Criminal

  The front doors slammed open. Rick Landry and Butch Bonnie walked into the hallway. Both men scowled when they saw Amanda and Evelyn.

  “Finally,” Bennett mumbled.

  Landry was visibly furious. He stomped forward, demanding, “What the hell are you two slits doing here?”

  Amanda was standing beside Evelyn. It didn’t take much to get in front of her, blocking Landry in the process. “We’re investigating our case.”

  Landry didn’t bother responding to her statement. He turned, his shoulder bumping into Amanda’s so hard that she had to step back. “Hank Bennett?”

  Bennett nodded. “Are you in charge?”

  “Yes,” Landry said. “We are.” He crowded out Amanda, forcing her to step back again as he inserted himself between her and Bennett. “I’m sorry about your loss, sir.”

  Bennett waved his hand, as if it was nothing. “I lost my sister a long time ago.” Again, he checked his watch. “Can we get this over with? I’m late for supper.”

  Landry walked him down the hallway. Butch took up the rear. He glanced back at Amanda and Evelyn. He gave Amanda an unwelcome wink. She waited until they disappeared behind the door.

  Evelyn hissed out air between her teeth. She put her hand to her chest. She was shaking.

  “Come on.” Amanda grabbed Evelyn’s hand. The other woman was resistant. Amanda had to pull her down the hallway. She pushed ajar the door to the lab just as the three men were walking into the morgue.

  Amanda waited until they were inside before opening the door. She kept her knees bent, as if she was sneaking around. The curtains on the large picture window were still drawn.

  Evelyn whispered, “Amanda—”

  “Shh,” Amanda shot back. Carefully, she parted the drapes a few inches. Evelyn joined her as they peered through the window.

  Pete Hanson stood with his back to the far wall. His arms were crossed. He’d struck Amanda as a very easygoing fellow, but there was something in his posture that indicated he was very unhappy.

  Landry and Butch had their backs to the window. Hank Bennett stood opposite, the dead girl between them. He was looking down at the victim’s face.

  Apparently, Evelyn was, too. She whispered, “That’s Jane Delray,” at the same moment Hank Bennett said, “Yes, that’s my sister.”

  eleven

  April 15, 1975

  LUCY BENNETT

  There was another girl in the next room. The old one was gone. She hadn’t been bad, but this one was awful. Constantly crying. Sobbing. Begging. Pleading.

  She sure as hell wasn’t moving. Lucy could guarantee that. None of them moved. The pain was too excruciating. Too unspeakable. It took your breath away. It blacked you out.

  At first, it was impossible not to try. Claustrophobia took over. The unreasonable fear of suffocation. It started in the legs like the cramps from withdrawal. Your toes curled. Your muscles ached to contract. It worked its way through your body like a violent storm.

  Last month, a tornado had hit the Governor’s Mansion. It started in Perry Homes, but no one cared about that. The Governor’s Mansion was different. It was a symbol, meant to show businessmen and visiting dignitaries that Georgia was the heart of the New South.

  The tornado had other ideas.

  The roof had been torn off. The grounds damaged. Governor Busbee said that he was saddened by the destruction. Lucy had heard him say so on the news. It was a special bulletin cut between the replay of the top-forty countdown. Linda Ronstadt’s “When Will I Be Loved,” then the governor saying they were going to rebuild. A phoenix rising from the ashes. Hopeful. Certain.

  Back when it got really cold, the man had started to let Lucy listen to the transistor radio. He kept it turned down low so the other girls couldn’t hear. Or maybe he kept it low special for Lucy. She would listen to the news, tales of the whole wide world spinning by. She would close her eyes and feel the ground moving underneath her.

  Lucy didn’t like to think too much about it, but she could tell she was his favorite. It reminded her of the games she and Jill Henderson used to play in elementary school. Jill was good with her hands. She’d take a sheet of notebook paper and fold it into triangles. What was it called?

