BEN WALKER, Grant County’s chief of police before Jeffrey, had kept his office just off the briefing room in the back of the station. Every day, Ben had settled himself behind the large desk that almost filled the entire room, and anyone who wanted to talk to him had to sit on the other side of this mammoth hunk of wood, their knees grazing the desk, their backs firm to the wall. In the mornings, the men—and they were all men then—on the senior squad were called in to hear their assignments for the day, then they left and the chief shut his door. Nobody saw him again until quitting time, when Ben got in his car and drove two blocks up the street to the diner where he ate his supper.
The first thing Jeffrey did when he took over the station was throw out Ben’s desk. The oak monstrosity had to be disassembled to get it through the door. Jeffrey made Ben’s old office the storage room, and took the small office at the front of the squad room as his own. One quiet weekend, Jeffrey installed a picture window so he could look out on the squad and, more important, so they could see him. There were blinds on the window, but he seldom closed them. Jeffrey made a point of leaving his office door open whenever possible.
He stared out at the empty squad room, wondering what his people would make of Jenny Weaver’s shooting. Jeffrey felt an overwhelming sense of guilt for what he had done, even though his mind kept telling him he had not been given a choice. Every time he thought about it Jeffrey felt like he couldn’t breathe right, like not enough air was getting to his lungs. He could not let go of the obvious questions in his mind: Had he made the right decision? Would Jenny have really killed that kid in cold blood? Sara seemed to think so. Last night, she had said something about having two dead teenagers today instead of one if Jeffrey had not stopped the girl. Of course, Sara had said a lot of other things last night that had not exactly been a comfort.
Jeffrey pressed his hands together in front of his face, leaning his head against his thumbs as he thought about Sara. Sometimes, she could be too analytical for her own good. One of the sexiest things about Sara was her mouth. Too bad she didn’t know when to shut up and use it for something more helpful to Jeffrey than talking.
“Chief?” Frank Wallace knocked on the door.
“Come in,” Jeffrey answered.
“Hot outside,” Frank said, as if to explain why he wasn’t wearing a tie. He was dressed in a dark black suit that had a cheap shine to it. The top button of his dress shirt was undone, and Jeffrey could see his yellowed white undershirt underneath. As usual, Frank reeked of cigarette smoke. He had probably been outside, smoking by the back door, giving Jeffrey some time before he came in for their meeting. Why anyone would voluntarily hold a burning cigarette in this kind of heat, Jeffrey would never know.
Frank could have had Ben Walker’s job if he had asked. Of course, the old cop was too smart for that. Frank had worked in Grant County his entire career, and he had seen the way the cities were changing. Once, Frank had told Jeffrey that being chief of police was a young man’s job, but Jeffrey had thought then as he did now that what Frank meant was it was a foolish man’s job. During Jeffrey’s first year in Grant, he had figured out that no one in his right mind would sign up for this kind of pressure. By then, it had been too late. He had already met Sara.
“Busy weekend,” Frank said, handing Jeffrey a weekend status report. The file was thicker than usual.
“Yeah.” Jeffrey indicated a chair for the man to sit down.
“Alleged break-in at the cleaners. Marla told you about that one? Then there’s a couple or three DUIs, usual shit at the college, drunk and disorderly. Couple of domestic situations, no charges filed.”
Jeffrey listened half-heartedly as Frank ran down the list. It was long, and daunting. There was no telling what a larger city dealt with this weekend if Grant had been hit so hard. Usually, things were much quieter. Of course, the heat brought out violence in people. Jeffrey had known that as long as he had been a cop.
“So…” Frank wrapped it up: “That’s about it.”
“Good,” Jeffrey answered, taking the report. He tapped his finger on the papers, then with little fanfare slid Jenny Weaver’s file across the desk. It sat there like a white elephant.
Frank gave the file the same skeptical look he would give an astrology report, then reluctantly picked it up and started to read. Frank had been on the job long enough to think he had seen everything. The shocked expression on his face belied this as he examined the photographs Sara had taken.
“Mother of God,” Frank mumbled, reaching into his coat pocket. He pulled out his cigarettes, then, probably remembering where he was, put them back. He closed the file without finishing it.
Jeffrey said, “She didn’t give birth to the child.”
“Yeah.” Frank cleared his throat, crossing his legs uncomfortably. He was fifty-eight years old and had already put in enough time to retire with a nice pension. Why he kept working the job was a mystery. Cases like this must make Frank wonder why he kept showing up every day, too.
“What is this?” Frank asked. “Good Lord in heaven.”
“Female Genital Mutilation,” Jeffrey told him. “It’s an African or Middle Eastern thing.” He held up his hand, stopping Frank’s next question. “I know what you’re thinking. They’re Southern Baptist, not Islamic.”
