Faithless

  Jeffrey was feeling better by the time Lena dropped him off at Sara’s. The stripper, Patty O’Ryan, had scraped a line of skin off the back of Lena’s hand, but that was all she had managed to do before Lena twisted the girl’s arm behind her back and slammed her to the floor. She was cuffing the stripper when Jeffrey finally managed to open his eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” was the first thing Lena said, but it was somewhat drowned out by O’Ryan’s brutal, “Fuck you, you fucking pigs!”

  Meanwhile, Charles Wesley Donner had gotten away, but his boss had been helpful, and with a little prompting gave them everything but Chip’s underwear size. The twenty-four-year-old had been working at the Pink Kitty for just under a year. He drove a 1980 Chevy Nova and lived in a flophouse on Cromwell Road down in Avondale. Jeffrey had already called Donner’s parole officer, who had been less than pleased to be awakened by a ringing phone in the middle of the night. She confirmed the address and Jeffrey had dispatched a cruiser to sit on it. An APB had gone out, but Donner had been in prison for six years on drug-trafficking charges. He knew how to hide from the police.

  Jeffrey eased open Sara’s front door as gently as he could, trying not to wake her up. Chip wasn’t strong, but he had landed his fist in the exact right place to bring Jeffrey down: under his left eye, just grazing the bridge of his nose. Jeffrey knew from experience the bruising would only get worse, and the swelling already made it hard to breathe. As usual, his nose had bled profusely, making it look a hell of a lot worse than it was. He had always bled like a faucet whenever he was hit on the bridge of his nose.

  He turned on the under-counter lights in the kitchen, holding his breath, waiting for Sara to call out to him. When she didn’t, he pried open the refrigerator and took out a bag of frozen peas. As quietly as he could, he broke up the freezer burn, separating the peas with his fingers. He clamped his teeth together and hissed out some air as he pressed the bag against his face, wondering again why it never hurt as much when you got injured as it did when you tried to fix it.

  “Jeff?”

  He jumped, dropping the peas.

  Sara turned on the lights, the fluorescent tubes flickering above them. His head seemed to explode with it, a dull throbbing matching the flicker.

  She frowned, taking in the shiner under his eye. “Where’d you get that?”

  Jeffrey bent over to pick up the peas, all the blood rushing to his head. “The gettin’ place.”

  “You have blood all over you.” It sounded more like an accusation.

  He looked down at his shirt, which was a lot easier to see in the bright lights of her kitchen than in the bathroom at the Pink Kitty.

  “It’s your blood?” she asked.

  He shrugged, knowing where she was going with the question. She seemed to care more about the possibility of a stranger getting hepatitis from him than the fact that some stupid punk had nearly broken his nose.

  He asked, “Where’s the aspirin?”

  “All I have is Tylenol, and you shouldn’t take that until you know the results from your blood test.”

  “I’ve got a headache.”

  “You shouldn’t be drinking, either.”

  The remark only served to annoy him. Jeffrey wasn’t his father. He could certainly hold his liquor and one sip of a watered-down beer didn’t qualify as drinking.

  “Jeff.”

  “Just drop it, Sara.”

  She crossed her arms like an angry schoolteacher. “Why aren’t you taking this seriously?”

  The words came out before he anticipated the shitstorm they would kick up. “Why are you treating me like a fucking leper?”

  “You could be carrying a dangerous disease. Do you know what that means?”

  “Of course I know what it means,” he insisted, his body feeling slack all of a sudden, like he couldn’t take one more thing. How many times had they done this? How many arguments had they had in this same kitchen, both of them pushed to the edge? Jeffrey was always the one who brought them back, always the one to apologize, to make things better. He had been doing this all his life, from smoothing down his mother’s drunken tempers to stepping in front of his father’s fists. As a cop, he put himself in people’s business every day, absorbing their pain and their rage, their apprehension and fear. He couldn’t keep doing it. There had to be a time in his life when he got some peace.

