Fallen (12 page)

There was a Thonet-style bentwood chair against the wall, the only thing in the room that seemed to have remained intact. The seat was thatched. The legs were scuffed. Mittal pointed to where chunks of veneer had been ripped off. “It appears that duct tape was used. I found adhesive where Captain Mitchell’s feet would’ve been.” He lifted up the chair and moved it away from the wall. A yellow plastic number marker had been placed beside a dark stain. “One can surmise from the blood drops on the carpet that Captain Mitchell’s hands were hanging down. The cut to her finger was still bleeding, but not with any significance. Perhaps my colleague is correct in assuming that she wrapped the wound in a paper towel.”

Amanda leaned down to look at the bloodstain, but Will was more interested in the chair. Evelyn’s hands had been tied behind her back. He used his foot to tilt the chair forward so he could see the bottom of the thatched seat. There was a mark underneath, an arrowhead, drawn in blood.

Will looked out into the room, trying to figure out what the arrow was pointing to. The couch directly across from the chair was gutted, as was the wingback chair to the side. The hardwood floors meant nothing could be hidden under a carpet. Was Evelyn pointing to something in the backyard?

He heard a hiss of air through teeth. Will glanced up to find Amanda giving him such a searing look that he dropped the chair back into place without his brain being aware of what his foot was doing. She gave a slight shake of her head, indicating he should keep his mouth shut about the find. Will glanced at Charlie. They had all three seen the arrow under the chair while Mittal, oblivious, waxed poetic on the efficacy of fingerprinting on porous versus nonporous surfaces.

Charlie opened his mouth to speak, but Amanda talked over him. “Dr. Mittal, in your opinion, was the glass door broken with a found object, such as a rock or lawn ornament?” She glared at Charlie, and Will thought if she was capable of shooting lasers from her eyes, they would’ve sealed Charlie’s mouth shut. “I’m just wondering how well this attack was planned. Did they bring something to break the glass? Did they surround the house? If so, did they know the layout ahead of time?”

Mittal frowned, because these were questions none of them were capable of answering. “Dr. Wagner, these are not scenarios that can be forensically evaluated.”

“Well, let’s just toss it around and see what sticks. Was a brick used to break the glass?”

Charlie started shaking his head. Will recognized the internal conflict. Like it or not, this was Mittal’s crime scene, and there was evidence under the chair—possibly important evidence—that the man had missed. Charlie was obviously torn. As with most things that had to do with Amanda, there was the right thing to do and then there was the thing that she was ordering him to do. Each decision had its consequence.

Mittal was shaking his head, too, but only because Amanda wasn’t making sense. “Dr. Wagner, we have searched every inch of this crime scene, and I am telling you we have not found any more items of substance than what I have already detailed.”

Will knew for a fact they hadn’t checked every inch. He asked, “Has anyone checked the Malibu?”

That took Charlie’s mind off his troubles. His brow furrowed. Will had made the same mistake with Faith’s Mini. All of the violence had taken place inside the house, but the cars were still part of the crime scene.

Amanda was the first to move. She had made her way out to the carport and opened the driver’s side door of the Malibu before anyone thought to ask her what she was doing.

Mittal said, “Please, we’ve not yet processed—”

She gave him a withering look. “Did you think to check the trunk?”

His stunned silence was enough of an answer. Amanda popped the trunk. Will was standing just inside the kitchen doorway, which gave him a raised view of the scene. There were several plastic grocery bags in the trunk, their contents flattened down by the dead body on top of them. As in the kitchen, blood coated everything—soaking into the cereal box, dripping down the plastic wrap around the hamburger buns. The dead man was a big guy. His body was folded almost in two where he’d been bent to fit into the space. A deep gash in his bald head showed splintered bone and bits of brain. His jeans were wrinkled. His shirtsleeves were rolled up. There was a Los Texicanos tattoo on his forearm.

Evelyn’s gentleman friend.