“Where’d she get the idea, then?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out.”
Frank shook his head, like he was trying to erase the image from his mind.
Jeffrey said, “Dr. Linton is on her way in to do the briefing,” feeling foolish for using Sara’s title even as he said it. Frank played poker with Eddie Linton. He had watched Sara grow up.
“The kid gonna be here, too?” Frank asked, meaning Lena.
“Of course,” Jeffrey answered, meeting him squarely in the eye. Frank frowned, making it obvious that he did not approve.
For everything Frank was—sexist, probably racist, certainly ageist—he cared for Lena. He had a daughter about Lena’s age, and from the moment Jeffrey had partnered her with Frank, the old cop had protested. Every week Frank had come in, asking for a change in assignment, and every week Jeffrey had told him to get used to it. Part of the reason the city had brought in Jeffrey, an outsider, was to drag the force out of the Stone Age. Jeffrey had handpicked Lena Adams from the police academy and groomed her from day one to be the first female detective on the squad.
Jeffrey did not know what to do with her now. He had put Lena with Brad Stephens on a temporary basis until her hands healed, hoping the downtime would help her ease back into her job. Just last month she had gotten a clearance from her doctor to return to active duty, but Lena had yet to ask for her old assignment back. For Frank’s part, he could not even look her in the eye when she said hello to him. Jeffrey had heard Frank say a million times that women did not belong on the force, and Frank seemed to take Lena’s attack as confirmation of this.
Logically, Jeffrey did not agree with Frank’s assessment. Women cops were good for the force. Ideally, the makeup of the force should reflect that of the community. Lena had brought a thoughtfulness to the job. She was better with certain types of perpetrators and knew how to handle female victims of crime, something that had been missing in the senior squad prior to her promotion. What’s more, having a female detective had encouraged other women to join the ranks. There were fifteen women on patrol now. When Ben Walker had left the force, the only women in its employ had been secretaries. Despite all of this progress, when Jeffrey thought about what Lena had gone through, what had been done to her, he wanted to lock her up in her house and stand outside with a shotgun in case anyone ever tried to hurt her again.
Frank interrupted his thoughts, asking, “There gonna be some kind of internal investigation on this thing?” He paused, picking at the corner of the case file. “The Weaver shooting, I mean.”
Jeffrey nodded, sitting back in his chair. “I talked to the mayor this morning. I want you to take Brad and Lena’s statements. Buddy Conford’s the city attorney on this one.”
“He’s a public defender,” Frank pointed out.
“Yeah, well, not on this one,” Jeffrey told him. “There’s some concern about the girl’s mother. The city has an insurance policy for this kind of thing. Maybe they’ll settle it out of court. I dunno.” Jeffrey shrugged. “She was threatening someone with a gun and all. It’s just kind of tricky, you know?”
“Yeah,” Frank answered. “I know.” He waited a few beats, then asked, “You okay with this, Chief?”
Jeffrey felt some of his resolve falter. The sinking, lost feeling he had experienced last night with Sara came back, and he felt a heaviness in his chest. He had never shot anyone, let alone killed a little girl. His mind kept playing back the scene with Jenny, picking apart the clock, trying to find the place where his negotiations had gone sour. There had to be something else he could have said or done that would have made her put down that gun. There had to be an alternative.
“Chief?” Frank said. “For what it’s worth, Brad and Lena will back you a hundred percent. You know that, right?”
“Yeah,” Jeffrey answered, not taking comfort in Frank’s words because he knew that Brad and Lena would back him even if they did not think what Jeffrey had done was right. There were gray areas in law enforcement, but when it came down to the wire, cops always backed cops. Brad would do this because at some level he worshipped Jeffrey. Lena would do it because she felt she owed Jeffrey something for letting her back on the job.
For Jeffrey, this was hardly a consolation.
Both men were silent. Jeffrey turned his head, looking at the shelves lining the far wall of his office. Shooting trophies were there, awarded for his marksmanship. An old football from when he played for Auburn was on the bottom shelf. Pictures of guys he had worked with on the job in Grant as well as back in Birmingham were alongside a couple of snapshots of Sara he had taken on their honeymoon. He had put these up recently, when they started dating again. Now, he wasn’t so sure about wanting the pictures in his office, let alone wanting Sara in his life. Jeffrey still could not get over how distant she had been last night, tensing up when he touched her, telling him what to do. Like he didn’t know how to do what he was doing. Like he hadn’t done it hundreds of times before with other women who were a hell of a lot more receptive than Sara had been.
Frank turned around in his chair when the half-doors separating the squad room from the reception area clapped open. Sara walked through, her briefcase in one hand. She was dressed in a light blue dress that looked like a long T-shirt. Jeffrey could see she had decided to go with tennis shoes without socks to complete the ensemble. She probably hadn’t even shaved her legs.