  Sara kept lecturing him. “You have to be cautious until we get the results from the lab.”

  “This is just another excuse, Sara.”

  “An excuse for what?”

  “To push me away,” he told her, his voice rising. He knew he should take a step back and calm down, but he was unable to see past this moment. “It’s just another thing you’re using to keep me at arm’s length.”

  “I can’t believe you really think that.”

  “What if I have it?” he asked. Again, he said the first thing that came to his mind. “Are you never going to touch me again? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

  “We don’t know—”

  “My blood, my saliva. Everything will be contaminated.” He could hear himself yelling and didn’t care.

  “There are ways around—”

  “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you pulling away.”

  “Pulling away?”

  He gave a humorless laugh, so damn tired of this he didn’t even have the energy to raise his voice again. “You won’t even fucking tell me you love me. How do you think that makes me feel? How many times do I have to keep walking out on that tightrope before you let me come back in?”

  She wrapped her arms around her waist.

  “I know, Sara. And it’s not that many more times.” He looked out the window over the sink, his reflection staring back at him.

  At least a full minute passed before she spoke. “Is that really how you feel?”

  “It’s how I feel,” he told her, and he knew it was true. “I can’t keep spending all my time wondering whether or not you’re mad at me. I need to know . . .” He tried to finish, but found he didn’t have the energy. What was the point?

  It took some time, but her reflection joined his in the window. “You need to know what?”

  “I need to know you’re not going to leave me.”

  She turned on the faucet and took a paper towel off the roll. She said, “Take off your shirt.”

  “What?”

  She wet the towel. “You’ve got blood on your neck.”

  “You want me to get you some gloves?”

  She ignored the barb, lifting his shirt over his head, taking particular care not to bump his nose.

  “I don’t need your help,” he told her.

  “I know.” She rubbed his neck with the paper towel, scrubbing at the dried blood. He looked at the top of her head as she cleaned him. Blood had dried in a trail down to his sternum, and she wiped this up before tossing the towel into the trash can.

  She picked up the bottle of lotion she always kept by the sink and pumped some into the palm of her hand. “Your skin’s dry.”

  Her hands were cold when she touched him and he made a noise that sounded like a yelp.

  “Sorry,” she apologized, rubbing her hands together to warm them. She tentatively placed her fingers on his chest. “Okay?”

  He nodded, feeling better and wishing that she wasn’t the reason why. It was the same old back-and-forth, and he was letting himself get pulled back in.

  She continued to rub in the lotion in small circles, working her way out. She softened her touch, lingering around the pink scar on his shoulder. The wound had not completely healed yet, and he felt little electric tingles in the damaged skin.

  “I didn’t think you would make it,” she said, and he knew she was thinking back to the day he had been shot. “I put my hands inside of you, but I didn’t know if I could stop the bleeding.”

  “You saved my life.”

  “I could have lost you.”

  She kissed the scar, murmuring som
ething he couldn’t hear. She kept kissing him, her eyes closing. He felt his own eyes close as she kissed a slow pattern across his chest. After a while, she started to work her way down, unzipping his jeans. Jeffrey leaned back against the sink as she knelt in front of him. Her tongue was warm and firm as it traced the length of him, and he braced his hands on the countertop to keep his knees from buckling.

  His whole body shook from wanting her, but he forced himself to put his hands on her shoulders and pull her back to standing. “No,” he told her, thinking he’d rather die than risk giving her some awful disease. “No,” he repeated, even though he wanted nothing more than to bury himself inside her.

  She reached down, using her hand where her mouth had been. Jeffrey gasped as she cupped him with her other hand. He tried to hold back, but looking at her face only made it harder. Her eyes were barely open, a rush of red pinking her cheeks. She kept her mouth inches from his, teasing him with the promise of a kiss. He could feel her breath as she spoke, but again could not hear what she was saying. She started kissing him in earnest, her tongue so soft and gentle he could barely breathe. Her hands worked in tandem, and he nearly lost his restraint when she took his bottom lip between her teeth.