  Lucy tried to think. It didn’t help that the other girl was sobbing so hard. She wasn’t loud, but she was consistent, like a kitten mewing.

  Cootie Catchers. That was it.

  Jill would slide her fingertips into the folded sections. There were words written on the inside. You asked who liked you. Who was going to marry you. Were you going to be happy? Were you going to have one kid or two?

  Yes. No. Maybe. Keith. John. Bobby.

  It wasn’t just the radio that made Lucy feel special. The man spent more time with her. He was gentler with her than he was before—than he was with the other girls, because Lucy could hear it.

  How many other girls had there been? Two, three? All weak. All familiar.

  The new girl in the other room should stop fighting back. She should just give in and he would make it all better. Otherwise, she would end up like the girl before. And the one before that. Nothing would get better. Nothing would change.

  Things had changed for Lucy. Instead of the pieces of Vienna sausage and stale bread he’d shoved between her teeth in the early days, he was letting her feed herself. She sat on the bed and ate McDonald’s hamburgers and french fries. He would sit in the chair, knife in his lap, watching her chew.

  Was it Lucy’s imagination, or was her body healing itself? She was sleeping more deeply now. Those first weeks—months?—she’d had nothing to do but sleep, but back then, every time she found herself nodding off, she’d jerk awake in panic. Now, oftentimes when he came into the room, he had to wake her.

  Gentle nudge of the shoulder. Stroke along the cheek. The warm feel of the washcloth. The careful tending of her body. He cleaned her. He prayed over her. He made her whole.

  Back on Juice’s corner, the girls would trade stories about the bad johns out there. Who to watch out for. Who you would never see coming. There was the one who stuck a knife in your face. The one who tried to put his whole fist inside you. The one who wore a diaper. The one who wanted to paint your fingernails.

  In the scheme of things, was this guy really that bad?

  twelve

  present day

  TUESDAY

  The morning sun was just winking open its eye when Will raked back the passenger’s seat in Faith’s Mini. A body had been found, probably the missing Georgia Tech student, and he was wasting time adjusting knobs on a clown car so that his head wouldn’t press against the roof.

  Faith waited until he was putting on his seatbelt to speak. “You look awful.”

  Will glanced at her. She was wearing her GBI regs: khaki pants, navy blue shirt, and her Glock strapped to her thigh. “Thank you.”

  Faith backed the car down the driveway. The wheels bumped over the curb. She didn’t say anything else, which was unusual. Faith tended to chat. She tended to pry. For some reason, she was doing neither this morning. Will should’ve been worried about this, but there were only so many burdens he could take on at once. His useless night in the basement. His argument with Sara. The fact that his father was out of prison. Whatever Amanda was hiding from him. That there was a dead body at Techwood. That he had kissed his wife.

  Will put his fingers to his mouth again. He’d wiped off Angie’s lipstick with a paper towel, but he could still taste the bitter chemical residue.

  Faith said, “There’s an accident on this side of North Avenue. Do you mind if I take the long way through Ansley?”

  Will shook his head.

  “Did you not get any sleep last night?”

  “Off and on.”

  “You missed a place on your—” She touched the side of her cheek. When Will didn’t respond, she flipped down the visor in front of him.

  Will stared at his reflection in the mirror. There was a small strip of beard he’d missed with the razor
this morning. He looked at his eyes. They were bloodshot. No wonder people kept telling him he looked bad.

  “This Techwood murder,” Faith began. “Donnelly was the first responder.”

  Will flipped up the visor. Detective Leo Donnelly had been Faith’s partner when she worked homicide with the APD. He was slightly annoying, but his greater sin was mediocrity. “Have you talked to him?”

  “No. Just Amanda.” She paused, as if to give Will the opportunity to ask what Amanda had said. After a few silent seconds, she told him, “I know about your father.”

  Will stared out the window. Faith had taken more than the long way. There were better routes to bypass North Avenue on the way to Techwood. She had navigated the back roads to Monroe Drive. They were skirting Piedmont Park and heading toward Ansley. It was six o’clock in the morning. There was no accident on North.