Both men watched as Sara made her way to the office. Her hair was a mess and Jeffrey wondered if she had even bothered to comb it. Sara had never been the kind of woman who was interested in high fashion and she seldom wore makeup. Sometimes this was sexy, sometimes it made her look sloppy, like she was more interested in being a doctor than being a woman. As she got closer to them, he could see that her glasses were crooked on her face. For some reason, this irritated him more than anything else.
Frank stood when she entered the room, so Jeffrey followed suit.
“Hi,” she said, smiling nervously. Jeffrey was glad she was uncomfortable.
“Hey there,” Frank said, buttoning his jacket.
Sara smiled at Frank, then said, “I’ve called Nick Shelton,” referring to Grant County’s Georgia Bureau of Investigations field agent. “I asked him to track any cases involving this kind of mutilation. He said he’d have something Wednesday at the latest.”
When Jeffrey did not address this, Frank supplied, “Good thinking.”
“And,” Sara continued, “I called around to the hospitals. Nobody came in last night seeking postlabor treatment. I left the number here at the station in case they get someone in.”
Frank pulled at the collar of his shirt. “So, you think there’s any way the girl could have done this to herself? This circumcision thing?”
“God, no.” Sara seemed to bristle at this. “And, it’s not circumcision,” she told him. “This is tantamount to castration. Her clitoris and labia minora were completely scraped away, then what was left was sewn together with thread.”
“Oh,” Frank said, obviously uncomfortable with this information.
Sara pursed her lips. “It’s the same as cutting off a man’s penis.”
Frank looked uncomfortably from Jeffrey to Sara, then back again.
“Anyway.” Sara gestured to her briefcase. “I’m ready to start the briefing.”
“That’s been postponed,” Jeffrey said, hearing the hard tone to his voice but unable to do anything about it. When he had called to ask Sara to come in early, he had not mentioned why. He told her, “Dottie Weaver will be here in about fifteen minutes. I want to get her out of here as soon as I can.”
“Oh,” she said, surprised. “Okay. I guess I can do some paperwork at the clinic. You think a couple of hours will do it?”
He shook his head no. “I want you to sit in on the interview.”
Sara gave him a careful look. “I’m not a cop.”
“Lena is,” he told her. “She’ll be leading the interview. I want you there because she knows you.”
She tucked her hand into her hip. “Lena or Dottie?”
Frank cleared his throat. “I got some calls to make,” he said, giving Sara a polite nod before leaving the room.
After he was gone, Sara turned to Jeffrey, giving him a questioning look.
He asked, “Is that a nightgown?”
“What?”
“What you’re wearing,” he said, indicating her dress. “It looks like a nightgown.”
Sara laughed uncomfortably. “No,” she said, as if he was leaving out some part of the joke.
“You could have worn something more professional,” he said, thinking about what she had worn last night. Her sweat pants and a ratty old T-shirt didn’t exactly help the situation. And her legs had felt hairier than his.
He asked, “Would it kill you to dress up a little bit?”
Sara lowered her voice, the way she did when she got angry. “Is there some reason you’re talking to me like you’re my mother?”
He felt a flash of anger that was so intense he knew not to open his mouth and say what wanted to come out.
“Jeff,” Sara said, “what is going on?”
He walked past her and slammed the door shut. “Would it kill you to do me this one favor?”
“Favor?” She shook her head, as if he had started talking gibberish.
“Sit in on the interview,” he reminded her. “With Weaver.”
Sara exhaled sharply. “What could I possibly say to her?”
“Never mind,” he answered. To give himself something to do, he closed the blinds. “Just forget about it.”
“Just tell me what you want me to do,” she said, her voice irritatingly reasonable. “Do you want me to go home and change? Do you want me to leave you alone?”
He turned around, saying, “I want you to stop breaking my balls, is what I want you to do.”
Sara tucked in her chin. It seemed to be her turn to hold back something she wanted to say.
He raised his eyebrows, prompting her to speak. “What?” he demanded, knowing he was pushing her, wanting a fight to release some of the anger he felt.
Sara took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “I don’t understand why you’re so angry at me.”
Jeffrey did not answer.
She smoothed down his tie with the back of her fingers, then put her palm to his chest. “Jeff, please. Just tell me what you want me to do.”
Words failed him. He turned away from her and then, because there was nothing else for him to do, he twisted the wand to open the blinds again. He felt Sara’s hand on his shoulder.
She said, “It’s all right.”
“I know that,” he snapped, but he didn’t. He felt like his brain was on fire, and every time he blinked all he could see was Jenny Weaver’s head jerking back as the bullet cut through her neck.
