—
Faith had never thought of herself as a morning person, but she had gotten into the habit of going in to work early when Jeremy was a child. You couldn’t not be a morning person when there was a hungry boy to feed, dress, scrutinize and send off to the bus stop by 7:13 at the latest. If not for Jeremy, she might have been one of those late-night people, the sort who rolls into bed well after midnight, but Faith’s usual bedtime ran closer to ten, even after Jeremy was a teenager and his waking hours were few and far between.
For his own reasons, Will was always at work early, too. Faith saw his Porsche parked in its usual space as she pulled the Mini into the lot under City Hall East. She put the car in park, then sat there trying to get the driver’s seat back where she could reach the pedals and the steering wheel at the same time without being impaled by one while having to stretch to reach the other. After several minutes, she finally found the right combination and briefly thought about having the seat bolted into place. If Will wanted to drive her car again, he’d have to do it with his knees around his ears.
There was a tap at her window, and Faith looked up, startled. Sam Lawson stood there, a cup of coffee in his hand.
Faith opened the car door and wedged herself out, feeling like she’d put on twenty pounds overnight. Finding something to wear this morning had been a nearly impossible task. She was carrying enough water weight to fill a tank at SeaWorld. Thankfully, her giddiness over Sam Lawson had been a twenty-four-hour virus. She did not relish having a conversation with him now, especially since her mind needed to be focused on the day ahead of her.
“Hey, babe,” Sam said, looking her up and down in his usual predatory way.
Faith got her purse out of the back seat. “Long time no see.”
He gave a half-shrug that implied he was merely the victim of circumstance. “Here,” he said, offering her the coffee. “Decaf.”
Faith had tried to drink some coffee this morning. The smell had sent her rushing to the bathroom. “Sorry.” She ignored the cup, walking away from him, trying not to get sick again.
Sam tossed the cup into the trashcan as he caught up with her. “Morning sickness?”
Faith glanced around, afraid they’d be heard. “I haven’t told anyone but my boss.” She tried to remember when you were supposed to tell people. There had to be a certain number of weeks before you were sure it took. Faith must be coming up on that mark. She should start telling people soon. Should she get them all together, invite her mother and Jeremy to dinner, get her brother on speakerphone, or was there a way to send a bulk anonymous email and perhaps jump on a flight to the Caribbean for a few weeks to avoid the fallout?
Sam’s fingers snapped in front of her face. “You in there?”
“Barely.” Faith reached for the door to the building just as he did. She let him open it for her. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
“About last night—”
“It was two nights ago, actually.”
He grinned. “Yeah, but I wasn’t really thinking about it until last night.”
Faith sighed as she pressed the elevator button.
“Come here.” He pulled her toward the alcove on the other side of the elevator. There was a vending machine with three rows of sticky buns, which Faith knew without having to look.
Sam stroked her hair behind her ear. Faith pulled back. She wasn’t ready for intimacy this early in the morning. She wasn’t sure she was ever ready for it. Without thinking, she glanced up to make sure there wasn’t a security camera watching them.
He said, “I was an ass the other night. I’m sorry.”
She heard the elevator doors open, then close. “It’s all right.”
“No, it’s not.” He leaned in to kiss her, but she pulled back again.
“Sam, I’m at work.” She didn’t add the rest of what she was thinking, which was that she was in the middle of a case where one woman had died, another woman had been tortured and two more were missing. “This isn’t the time.”
“It’s never the time,” he said, something he’d often told her years ago when they were seeing each other. “I want to try this again with you.”
“What about Gretchen?”
He shrugged. “Hedging my bets.”
Faith groaned, pushing him away. She went back to the elevator and pressed the button. Sam didn’t leave, so she told him, “I’m pregnant.”
“I remember.”
“I don’t want to break your heart, but the baby’s not yours.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
She turned to face him. “Are you trying to work out some ghosts because your wife had an abortion?”
“I’m trying to get back into your life, Faith. I know it has to be on your terms.”
Faith balked at the backhanded compliment. “I seem to recall one of the problems between us, other than you being a drunk, me being a cop and my mother thinking you were the Antichrist, was you didn’t like the fact that I had a son.”
“I was jealous of the attention you gave him.”
At the time, she had accused him of this very thing. To hear him admit to it now left her nearly breathless.
“I’ve grown up,” he said.
The elevator opened. Faith made sure the car was empty, then held the door open with her hand. “I can’t have this conversation now. I’ve got work to do.” She got into the elevator and let the doors go.
“Jake Berman lives in Coweta County.”
