Faithless

  “Where’s here?”

  “I guess that’s up to you.”

  She sniffed, covering her face with her hands, letting out a long breath of air. When she looked back up at him, he could tell she wanted to cry but wouldn’t let herself.

  Jeffrey stared down at his hand, picking at the tape on the bandage.

  “Don’t mess with that,” she told him, putting her hand over his. She left it there, and he could feel her warmth penetrating through the bandage. He looked at her long, graceful fingers, the blue veins on the back of her hand making an intricate map underneath her pale white skin. He traced his fingers along hers, wondering how in the world he had ever been stupid enough to take her for granted.

  “I kept thinking about that girl,” he said. “She looks a lot like—”

  “Wendy,” she finished. Wendy was the name of the little girl he’d shot and killed.

  He laid his other hand flat over hers, wanting to talk about anything but the shooting. “What time are you going to Macon?”

  She looked at his watch. “Carlos is going to meet me at the morgue in half an hour.”

  “It’s weird they could both smell the cyanide,” Jeffrey said. “Lena’s grandmother was from Mexico. Carlos is Mexican. Is there some connection?”

  “Not that I know of.” She was watching him carefully, reading him like a book.

  He slid down off the table, saying, “I’m okay.”

  “I know.” She asked, “What about the baby?”

  “There has to be a father out there somewhere.” Jeffrey knew that if they ever found the man, they would be taking a hard look at him for the murder.

  Sara pointed out, “A pregnant woman is more likely to die as a result of homicide than any other factor.” She went to the sink to wash her hands, a troubled look on her face.

  He said, “Cyanide isn’t just lying around on the shelves at the grocery store. Where would I get it if I wanted to kill somebody?”

  “Some over-the-counter products have it.” She turned off the sink and dried her hands with a paper towel. “There have been several pediatric fatalities involving nail glue removers.”

  “That has cyanide in it?”

  “Yes,” Sara answered, tossing the towel into the trash. “I checked it out in a couple of books when I couldn’t sleep last night.”

  “And?”

  She rested her hand on the exam table. “Natural sources are found in most fruits with pits— peaches, apricots, cherries. You’d need a lot of them, so it’s not very practical. Different industries use cyanide, some medical labs.”

  “What kinds of industries?” he asked. “Do you think the college might have some?”

  “It’s likely,” she told him, and he made a note to find out for himself. Grant Tech was primarily an agricultural school, and they performed all sorts of experiments at the behest of the large chemical companies who were looking for the next big thing to make tomatoes grow faster or peas grow greener.

  Sara provided, “It’s also a case hardener in metal plating. Some laboratories keep it around for controls. Sometimes it’s used for fumigation. It’s in cigarette smoke. Hydrogen cyanide is created by burning wool or various types of plastics.”

  “It’d be pretty hard to direct smoke down a pipe.”

  “He’d have to wear a mask, too, but you’re right. There are better ways to do it.”

  “Like?”

  “It needs an acid to activate. Mix cyanide salts with a household vinegar, and you could kill an elephant.”

  “Isn’t that what Hitler used in the camps? Salts?”

  “I think so,” she said, rubbing her arms with her hands.

  “If a gas was used,” Jeffrey thought out loud, “then we would’ve been in danger when we opened the box.”

  “It could’ve dissipated. Or been absorbed into the wood and soil.”

  “Could she have gotten the cyanide through ground contamination?”

  “That’s a pretty active state park. Joggers go through there all the time. I doubt anyone could’ve sneaked in a bunch of toxic waste without someone noticing and making a fuss.”

  “Still?”

  “Still,” she agreed. “Someone had time to bury her there. Anything’s possible.”

  “How would you do it?”

  Sara thought it through. “I would mix the salts in water,” she said. “Pour it down the pipe. She would obviously have her mouth close by so that she could get air. As soon as the salts hit her stomach, the acid would activate the poison. She would be dead in minutes.”