  She said, “Mama told me last night. She needed me to make a phone call.”

  Will watched the houses and apartment buildings go by. They passed the vet’s office where Betty got her shots.

  “There’s a guy I used to date way back when. I think you met him once. Sam Lawson. He’s a reporter for the AJC.”

  The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Will didn’t want to think about the why behind Evelyn Mitchell’s request. He assumed Amanda was making some kind of Machiavellian move, trying to get ahead of whatever the paper was going to print. Sara read the AJC every morning. She was the only person Will knew who still got the paper delivered. Was this how Sara was going to find out? Will could imagine the phone call. If she called. Maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe Sara would see this as an easy opportunity to get out of whatever they had started.

  Faith said, “That’s how Amanda found out about your father’s parole.” She paused, again anticipating a response. “Sam called her office and asked for a quote. He wanted to know how she felt about him getting out.” Faith stopped at the red light. “He’s not going to run the story. I fed him some details on a biker gang APD busted for running crank out of a charter school. It’s a front-page story. Sam won’t circle back.”

  Will stared at the darkened strip of Ansley Mall. The upscale stores weren’t open yet. Their lights glowed in the low dawn. He felt a strange sensation, like he was being driven to the hospital for surgery. Some part of his body would be removed. He would have to recover from that. He would have to find a way to acclimate his senses so they did not feel the gaping hole.

  Faith asked, “What did you do to your hands?”

  Will tried to bend his fingers. It hurt just flexing them. His ankle throbbed with every beat of his heart. His basement excursion was being felt by every joint in his body.

  “Anyway.” Faith swung through the steep curve that took them up Fourteenth Street. “I looked up his case.”

  Will was more than familiar with his father’s crimes.

  “He dodged a bullet. Furman v. Georgia was in the early seventies.”

  “Seventy-two,” Will provided. The landmark Supreme Court case had temporarily suspended the death penalty. A few more years either side and Will’s father would’ve been put to death by the State of Georgia.

  He said, “Gary Gilmore was the first man executed after Furman.”

  “Spree killer, right? Up in Utah?” Faith loved reading about mass murderers. It was an unfortunate hobby that often came in handy.

  Will asked, “Is it a spree if it’s only two people?”

  “I think two qualifies so long as the timing is close.”

  “I thought that it had to be three.”

  “I think that’s just for serial killers.” Faith took out her iPhone. She typed with her thumb as she waited to make an illegal turn onto Peachtree.

  Will stared up Fourteenth Street. He couldn’t see the hotel from his vantage point, but he knew that the Four Seasons was two blocks away. That was probably why Faith was making the turn. She knew that his father was staying at the hotel. Will wondered if he was still in bed. The man had been in prison for over thirty years. It was probably impossible for him to sleep late. Maybe he’d already ordered his breakfast from room service. Angie said he used the gym every morning. He was probably running on the treadmill, watching one of the morning shows and planning his day.

  “Here we go. Two or more qualifies as a spree.” Faith dropped her iPhone back into the cup holder and turned against the light. “Can we talk about your father now?”

  Will said, “Did you know that Peachtree Street is Georgia’s continental divide?” He pointed to the side of the road. “Rain that falls on that side of the road goes to the Atlantic. Rain on this side goes to the Gulf. Maybe I’ve got the sides mixed up, but you get the gist.”

  “That’s fascinating, Will.”

  “I kissed Angie.”

  Faith nearly ran up onto the sidewalk. She jerked the car back into the lane. She was silent for a while before she muttered, “You fucking idiot.”

  That felt more like it.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know.” He stared out the window again. They were heading toward the thick of downtown. “I think I have to tell Sara.”

  “No, you most certainly do not,” she countered. “Are you crazy? She’ll kick your ass to the curb.”