Faith nearly lost her hand stopping the doors. “What?”
He took his notebook out of his pocket and wrote as he talked. “I tracked him down through his church. He’s a deacon and a Sunday School teacher. They’ve got a great website with his picture on it. Lambs and rainbows. Evangelical.”
Faith’s brain couldn’t process the information. “Why did you find him?”
“I wanted to see if I could beat you to the punch.”
Faith didn’t like where this was going. She tried to neutralize the situation. “Listen, Sam, we don’t know that he’s a bad guy.”
“I guess you’ve never been in the men’s room at the Mall of Georgia.”
“Sam—”
“I haven’t talked to him,” he interrupted. “I just wanted to see if I could track him down when no one else could. I’m tired of Rockdale squeezing my balls. I much prefer it when you do.”
Faith let that comment go, too. “Give me the morning to talk to him.”
“I told you, I’m not looking for a story.” He grinned, showing all his teeth. “It was an exercise in faith.”
She narrowed her eyes at him.
“I wanted to see if I could do your job.” He tore off the piece of paper, giving her a wink. “Pretty easy stuff.”
Faith grabbed the address before he changed his mind. He held her gaze as the doors closed, then Faith found herself staring at her reflection on the backs of the doors. She was sweating already, though she supposed in a pinch that could pass for a pregnant glow. Her hair was starting to frizz because, even though it was only April, the temperature was inching up the thermometer.
She looked at the address Sam had given her. There was a heart around the entire thing, which she found annoying and endearing in equal parts. She didn’t quite trust that he wasn’t looking for a story in Jake Berman. Maybe the Atlanta Beacon was doing a down-low exclusive, outing married churchgoers who were trolling glory holes and finding raped and tortured women in the middle of the road.
Could Berman be Pauline’s brother? Now that she had an address, Faith wasn’t so sure. What were the odds that Jake Berman had hooked up with Rick Sigler, and both men just happened to be on the road at the same time the Coldfields’ car hit Anna Lindsey?
The doors opened and Faith walked out onto her floor. None of the hall lights were on, and she flipped the switches as she walked toward Will’s office. No light seeped from under his door, but she knocked anyway, knowing from his car that he was in the building.
“Yes?”
She opened the door. He was sitting at his desk with his hands clasped in front of his stomach. The lights were off.
She asked, “Everything okay?”
He didn’t answer her question. “What’s up?”
Faith shut the door and opened the folding chair. She saw the back of Will’s hand, and that some new scratches had been added to the cuts he’d received while beating Simkov’s face. She didn’t mention this, instead going to the case. “I got Jake Berman’s address. He’s in Coweta. That’s about forty-five minutes from here, right?”
“If the traffic’s good.” He held out his hand for the address.
She read it off to him. “Nineteen-thirty-five Lester Street.”
He still had his hand out. For some reason, all Faith could do was stare at his fingers.
Will snapped, “I’m not a fucking idiot, Faith. I can read an address.”
His tone was sharp enough to make the hair on the back of her neck rise. Will seldom cursed, and she had never heard him say “fuck” before. She asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I just need the address. I can’t do the interview with Simkov. I’ll go find Berman and we’ll meet back here after your appointment.” He shook his hand. “Now give me the address.”
She crossed her arms. She would die before she gave him the piece of paper. “I don’t know what the hell is wrong with you, but you need to get your head out of your ass and talk to me about this before we’ve got a real problem.”
“Faith, I’ve only got two testicles. If you want one, you’re going to have to talk to Amanda or Angie.”
Angie. With that one word, all the fight seemed to go out of him.
Faith sat back in the chair, her arms still crossed, studying him. Will looked out the window, and she could see the faint line of the scar going down the side of his face. She wanted to know how it had happened, how his skin had been gouged from his jaw, but as with everything else, the scar was just another thing they did not talk about.
Faith put the paper on his desk and slid the address across to him.
Will gave it a cursory glance. “There’s a heart around it.”
“Sam drew it.”
Will folded the paper and put it in his vest pocket. “Are you seeing him?”
Faith was loath to use the words “booty call,” so she just shrugged. “It’s complicated.”
He nodded—the same nod they always used when there was something personal that wasn’t going to be discussed.
She was sick of this. What was going to happen in a month when she started showing more? What was going to happen in a year when she collapsed on the job because she had miscalculated her insulin? She could easily see Will making excuses for her weight gain or simply helping her up and telling her she should be careful where she stepped. He was so damn good at pretending the house wasn’t on fire even as he ran around looking for water to put it out.