Sara put her arms around him, then pressed her lips against the back of his neck. “It’s okay,” she whispered against his neck, and he felt the coolness of her breath calming him. She kissed his neck again, holding her lips there for what seemed like a long time. His body started to relax, and Jeffrey wondered why she hadn’t done this last night. Then he remembered that she had.
She told him again, “It’s all right.”
He felt calm for the first time that morning, like he could breathe again. It felt so good that for just a second he thought he might do something really stupid, like cry or, worse, tell Sara that he loved her.
He asked, “You gonna sit in on the interview or not?”
She let her hands drop, and he could tell this was not the reaction she had been hoping for. He looked at her, trying to think of something to say. Nothing came to mind.
Finally, she nodded once, telling him, “I’ll do whatever you want me to do.”
JEFFREY stood in the observation room, watching through the one-way mirror as Sara comforted Dottie Weaver. He had never been able to stay mad at Sara for long, mostly because Sara would not allow it.
Dottie Weaver was a largeish woman with dark brown hair and olive colored skin. Her hair looked long, but she kept it in a neat bun on top of her head. The style was a bit dated, but it seemed to suit her. She had what Jeffrey thought of as an older face, the kind where the person looks the same at ten as she does at forty. Her cheeks were more jowls, and she carried about twenty pounds more on her than she should have. There were deep creases in her forehead above her nose, which gave her a stern look, even when she was crying.
Jeffrey glanced at Lena, who was standing beside him with her arms crossed over her chest. She was watching Sara and Dottie with her usual focused intensity. Here they were, the two most emotionally raw people in the station, responsible for finding out what had happened the night before. Jeffrey knew then that he had asked Sara to do this for selfish reasons. She would act as his sanity.
Jeffrey turned to Lena, telling her, “I’m using you.”
She did not react, but that was hardly uncommon. Six months ago, Lena Adams would have been rabid for this interview. She would have strutted through the station, flaunting the fact that she had been chosen by the chief. Now, she just nodded.
“Because you’re a woman,” he clarified. “And because of what happened to you.”
She looked at him, and there was an emptiness to her eyes that struck him to his core. Ten years ago, at the training academy in Macon, Jeffrey had watched Lena fly through the obstacle course like a bat out of hell. At five-four and around a hundred twenty pounds, she was the smallest recruit in her group, but she made up for it by sheer force of will. Her tenacity and drive had caught his attention that day. Looking at her now, he wondered if that Lena would ever show herself again.
Lena broke eye contact, staring back at Sara. “Yeah, I guess she’ll feel sorry for me,” she said, her tone flat. It unnerved him the way she did not seem to feel anything. He even preferred her intense anger to the automaton Lena seemed to be lately.
“Go slowly,” he advised, handing her the case file. “We need as much information as we can get.”
“Anything else?” she asked. They could have been discussing the weather.
Jeffrey told her no and she left without another word. He turned back to the mirror, waiting for Lena to enter the interview room. When the young detective had returned to her job, Jeffrey had told her she would have to get some kind of therapy to deal with what had happened. As far as he knew, Lena had not. He should ask her about this. Jeffrey knew that. He just did not know how.
The door creaked as Lena opened it. She walked into the room, her hands tucked into the pockets of her dress slacks. She was wearing tan chinos with a dark blue button-down dress shirt. Her shoulder-length brown hair was tucked back neatly behind her ears. At thirty-three years old, she had finally grown into her face. Lena had always been attractive, but in the last couple of years she had developed a womanliness that was not lost on the senior squad.
Jeffrey looked away, uncomfortable with these thoughts. After what she had been through, it felt wrong for him to be considering Lena this way.
“Mrs. Weaver?” Lena asked. She extended her hand, and Jeffrey cringed along with Dottie Weaver as they both stared at Lena’s open palm. The scar in the center was horrible to see. Sara was the only one who did not seem to react.
Lena withdrew her hand, clenching it by her side as if she was embarrassed. “I’m Detective Lena Adams. I can’t tell you how sorry I am for your loss.”
“Thank you,” Dottie managed, her Midwestern twang a sharp contrast to Lena’s soft drawl.
Lena sat opposite Sara and Dottie at the table. She clasped her hands in front of her, drawing attention to her scars again. Jeffrey half expected her to take off her shoes and put her feet on the table.
“I’m sorry…,” Dottie began, then stopped. “I mean, for what happened with you.”
Lena nodded her head once, staring down as if she needed to collect herself. One of the first interrogation tricks Jeffrey had taught the young detective was that silence is a cop’s best friend. Normal people do not like silence, and invariably they try to fill it. Most of the time, they do this without letting their brain enter the equation.
“And your sister,” Dottie continued. “She was a lovely person. I knew her from the science fair. Jenny loved science. She was…”
Lena’s chest rose and fell as she took a deep breath, but that was all the reaction she gave. “Sibyl was a teacher,” Lena supplied. “She loved teaching kids.”