  “There’s a metal plater on the edge of town,” Jeffrey said. “He does gold leafing, that sort of thing.”

  Sara supplied, “Dale Stanley.”

  “Pat Stanley’s brother?” Jeffrey asked. Pat was one of his best patrolmen.

  “That was his wife you saw coming in.”

  “What’s wrong with her kid?”

  “Bacterial infection. Their oldest came in about three months ago with the worst asthma I’ve seen in a long time. He’s been in and out of the hospital with it.”

  “She looked pretty sick herself.”

  “I don’t see how she’s holding up,” Sara admitted. “She won’t let me treat her.”

  “You think something’s wrong with her?”

  “I think she’s ready for a nervous breakdown.”

  Jeffrey let this sink in. “I guess I should pay them a visit.”

  “It’s a horrible death, Jeffrey. Cyanide is a chemical asphyxiant. It takes all of the oxygen from the blood until there’s nothing left. She knew what was happening. Her heart must have been pumping ninety miles an hour.” Sara shook her head, as if she wanted to clear the image away.

  “How long do you think it took her to die?”

  “It depends on how she ingested the poison, what form was administered. Anywhere from two to five minutes. I have to think it was fairly quick. She doesn’t show any of the classic signs of prolonged cyanide poisoning.”

  “Which are?”

  “Severe diarrhea, vomiting, seizures, syncope. Basically, the body does everything it can to get rid of the poison as quickly as possible.”

  “Can it? On its own, I mean.”

  “Usually not. It’s extremely toxic. There are about ten different things you can try in the ER, from charcoal to amyl nitrate— poppers— but really, all you can do is treat symptoms as they occur and hope for the best. It’s incredibly fast-acting and almost always fatal.”

  Jeffrey had to ask, “But you think it happened fast?”

  “I hope so.”

  “I want you to take this,” he said, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out the cell phone.

  She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t want that thing.”

  “I like knowing where you are.”

  “You know where I’m going to be,” she told him. “With Carlos, then in Macon, then back here.”

  “What if they find something during the autopsy?”

  “Then I’ll pick up one of the ten telephones at the lab and call you.”

  “What if I forget the words to ‘Karma Chameleon’?”

  She gave him a nasty look, and he laughed. “I love it when you sing to me.”

  “That’s not why I don’t want it.”

  He put the phone beside her on the table. “I guess asking you to do it for my sake wouldn’t change your mind?”

  She stared at him for a second, then walked out of the exam room. He was still wondering if he was expected to follow her when she returned with a book in her hand.

  She said, “I don’t know whether to throw this at your head or give it to you.”

  “What is it?”

  “I ordered it a few months ago,” she told him. “It came last week. I was going to give it to you when you finally moved in.” She held it up so he could read the title on the maroon slipcase. “Kantor’s Andersonville,” she said, adding, “It’s a first edition.”

  He stared at the book, his mouth
opening and closing a few times before words would come out. “It must have cost a fortune.”

  She gave him a wry look as she handed him the novel. “I thought you were worth it at the time.”

  He slid the book out of the paper case, feeling like he was holding the Holy Grail. The buckram was blue and white, the pages slightly faded at the edges. Carefully, he opened it to the title page. “It’s signed. MacKinlay Kantor signed it.”

  She half shrugged, acting as if it wasn’t a big deal. “I know you like the book, and . . .”

  “I can’t believe you did this,” Jeffrey managed, feeling like he couldn’t swallow. “I can’t believe it.”

  When he was a kid, Miss Fleming, one of his English teachers, had given him the book to read during after-school detention. Jeffrey had been a general fuckup until then, pretty much resigned to the fact that his career choices were limited to mechanic or factory worker or worse, a petty thief like his old man, but the story had opened something up inside him, something that wanted to learn. The book had changed his life.

