Fractured Page 2

  Amanda put the car into reverse to parallel park between two of the cruisers. The park sensor controls started beeping as she tapped on the gas. “Don’t dawdle in there, Will. We’re not working this case unless we’re taking it over.”

  Will had heard some variation on this same theme at least twice since they had left city hall. The dead girl’s grandfather, Hoyt Bentley, was a billionaire developer who had made his share of enemies over the years. Depending on who you talked to, Bentley was either a scion of the city or a crony from way back, the sort of moneyed crook who made things happen behind the scenes without ever getting his hands dirty. Whichever version of the man’s story was true, he had deep enough pockets to buy his share of political friends. Bentley had made one phone call to the governor, who had reached out to the director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, who had in turn assigned Amanda the task of looking into the murder.

  If the killing had any markings of a professional hit or hinted at something deeper than a simple assault and burglary gone wrong, then Amanda would make a phone call and snatch the case away from the Atlanta Police Department faster than a toddler taking back a favorite toy. If this was just a random, everyday tragedy, then she would probably leave the explanations to Will while she toodled back to city hall in her fancy car.

  Amanda put the gear into drive and inched forward. The gap between the beeps got furiously short as she edged closer to the police car. “If Bentley’s got someone mad enough to kill his granddaughter, this case goes to a whole new level.”

  She sounded almost hopeful at the prospect. Will understood her excitement—breaking this kind of case would be yet another feather in Amanda’s cap—but Will hoped he never got to the point where he saw the death of a teenage girl as a career stepping-stone. Though he wasn’t sure what he should think of the dead man, either. He was a murderer, but he was also a victim. Considering Georgia’s pro–death penalty stance, did it really matter that he had been strangled here in Ansley Park rather than strapped to a gurney and given a lethal injection at Coastal State Prison?

  Will opened the door before Amanda put the car into park. The hot air hit him like a punch to the gut, his lungs temporarily straining in his chest. Then the humidity took over, and he wondered if this was what it felt like to have tuberculosis. Still, he put on his suit jacket, covering the paddle holster clipped to the back of his belt. Not for the first time, Will questioned the sanity of wearing a three-piece suit in the middle of August.

  Amanda seemed untouched by the heat as she joined Will. A group of uniformed policemen stood clustered at the bottom of the driveway, watching them walk across the street. Recognition dawned in their eyes, and Amanda warned Will, “I don’t have to tell you that you’re not exactly welcome by the Atlanta Police Department right now.”

  “No,” Will agreed. One of the cops in the circle made a point of spitting on the ground as they passed by. Another one settled on a more subtle raised middle finger. Will plastered a smile on his face and gave the officers a big thumbs-up to let them all know there were no hard feelings.

  From her first day in office, Atlanta’s mayor had pledged to weed out the corruption that ran unchecked during her predecessor’s reign. Over the last few years, she had been working closely with the GBI to open cases against the most blatant offenders. Amanda had graciously volunteered Will to go into the lions’ den. Six months ago, he had closed an investigation that had resulted in the firing of six Atlanta police detectives and forced the early retirement of one of the city’s highest-ranking officers. The cases were good—the cops were skimming cash off of narcotics busts—but nobody liked a stranger cleaning their house, and Will had not exactly made friends during the course of his investigation.

  Amanda had gotten a promotion out of it. Will had been turned into a pariah.

  He ignored the hissed “asshole” aimed at his back, trying to focus on the crime at hand as they walked up the curving driveway. The yard was brimming with all kinds of exotic-looking flowers that Will was hard-pressed to name. The house itself was enormous, stately columns holding up a second-floor balcony, a winding set of granite stairs leading to the front doors. Except for the smattering of surly cops marring the scene, it was an impressive estate.