She threw up her hands in surrender. “I’m pregnant.”
His eyebrows shot up.
“Victor’s the father. I’m also diabetic. That’s why I passed out in the garage.”
He seemed too shocked to speak.
“I should’ve told you before. That’s what my secret appointment is in Snellville. I’m going to the doctor so she can help me with this diabetes thing.”
“Sara can’t be your doctor?”
“She referred me to a specialist.”
“A specialist means it’s serious.”
“It’s a challenge. The diabetes makes it more difficult. It’s manageable, though.” She had to add, “At least that’s what Sara said.”
“Do you need me to go to your appointment with you?”
Faith had a glimpse of Will sitting in the waiting room of Delia Wallace’s office with her purse in his lap. “No. Thank you. I need to do this on my own.”
“Does Victor—”
“Victor doesn’t know. No one knows except you and Amanda, and I only told her because she caught me shooting up with insulin.”
“You have to give yourself shots?”
“Yeah.”
She could almost see his mind working, the questions he wanted to ask her but didn’t know how to frame.
Faith said, “If you want another partner—”
“Why would I want another partner?”
“Because it’s a problem, Will. I don’t know how much of a problem, but my blood sugar drops or goes up, and I get emotional, and I either bite your head off or feel like I’m going to burst into tears, and I don’t know how I’m going to do my job with this thing.”
“You’ll work it out,” he said, always reasonable. “I worked it out. My problem, I mean.”
He was so adaptive. Anything bad that happened, no matter how horrible, he just nodded and moved on. She supposed that was something he’d learned at the orphanage. Or maybe Angie Polaski had drilled it into him. As a survival skill, it was commendable. As the basis of a relationship, it was irritating as hell.
And there was absolutely nothing Faith could do about it.
Will sat up in his chair. He did his usual trick, making a joke to ease the tension. “If I get a vote, I would rather you bite my head off than start crying.”
“Back at you.”
“I need to apologize.” Suddenly, he was serious again. “For what I did to Simkov. I’ve never laid hands on anyone like that before. Not ever.” He looked her directly in the eye. “I promise it won’t happen again.”
All Faith could say was, “Thank you.” Of course she didn’t agree with what Will had done, but it was hard to shout out recriminations when he was so obviously already doing a good job of hating himself.
It was Faith’s turn to lighten things up. “Let’s stay away from good cop/bad cop for a while.”
“Yeah, stupid cop/bitchy cop works a lot better for us.” He reached into his vest pocket and handed her back Jake Berman’s details. “We should call Coweta and have them put eyes on Berman to make sure he’s the right guy.”
The wheels in Faith’s brain took their time moving in a new direction. She looked at Sam’s block handwriting, the stupid heart around the address. “I don’t know why Sam thinks he can track down the guy in five minutes when our entire data processing division can’t find him in two days.”
Faith took out her cell phone. She didn’t want to bother with the proper channels, so she called Caroline, Amanda’s assistant. The woman practically lived in the building, and she picked up the phone on the first ring. Faith relayed Berman’s address and asked her to have the Coweta County field agent verify that this was the Jake Berman they had been looking for.
“Do you want him to bring the guy in?” Caroline asked.
Faith thought about it, then decided she didn’t want to make the decision on her own. She asked Will, “Do you want them to bring in Berman?”
He shrugged, but answered, “Do we want to tip him off?”
“A cop knocking on his door is a tip-off no matter what.”
Will shrugged again. “Tell him to try to verify Berman’s identity from a distance. If it’s the right guy, then we’ll go down there and snatch him up. Give the agent my cell number. We’ll go after you finish talking to Simkov.”
Faith passed this on to Caroline. She ended the call, and Will turned his computer monitor toward her, saying, “I got this email from Amanda.”
Faith slid over the mouse and keyboard. She changed the color settings so her retinas didn’t spontaneously combust, then double-clicked on the file. She summarized for Will as she read. “Tech hasn’t been able to break into any of the computers. They say the anorexia chat room is impossible to open without a password—it’s got some kind of fancy encryption. The warrants for Olivia Tanner’s bank should be in this afternoon so we can get into her phone and files.” She scrolled down. “Hmm.” She read silently, then told Will, “Okay, well, this might be something to take to the doorman. The fire exit door on the penthouse floor had a partial on the handle—right thumb.”
Will knew Faith had spent most of yesterday afternoon combing through Anna Lindsey’s building. “How are the stairs accessed?”
