Genesis (25 page)

Sara continued, "Also, there's the number eleven." She paused, as
if she expected him to answer. "Eleven trash bags, eleventh rib.
There must be a connection."

Will stopped walking. "What?"

"The women. They each had eleven trash bags inside them. The
rib that was taken from Anna was the eleventh rib."

"You think the killer is hung up on the number eleven?"

Sara continued walking and Will followed. "If you consider how
compulsive behaviors manifest themselves, like substance abuse, eating
disorders, checking behaviors—where someone feels compelled
to check things, like the lock on the door or the stove or the iron—
then it makes sense that a serial killer, someone who is compelled to
kill, would have a specific pattern he likes to follow, or in this case a
specific number that means something to him. It's why the FBI keeps
their database, so you can cross-reference methods and look for patterns.
Maybe you could look for something significant surrounding
the number eleven."

"I don't even know if it's set up to search that way. I mean, it's all
about
things
—knives, razors, what they do, generally not how many
times they do it unless it's pretty blatant."

"You should check the Bible. If there's a religious significance to
the number eleven, then maybe you'll be able to figure out the killer's
motivation." She shrugged as if she was finished, but added, "Easter's
this Sunday. That could be part of the pattern, too."

"Eleven apostles," he said.

She gave him that strange look again. "You're right. Judas betrayed
Christ. There were only eleven apostles left. There was a
twelfth to replace him—Didymus? I can't remember. I bet my
mother would know." She shrugged again. "Of course, it could all
be a waste of your time."

Will had always been a firm believer that coincidences were generally
clues. "It's something to look into."

"What about Felix's mother?"

"She's just a missing person for now."

"Did you find the brother?"

"The Atlanta Police is looking for him." Will didn't want to
give away any more than that. Sara worked at Grady, where cops
were in and out of the emergency room all day with suspects and
witnesses. He added, "We're not even sure she's connected to our
case."

"I hope for Felix's sake she's not. I can't imagine what it's like for
him being abandoned, stuck in some awful state home."

"Those places aren't so bad," Will defended. Before he realized
what he was saying, he told her, "I grew up in state care."

She was as surprised as he was, though obviously for different reasons.
"How old were you?"

"A kid," he answered, wishing he could take back his words, but
unable to stop adding more. "Infant. Five months."

"And you weren't adopted?"

He shook his head. This was getting complicated and—worse—
embarrassing.

"My husband and I . . ." She stared ahead, lost in thought. "We
were going to adopt. We'd been on the list for a while and . . ." She
shrugged. "When he was killed, it all . . . it was just too much."

Will didn't know if he was supposed to feel sympathetic, but all
he could think about was how many times as a kid he'd gone to a
meet-and-greet picnic or barbecue, thinking he'd be going home
with his new parents, only to end up back in his room at the children's
home.

He felt inordinately grateful to hear the high-pitched horn from
Faith's Mini, which she'd illegally parked in front of the coffee shop.
She got out of the car, leaving the engine running.

"Amanda wants us back at the station." Faith lifted her chin
toward Sara in greeting. "Joelyn Zabel moved up her interview. She's
fitting us in between
Good Morning America
and CNN. We'll have to
run Betty back home afterward."

Will had forgotten about the dog in his hand. She had her snout
tucked into the space between the buttons on his vest.

"I'll take her," Sara offered.

"I couldn't—"

"I'm home all day doing laundry," Sara countered. "She'll be fine.
Just come by after work and get her."

"That's really—"

Faith was more impatient than usual. "Just give her the dog,
Will." She stomped off back to her car, and Will shot Sara a look of
apology.

"The Milk Lofts?" he asked, as if he had forgotten.

Sara took Betty in her hands. He could feel how cold her fingers
were as they brushed against his skin. "Betty?" she asked. He nodded,
and she told him, "Don't worry if you're late. I don't have any plans."

"Thank you."

She smiled, hefting Betty like she was a glass of wine being offered
in a toast.