  “Trent,” someone called, and he saw Detective Leo Donnelly making his way down the front steps. Leo was a short man, at least a full foot less than Will’s six-three. His gait had taken on an almost Columbo-like shuffle since they’d last worked together. The effect was that of an agitated monkey. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  Will indicated the cameras, offering Leo the most believable explanation. Everybody knew the GBI would throw a baby into the Chattahoochee if it meant getting on the nightly news. He told the detective, “This is my boss, Dr. Wagner.”

  “Hey,” Leo said, tossing her a nod before turning back to Will. “How’s Angie doing?”

  “We’re engaged.” Will felt Amanda’s scrutiny focus on him with a cold intensity. He tried to deflect, indicating the open doorway with a nod of his head. “What’ve we got here?”

  “A shitload of hate for you, my friend.” Leo took out a cigarette and lit it. “You better watch your back.”

  Amanda asked, “Is the mother still inside?”

  “First door on the left,” Leo answered. “My partner’s in there with her.”

  “Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me.” Amanda dismissed Leo the way she might a servant. The look she gave Will wasn’t that much more pleasant.

  Leo exhaled a line of smoke as he watched her go up the stairs. “Puts a chill on things, don’t she? Like fucking dry ice.”

  Will defended her automatically, in that sort of way that you defend a useless uncle or slutty sister when someone outside of the family attacks them. “Amanda is one of the best cops I’ve ever worked with.”

  Leo fine-tuned his appraisal. “Nice ass for a grandma.”

  Will thought back to the car, the way Amanda’s arm had shot out in front of him when she thought they were going to get hit by the news van. It was the most maternal thing he had ever seen her do.

  Leo offered, “Bet she’s a lot of work in the sack.”

  Will tried not to shudder as he forced the image from his mind. “How’ve you been?”

  “Prostate’s got me leaking like a fucking sieve. Haven’t been laid in two months and I got this cough that won’t go away.” He coughed, as if to prove it, then took another hit off the cigarette. “You?”

  Will squared his shoulders. “I can’t complain.”

  “Not with Angie Polaski at home.” Leo’s suggestive laugh reminded Will of what an asthmatic child molester would sound like if he smoked three packs a day. Angie had worked vice for fifteen years before taking medical leave from the force. Leo was under the impression that she was a whore just because her job had required her to dress like one. Or maybe it was the many different men she’d slept with over the years.

  Will offered, “I’ll tell her you said hello.”

  “Do that.” Leo stared up at Will, taking a deep pull on the cigarette. “What are you really doing here?”

  Will tried to shrug it off, knowing that Leo would be furious if he had his case snatched out from under him. “Bentley’s got a lot of connections.”

  Leo dubiously raised an eyebrow. Despite the rumpled suit and the way his forehead sloped like a caveman’s, he had been a cop long enough to recognize when someone hadn’t exactly answered a question. “Bentley called you in?”

  “The GBI can only involve itself in cases when it’s invited by the local police force or government.”

  Leo snorted a laugh, smoke coming out of his nostrils. “You left out kidnapping.”

  “And bingo,” Will added. The GBI had a task force that investigated bingo parlors in the state. It was the sort of job you got when you pissed off the wrong person. Two years ago, Amanda had exiled Will to the north Georgia mountains, where he had spent his time arresting meth-dealing hillbillies and r
eflecting on the dangers of disobeying his direct superior. He didn’t doubt a bingo transfer was in his future should he ever rile her again.

  Will indicated the house. “What happened here?”

  “The usual.” Leo shrugged. He took a long drag on his cigarette, then stubbed it out on his shoe. “Mom comes home from playing tennis, the door’s open.” He put the butt in his jacket pocket as he led Will into the house. “She goes upstairs and sees her daughter, dead and diddled.” He indicated the curving staircase that swept over their heads. “The killer’s still here, sets his sights on the mom—who’s fucking hot, by the way—fighting ensues, and, surprise, he’s the one that winds up dead.”

  Will studied the grand entranceway. The doors were a double set, one fixed, one open. The broken side window was a good distance from the knob. Someone would have to have a long arm to reach in and unlock the door.