  “Sara,” he moaned.

  She kissed his face, his neck, his mouth, and he finally heard what she was saying. “I love you,” she whispered, stroking him until he could no longer hold back. “I love you.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Lena heard Jeffrey yelling through his closed office door as soon as she walked into the squad room. She lingered near the coffee machine by his office, but couldn’t make anything out.

  Frank joined her, holding out his mug for a top-up even though it was already full.

  She asked, “What’s going on?”

  “Marty Lam,” Frank said, shrugging. “Was he supposed to be sitting on that house last night?”

  “For Chip Donner?” Lena asked. Jeffrey had ordered a cruiser to wait outside Donner’s house in case he showed up. “Yeah. Why?”

  “Chief drove by on his way in this morning and nobody was there.”

  They both paused, trying to make out Jeffrey’s words as his tone rose.

  Frank said, “Chief is pretty pissed.”

  “You think?” Lena asked, her sarcasm thicker than the coffee.

  “Watch it,” Frank said. He had always thought that the almost thirty years he had on her should afford him some kind of deference.

  Lena changed the subject. “You get that credit report back on the family?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “From what I could tell, the farm’s running in the black.”

  “By a lot?”

  “Not much,” he said. “I’m trying to get a copy of their tax returns. It’s not gonna be easy. The farm’s privately held.”

  Lena stifled a yawn. She had slept about ten seconds last night. “What’d the shelters say about them?”

  “That we should all thank God every day there are people like that on the planet,” Frank said, but he didn’t look ready to bow his head.

  Jeffrey’s door banged open, and Marty Lam walked out like an inmate doing the death row shuffle. He had his hat in his hands and his eyes on the floor.

  “Frank,” Jeffrey said, walking over. She could tell he was still angry, and could only imagine the reaming he had given Marty. The fact that he had a bruise under his eye the color of a ripe pomegranate probably hadn’t done much to improve his disposition.

  He asked Frank, “Did you get in touch with that jewelry supply company?”

  “Got the list of customers who bought cyanide right here,” Frank said, taking a sheet of paper out of his pocket. “They sold the salts to two stores up in Macon, one down along Seventy-five. There’s a metal plater over in Augusta, too. Took three bottles so far this year.”

  “I know it’s a pain in the ass, but I want you to check them out personally. See if there’s any Jesus stuff around that might connect them to the church or to Abby. I’m going to talk to the family later on today and try to find out if she ever left town on her own.” He told Lena, “We didn’t get prints on the bottle of cyanide from Dale Stanley’s.”

  “None?” she asked.

  “Dale always used gloves when he handled it,” Jeffrey said. “Could be that’s the reason.”

  “Could be someone wiped it down.”

  He told her, “I want you to go talk to O’Ryan. Buddy Conford called a few minutes ago. He’s representing her.”

  She felt her nose wrinkle at the lawyer’s name. “Who hired him?”

  “Fuck if I know.”

  Lena asked, “He doesn’t mind if we talk to her?”

  Jeffrey was obviously not interested in being questioned. “Did I get it backward just then? You’re my boss now?” He didn’t let her answer. “Just get her in the fucking room before he shows up.”

  “Yes, sir,” Lena said, knowing better than to push him. Frank raised his eyebrows as Lena left and she shrugged, not knowing what to say. There was no deciphering Jeffrey’s mood over the last few days.

  She pushed open the fire door to the back part of the station. Marty Lam was at the water fountain, not drinking, and she nodded at him as she passed by. He looked like a deer caught in the headlights. She knew the feeling.

  Lena punched the code into the lockbox outside the holding cells and took out the keys. Patty O’Ryan was curled up on her bunk, her knees almost touching her chin. Even though she was still dressed, or rather half-dressed, in her stripper’s outfit from last night, she looked about twelve when she slept, an innocent tossed around by a cruel world.