Will walked across the street and got into Faith's car, glad that no
one else had been in the passenger's seat since the last time he'd ridden
with Faith so he didn't look like a monkey bending himself into the
cramped space.

Faith cut straight to the chase as she pulled away from the curb.
"What were you doing with Sara Linton?"

"I just ran into her." Will wondered why he felt so defensive,
which quickly led to him wondering why Faith was being so hostile.
He guessed she was still angry with him about his interaction with
Max Galloway the day before, and he didn't know what to do about
the situation other than try to distract her. "Sara had an interesting
question, or theory, about our case."

Faith merged into traffic. "I'm dying to hear it."

Will could tell she wasn't, but he ran down Sara's theory for her
anyway, highlighting the number eleven, the other points she had
raised. "Easter's this Sunday," he said. "This could have something to
do with the Bible."

To her credit, Faith seemed to be considering it. "I don't know,"
she finally said. "We could get a Bible back at the station, maybe do a
computer search for the number eleven. I'm sure there are a lot of religious
nutballs out there with web pages."

"Where in the Bible does it say something about a rib being taken
from Adam to make Eve?"

"Genesis."

"That's the old stuff, right? Not the new books."

"Old Testament. It's the first book in the Bible. It's where it all begins."
Faith gave him the same sideways glance Sara had. "I know
you can't read the Bible, but didn't you go to church?"

"I
can
read the Bible," Will shot back. Still, he preferred Faith's
nosiness to her to her fury, so he kept talking. "Remember where I
grew up. Separation of church and state."

"Oh, I didn't think about that."

Probably because it was an enormous lie. The children's home
couldn't sanction religious activities, but there were volunteers from
just about every local church who sent vans to pick up the children
every week and cart them off to Sunday School. Will had gone once,
realized that it really was a school, where you were expected to read
your lessons, then never gone back.

Faith pressed, "You've never been to church? Really?"

Will shut his mouth, thinking he had foolishly opened the wrong
door.

Faith slowed the car as they pulled up to a light. She mumbled to
herself, "I don't think I've ever met anyone who's never been to
church."

"Can we change the subject?"

"It's just strange."

Will stared blankly out the window, thinking he had been called
strange at one point or another by every person he had ever met. The
light changed, and the Mini rolled ahead. City Hall East was a five-minute
drive from the park. This morning, it seemed to be taking
hours.

Faith said, "Even if Sara's right, she's doing it again, trying to talk
her way onto this case."

"She's a coroner. At least, she used to be. She helped Anna at the
hospital. It's normal for her to want to know what's going on."

"This is a murder investigation, not Big Brother," Faith countered.
"Does she know where you live?"

Will hadn't considered the possibility, but he wasn't as paranoid as
Faith. "I don't see how."

"Maybe she followed you."

Will laughed, then stopped when he realized she was being serious.
"She lives right down the street. She was just running in the park
with her dogs."

"It's just all very convenient."

He shook his head, exasperated. He wasn't going to let Faith use
Sara Linton as a stand-in for her problems with him. "We've gotta get
past this, Faith. I know you're ticked at me about yesterday, but going
into this interview, we've got to be working as a team."

She accelerated as the light changed. "We
are
a team."

For a team, they didn't talk much the rest of the short trip. It
wasn't until they were at City Hall East, riding up on the elevator,
that Faith finally spoke.

"Your tie is crooked."

Will's hand went to the knot. Sara Linton probably thought he
was a slob. "Better?"

Faith was scrolling through her BlackBerry, even though there
was no signal in the elevator. She glanced up and gave him a quick
nod before turning her attention back to the device.

He was trying to think of something to say when the doors
opened. Amanda was waiting outside the elevator, checking her
email just like Faith, except on an iPhone. Will felt like an idiot to be
empty-handed, the same way he'd felt when Sara Linton had shown
up with her big, impressive dogs and he'd scooped Betty into his
palm like a ball of yarn.

Amanda used her finger to scroll through emails, her voice taking
on a distracted quality as she led them down the hall toward her office.
"Catch me up."