The room was silent again, and Jeffrey found himself staring at Sara. Strands of her dark red hair had fallen loose from her ponytail and were sticking to her neck. Her glasses were no longer crooked on her nose, they were crooked on the top of her head. She was staring at Lena the way she might stare at a snake, trying to decide whether or not it was poisonous.
Lena asked, “Do we need to contact your husband, Mrs. Weaver?”
“Dottie,” the mother answered. “I’ve already told him.”
“Will he be coming down for the funeral?”
Dottie was quiet, and she fidgeted with a thin silver bracelet on her wrist. When she spoke, she directed her words to Sara. “You cut her open, didn’t you?”
Sara opened her mouth as if to respond, but Lena answered the question.
“Yes, ma’am,” Lena said. “Dr. Linton performed the autopsy. I attended the procedure. We wanted to do everything we could to make sure Jenny was taken care of.”
Dottie stared from Lena to Sara, then back again. Suddenly, she leaned over the table, her shoulders stooped as if she had been punched in the gut. “She was my only child,” she sobbed. “She was my baby.”
Sara reached out to touch the grieving woman on the back, but Lena stopped her with a look. She leaned forward herself and took Dottie’s hand in her own. Lena told the woman, “I know what it’s like to lose someone. I really do.”
Dottie squeezed Lena’s hands. “I know you do. I know.”
Jeffrey realized he had been holding his breath, waiting for this moment. Lena had broken through.
Lena asked, “What happened with her father?”
“Oh.” Dottie took a tissue out of her purse. “You know. We weren’t getting along. He wanted to do more with his life. He ended up running away with his secretary.” She turned to Sara. “You know how men are.”
Jeffrey felt mildly irritated, because she was obviously referring to Jeffrey’s infidelities. Such was the nature of a small town.
“He never married her, though,” Dottie finished. “The secretary.” Her lips curved in a slight, triumphant smile.
“My best friend in high school went through this,” Lena began, making the bridge between her and Dottie Weaver more solid. “Her father did the same thing to them. He just picked up one day and never looked back. They never saw him again.”
“Oh, no. Samuel wasn’t like that,” Dottie provided. “Not in the beginning, anyway. He saw Jenny once a month until he got transferred to Spokane. That’s in Washington.” Lena nodded and Dottie continued, “I think the last time he saw her was over a year ago.”
“What was his response when you told him last night?”
“He cried,” she said, and tears rolled down her own cheeks. She turned to Sara, perhaps because Sara had known Jenny. “She was so sweet. She had such a gentle heart.”
Sara nodded, but Jeffrey could tell she was uncomfortable with the way Lena was handling the interview. He wondered what Sara had expected after her physical findings last night.
Dottie blew her nose, and when she spoke her words were more punctuated. “She just got mixed up in this crowd. And that Patterson boy.”
“Mark Patterson?” Lena asked, referring to the boy Jenny had threatened to kill.
“Yes, Mark.”
“Was she seeing him? Dating him?”
Dottie shrugged. “I can’t tell you. They did things in groups, and Jenny was friends with his sister, Lacey.”
“Lacey?” Sara asked. She seemed to realize she’d interrupted the flow, and nodded for Dottie to continue.
“Jenny and I were so close after her father left, more like friends than mother and daughter. She was my anchor through everything that happened. Maybe I was too close to her. Maybe I should have given her more independence.” Dottie paused again. “It’s just that Mark seemed so harmless. He used to cut our grass in the summer. He did odd jobs around the house to earn extra money.” She laughed without a trace of humor. “I thought he was a good kid. I thought I could trust him.”
Lena did not let her go on this tangent for long. “When did Jenny start hanging around with Lacey?”
“About a year ago, I guess. They were all in the church together. I thought it was good, but these kids…I don’t know. You would think that a church would be a safe place for your child, but…” She shook her head. “I didn’t know,” she said. “I didn’t even know she had ever been with a boy, let alone…”
Lena gave Sara an almost imperceptible nod. Jeffrey saw Sara brace herself as she prepared to deliver the news. “Dottie, I did examine Jenny last night.”
Dottie pressed her lips tightly together as she waited.
Lena said, “Jenny wasn’t pregnant. That wasn’t her baby in the skating rink.”
The mother stared openly from Sara to Lena, then back again. She seemed too shocked to show anything but disbelief.
Sara clarified. “Lena’s right. She wasn’t pregnant, though I can tell you that she was sexually active prior to six months ago.”
Dottie’s mouth worked, but no words came. She smiled, finally, interpreting this as good news. “So, she didn’t do it? She didn’t hurt the baby?”