“Either the lobby or the roof,” she said, reading the next passage. “The fire escape ladder that runs down the back of the building had another print that matched the one from the door. They’re sending it to the Michigan State Police to run comparables. If Pauline’s brother has a record, it should come up. If we can get a name, then we’re halfway there.”
“We should check for parking tickets in the area. You can’t just park anywhere in Buckhead. They’re pretty good about catching you.”
“Good idea,” Faith said, opening up her email account to send out the request. “I’ll open it up to parking tickets in or around the area of all the last known locations of our victims.”
“Son of Sam was caught by a parking ticket.”
Faith tapped the keys. “You’ve got to stop watching so much television.”
“Not much else to do at night.”
She glanced at his hands, the new scratches.
He asked, “How did he get Anna Lindsey out of the building? He couldn’t have thrown her over his shoulder and taken her down the fire escape ladder.”
Faith sent off the email before answering. “The exit door for the stairs was wired. An alarm would have gone off if anyone had opened the door.” She asked, “Did he take her down the elevator and into the lobby?”
“That’s something to ask Simkov.”
“The doorman isn’t there twenty-four hours,” Faith reminded him. “The killer could’ve waited for Simkov to clock out, then used the elevator to bring her body down. Simkov was supposed to keep an eye on things after hours, but he was hardly dedicated to his job.”
“There wasn’t another doorman to relieve him?”
“They’ve been trying to find someone to fill the position for six months,” she told him. “Apparently, it’s hard to find someone who wants to sit on their ass behind a desk for eight hours a day—which is why they put up with so much bullshit from Simkov. He was willing to double up his shifts, such as they were.”
“What about security tapes?”
“They tape over them every forty-eight hours.” She had to add, “Except for the ones from yesterday, which seem to be missing.” Amanda had made sure the tape of Will slamming Simkov’s face into the counter had been destroyed.
Will’s face flooded with guilt, but still he asked, “Anything in Simkov’s apartment?”
“We tossed it upside down. He drives an old Monte Carlo that leaks like a sieve and there aren’t any receipts for storage units.”
“There’s no way he could be Pauline’s brother.”
“We’ve been so focused on that that we haven’t seen anything else.”
“All right, so let’s take the brother out of the equation. What about Simkov?”
“He’s not smart. I mean, he’s not stupid, but our killer is choosing women he wants to conquer. I’m not saying our bad guy is a genius, but he’s a hunter. Simkov is a pathetic schmuck who keeps porn under his mattress and takes blowjobs to let whores into empty apartments.”
“You’ve never believed in profiles before.”
“You’re right, but we’re spinning our wheels everywhere else. Let’s talk about our guy,” Faith said, something Will usually suggested. “Who’s our killer?”
“Smart,” Will admitted. “He probably works for an overbearing woman, or has overbearing women in his life.”
“That’s pretty much every man on the planet these days.”
“Tell me about it.”
Faith smiled, taking his words as a joke. “What kind of job does he have?”
“Something that lets him exist under the radar. He has flexible hours. Watching these women, learning about their habits, takes a lot of time. He’s got to have a job that lets him come and go as he pleases.”
“Let’s ask the same boring, stupid question one more time: What about the women? What do they have in common?”
“The anorexia/bulimia thing.”
“The chat room.” She shot that one down on her own: “Of course, even the FBI can’t find out who the site is registered to. No one has been able to break Pauline’s password. How could our guy find it?”
“Maybe he started the site himself in order to troll for victims?”
“How would he find out their true identities? Everyone’s tall, thin and blonde on the Internet. And usually twelve and horny.”
He was twisting his wedding ring again, staring out the window. Faith couldn’t stop looking at the scratches on the back of his hand. In forensic parlance, they would have called the marks defensive wounds. Will had been behind someone who had gouged her fingernails deep into his skin.
She asked, “How did it go with Sara last night?”
Will shrugged. “I just picked up Betty. I think she likes Sara’s dogs. She’s got two greyhounds.”
“I saw them yesterday morning.”
“Oh, that’s right.”
“Sara’s nice,” Faith told him. “I really like her.”
Will nodded.
“You should ask her out.”
He laughed, shaking his head at the same time. “I don’t think so.”
“Because of Angie?”
He stopped twisting the ring. “Women like Sara Linton …” She saw a flash of something in his eyes that she couldn’t quite read. Faith expected him to shrug it off, but he kept talking. “Faith, there’s no part of me that’s not damaged.” His voice sounded thick in his throat. “I don’t mean just the things you can see. There’s other stuff. Bad stuff.” He shook his head again, a tight gesture, more for his own benefit than Faith’s. He finally told her, “Angie knows who I am. Somebody like Sara …” Again his voice trailed off. “If you really like Sara Linton, then you don’t want her to know me.”