Faith ran down the list of things they didn't know, which were
innumerable, and the things they did know, which were practically
nonexistent. All the while, Amanda read her emails, walking and
pretending to listen to Faith tell her what Amanda had surely already
read in their report.

Will wasn't a fan of multi-tasking, mostly because it was more
like half-tasking. It was humanly impossible to give two different
things your complete attention. As if to prove this, Amanda looked
up from her screen, asking, "What?"

Faith repeated, "Linton thinks there might be a biblical angle."

Amanda stopped walking. She held the iPhone at her side, giving
them her full attention. "Why?"

"Eleventh rib, eleven trash bags, Easter at the end of the week."

Amanda used her iPhone again, talking as she punched the touch
screen. "We've got Legal in for Joelyn Zabel. She's brought her
lawyer, so I asked for three of ours. We've got to play this as if the
world is listening because I'm sure whatever we say to her will be
spun back out to the public at large." She looked at them both meaningfully.
"I will do most of the talking. You ask your questions, but
don't extemporize."

"We're not going to get anything out of Zabel," Will said. "Just
with the lawyers, we've already got four people in the room. Add us
and that's seven, with her at the center of it all, knowing she's going
to have the cameras rolling as soon as she leaves the building. We
need to take this down a notch."

Amanda looked back at her iPhone. "And your brilliant idea for
doing this is?"

Will couldn't think of one. All he could say was, "Maybe we
could talk to her after her television interviews, catch her at her hotel
without all the press and attention."

Amanda did not do him the courtesy of looking up. "Maybe I'll
win the lottery. Maybe you'll get a promotion. Do you see where
these maybes are taking us?"

Frustration and lack of sleep caught up with him. "Then why are
we here? Why aren't you taking Zabel and letting us get on with doing
something more useful than giving her source material for her
book deal?"

Amanda finally looked up from her iPhone. She handed the device
to Will. "I'm at a loss, Agent Trent. Why don't you read this for
me and let me know what you think?"

He felt his vision go sharp, and there was an odd, high-pitched
ringing in his ears. The iPhone hung in the air like a well-baited
hook. There were words on the screen. That much he could tell. Will
tasted blood from biting the edge of his tongue. He reached to take
the device, but Faith snatched it from Amanda before he could.

Her voice was terse as she read, "'Eleven generally represents
judgment or betrayal in the Bible. . . .There were eleven commandments
originally, but the Catholics combined the first two and the
Protestants combined the last two in order to make it an even ten.'"
She scrolled down. "'The Philistines gave Delilah eleven hundred
pieces of silver to bring down Samson. Jesus told eleven parables on
the way to his death in Jerusalem.' " She paused again, scrolling.
"'The Catholic Church accepts eleven books as canonical in the
apocrypha.'"

Faith handed back the device to Amanda. "We could do this all
day. Flight 11 on 9/11 hit one of the Twin Towers, which themselves
looked like the number 11. Apollo 11 made the first moon landing.
World War I ended on eleven-eleven. You should get an eleventh circle
in hell for what you just did to Will."

Amanda smiled, tucking the iPhone into her pocket, continuing
down the hall. "Remember the rules, children."

Will didn't know if she meant the rules that put her in charge or
the ones she'd given them about interviewing Joelyn Zabel. There
was no time to reflect, however, because Amanda walked through
the anteroom to her office and opened the door. She made introductions
all around as she went behind her desk and took a seat. Her office was,
of course, larger than any other in the building, closer to the
size of the conference room on Will and Faith's floor.

Joelyn Zabel and a man who could only be her lawyer were in
the visitors' seats opposite Amanda. There were two chairs beside
Amanda's desk, one each for Faith and Will, he supposed. The state
lawyers were on a couch in the back of the room, three in a row, their
black suits and muted silk ties giving them away. Joelyn Zabel's
lawyer was dressed in a blue the color of a shark, which seemed
more than fitting, considering his smile reminded Will of the aquatic
carnivore.