  “O’Ryan!” Lena yelled, shaking the locked cell door. Metal banged against metal, and the girl was so startled she fell onto the floor.

  “Rise and shine,” Lena sang.

  “Shut up, you stupid bitch,” O’Ryan barked back, no longer looking twelve or innocent. She put her hands to her ears as Lena shook the door again for good measure. The girl was obviously hungover; the question was from what.

  “Get up,” Lena told her. “Turn around, put your hands behind your back.”

  She knew the drill, and barely flinched when Lena put the cuffs around her wrists. They were so thin and bony that Lena had to ratchet the locking teeth to the last notch. Girls like O’Ryan rarely ended up murdered. They were survivors. People like Abigail Bennett were the ones who needed to be looking over their shoulders.

  Lena opened the cell door, taking the girl by the arm as she led her down the hall. This close to her, Lena could smell the sweat and chemicals pouring out of her body. Her mousy brown hair hadn’t been washed in a while, and it hung in chunks down to her waist. As she moved, the hair shifted, and Lena saw a puncture mark on the inside of the girl’s left elbow.

  “You like meth?” Lena guessed. Like most small towns all over America, Grant had seen a thousandfold increase in meth trafficking over the last five years.

  “I know my rights,” she hissed. “You don’t have any call to keep me here.”

  “Obstructing justice, attacking an officer, resisting arrest,” Lena listed. “You want to pee in a cup for me? I’m sure we can come up with something else.”

  “Piss on you,” she said, spitting on the floor.

  “You’re a real lady, O’Ryan.”

  “And you’re a real cunt, you cocksucking bitch.”

  “Whoops,” Lena said, jerking the girl back by the arm so that she stumbled. O’Ryan gave a rewarding screech of pain. “In here,” Lena ordered, pushing the girl into an interrogation room.

  “Bitch,” O’Ryan hissed as Lena forced her down into the most uncomfortable chair in the police station.

  “Don’t try anything,” Lena warned, unlocking one of the cuffs and looping it through the ring Jeffrey had had welded to the table. The table was bolted to the floor, which had proven to be a good idea on more than one occasion.

  “You got no right to keep me here,” O’Ryan said. “Chip didn’t do nothing.”

&nbsp
; “Then why’d he run?”

  “Because he knows you fuckers were gonna bang him up no matter what.”

  “How old are you?” Lena asked, sitting down across from her.

  She tilted her chin up in defiance, saying, “Twenty-one,” pretty much assuring Lena she was underage.

  Lena told her, “You’re not helping yourself here.”

  “I want a lawyer.”

  “You’ve got one on the way.”

  This took her by surprise. “Who?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “Fuck,” she spat, her expression turning into a little girl’s again.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t want a lawyer.”

  Lena sighed. There was nothing wrong with this girl that a good slapping wouldn’t fix. “Why is that?”

  “I just don’t,” she said. “Take me to jail. Charge me. Do whatever you want to do.” She licked her lips coyly, giving Lena a once-over. “There something else you want to do?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself.”

  When the sexual offer didn’t work, she turned back into the frightened little girl. Crocodile tears dribbled down her cheeks. “Just process me. I don’t have anything to say.”

  “We’ve got some questions.”

  “Go fuck yourself with your questions,” she said. “I know my rights. I don’t have to say jack shit to you and you can’t make me.” Minus the expletives, she sounded very much like Albert, the owner of the Pink Kitty, when Jeffrey had asked him to come down to the station last night. Lena hated when people knew their rights. It made her job a hell of a lot harder.

  Lena leaned across the table, saying, “Patty, you’re not helping yourself.”

  “Fuck you with your helping myself. I can help myself fine just shutting the fuck up.”

  Spittle dotted the table, and Lena sat back, wondering what events had brought Patty O’Ryan to this kind of life. At some point, she had been someone’s daughter, someone’s friend. Now she was like a leech, looking out for no one but herself.

  Lena said, “Patty, you’re not going anywhere. I can sit here all day.”