  A psychiatrist would probably say there was a connection between Jeffrey’s fascination with one of the Confederacy’s most notorious Civil War prisons and his being a cop, but Jeffrey liked to think that what Andersonville gave him was a sense of empathy that he’d lacked until that point. Before Jeffrey had moved to Grant County and taken the job as police chief, he had gone to Sumter County, Georgia, to see the place for himself. He could still remember the chill he got standing just inside the stockade at Fort Sumter. Over thirteen thousand prisoners had died in the four years the prison was open. He had stood there until the sun went down and there was nothing more to see.

  Sara asked, “Do you like it?”

  All he could say was, “It’s beautiful.” He ran his thumb along the gilt spine. Kantor had gotten the Pulitzer for this book. Jeffrey had gotten a life.

  “Anyway,” Sara said. “I thought you’d like it.”

  “I do.” He tried to think of something profound to tell her that would help convey his gratitude, but instead found himself asking, “Why are you giving it to me now?”

  “Because you should have it.”

  He was only half-kidding when he asked, “As a going-away present?”

  She licked her lips, taking her time responding. “Just because you should have it.”

  From the front of the building, a man’s voice called, “Chief?”

  “Brad,” Sara said. She stepped into the hall, answering, “Back here,” before Jeffrey could say anything else.

  Brad opened the door, his hat in one hand, a cell phone in the other. He told Jeffrey, “You left your phone at the station.”

  Jeffrey let his irritation show. “You came all the way over here to tell me that?”

  “N-no, sir,” he stammered. “I mean, yes, sir, but also, we just got a call in.” He paused for a breath. “Missing person. Twenty-one years old, brown hair, brown eyes. Last seen ten days ago.”

  He heard Sara whisper, “Bingo.”

  Jeffrey grabbed his coat and the book. He handed the cell phone to Sara, saying, “Call me as soon as you know something on the autopsy.” Before she could object, he asked Brad, “Where’s Lena?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Lena wanted to run, but in Atlanta, they had told her to give it a couple of weeks before doing anything jarring. This morning, she had stayed in bed as long as she could, pretending to sleep in until Nan left for work, then slipping out for a walk a few minutes later. She had wanted time to think about what she had seen on the dead girl’s X-ray. The baby had been as big as her two fists put together, the same size as the baby they had taken from her womb.

  As she walked down the street, Lena found herself wondering about the other woman in the clinic, the furtive looks they had given each other, the guilty way the woman had slumped into her chair, as if she wanted to disappear into nothing. Lena wondered how far along she had been, what had brought her to the clinic. She had heard stories about women who got abortions instead of worrying about birth control, but could not believe that anyone would willingly put themselves through such an ordeal more than once. Even after a week had passed, Lena couldn’t close her eyes without her mind’s eye conjuring up a twisted image of the fetus. The things she imagined in her head were surely worse than what was actually done.

  The one thing she was grateful for was that she didn’t have to sit through the autopsy that was going to happen today. She didn’t want a concrete image of what her own baby had looked like before. She just wanted to get on with her life, and right now, that meant dealing with Ethan.

  Last night, he had tracked her down at home after badgering her whereabouts out of Hank. Lena had told him the truth about her return, that Jeffrey had called her back into town, and laid the foundation for not seeing him much over the next few weeks by saying that she had to devote all of her attention to the case. Ethan was smart, probably smarter than Lena in a lot of ways, and whenever he sensed her pulling away, he always said the right thing to make her feel like she had a choice in the matter. Over the phone, his voice had been as smooth as silk as he’d told her to do what she had to do, and to call him when she got the chance. She wondered how far she could press that, how much slack was in the rope he had around her neck. Why was she so weak where he was concerned? When did he get all this power over her? She had to do something to get him out of her life. There had to be a better way to live than this.