  She probably should. There was no way that Will could explain to Sara that the oldest cliché in the world happened to be true this one time: the kiss meant nothing. For Will’s part, it had been a reminder that Sara was the only woman he wanted to be with; maybe the first woman he’d ever really wanted to be with. For Angie’s part, the kiss had been tantamount to a dog raising its leg on a fire hydrant.

  Faith asked, “Do you want to be with Angie?”

  “No.” He shook his head. “No.”

  “Was there anything else?”

  Will remembered he’d touched her breast. “Not—” He wasn’t going to get into specifics with Faith. “There was no contact between—”

  “Okay, I get it.” She turned onto North Avenue. “Jesus, Will.”

  He waited for her to continue.

  “You can’t tell Sara.”

  “I can’t hide things from her.”

  She laughed so loud his ears hurt. “Are you kidding me? Does Sara know about your father? Does she know that he—”

  “No.”

  Faith did not bother to hide her incredulity. “Well then, don’t let this be the one thing you tell her the truth about.”

  “It’s different.”

  “Do you think Angie will tell her?”

  Will shook his head. Angie’s moral code wasn’t easily decipherable, but Will knew she would never tell Sara about the kiss. It was much better to use it to torture Will.

  Faith cut straight to the point. “If it’s not going to happen again and it didn’t mean anything, then you’re just going to have to live with the guilt. Or live without Sara.”

  Will couldn’t talk about this anymore. He stared out the window again. They were stopped at a red light. The lights were on at the Varsity. In a few hours, the curb men would be out sweeping the lot, slapping numbers on cars and taking orders. Mrs. Flannigan used to bring the older kids to the Varsity once a month. It was a reward for good behavior.

  Faith asked, “Have you ever tried to talk to the detectives who worked your mother’s case?”

  “One disappeared. Somebody thought he moved to Miami. The other died from AIDS in the early eighties.”

  “Did either of them have family?”

  “No one I could find.” Honestly, Will hadn’t looked that hard. It was like picking at a scab. There came a point when you started to draw blood.

  “I can’t believe how many conversations I’ve had with you over the last two years, and you never told me about this.”

  Will left her to wonder why on her own.

  Faith crossed the interstate. The athlete dorms that had been built for the Olympics had the Georgia Tech logo on them now. The old stadium was being remodeled. The streets were freshly p
aved. Brick inlays carpeted the sidewalks. Even this early in the morning, students were out jogging. Faith turned at the next light. She was more than familiar with the area. Her son was currently enrolled at Georgia Tech. Her mother had gotten her doctorate here. Faith had finished her four-year degree at the university so she could qualify for employment with the GBI.

  Faith slid a piece of notebook paper out from her visor. Will saw that she’d scribbled directions on it. She slowed the car, mumbling, “Centennial Park North … here we go.” Finally, she turned onto a side street, downshifting as they went up a hill. The area was filled with upscale brick apartment buildings and townhouses. The cars on the street were nice—newer Toyotas and Fords with an occasional BMW thrown in. The grass was trimmed. The eaves and windows were painted a crisp white. Satellite dishes dotted every other balcony. The compound was designed to be mixed income, which meant a handful of poor people lived in the less desirable units and the rest went for top dollar. Will imagined that some of the betteroff students lived here rather than the dorms, where Faith’s son resided.

  “Zell Miller Center,” Faith read from the sign. “Clark Howell Community Building. Here we go.” She slowed the car to a crawl. The directions weren’t really needed anymore. Two cruisers blocked the street. Police tape cordoned off a group of residents. Most were in pajamas and robes. A few of the joggers had stopped to find out what was happening.

  Faith had to drive down several blocks to find a space. She pulled up onto a berm and jerked up the parking brake. She asked Will, “Are you okay?”

  He was going to ignore the question, but that didn’t seem fair. “We’ll see,” he managed, then got out of the car before she could say anything else.

  The streetlights were still on, supplementing the rising sun. Two newscopters hovered overhead. Their whirring blades chopped the air into white noise. More reporters were camped out down the road. Cameras were set up on tripods. Reporters were checking their makeup, scribbling their notes.