Lena answered, “We don’t really know what happened with that yet.” She paused, looking at her hands, this time not for effect. After a few beats, she looked back up at Dottie. When she spoke, her voice was low, her eyes locked on the mother as if Sara were no longer in the room. “This is just my opinion, ma’am, but from everything I’ve learned about your daughter, I can’t see her doing what she’s been accused of.”
The mother’s shoulders dropped in obvious relief. She began to cry again, putting a tissue to her nose. “She was so gentle,” she said. “There’s no way she would ever do this kind of thing.” She turned to Sara for confirmation. “She was such a good girl.”
Sara nodded again, her smile weak.
“She talked about being a doctor one day,” Dottie told Sara. “She said she wanted to help kids just like you do.”
Sara’s smile wavered, and Jeffrey could see the guilt flash in her eyes.
Lena cut through the moment, asking, “Jenny and this group she was with, the Patterson children?”
“Yes, Mark and Lacey.”
“She was still going to church with them? Still active?”
“Until about eight months ago,” Dottie answered. “She stopped going. I can’t tell you why. She just said she didn’t want to go anymore.”
“This would have been in January?”
“I suppose.”
“Right after Christmas?”
Dottie nodded. “Thereabouts.”
“Did anything happen during that time? Maybe a falling out? Did she get angry at anyone? Maybe have a fight with Mark Patterson?”
“No,” Dottie answered firmly. “As a matter of fact, she went on a youth retreat with the church the week after Christmas. They all went to Gatlinburg to go skiing. I didn’t want her out of the house around the holidays, but she had her heart set on it, and she had brought her grades up in school, so…” She let her voice trail off.
“So, she was gone a week?”
“Yes, a week, but then I had to go to my sister’s in Ohio because she wasn’t feeling well.” Dottie pressed her lips together. “Eunice, my sister, was diagnosed with emphysema a couple of months prior to that. She’s doing better now, but it was a really difficult time.”
“Jenny was alone in the house then?”
“Oh, no,” Dottie shook her head. “Of course not. She stayed with the Pattersons for three or four days, then I came back.”
“That was normal, for her to stay with the Pattersons?”
“Yes, then it was,” Dottie provided. “Every weekend Lacey would stay over or Jenny would go to the Pattersons’.”
“You know the Pattersons well?”
“Teddy and Grace?” She nodded. “Oh, yes, they both go to the church. I’m not too crazy about Teddy,” she said, lowering her voice a little. “You can see where Mark gets it, I’ll tell you that.”
“How’s that?”
“He’s just kind of…” Dottie began, then shrugged. “I don’t know. If you ever meet him, you’ll see what I mean.”
“So,” Lena summed it up. “At Christmas, Jenny was on the church retreat, then she stayed with the Pattersons, then she stopped going to church and stopped talking to the Pattersons?”
“Well,” Dottie seemed to go over this in her mind. “Yes, I guess so. I mean, it seems that way now. Before, when it was happening, I didn’t make a connection.”
“Did you ever suspect your daughter of using drugs?”
“Oh, no, she was adamantly against them,” Dottie answered. “She didn’t even drink caffeine, and just recently she cut out all sugar.”
“For her weight?”
“For her health, she said. She wanted to make her body pure.”
“‘Pure,’” Lena repeated. “Did that have something to do with the church, do you think?”
“She had stopped going by then,” Dottie reminded her. “I don’t know why she did it. We were driving home from school one day, and she just said it: ‘I don’t want to eat anything with sugar in it anymore. I want my body to be pure.’”
“This didn’t strike you as odd?”
“At the time, no,” Dottie said. “I mean, maybe it did, but she had been acting so strange lately. Not strange like you would notice, but strange like she stopped drinking Co-Colas when she got home from school, and she started concentrating more on her homework. It was like she was trying to do better. She was more like her old self.”
“Her old self before she started hanging out with the Patterson children?”
“Yes, I guess you could say that.” Dottie pursed her lips. “It was very strange, because Lacey was a cheerleader, and very popular, and from the day Jenny walked through the school doors Lacey tortured her.”
Sara asked, “Tortured her how?”
“Just mean,” Dottie answered. “Teasing her about her weight. And this was back when she was just a little chubby. Not like she’s been lately.”
“You don’t think Lacey or Mark ever hit her?”
Dottie seemed surprised. “Heavens no. I would have called the police.” She patted her eyes with the tissue. “They just teased her is all. Nothing physical. Like I said, they became friends.”
Lena said, “Why did that change?”
“I don’t really know. Maybe when they all went from the middle school to the senior high. It’s a big adjustment. I think Lacey didn’t make the cheerleading team, and she kind of dropped in the pecking order. You know how kids are. They want to belong. Now that I think about it, the sugar thing was probably Lacey’s idea.”