  He asked, “Any pets?”

  “There’s a three-hundred-year-old yellow Lab. He was in the backyard. Deaf as a freakin’ post, according to the mother. Probably slept through the whole thing.”

  “How old’s the girl?”

  “Seventeen.”

  The number echoed in the tiled foyer, where the smell of lavender air freshener and Leo’s sweaty, nicotine stench competed alongside the metallic tinge of violent death. At the bottom of the stairs lay the source of the most dominant of all the odors. The man was lying on his back with his hands palms up near his head as if in surrender. A medium-sized kitchen knife with a wooden handle and a jagged edge was a few feet from his hand, lying in a nest of broken glass. His black jeans looked soiled, the skin of his neck bruised red from strangulation. The smattering of a mustache under his nose made his lip look dirty. Acne spotted his sideburns. One of his sneakers had come untied, the laces stiff with dried blood. Incongruously, the killer’s T-shirt had a dancing cherry on it, the stem cocked at a jaunty angle. The shirt was dark red, so it was hard to tell if the darker parts were blood, sweat, urine or a combination of all three.

  Will followed the dead man’s gaze up to the chandelier hovering overhead. The glass made a tinkling noise as it swayed in the artificial breeze from the air-conditioning. White spots of light danced around the foyer, reflecting the sunlight that came in through the palladium window over the doors.

  Will asked, “Do you have an ID on him yet?”

  “Looks like his wallet’s in his back pocket, but he’s not going anywhere. I don’t want to roll the body until Pete gets here.” He meant Pete Hanson, the city medical examiner. “Perp looks pretty young, you know?”

  “Yeah,” Will agreed, thinking that the killer was probably not old enough to buy alcohol. Amanda had been excited by the prospect of a contract killing. Unless Hoyt Bentley’s enemies had a crack team of mercenary frat boys on the payroll, Will doubted there was a connection.

  He asked, “Domestic?”

  Leo shrugged again, a gesture that was more like a tic. “Looks like it, huh? Boyfriend snaps, kills the girl, panics when the mom comes home and goes after her. Problem is, Campano swears she’s never seen him before in her life.”

  “Campano?” Will echoed, feeling his gut tighten at the name.

  “Abigail Campano. That’s the mother.” Leo studied him. “You know her?”

  “No.” Will looked down at the body, hoping his voice would not give him away. “I thought the last name was Bentley.”

  “That’s the wife’s father. The husband’s Paul Campano. He owns a bunch of car dealerships. You heard the commercials, right? ‘We never say no at Campano.’ ”

  “Where is he?”

  Leo’s cell phone started to ring and he slid it off the clip on his belt. “Shouldn’t be too much longer. He was on the phone with her when it happened. He’s the one who called 9-1-1.”

  Will cleared his throat so his voice would come back. “Might be interesting to know what he heard.”

  “You think?” He studied Will closely as he opened his cell phone, answering, “Donnelly.”

  Leo stepped outside and Will looked around the foyer, taking in the dead body, the broken glass. Obviously, there had been a massive struggle here. Blood streaked the floor, two different sets of tennis shoes leaving smeared waffle prints across the creamy white tile. A frail, antique-looking table had fallen on its side, a glass bowl shattered beside it. There was a busted cell phone that looked as if it had been stepped on. Mail was scattered around like confetti and a woman’s handbag was overturned, the contents adding to the mess.

  Over by the wall, there was a lamp sitting upright on the floor as if someone had placed it there. The base was cracked and there was a tilt to the shade. Will wondered if someone had turned it right side up or if the lamp, defying all probabilities, had landed upright. He also wondered if anyone had noticed the bloody bare footprint beside the lamp.

  His eyes followed the curving line of the polished wooden stairs, seeing two sets of bloody tennis-shoe prints heading down but no other bare footprints. There were scuffs and deep ruts in the walls where shoes and body parts had dug out the plaster, indicating at least one person had fallen. The trip must have been brutal. Abigail Campano had known she was fighting for her life. For his part, the dead kid at the bottom of the stairs was no lightweight. The definition of his muscles was evident under the red T-shirt. He must have been shocked to find himself overpowered even as he pulled his last breath.