All Faith could think to say was his name. “Will.”
He gave a forced laugh. “We gotta stop talking about this stuff before one of us starts lactating.” He took out his cell phone. “It’s almost eight. Amanda will be waiting for you in the interrogation room.”
“Are you going to watch?”
“I’m going to make some calls up to Michigan and annoy the crap out of them until they run those fingerprints we found on Anna’s fire escape. Why don’t you call me when you’re out of your doctor’s appointment? If Sam found the right Jake Berman, we can go talk to him together.”
Faith had forgotten about her doctor’s appointment. “If he’s the right Jake Berman, then we should scoop him up immediately.”
“I’ll call you if that’s the case. Otherwise, go to your doctor’s appointment, then we’ll start from scratch like we’d planned.”
She listed it off. “The Coldfields, Rick Sigler, Olivia Tanner’s brother.”
“That should keep us busy.”
“You know what’s bugging me?” Will shook his head, and she told him, “We haven’t gotten the reports from Rockdale County yet.” She held up her hands, knowing Rockdale was a sore point. “If we’re going to start from the beginning, we need to do just that—get the initial crime-scene report from the first responding cop and go over every detail point by point. I know Galloway said the guy’s fishing in Montana, but if his notes are good, then we don’t need to talk to him.”
“What are you looking for?”
“I don’t know. But it bothers me that Galloway hasn’t faxed it over.”
“He’s not exactly on top of things.”
“No, but everything he’s held back until now has been for a reason. You said it yourself. People don’t do stupid things without a logical explanation.”
“I’ll put a call in to his office and see if the secretary can handle it without getting Galloway involved.”
“You should get those scratches on the back of your hand looked at, too.”
He glanced down at his hand. “I think you’ve looked at them plenty.”
Except for talking to Anna Lindsey in the hospital the day before, Faith had never worked directly with Amanda on a case. The extent of their interaction tended to be with a desk between them, Amanda on one side with her hands steepled in front of her like a disapproving schoolmarm and Faith fidgeting in her chair as she gave her report. Because of this, Faith tended to forget that Amanda had clawed her way up the ranks back during a time when women in uniform were relegated to fetching coffee and typing reports. They weren’t even allowed to carry guns, because the brass thought that, given the choice between shooting a bad guy and breaking a nail, the latter would win out.
Amanda had been the first female officer to disabuse them of this theory. She had been at the bank cashing her paycheck when a robber decided to take an early withdrawal. One of the tellers had panicked, and the robber had started to pistol-whip her. Amanda shot him once in the heart, what was called a K-5 for the circle it corresponded to on the shooting range target. She’d told Faith once that she had gotten her nails done afterward.
Otik Simkov, the doorman from Anna Lindsey’s building, would have benefited from knowing this story. Or maybe not. The little troll had an air of arrogance about him, despite being stuffed into a too-small Day-Glo orange prison uniform and open-toed sandals that had been worn by a thousand prisoners before him. His face was bruised and battered, but he still held himself upright, shoulders squared. As Faith entered the interrogation room, he gave her the same look of appraisal a farmer might give a cow.
Cal Finney, Simkov’s lawyer, made a show of looking at his watch. Faith had seen him on television many times; Finney’s commercials had their own annoying jingle. He was as handsome in person as he was on the set. The watch on his arm could’ve put Jeremy through college.
“Sorry I’m late.” Faith directed the apology toward Amanda, knowing she was the only one who mattered. She sat in the chair opposite Finney, catching the look of distaste on Simkov’s face as he openly stared at her. This was not a man who had learned to respect women. Maybe Amanda would change that.
“Thank you for speaking with us, Mr. Simkov,” Amanda began. She was still using her pleasant voice, but Faith had been in enough meetings with her boss to know that Simkov was in trouble. She had her hands resting lightly on a file folder. If experience was anything to go by, she would open the folder at some point, unleashing the gates of hell.
She said, “We just have a few questions to ask you regarding—”
“Screw you, lady,” Simkov barked. “Talk to my lawyer.”
“Dr. Wagner,” Finney said. “I’m sure you’re aware that we filed a lawsuit against the city this morning for police brutality.” He snapped open his briefcase and pulled out a stack of papers, which he dropped with a thunk on the table.