“Lacey’s?” Lena asked.
“Oh, yes. She was always coming up with things for them to do. What kind of clothes they would wear to school, where they would go for the weekend. They spent hours on the telephone talking about it.”
Lena smiled. “My sister and I used to do the same thing,” she said. Then, “Was it some kind of religious thing, you think?”
“What’s that?” Dottie asked, caught off guard.
“The sugar. The caffeine. It sounds kind of religious.”
“You don’t think…?” Dottie stopped herself. “No, I don’t think it’s religious. She was very happy with the church. I think it must have been those Patterson children. Mark has some kind of criminal record for stealing things.” She shook her head in a slow arc. “I didn’t know what to do. Should I have told her she couldn’t see him? That would have made her want to spend even more time with him.”
“That’s generally the case with young girls,” Lena agreed. “You still go to church, right?”
“Oh, of course,” Dottie answered, nodding her head. “It’s a great consolation to me.”
“Have you made arrangements yet? I guess they’ll do the service?”
Dottie sighed. “I don’t know. I just…” She stopped, blowing her nose on a tissue. “I think she liked Preacher Fine. He came by the house to talk to her. So did Brad Stephens. He’s the youth minister at the church.”
“That so?” Lena asked.
“Oh, yes, Brad is very active in the community.”
“Did Pastor Fine come by after Jenny stopped going to church?”
“Yes,” she nodded, and she seemed glad to be able to remember something that might be important. “He came by after she had missed a couple of Sundays.”
“Did you hear what she said to him?”
“No,” Dottie answered. “They were in the den, and I wanted to give them some privacy.” She seemed to remember something. “He did call back a week later on the telephone, but she told me to say she wasn’t in. That must have been a Saturday, because I was home during the daytime. And I remember that she got a couple more calls that day, and didn’t take those, either.”
“Was this odd?”
“Not by then,” she said. “This must have been around February. I remember I was kind of relieved that she didn’t want to talk to Mark anymore.”
“Did she have some kind of argument with him?”
Dottie shrugged. “All I know is that she hated him. She went from spending most of her time with him to absolutely hating him.”
“Hating him the way a girl hates a guy who won’t ask her out?”
Dottie sat back, giving Lena a hard look of appraisal. She finally seemed to realize that this interview was being conducted to establish Jenny’s guilt, not clear her name.
Lena repeated her question. “She hated Mark because he didn’t want to go out with her anymore?”
“No,” Dottie snapped, her nasally twang back. “Of course not.”
“You’re certain?”
“He was arrested around that time,” Dottie told her, obviously more comfortable putting Mark in the criminal role. “For assault. He attacked his sister.”
Jeffrey cursed himself for not having checked this before. He picked up the phone in the interview room and punched Marla’s extension.
“Yep?” Marla asked.
“Pull a file for me,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Mark Patterson.”
“Kid from last night?”
“Yes.”
“Sure thing,” she answered, ringing off.
When Jeffrey turned his attention back to the room, the climate had changed drastically. Dottie Weaver sat in her chair, her jaw set in an angry line.
Lena asked, “Would you like something to drink?”
“No, thank you.”
“Did you know your daughter’s arm was fractured last year?”
Dottie seemed surprised. She asked Sara, “Did she come see you without me?”
“No,” Sara answered, not elaborating. She seemed angry, but not at Dottie Weaver.
Lena pressed on. “Was your daughter interested in African or Middle Eastern culture?”
Dottie shook her head, not understanding. “Of course not. Why? What does that have to do with anything?”
Sara asked, “Dottie, do you want to take a break?”
Lena shifted in her seat, keeping the questioning up. “Your daughter also had a stress fracture in her pelvis, Mrs. Weaver. Did you know this?”
Dottie’s mouth worked, but she did not answer.
Lena said, “She was probably raped.” She paused, then without emotion added the word, “Brutally.”
“I don’t…” Dottie turned to Sara, then back to Lena. “I don’t understand.”
“What about the scarring on her arms and legs?” Lena demanded. “What happened there? Why was your daughter cutting herself?”
“Cutting herself?” Dottie demanded. “What are you talking about?”
“There were cuts all over her body. Self-inflicted, from the looks of them. You want to tell me how she could do this without you knowing?”
“She was secretive,” Dottie countered. “She covered herself up with her clothes. I never—”
Lena interrupted, “Did you know that she’d had surgery in the last six months?”
“Surgery?” Dottie repeated. “What are you talking about?”
“Not surgery,” Sara interrupted, putting her hand on Dottie’s arm. She said, “Dottie, when I examined Jenny—”
Lena opened the case file. She tossed a picture across the table, then another. From his position, Jeffrey could not make out which ones, but he knew by the expression on Dottie’s face exactly what the mother was looking at.