T
HE GEORGIA DIAGNOSTIC AND CLASSIFICATION PRISON WAS
located in Jackson, about an hour south of Atlanta. The drive was usually a quick shot down I-75, but the Atlanta Motor Speedway was having some kind of exhibition event that slowed traffic to a crawl. Undeterred, Amanda kept hopping on and off the shoulder, jerking the wheel quickly to pass groups of sluggish cars. The SUV’s tires made a strumming sound as they grazed the rumble strips meant to deter drivers from leaving the roadway. Between the noise and the vibration, Will found himself fighting an unexpected wave of motion sickness.

Finally, they made it through the worst of the traffic. At the speedway exit, Amanda took one last dash onto the shoulder, then popped the SUV back onto the road. The tires skipped. The chassis shook. Will rolled down the window for some fresh air to help settle his stomach. The wind slapped his face so hard that he felt his skin ripple.

Amanda pressed the button to roll the window back up, giving him the look she reserved for stupid people and children. They were going over a hundred miles an hour. Will was lucky he hadn’t been sucked out the window.

She let out a long sigh as she stared back at the road. One hand rested in her lap, while the other was firmly wrapped around the steering wheel. She was wearing her usual power suit: a bright blue skirt and matching jacket with a light-colored blouse underneath. Her high-heel shoes exactly matched the color of her suit. Her fingernails were trim but manicured. Her hair was its usual helmet of salt-and-pepper
gray. Most days, Amanda seemed to have more energy than all the men on her team. Now, she looked tired, and Will could see the worry lines around her eyes were more pronounced.

She said, “Tell me about Spivey.”

Will tried to click his brain back over to his old case against Captain Evelyn Mitchell’s team. Boyd Spivey was the former lead detective on the narcotics squad who was currently biding his time on death row. Will had talked to the man only once before Spivey’s lawyers advised him to keep his mouth shut. “I don’t find it hard to believe he beat someone to death with his fists. He was a big guy, taller than me, carried about fifty more pounds, all of it muscle.”

“Gym rat?”

“I’d guess steroids gave him a boost.”

“How did that work for him?”

“They made him uncontrollably angry,” Will recalled. “He’s not as smart as he thinks, but I wasn’t able to get him to confess, so maybe I’m not either.”

“You still sent him to prison.”

“He sent himself to prison. His house in the city was paid for. His house at the lake was paid for. All three of his kids were in private school. His wife worked ten hours a week and drove a top-of-the-line Mercedes. His mistress drove a BMW. He kept his brand new Porsche 911 parked in her driveway.”

“Men and their cars,” she mumbled. “He doesn’t sound very smart to me.”

“He didn’t think anyone would ask questions.”

“Generally, they don’t.”

“Spivey was good at keeping his mouth shut.”

“As I recall, all of them were.”

She was right. In a corruption case, the usual strategy was to find the weakest member and persuade him or her to turn on his or her fellow conspirators in exchange for a lighter sentence. The six detectives belonging to Evelyn Mitchell’s narcotics squad had proven immune to this strategy. None of them would turn on the other, and all
of them routinely insisted that Captain Mitchell had nothing to do with their alleged crimes. They went out of their way to protect their boss. It was both admirable and incredibly frustrating.

Will said, “Spivey worked on Evelyn’s squad for twelve years—longer than any of them.”

“She trusted him.”

“Yes,” Will agreed. “Two peas in a pod.”

Amanda cut him a sharp look. “Careful.”

Will felt his jaw tighten so hard that the bone ached. He didn’t see how ignoring the most important part of this case was going to get them anywhere. Amanda knew as well as Will that her friend was guilty as hell. Evelyn hadn’t lived large, but like Spivey, she’d been stupid in her own way.

Faith’s father had been an insurance broker, solidly middle class with the usual kinds of debts that people had: car payments, mortgage, credit cards. Yet, during Will’s investigation, he’d found an out-of-state bank account in Bill Mitchell’s name. At the time, the man had been dead for six years. Though the account balance always hovered around ten thousand dollars, the activity showed monthly deposits since his death that totaled up to almost sixty thousand dollars. It was clearly a shell account, the kind of thing prosecutors called a smoking gun. With Bill dead, Evelyn was the only signatory. Money was taken out and deposited with her ATM card at an Atlanta branch of the bank. Her dead husband wasn’t the one who was keeping the activities spread apart and the deposits shy of the limit that would throw up a red flag at Homeland Security.

