Faith let the ‘probably’ slide by.
He said, ‘These arrows to Rippy look good on paper, but we don’t really have a direct connection, because all of them go through here—’ He tapped his finger on Kilpatrick’s name. ‘He’s the intermediary, the thing standing between Rippy and everybody else. Let’s say by some miracle we have a solid murder charge with evidence and all that other good stuff and the judge gives us an arrest warrant. It won’t be Rippy we charge. It’ll be Kilpatrick. That’s what Rippy pays him for. And if you’re thinking we can build a conspiracy charge, you’re dreaming. Harding’s dead. Angie’s probably dead. Rippy walks away just like he always does.’
She couldn’t accept that he was right, even though every single word made absolute sense. ‘Jane Doe could’ve seen something. She was in the office building across the street. She would’ve had a bird’s-eye view.’ Faith looked at the time on her phone. ‘She should be coming out of her morphine stupor soon. We can talk to her.’
Will didn’t look hopeful.
Faith closed her notebook. She couldn’t look at it anymore. ‘Why do you think she tried to kill herself?’
‘Maybe she was lonely?’ He laid his arm across the back of the empty chair beside him. ‘It’s hard being homeless. You don’t know who to trust. You never really sleep. There’s nobody to talk to.’
Faith realized that Will was the first person who had actually tried to answer the question. ‘How much coke did she have?’
‘I’d guess about two ounces.’
‘Jesus Christ. That’s almost three grand’s worth of coke. Where the hell did she get it?’
‘We can ask her when she wakes up.’ He put his hand to his chest. He winced in pain. ‘I feel like I’m having a heart attack.’
Panic shook her into action. She started to stand, but he stopped her.
‘Not for real. Just this tightness.’ He rubbed his chest with his fingers. ‘Like a shaking, almost. Do you ever get that, where your heart shakes in your chest?’
Faith got it all of the time. ‘That sounds like stress.’
Will kept rubbing his chest. ‘Sara sent me a picture of Betty. She was in her bed at Sara’s place. That’s good, right?’
Faith nodded, but she had no idea. Will had his own way of communicating with people.
He said, ‘I checked online. That lipstick costs sixty bucks.’
Faith nearly choked on a piece of lettuce. The most expensive thing she had ever put on her face was a New York strip after a perp had punched her in the eye.
Will said, ‘All the colors looked the same to me. Can you pull the product number from the evidence log?’
‘Will.’ Faith put down her fork. ‘Sara doesn’t care about the lipstick.’
He shook his head, like she had no idea. ‘She was really, really pissed off.’
‘Will, listen to me. It’s not about the money. It’s about Angie stealing it.’
‘That’s just how Angie is.’ The excuse seemed to make sense to him. ‘When we were growing up, none of us had anything. If you saw something you wanted, you took it. Otherwise you never had anything. Especially anything nice.’
Faith struggled for a way to explain it to him. ‘What if one of Sara’s ex-boyfriends broke into her apartment and stole the shirt that you sleep in?’
‘Wouldn’t it make more sense for him to steal Sara’s shirt?’
Faith groaned. Men had it so easy. When they got mad at each other, they fought it out. Women cut themselves and gave each other eating disorders.
She said, ‘Remember that suicide last year at the women’s detention center?’
‘Alexis Rodriguez. She cut her wrists.’
‘Right. And when we asked the other inmates why she did it, they said that girls had been stealing her stuff. Not just her commissary. She’d put down a pen and the next thing she knows, it’s missing. She’d take off her socks and they’d disappear. They even stole her trash. Why do you think they did that?’
He shrugged. ‘To be mean.’
‘To make her understand that nothing belonged to her. That no matter how important or inconsequential, they could take away anything at any time, and she couldn’t do anything about it.’
He looked dubious.
‘Why else would Angie leave those notes on Sara’s car?’
‘She was mad.’
‘Sure, she was mad, but she was fucking with Sara.’
Will shifted in his seat. He still wasn’t seeing it.
‘Angie was a bully, Will. And she wanted Sara to know that she could take you back anytime she wanted. That’s why she stole the lipstick. That’s why she left the notes. She was marking her territory.’ Faith had to say the next part. ‘And you let her get away with it.’
Will sat back in his chair. He did not stand up and leave. He did not tell her to mind her own business. He rubbed the side of his jaw. He stared at the trashcan by the door.
Faith waited. And waited. She tried to finish her salad. She checked to make sure that there were no new messages on her phone.
‘She left me a note,’ Will said. ‘Angie.’
Faith kept waiting.
‘Amanda doesn’t know. At least I don’t think she does. It was in the post office box.’ He stared at his hands. ‘She printed my name on the outside, but the letter is in cursive.’
Faith knew that Will had trouble reading cursive. Angie would know this too, which to Faith’s thinking made her an even bigger bitch than before.
He said, ‘I can’t let Sara read it. The letter.’
‘No, you can’t.’
‘It’s what she wanted. For Sara to have to read it. Out loud. To me.’
‘It is.’
‘So . . . ?’
Faith felt her throat work. He had never asked her to read anything for him. It had always been a point of pride. He took his turn writing up their reports. He was the only man she had ever worked with who didn’t try to turn her into his private secretary.
Faith said, ‘All right.’
He reached into his front pocket and pulled out a piece of folded notebook paper. The edge was tattered from being ripped away from the spiral. He unfolded the letter and smoothed it out on the table. Angry words filled the page, crossing the margins, spilling onto the back. Things were underlined. The pen had actually torn through the paper.
Faith’s eyes picked up the word Sara, and she cringed inside. ‘Are you sure?’
Will didn’t say anything. He just waited.
Faith didn’t know what to do but turn the letter around and start to read. ‘ “Hey, baby. If someone is reading this to you, then I am dead.” ’
Will put his head in his hands.
‘ “I hope it’s Sara, because I want that cu—” ’ Faith cursed Angie under her breath. ‘ “I want that cunt to know that you will never, ever love her the way that you love me.” ’ She glanced up at Will. He still had his head in his hands.
Faith returned to the letter.
‘ “Remember the basement? I want you to tell your precious Sara about the basement because that will explain everything. She will understand that you have only been fucking her because she is a poor substitute for me. You have been lying to her about everything.” ’ Faith squinted at the scrawl, trying to decipher the next few words. ‘ “You like her because she’s safe, and because she’ll—” ’ Faith stopped. Her eyes had skipped ahead. She told Will, ‘I don’t think—’
‘Please.’ His voice was muffled by his hands. ‘If you don’t read it, I’ll never know.’
Faith cleared her throat. Her face burned with embarrassment. For herself. For Sara. ‘ “You like her because she’s safe and because she’ll go down on you and you never see her spit because that is part of her scam. She is your lapdog for a reason.” ’ Faith silently scanned ahead, praying it wouldn’t get worse.
It did.
‘ “Needy bitches like Sara want the white picket fence and the kids in the yard. How would that be, having a bunch of little monsters with your fucked-up genes inside of them? Loser retards like you who can’t read their own fucking names.” ’