Genesis (21 page)

Judith filled their stunned silence. "Surely you know this already.
We told the other policeman all about it."

T
HE DRIVE TO THE ROCKDALE COUNTY POLICE STATION WAS
a blur that Faith filled with every expletive she could think of.

"I knew that jackass was lying to me," she said, cursing Max
Galloway and the entire Rockdale police force. "You should've seen
that smug way he looked at me when he left the hospital." She
slammed her palm into the steering wheel, wishing she were slamming
it into Galloway's Adam's apple. "Do they think this is some
kind of game? Didn't they see what was done to that woman? For the
love of God."

Beside her, Will remained silent. As usual, she had no idea what
was going through his mind. He'd been quiet the entire trip, and did
not speak until she pulled into the visitors' parking lot in front of the
Rockdale County police station.

He asked, "Are you finished being mad?"

"Hell, no, I'm not finished. They lied to us. They haven't even
faxed us the damn crime-scene report. How the hell can we work a
case when they're holding back information that could—"

"Think about why they did it," Will countered. "One woman is
dead, the other's just as good as, and they're still hiding evidence
from us. They don't care about the people involved, Faith. All they
care about is their egos, and showing us up. They're leaking information
to the press, they're refusing to cooperate. You think us going in
there with guns blazing is going to get us what we want?"

Faith opened her mouth to answer, but Will was already getting
out of the car. He walked around to the driver's side and opened her
door like they were on a date.

He told her, "Trust me on this one thing, Faith. You can't push a
string."

She waved his hand away. "I'm not going to eat shit from Max
Galloway."

"I'll eat it," he assured her, holding out his hand like she needed
help getting out of the car.

Faith grabbed her purse from the back seat. She followed him up
the sidewalk, thinking it was no wonder everyone who met Will
Trent took him for a certified public accountant. She could not
fathom the man's meagerness of ego. In the year she had worked
with him, the strongest emotion she'd seen Will display was irritation,
usually at her. He could be moody or wistful and God knew he
could beat himself up about a lot of things, but she'd never seen him
truly angry. He'd once been alone in a room with a suspect who had
just hours before tried to put a bullet in his head, and the only feeling
Will had shown was empathy.

The uniformed patrolman behind the front counter obviously
recognized Will. His lip went up into a sneer. "Trent."

"Detective Fierro," Will replied, though the man was obviously
no longer a detective. His sizable stomach pressed against the buttons
of his patrol uniform like the filling oozing out of a jelly doughnut.
Considering what Fierro had said to Amanda about greasing Lyle
Peterson's pole, Faith was surprised the man wasn't using a wheelchair.

Fierro said, "I should've put that board back over your head and
left you in that cave."

"I'm really glad you didn't." Will indicated Faith. "This is my
partner, Special Agent Mitchell. We need to speak with Detective
Max Galloway."

"About what?"

Faith was over the niceties. She opened her mouth to blast him,
but Will cut her off with a look.

He said, "Maybe we could talk to Chief Peterson if Detective
Galloway isn't available."

Faith added, "Or we could talk to your buddy Sam Lawson at the
Atlanta Beacon
and tell him those stories you've been feeding him are
just your way of covering your fat ass for all the mistakes you've
made in this case."

"You are some kind of bitch, lady."

"I haven't even started," Faith told him. " Get Galloway out here
right now before we put our boss on this. She already took your
shield. What do you think she's going to take next? My guess is your
little—"

"Faith," Will said, more a warning than a word.

Fierro picked up the phone, punched in an extension. "Max, you
got a couple'a cocksuckers wanna talk to you." He dropped the
phone back into the cradle. "Down the hall, take your first right, first
room on the left."

Faith led the way because Will would not know how to. The station
was the usual 1960s government building with plenty of glass
block and very poor ventilation. The walls were lined with commendations,
photographs of police officers at city barbecues and fundraisers.
As instructed, she took a right and stopped in front of the first
door on the left.

Faith read the sign on the door. "Asshole," she breathed. He'd sent
them to an interrogation room.