  Lena turned down Sanders Street, tucking her hands into her jacket pockets as a blast of cold air ruffled the leaves. Fifteen years ago, she had joined the Grant County police force so that she could be near her sister. Sibyl had worked at the college in the science department, where she’d had a very promising career until her life was cut short. Lena couldn’t say the same for her own job opportunities. She had taken what was now being politely called a hiatus from the force several months ago, working at the college for a stretch before deciding to get her life back on track. Jeffrey had been very generous letting Lena have her old job back, but she knew that some of the other cops were resentful.

  She couldn’t blame them. From the outside, it must look like Lena had it fairly easy. Living it all from the inside, she knew better. Almost three years had passed since she had been raped. Her hands and feet still had deep scars where her attacker had nailed her to the floor. The real pain only began after she was released.

  Somehow, it was getting easier, though. She could walk into an empty room now without feeling the hair on the back of her neck bristle. Staying in the house by herself was no longer a source of panic. Sometimes, she would wake up and get through half the morning without remembering what had happened.

  She had to admit that Nan Thomas was one of the reasons her life was getting easier. When Sibyl had first introduced them, Lena had hated the other woman on sight. It wasn’t as if Sibyl hadn’t had other lovers before, but there was something permanent about Nan. Lena had even stopped talking to her sister for a while after the two women moved in together. As with so many other things, Lena regretted that now, and Sibyl wasn’t around to hear the apology. Lena supposed she could apologize to Nan, but whenever the thought struck her, the words wouldn’t come.

  Living with Nan was like trying to learn the lyrics of a familiar song. You started out telling yourself that this was the time you were really going to pay attention, hear every last word, but three lines in you’d forget the plan and just settle into the familiar rhythm of the music. After six months of sharing a house together, Lena knew little more than surface things about the librarian. Nan loved animals despite severe allergies, liked to crochet and spent every Friday and Saturday night reading. She sang in the shower and in the morning before work she drank green tea out of a blue mug that had belonged to Sibyl. Her thick glasses were always smudged with fingerprints but she was incredibly fastidious about her clothes, even if her dresses tended to run to colors better suited to Easter eggs than a grown woman of thirty-six. Like Lena and S
ibyl, Nan’s father had been a cop. He was still around, but Lena had never met him or even heard him call on the phone. As a matter of fact, the only time the phone rang in the house, it was usually Ethan calling for Lena.

  Nan’s brown Corolla was parked behind Lena’s Celica when she walked up the driveway to the house. Lena glanced at her watch, wondering how long she had been walking. Jeffrey had given her the morning off to make up for yesterday, and she had looked forward to spending some time alone. Nan usually came home for lunch, but it was barely past nine o’clock.

  Lena grabbed the Grant Observer off the lawn and scanned the headlines as she walked toward the front door. Someone’s toaster had caught fire Saturday night and the fire department had been called. Two students at Robert E. Lee High had placed second and fifth at a state math competition. There was no mention of the missing girl found in the woods. Probably the paper had been put to bed before Jeffrey and Sara had stumbled across the burial site. Lena was sure there would be a huge story on the front page tomorrow. Maybe the newspaper could help them find the girl’s family.

  She opened the door, reading about the toaster fire, wondering why it had taken sixteen volunteer firemen to put it out. Sensing a change in the room, she looked up, shocked to see Nan sitting in a chair across from Greg Mitchell, Lena’s old boyfriend. They had lived together for three years before Greg decided he’d had enough of her temper. He had packed all his stuff and left while she was at work— a cowardly yet in retrospect understandable move— leaving a brief note stuck to the fridge. So brief that she could remember every word. “I love you but I can’t take it anymore. Greg.”

  They had talked to each other a total of two times in the almost seven years since then, both conversations taking place on the telephone and both ending with Lena slamming down the receiver before Greg could say anything more than, “It’s me.”

  “Lee,” Nan practically screamed, standing up quickly, as if she had been caught.

  “Hey,” Lena managed, her throat clenching around the word. She had put the newspaper to her chest as if she needed some kind of protection. Maybe she did.