Faith felt her face flush, but Amanda didn’t seem fazed. “I understand that, Mr. Finney, but your client is looking at a charge of obstructing justice in a particularly heinous case. Under his watch, one of the tenants in his building was abducted. She was raped and tortured. She barely managed to escape with her life. I’m sure you saw it on the news. Her child was left to die, again under Mr. Simkov’s watch. The victim will never regain her vision. You can see why we are somewhat frustrated that your client has been less than forthcoming about what, exactly, was going on in his building.”
“I know nothing,” Simkov insisted, his accent so thick Faith expected him at any moment to start talking about capturing Moose and Squirrel. He told the lawyer, “Get me out of here. Why am I a prisoner? I am soon a wealthy man.”
Finney ignored his client, asking Amanda, “How long will this take?”
“Not long.” Her smile indicated otherwise.
Finney wasn’t fooled. “You’ve got ten minutes. Keep all your questions to the Anna Lindsey case.” He advised Simkov, “Your cooperation now will reflect well during your civil suit.”
Unsurprisingly, he was swayed by the prospect of money. “Yeah. Okay. What are your questions?”
“Tell me, Mr. Simkov,” Amanda continued. “How long have you been in our country?”
Simkov glanced at his lawyer, who nodded that he should answer.
“Twenty-seven years.”
“You speak English very well. Would you describe yourself as fluent, or should I get a translator here to make you more comfortable?”
“I am perfect with my English.” His chest puffed out. “I read American books and newspapers all the time.”
“You are from Czechoslovakia,” Amanda said. “Is that correct?”
“I am Czech,” he told her, probably because his country no longer existed. “Why do you ask me questions? I am suing you. You should be answering my questions.”
“You have to be a United States citizen in order to sue the government.”
Finney piped up, “Mr. Simkov is a legal resident.”
“You took my green card,” Simkov added. “It was in my wallet. I saw you see it.”
“You certainly did.” Amanda opened the folder, and Faith felt her heart leap. “Thank you for that. It saved me some time.” She slipped on her glasses and read from a page in the folder. “ ‘Green Cards issued between 1979 and 1989, containing no expiration date, must be replaced within 120 days of this notice. Affected lawful permanent residents must file an Application to Replace Lawful Permanent Residence Card, form I-90, in order to replace their current green card or their permanent lawful resident status will be terminated.’ ” She put the page down. “Does that sound familiar to you, Mr. Simkov?”
Finney held out his hand. “Let me see that.”
Amanda passed him the notice. “Mr. Simkov, I’m afraid Immigration and Naturalization Services has no record of you filing form I-90 to renew your legal status as a resident in this country.”
“Bullshit,” Simkov countered, but his eyes went nervously to his lawyer.
Amanda passed Finney another sheet of paper. “This is a photocopy of Mr. Simkov’s green card. You’ll note there’s no expiration date. He’s in violation of his terms of status. I’m afraid we’ll have to turn him over to the INS.” She smiled sweetly. “I also got a call from Homeland Security this morning. I had no idea Czech-made weapons were falling into the hands of terrorists. Mr. Simkov, I believe you were a metalworker before you came to America?”
“I was a farrier,” he shot back. “I put shoes on horses.”
“Still, you have a specialized knowledge of metal tooling.”
Finney muttered a curse. “You people are unbelievable. You know that?”
Amanda was leaning back in her chair. “I don’t recall from your commercials, Mr. Finney—do you have a subspecialty in immigration law?” She gave a cheery whistle, a pitch-perfect imitation of the jingle on Finney’s television commercials.
“You think you’re going to get away with a beat-down on a technicality? Look at this man.” Finney pointed to his client, and Faith had to concede the lawyer’s point. Simkov’s nose was twisted to the side where the cartilage had been shattered. His right eye was so swollen the lid wouldn’t open more than a slit. Even his ear was damaged; an angry row of stitches bisected the lobe where Will’s fist had split the skin in two.
Finney said, “Your officer beat the shit out of him, and you think that’s okay?” He didn’t expect an answer. “Otik Simkov fled a communist regime and came to this country to start his life all over again from scratch. You think what you’re doing to him now is what the Constitution is all about?”
Amanda had an answer for everything. “The Constitution is for innocent people.”
Finney snapped his briefcase closed. “I’m calling a press conference.”
“I’d be more than happy to tell them how Mr. Simkov made a whore suck him off before he’d let her go up to feed a dying six-month-old baby.” She leaned over the table. “Tell me, Mr. Simkov:
Did you give her a few extra minutes with the child if she swallowed?”