As far as Will knew, Evelyn Mitchell had never been asked about the account. He’d figured it would come out during her trial, but her trial had never happened. There had been a press conference announcing her retirement, and that was the end of the story.

Until now.

Amanda flipped down the visor to block the sun. Clipped to the underside were a couple of yellow claim tickets that looked like they
were from a dry cleaner. The sun wasn’t doing her any favors. She didn’t look tired anymore. She looked haggard.

She said, “Something’s bothering you.”

He resisted uttering the biggest “duh” ever vocalized in the history of the world.

“Not that,” she said, as if she could read his mind. “Faith didn’t call you for help because she knew that she was going to do the wrong thing.”

Will looked out the window.

“You would’ve made her wait for backup.”

He hated the relief her words brought.

“She’s always been headstrong.”

He felt the need to say, “She didn’t do the wrong thing.”

“That’s my boy.”

Will watched the trees along the highway blend into a sea of green. “Do you think there’s going to be a ransom?”

“I hope so.” They both knew that a ransom pointed to a living hostage, or at least the opportunity to demand proof of life.

He said, “This feels personal.”

“How so?”

He shook his head. “The way the house was torn up. There’s mad, and then there’s furious.”

“I don’t imagine the old girl sat by quietly while they performed their search.”

“Probably not.” Evelyn Mitchell was no Amanda Wagner, but Will could easily see her taunting the men who were tearing up her house. You didn’t get to be one of the first female captains on the Atlanta police force by being sweet. “They were obviously looking for money.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Clams—the last word Ricardo said to Faith before he died. You said it’s slang for money. Ergo, they were looking for money.”

“In the silverware drawer?”

Another good point. Cash was nice, but it was cumbersome. A pile worth kidnapping an ex-Atlanta police captain for would fill several silverware drawers.

He said, “The arrow was pointing into the backyard.”

“What arrow?”

Will suppressed a groan. She wasn’t usually this obvious. “The arrow drawn in Evelyn’s blood underneath the chair she was duct-taped to. I know you saw it. You hissed at me like an air compressor.”

“You really should work on your metaphors.” She was silent for a beat, probably considering the most circuitous route to take him to nowhere. “You think Evelyn has buried treasure in her backyard?”

He had to admit this was unlikely, especially considering the Mitchell backyard was on full display to the rest of the neighbors, most of whom were retired and seemed to have ample time to spy. Besides, Will couldn’t picture Faith’s mother out with a shovel and a flashlight in the middle of the night. Then again, it wasn’t like she could put it in the bank.

“Safe deposit box,” Will tried. “Maybe they were looking for a key.”

“Evelyn would have to go to the bank and sign in to get access. They’d compare her signature, ask for her ID. Our kidnapper had to know her picture would be on every television station the minute he took her.”

Will silently conceded the point. Besides, the same rule applied. A large amount of cash took up space. Diamonds and gold were more for Hollywood movies. In real life, stolen jewels fetched pennies on the dollar.

She asked, “What about the crime scene? Do you think Charlie got it right?”

Will went on the defense. “Mittal did most of the talking.”

“Okay, you’ve covered Charlie’s ass. Now answer my question.”

“The Los Texicanos in the trunk of the Malibu, Evelyn’s gentleman friend. He throws it all out.”

She nodded. “He wasn’t stabbed. He died from a shot to the head,
plus, he’s B-positive. That still leaves us with our B-negative out there with a nasty wound.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about.” Will resisted the urge to add, “and you know it.” Amanda wasn’t just tying his hands behind his back. She was blindfolding him and sending him toward the edge of a cliff. Her refusal to talk about or even acknowledge Evelyn Mitchell’s sordid past wasn’t going to help Faith and it sure as hell wasn’t going to get her mother back in one piece. Evelyn had worked in narcotics. She was obviously in contact, almost daily, with a higher-up in Los Texicanos, the gang that ran the drug trade in and out of Atlanta. They should be back in the city talking to the gang units and putting together the last few weeks of Evelyn’s life, not making a fool’s errand to visit a guy who had nothing to lose and a history of stubborn silence.

“Come on, Dr. Trent,” Amanda chided. “Don’t make me pull teeth.”