Will leaned across and opened the door. She saw him register the
table bolted to the floor, the bars running along the sides so that suspects
could be cuffed down while they were interviewed. All he said
was, "Ours is more homey."

There were two chairs, one on either side of the table. Faith threw
her purse in the one with its back to the two-way mirror, crossing
her arms, not wanting to be sitting when Galloway entered the
room. "This is bullshit. We should get Amanda involved in this. She
wouldn't put up with this goat roping."

Will leaned against the wall, tucked his hands into his pockets. "If
we get Amanda in on this, then they've got absolutely nothing to
lose. Let them save a little face by jerking us around. What does it
matter, if we get the information we need?"

She glanced at the two-way mirror, wondering if there was a peanut
gallery. "I'm filing a formal report when this is over. Obstruction
of justice, impeding an active case, lying to a police officer. They
bumped that fat fuck Fierro back to uniform. Galloway's gonna be
lucky if he gets to be county dog catcher."

Down the hall, she heard a door open, then click closed. Seconds
later, Galloway stood in the doorway, looking every bit the ignorant
hick he had the night before.

"I heard you wanted to talk to me."

Faith told him, "We just talked to the Coldfields."

Galloway nodded at Will, who returned the gesture, his back still
against the wall.

Faith demanded, "Is there a reason you didn't tell me about the
other car last night?"

"I thought I had."

"Bullshit." Faith didn't know which was making her angrier, the
fact that he was playing at this like it was some kind of game or that
she felt compelled to use the same tone she used when she was about
to put Jeremy on restriction.

Galloway held up his hands, smiling at Will. "Your partner always
this hysterical? Maybe it's her time of month."

Faith felt her fists clench. He was about to see hysterical in the
worst way.

"Listen," Will interrupted, stepping between the two of them.
"Just tell us about the car, and anything else you know. We're not going
to make trouble for you. We don't want to have to get this information
the hard way." Will walked over to the chair and picked up
Faith's purse before sitting down. He kept the bag in his lap, which
made him look ridiculous, a man standing outside the changing
room while his wife tried on clothes.

He indicated that Galloway should sit across from him, saying,
"We've got one victim in the hospital who's probably in an irreversible
coma. Jacquelyn Zabel, the woman from the tree, her autopsy
didn't give us any leads. There's another woman missing now.
She was taken from the parking lot of a grocery store. Her child was
left in the left in the back seat. Felix—six years old. He's in custody
now, staying with strangers. He just wants his mom back."

Galloway was unmoved.

Will continued, "They didn't give you that detective shield for
your good looks. There were roadblocks last night. You knew about
the second car the Coldfields saw. You were stopping people." He
changed tactics. "We didn't go to your boss on this. We didn't get our
boss to come down like a hammer. We don't have the luxury of time
here. Felix's mom is missing. She could be in another cave, strapped
to another bed, with another spot underneath for the next victim.
You want that on your head?"

Finally, Galloway heaved a heavy sigh and sat down. He leaned up
in the chair, pulling his notebook out of his back pocket, groaning
like it caused him physical pain.

Galloway said, "They told you it was white, probably a sedan?"

"Yes," Will answered. "Henry Coldfield didn't know the model.
He said it was an older car."

Galloway nodded. He handed Will his notebook. Will looked
down, flipped through the pages like he was taking the information
on board, then handed it to Faith. She saw a list of three names with
a Tennessee address and phone number. She took her purse back
from Will so she could copy the information.

The detective said, "Two women—sisters—and their father.
They were on their way back from Florida, going home to
Tennessee. Their car broke down on the side of the road about six
miles from where the Buick hit our first victim. They saw a white
sedan coming. One of the women tried to flag it down. It slowed but
didn't stop."

"Could she see the driver?"

"Black, baseball cap, loud music thumping. She said she was kind
of glad he didn't stop."

"Did they see a license plate?"

"Just three letters, alpha, foxtrot, charlie, which pulled up about
three hundred thousand cars, sixteen thousand of them are white,
half of them are registered in the immediate area."

Faith wrote down the corresponding letters, A-F-C, thinking the
license plate was a bust unless they just happened to stumble on the
matching car. She flipped through Galloway's notes, trying to find
what else he was hiding.