Finney took a second to regroup. “I’m not denying this man is an asshole, but even assholes have rights.”
Amanda gave Simkov an icy smile. “Only if they’re United States citizens.”
“Unbelievable, Amanda.” Finney seemed genuinely disgusted. “This is going to catch up with you one day. You know that, don’t you?”
Amanda was having some kind of staring contest with Simkov, blocking out everything else in the room.
Finney turned his attention to Faith. “Are you all right with this, Officer? Are you okay with your partner beating up a witness?”
Faith wasn’t at all okay with it, but now was not the time to equivocate. “It’s Special Agent, actually. ‘Officer’ is generally what you call patrolmen.”
“This is great. Atlanta’s the new Guantánamo Bay.” He turned back to Simkov. “Otik, don’t let them push you around. You have rights.”
Simkov was still staring at Amanda, as if he thought he could break her somehow. His eyes moved back and forth, reading her resistance. Finally, he gave a tight nod. “Okay. I drop my lawsuit. You make this other stuff go away.”
Finney didn’t want to hear it. “As your lawyer, I am advising you to—”
“You’re not his lawyer anymore,” Amanda interrupted. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Simkov?”
“Correct,” he agreed. He crossed his arms, staring straight ahead.
Finney muttered another curse. “This isn’t over.”
“I think it is,” Amanda told him. She picked up the stack of pages detailing the suit against the city.
Finney cursed her again, adding Faith for good measure, then left the room.
Amanda tossed the lawsuit into the trashcan. Faith listened to the noise the pages made as they fluttered through the air. She was glad that Will was not here, because as much as Faith’s conscience was bothering her over this, Will’s was nearly killing him. Finney was right. Will was getting away with a beat-down thanks to a technicality. If Faith hadn’t been in that hallway yesterday, she might be feeling differently right now.
She summoned the image of Balthazar Lindsey lying in the recycling bin a few feet from his mother’s penthouse apartment and all that came to mind were excuses for Will’s behavior.
“So,” Amanda said. “Shall we assume there’s honor among criminals, Mr. Simkov?”
Simkov nodded appreciatively. “You are a very hard woman.”
Amanda seemed pleased with the assessment, and Faith could see how thrilled she was to be back in an interrogation room again. It probably bored her to death sitting through organizational meetings and looking at budgets and flowcharts all day. No wonder terrorizing Will was her only hobby.
She said, “Tell me about the scam you had going on in the apartments.”
He gave an open-handed shrug. “These rich people are always traveling. Sometimes I rent out the space to someone. They go in. They do a little—” He made a screwing gesture with his hands. “Otik gets a little money. The maid’s in the next day. Everyone is happy.”
Amanda nodded, as if this was a perfectly understandable arrangement. “What happened with Anna Lindsey’s place?”
“I figure, why not cash out? That asshole Mr. Regus in 9A, he knew something was up. He don’t smoke. He come back from one of his business trips and there was a cigarette burn on his carpet. I saw it—barely there. No big deal. But Regus caused some problems.”
“And they fired you.”
“Two-week notice, good referral.” He shrugged again. “I already got another job lined up. Bunch of town houses over near the Phipps Plaza. Twenty-four-hour watch. Very classy place. Me and this other guy, we switch out. He takes days. I take the nights.”
“When did you first notice Anna Lindsey was missing?”
“Always at seven o’clock, she comes down with the baby. Then one day she’s not there. I check my message box where the tenants leave me things, mostly complaints—can’t get a window open, can’t figure out the television, stuff that’s not my job, right? Anyway, there’s a note from Ms. Lindsey saying she’s on vacation for two weeks. I figure she must have left. Usually, they tell me where they go, but maybe she thinks since I won’t be here when she’s back, it don’t matter.”
That jibed with what Anna Lindsey said. Amanda asked, “Is that how she usually communicated with you, through notes?”
He nodded. “She don’t like me. Says I’m sloppy.” His lip curled in disgust. “Made the building buy me a uniform so I look like a monkey. Made me say ‘yes, ma’am’ and ‘no, ma’am’ to her like I’m a child.”
That sounded like the kind of thing their victim profile trended toward.
Faith asked, “How did you know she was gone?”
“I don’t see her come downstairs. Usually, she go to the gym, she go to the store, she take the baby for walks. Wants help getting the stroller in and out of the elevator.” He shrugged. “I think, ‘She must be gone.’ ”
Amanda said, “So you assumed Ms. Lindsey would be gone for two weeks, which coincided nicely with the date your employment would terminate.”
“Easy peasy,” he agreed.
