caused some of them to put on weight and take on womanly attributes.
Wright nodded to Jeffrey as Jeffrey made his way up the driveway. As neglected as this area of town was, all the streetlights were in working order. The house was lit like it was broad daylight.
When Wright spoke, his voice was high-pitched, another side effect of the Depo. He asked, “You looking for me?”
“That’s right,” Jeffrey answered, stopping in front of the man who had raped and stabbed Sara Linton.
“Well, damn,” Wright said, pursing his lips. “I guess some girl done got snatched up, huh? Y’all always come knocking on my door when some young thing goes missing.”
“Let’s go into the house,” Jeffrey said.
“I don’t think so,” Wright countered, leaning back against the car. “She a pretty girl, the one missing?” He paused, as if he expected an answer. He licked his tongue slowly along his lips. “I only pick the pretty ones.”
“It’s an older case,” Jeffrey said, trying not to let himself get baited.
“Amy? Is it my sweet little Amy?”
Jeffrey stared. He recognized the name from the case file. Amy Baxter had taken her life after being raped by Jack Wright. She was a nurse who had moved to Atlanta from Alexander City.
“No, not Amy,” Wright said, putting his hand to his chin as if in thought. “Was it that sweet little—” He stopped himself, looking over at Jeffrey’s car. “Grant County, huh? Why didn’t you say so?” He smiled, showing one of his chipped front teeth. “How’s my little Sara doing?”
Jeffrey took a step toward the man, but Wright did not take the intimidation.
Wright said, “Go on and hit me. I like it rough.”
Jeffrey stepped back, willing himself not to punch the man.
Suddenly, Wright scooped his breasts into his hands. “You like these, daddy?” He smiled at the look of disgust that must have been on Jeffrey’s face. “I take the Depo, but you know that already, don’t you, honey? You know what it does to me, too, don’t you?” He lowered his voice. “Makes me like a girl. Gives the boys the best of both worlds.”
“Stop it,” Jeffrey said, glancing around. Wright’s neighbors had come out to see the show.
“I got balls the size of marbles,” Wright said, putting his hands to the waist of his blue jeans. “You wanna see ’em?”
Jeffrey lowered his voice to a grumble. “Not unless you want to take the word ‘chemical’ out of your castration.”
Wright chuckled. “You’re a big, strong man, you know that?” he asked. “You supposed to be taking care of my Sara?”
Jeffrey could do nothing but swallow.
“They all wanna know why I picked ’em. ‘Why me? Why me?’ ” he trilled, his voice higher. “Her, I wanted to see was she a real redhead.”
Jeffrey stood there, unable to move.
“I guess you know she is, huh? I can tell by looking in your eyes.” Wright crossed his arms over his chest, his eyes on Jeffrey’s. “Now, she’s got some great tits. I loved sucking them.” He licked his lips. “I wish you could’ve seen the fear on her face. I could tell she wasn’t used to it. Hadn’t had herself a real man yet, know what I mean?”
Jeffrey put his hand around the man’s neck, backing him into the car. The action was so fast Jeffrey wasn’t even sure what he was doing until he felt Jack Wright’s long fingernails digging into the skin on the back of his hand.
Jeffrey forced himself to take his hand away. Wright sputtered, coughing, trying to catch his breath. Jeffrey walked a tight circle, checking on the neighbors. None of them had moved. They all seemed entranced by the show.
“You think you can scare me?” Wright said, his voice raspy. “I had bigger than you, two at a time, in prison.”
“Where were you last Monday?” Jeffrey asked.
“I was at work, brother. Check with my PO.”
“Maybe I will.”
“She made a spot check on me around”—Wright pretended to think this through—“I’d say around two, two-thirty. That the time you looking for?”
Jeffrey did not answer. Sibyl Adams’s time of death had been printed in the Observer.
“I was sweeping and mopping and taking ou
t the trash,” Wright continued.
Jeffrey indicated the tattoo. “I see you’re a religious man.”
Wright looked at his arm. “That’s what caught me up with Sara.”
“You like to keep up with your girls, huh?” Jeffrey asked. “Maybe look through the newspapers? Maybe keep up with them on the Internet?”
Wright looked nervous for the first time. “You been in my house?”
“I like what you did with the walls,” he said. “All those little Jesuses. Their eyes just follow you when you walk around the room.”
Wright’s face changed. He showed Jeffrey the side that only a handful of unfortunate women had ever seen as he screamed, “That is my personal property. You don’t belong in there.”
“I was in there,” Jeffrey said, able to be calm now that Wright was not. “I went through everything.”
“You bastard,” Wright yelled, throwing a punch. Jeffrey sidestepped, twisting the man’s arm behind him. Wright pitched forward, falling face first into the ground. Jeffrey was on top of him, his knee pressed into the man’s back.
“What do you know?” Jeffrey demanded.
“Let me go,” Wright begged. “Please, let me go.”
Jeffrey took out his handcuffs and forced Wright into them. The clicking sound of the locks sent the man into hyperventilation.
“I just read about it,” Wright said. “Please, please, let me go.”
Jeffrey leaned down, whispering in the man’s ear. “You’re going back to jail.”
“Don’t send me back,” Wright begged. “Please.”
Jeffrey reached down, tugging the ankle bracelet. Knowing how the City of Atlanta worked, this would be faster than dialing 911. When the bracelet would not budge, Jeffrey used the heel of his shoe to bust it.
“You can’t do that,” Wright screamed. “You can’t do that. They saw you.”
Jeffrey looked up, remembering the neighbors. He watched wordlessly as they all turned their backs, disappearing into their houses.