Will said, "I'd like to talk to all three of them."

"Too late," Galloway said. "They went back to Tennessee this
morning. The father's an old guy, not doing too well. Sounded like
they were taking him home to die. You could call them, maybe drive
up there. I'm telling you, though, we got everything out of them
that we could."

Will asked, "Was there anything else at the scene?"

"Just what you read in the reports."

"We haven't gotten the reports yet."

Galloway seemed almost contrite. "Sorry. The girl should've
faxed them to you first thing. They're probably buried on her desk
somewhere."

"We can get them before we leave," Will offered. "Can you just
run it down for me?"

"It's what you'd expect. When the cruiser showed up, the guy
who stopped, the paramedic, was working on the victim. Judith
Coldfield was freaking out about her husband, worried he was having
a heart attack. The ambulance came and took the victim away.
The old man was better by then, so he waited for the second ambulance.
That came a few minutes later. Our guys called in the detectives,
started marking out the scene. The usual stuff. I'm being
honest here. Nothing came up."

"We'd like to talk to the cop who was first on the scene, get his
impressions."

"He's fishing in Montana with his father-in-law right now."
Galloway shrugged. "I'm not giving y'all the runaround here. The
guy's had this vacation planned for a while."

Faith had found a familiar name in Galloway's notes. "What's this
about Jake Berman?" For Will's benefit, she explained, "Rick Sigler
and Jake Berman were the two men who stopped to help Anna."

"Anna?" Galloway asked.

"That's the name she gave at the hospital," Will told him. "Rick
Sigler was the off-duty EMT, right?"

"Right," Galloway confirmed. "Their story about the movie
seemed kind of sketchy to me."

Faith made a noise of disgust, wondering how many dead ends
this guy had to hit before he passed out from sheer stupidity.

"Anyway," Galloway said, making a point of ignoring Faith. "I
ran them both through the computer. Sigler's clean, but Berman's got
a record."

Faith felt her stomach drop. She'd spent two hours on the computer
this morning and it had never occurred to her to check the men
for a criminal history.

"Solicitation for lewd acts," Galloway smiled at Faith's stunned
reaction. "Guy's married with two kids. Got picked up for screwing
another guy in a toilet stall at the Mall of Georgia six months ago.
Some teenage kid walked in and found them heel to toe. Goddamn
pervert. My wife shops at that mall."

"Have you talked to Berman?" Will asked.

"He gave me a bogus number." Galloway shot Faith another
scathing look. "The address on his driver's license is out of date, too,
and nothing came up on a cross-match."

She saw a hole in his story and pounced. "How do you know he
has a wife and two kids?"

"It's in the arrest report. He had them with him at the mall. They
were waiting for him to come out of the bathroom." Galloway's lips
twisted in disgust. "You want my advice, he's the one you should be
looking at."

"The women were raped," Faith said, tossing back his notebook.
"Gay men don't go after women. It's sort of what makes them gay."

"This bad guy strike you as the type of person who likes
women?"

Faith didn't answer him, mostly because he had a point.

Will asked, "What about Rick Sigler?"

Galloway took his time folding his notebook closed, sticking it
into his pocket. "He came back clean. Been working as a paramedic
for sixteen years. Guy went to Heritage High School right down the
road from here." His mouth twisted in disgust. "Played on the football
team, if you can believe that."

Will took his time getting to his last question. "What else are you
holding back?"

Galloway looked him right in the eye. "That's all I got,
kemo sabe
."

Faith didn't believe him, but Will seemed satisfied. He actually
reached out and shook the man's hand. "Thank you for your time,
detective."

FAITH TURNED ON
the lights as she walked into her kitchen, dropping
her purse on the counter, sinking into the very same chair she'd
started her day in. Her head was aching, her neck so tense that it hurt
to turn her head. She picked up the phone to check her voicemail.
Jeremy's message was short and unusually sweet.
"Hi, Mom, just calling
to see how you're doing. I love you."
Faith frowned, guessing he'd
either made a bad grade on his chem test or needed money.