“Who did you call?”
“This pimp. The dead guy.” For the first time, Simkov seemed to lose a bit of his arrogance. “He’s not so bad. They call him Freddy. I don’t know his real name, but he was always honest with me. Not like some of the others. I tell him two hours, he stay two hours. He pay for the maid. That’s it. Some of the other guys, they get a little pushy—try to negotiate, don’t leave when they’re supposed to. I push back. I don’t call them when an apartment’s available. Freddy, he film a music video up there once. I watch for it on the TV, but I don’t see. Maybe he couldn’t find an agent. Music is a hard business.”
“The party at Anna Lindsey’s got out of hand.” Amanda stated the obvious.
“Yeah, out of hand,” he agreed. “Freddy’s a good guy. I don’t go up there to check on them. Every time I’m in the elevator, someone say, ‘Oh, Mr. Simkov, could you look at this in my apartment.’ ‘Could you water my plants?’ ‘Could you walk my dog?’ Not my job, but they trap you like that, what can you say? ‘Fuck off’? No, you can’t. So I stay at my desk, tell them I can’t do anything because my job is to watch the desk, not walk their puppy dogs. Right?”
Amanda said, “That apartment was a mess. It’s hard to believe it got that bad in just a week.”
He shrugged. “These people. They got no respect for nothing. They shit in the corner like dogs. Me, I’m not surprised. They’re all fucking animals, do anything to get the drug in their arm.”
“What about the baby?” Amanda asked.
“The whore—Lola. I thought she was going up there to do some business. Freddy was there. Lola got a soft spot for him. I didn’t know he was dead. Or that they had trashed Ms. Lindsey’s place. Obviously.”
“How often was Lola going up there?”
“I don’t keep up with it. Couple times a day. I figure she get a bump every now and then.” He rubbed his hand under his nose, sniffing—the universal sign for snorting coke. “She not so bad. A good woman brought down by bad circumstance.”
Simkov didn’t seem to realize he was one of the bad circumstances. Faith asked, “Did you see anything unusual in the building over the last two weeks?”
He barely gave her a glance, asking Amanda, “Why is this girl asking me questions?”
Faith had been snubbed before, but she knew this guy needed to be on a short leash. “You want me to get my partner back in here to talk to you?”
He snorted, as if the thought of another beat-down was inconsequential, but he answered Faith’s question. “What do you mean, unusual? It’s Buckhead. Unusual is everywhere.”
Anna Lindsey’s penthouse had probably set her back three million dollars. The woman hardly lived in the ghetto. “Did you see any strangers loitering around?” Faith persisted.
He waved her off. “Strangers everywhere. This is a big city.”
Faith thought about their killer. He had to have access to the building in order to Taser Anna and take her away from the apartment. Simkov obviously wasn’t going to make this easy, so she tried to bluff him. “You know what I’m talking about, Otik. Don’t bullshit me or I’ll have my partner go back to work on your ugly face.”
He shrugged again, but there was something different about the gesture. Faith waited him out, and he finally said, “I go for a smoke sometimes behind the building.”
The fire escape that led to the roof was behind the building. “What did you see?”
“A car,” he said. “Silver, four-door.”
Faith tried to keep her reaction calm. Both the Coldfields and the family from Tennessee had seen a white sedan speeding away from the accident. It had been dusk. Maybe they had mistaken the silver car for white. “Did you get a license plate number?”
He shook his head. “I saw the ladder to the fire escape was unlatched. I went up to the roof.”
“On the ladder?”
“Elevator. I can’t climb that ladder. It’s twenty-three floors. I got a bad knee.”
“What did you see on the roof?”
“There was a soda can there. Someone used it for an ashtray. Lots of butts inside.”
“Where was it?”
“On the ledge of the roof, right by the ladder.”
“What did you do with it?”
“I kicked it off,” he said, giving another one of his shrugs. “Watched it hit the ground. It exploded like—” He put his hands together, then flung them apart. “Pretty spectacular.”
Faith had been behind that building, had searched it top to bottom. “We didn’t find any cigarette butts or a soda can behind the building.”
“That’s what I’m saying. Next day, it was all gone. Someone cleaned it up.”
“And the silver car?”
“Gone, too.”
“You’re sure you didn’t see any suspicious men hanging around the building?”
He blew out a puff of air. “No, lady. I told you. Just the root beer.”
“What root beer?”
“The soda can. It was Doc Peterson’s Root Beer.”
The same as they’d found in the basement of the house behind Olivia Tanner’s.