“Oh, my God, my baby.” She put her hand to her mouth.
“Lena,” Sara warned, putting her hand over the pictures. She tried to move them away, but Dottie stopped her. They struggled for a few seconds with one of the photos before Sara reluctantly let go.
“W-what?” Dottie stuttered. Her hand shook as she held the photo close to her face.
Lena looked smug as she sat back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest. She actually turned to the mirror, to Jeffrey, and raised her eyebrows in a sort of triumph.
Sara put her hand to Dottie’s back. “Let me have this,” she said, trying to take away the photo.
“My God, my God,” the woman muttered, sobbing openly. “My baby. Who did this to my baby?”
Sara shot a look at Lena, and Jeffrey could feel the heat from her stare. Lena shrugged, as if to say, “What did you expect?”
“Oh, God, oh, God,” Dottie whispered, then stopped abruptly. Her body went limp, and Sara softened the woman’s fall as she fainted to the floor.
JEFFREY stood in the hallway outside the briefing room, talking to Lena.
“We’ll need to get to the Patterson boy right away,” Jeffrey told her. “Sara can do the autopsy briefing by herself.”
Lena looked over his shoulder toward the back door. Sara had walked Dottie to her car to make sure the woman was okay, but not before giving a taut warning to Lena that she would be back.
Jeffrey said, “Marla is pulling his address right now. There may be something more to his involvement in this. Hopefully, we’ll catch his sister at home, too.”
Lena nodded, crossing her arms. “You want me to take the sister and you can do Mark?”
“Let’s see how it goes,” Jeffrey answered. “I also want to get a look at this preacher.”
Something flickered in Lena’s eyes. She said, “He’s at my church. Well, not my church, but it’s where Hank goes, and I go along with him sometimes.” She shrugged. “You know, for something to do. I’m not religious like that or anything.”
“Yeah,” Jeffrey answered, a little startled that she had offered this information. It was as close to chatty as Lena had gotten since her attack. He thought maybe it was doing her some good to be involved in the case, and Jeffrey was pleased with that.
“I’m gonna call Brad in off patrol,” Jeffrey said. “I want to talk to him as soon as I can and see what he says about Fine.”
“You think Fine’s the one who did this to Jenny?”
Jeffrey tucked his hands into his pockets. He could not imagine anyone harming a child, but the fact remained that someone had. “We need to find out if Fine was on that retreat during Christmas.”
“Maybe I could—” Lena stopped as the back door was thrown open with a loud bang.
Jeffrey turned just as Sara closed the door. He could tell from the way she walked up the hall that she was angry as hell.
About ten feet away from them, Sara demanded, “What were you doing in there? How could you do that to her?”
Lena dropped her hands to her side. Jeffrey saw her fists clench as Sara shortened the distance between them.
Lena moved away, so that her back was against the wall. She kept her hands clenched and her voice was strong when she said, “I was doing my job.”
“Your job?” Sara shot back, getting in Lena’s face. Sara had a good six inches on Lena, and she was using them to her advantage. “Is it your job to torture a woman who’s just lost her kid? Is it your job to show her those pictures?” Sara’s voice cracked on this last word. “How could you do that to her, Lena? How could you make those pictures the last memory she’ll ever have of her daughter?”
Jeffrey said, “Sara—” just as Sara leaned in and whispered something in Lena’s ear. He could not hear what she had said, but Lena’s reaction was immediate. Her shoulders dropped, and she reminded Jeffrey of a kitten that had been picked up by the scruff of its neck.
Sara saw this, and he could see the immediate guilt on her face. She put her hand over her mouth, as if she could keep the words in. “I’m sorry,” she said to Lena. “I am so sorry.”
Lena cleared her throat, looking down at the floor. “It’s okay,” she said, though clearly it was not.
Sara must have realized that she was still crowding Lena, because she stepped back. “Lena, I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I had no right to say that.”
Lena held up her hand to stop Sara. She took a breath, but did not let it go. Instead, she said, “I’ll be in the car when you want to go.”
The comment was meant for Jeffrey, he realized, and he told Lena, “Okay. Good.” He fumbled for his keys and held them out to her, but she did not take them. Instead, she extended her hand, palm up, waiting for him to drop them.
“Okay,” Lena said, holding the keys in her fist. She did not look at Jeffrey or Sara again. She stared at the floor, even as she walked down the hallway. Her posture was still slack, and she had an air of being completely defeated about her. Whatever Sara had said to the woman had cut to the bone.
Jeffrey turned to Sara, not understanding what had just happened, or why. He asked, “What the hell did you just say to her?”
Sara shook her head, putting her hand over her eyes. “Oh, Jeff,” she said, still shaking her head. “The wrong thing. The completely wrong thing.”