‘Will?’ Faith said. ‘What are you doing here?’
He didn’t stop to explain himself. Everything that had been knocking around his head for the last seven hours exploded out of his mouth. ‘I looked back at my notes from the Rippy rape investigation. Reuben Figaroa was Rippy’s main alibi at the party, and Jo Figaroa was her husband’s main alibi. Angie knew this. She also figured out that Jo was a junkie, and junkies are really easy to control. She manipulated Jo into blackmailing her husband. If Jo broke Reuben’s alibi, then that broke Rippy’s alibi, and the whole thing came crumbling down. But instead of caving in and paying them off, Reuben went to Kilpatrick. Kilpatrick put Harding on to solving the problem. Harding called the cops in to bust Jo, and when that didn’t shut her up, he solved it by killing her.’ He felt himself smiling, because all the clues had been there right from the beginning. ‘Angie called me to clean up the mess, because that’s what she does.’
Faith didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Finally she asked, ‘How would Angie know about the witness statements?’
‘They were in my files at home. She must’ve seen them. I know she saw them.’ He realized he was talking too fast and too loud. He slowed himself down. ‘She mixed up the witness statements. She knows my system, the color coding, and she mixed them up to let me know that she’d seen them.’
‘Where’s Sara?’
‘Downstairs, watching the autopsy.’ He gripped Faith’s arms. ‘Listen to me. Angie lost her leverage when Jo died. She’s trying to get us—’
‘We think Angie kidnapped her grandson.’
Will felt his grip loosen on her arms.
‘He wasn’t at school yesterday. He didn’t show up this morning.’
Will scanned her eyes, trying to understand where this was coming from. ‘He could have a cold, or—’
‘Come over here.’ She led him to the chairs across from the nurses’ station. She made him sit down, but she stood in front of him, stood over him really, and told him what she and Amanda had found.
Will’s earlier elation over cracking the case started to dissipate the moment she mentioned Miss Lindsay poking her head out when the phone rang. By the time she had finished recapping the last few hours, Will was leaned over in the chair, his hands clasped between his knees, completely deflated.
Everything she said made perfect sense. The lawyers and bankers made sense. The expectation around the phone call made sense. Angie getting her daughter murdered and still trying to pull some cash out of it made sense.
What was wrong with him? How had he loved such a despicable person?
Faith said, ‘You could be right about the blackmail plan going sideways, only when Harding took out Jo—’
‘Angie saw Anthony as the perfect stand-in.’ Will rubbed his face with his hands. Survival of the fittest. Angie always kept moving forward. She didn’t worry about consequences because she never stuck around long enough to deal with them.
He said, ‘I hit Collier.’
‘I figured that out. I wish you’d hit him harder.’ She covered a large yawn with the back of her hand. ‘We’re going to have to rework Collier’s side of the case. He lied about Virginia Souza’s death by OD. She’s alive and kicking as of last week. We’ve got footage of her at the jail posting a cash bail on an eighteen-year-old picked up for solicitation. Delilah Palmer is still our only solid lead. She could be a victim. She could be a perpetrator. Either way, the first person she’d go to for help is her pimp. We need to find Souza. If she really is the mama in charge, then she’ll know who Delilah’s pimp is. We get the pimp, we get Delilah.’
‘Agent Trent,’ the doctor said. ‘You can talk to the patient now, but keep it brief and try not to excite her any more than she already is.’
Faith asked, ‘What’s she excited about?’
The doctor shrugged. ‘Free food, clean sheets, nurses to wait on her, cable TV. We replaced all of her blood, so this is probably the first time in decades she’s been clean. She’s been on the streets for twenty years. We’re like the Ritz here.’
‘Thanks.’ Faith asked Will, ‘Ready?’
Will wanted to stand, but he felt like he was weighted down with lead. Yesterday’s numbness had returned. Every lost minute of sleep slammed into him like a pile driver. ‘We can’t do anything, can we? About Anthony. His father hasn’t reported him missing. We can’t demand to see him because we don’t really have any proof that something’s wrong. Reuben’s got a wall of lawyers telling him his rights, and if he’s as much of a control freak as you say, he’s going to insist on handling all of this on his own.’
Faith said, ‘Amanda’s working on a warrant to tap his phones. She’s got four cars outside his house. If anyone leaves, they’ll be followed. But you’re right, you and I can’t do anything right now except work our end of the case.’
Will felt the elephant from last night take a tentative step onto his chest. He shook it off. He wasn’t going to humiliate himself again the way he had at the funeral home. ‘Angie said that Jo was my daughter. Sara says my blood type doesn’t rule me out.’
‘Do you believe Angie?’
He told Faith the only truth he knew. ‘All I can think about is punching her in the throat until her windpipe collapses so that I can see the panic in her eyes while she suffocates to death.’
‘That’s disturbingly specific.’ Faith got that expression on her face that told him she was going to try to mother him. ‘Why don’t you go home and get some rest? It’s been a tough couple of days. I can interview Jane Doe. Amanda should be here any minute. You probably shouldn’t be talking to a potential witness anyway.’
‘It’s already tainted. I’m the one who found her.’ Will stood up. He straightened his tie. He had to take a cue from Angie and keep moving forward. If he let the stress get to him, if he had another stupid panic attack, he’d never be able to hold up his head again. ‘Let’s do this.’
He let Faith lead the way. Jane Doe 2 was one of three Jane Does on the ward. Jane Doe 1 was in a quiet room at the end of the hall. Jane Doe 3 had a cop outside her door. Grady was Atlanta’s only publicly funded hospital. There were a lot of Does here.
Their particular Jane Doe was in a tiny room sectioned off by a glass window and a heavy wooden door that wouldn’t close all the way. Machines pumped and hissed. A heart monitor tracked beats. The lights had been left on. Both of Jane Doe’s eyes were blackened, because that’s what happened when your nose collapsed into your face. Heavy bandages were wrapped around the top two-thirds of her head, leaving her mouth and chin exposed. Greasy brown hair puffed out between the gauze. Two surgical drains, basically clear bags that caught excess fluid and blood from the wound, were dangling down either side of her face. She reminded Will of the colo claw fish from the bad Star Wars.
Jane stopped eating her Jell-O mid-bite when Faith and Will walked in. ‘Leave that door open. I don’t wanna end up being another black woman who dies mysteriously in police custody.’
Faith said, ‘First, you’re not in police custody, and second, you’re not black.’
‘Shit.’ Jane rubbed at her white arms. ‘How’d I manage to fuck up my life so bad, then?’
‘I’m assuming personal choice had something to do with it.’
Jane put down the empty cup. She sat back in bed. Her voice was raspy. She was older than Will had first thought, closer to fifty. He had no idea why he’d ever thought she might be Angie.
Jane said, ‘Whaddaya want? I gotta sponge bath in a few minutes, then Judge Mathis is on.’
‘We want to talk to you about Sunday night.’
‘What’s today?’
‘Tuesday.’
‘Holy shit, that was some blow.’ The drain bags flopped against her cheeks as she laughed. ‘God damm, bitch. Sunday, I was on the moon.’
Faith gave Will the look that said she didn’t have the patience for this.