  In his head, Will sketched a diagram of the house, trying to get his bearings. A long hallway under the stairs led to the back of the house and what looked like the kitchen and family room. There were two rooms off the front entrance, probably originally intended to be parlors to give the men separate space from the women. Pocket doors closed off one room, but the second, which looked to be used as a library, was open. Dark paneling dominated the open parlor. Bookshelves lined the walls and a fireplace with a deep hearth already had wood laid for a fire. The furniture was heavy, probably oak. Two large leather chairs dominated the space. Will assumed the other parlor was the opposite, the walls painted in white or cream and the furnishings less masculine.

  Upstairs, there would probably be the usual layout to these old houses: five or six bedrooms connected by a long, T-shaped hallway with what would have originally been servants’ stairs leading down to the kitchen in the back. If the other houses in the neighborhood were anything to go by, there would be a carriage house outside that had been converted to a garage with an apartment overhead. Measuring and mapping it all out for the reports would be a lot of work. Will was glad the task wouldn’t fall to him.

  He was also glad he wouldn’t have to explain why the single bloody footprint on the foyer was heading up the stairs instead of running out the front doorway.

  Leo came back into the house, obviously annoyed by the phone call. “Like I don’t got enough people sticking their heads up my ass with this prostate thing.” He indicated the scene. “You solve this one for me yet?”

  Will asked, “Who does the green BMW on the street belong to?”

  “The mother.”

  “What about the girl—does she have a car?”

  “A black Beemer, if you can believe it, 325 convertible. Parents took it away when her grades started to slide.” He pointed to the house across the street. “Nosey neighbor turned her in when she saw the car in the driveway during school hours.”

  “Did the neighbor see anything today?”

  “She’s even older than the dog, so don’t get your hopes up.” He gave a half shrug of his shoulder, allowing, “We’ve got somebody over there talking to her right now.”

  “The mother’s sure she doesn’t recognize the killer?”

  “Positive. I had her look at him again when she was more calmed down. Never seen him before in her life.”

  Will looked back at the dead man. Everything was adding up but nothing made sense. “How’d he get here?”

  “No idea. Could’ve taken the bus and walked from Peachtree Street.”

  P
eachtree, one of the busiest streets in Atlanta, was less than ten minutes away. Buses and trains went back and forth over-and underground bringing thousands of people to the office buildings and shops along the strip. Will had heard of criminals doing more stupid things than timing a brutal murder around a bus schedule, but the explanation didn’t feel right. This was Atlanta. Only the desperately poor or ecologically eccentric took public transportation. The man on the floor was a clean-cut white kid wearing what looked like a three-hundred-dollar pair of jeans and a two-hundred-dollar pair of Nikes. Either he had a car or he lived in the neighborhood.

  Leo offered, “We’ve got patrol out looking for a car that don’t belong.”

  “You were the first detective on the scene?”

  Leo took his time answering, making sure Will knew that he was doing so as a courtesy. “I was the first cop, period,” he finally said. “Nine-one-one came in around twelve-thirty. I was finishing lunch at that sandwich place on Fourteenth. I got here maybe two seconds before the cruiser pulled up. We checked the house, made sure no one else was here, then I told everybody to get the hell out.”

  Fourteenth Street was less than a five-minute drive from where they stood. It was luck that the first responding officer had been a detective who could secure the scene. “You were the first one to talk to the mother?”

  “She was freaked the fuck out, let me tell you. Hands were shaking, couldn’t get her words out. Took about ten minutes for her to calm down enough to get the story out.”

  “So, this looks clean to you? Some kind of domestic violence scene between two teenagers, then the mom comes in and puts a kink in it?”

  “Is that what Hoyt Bentley sent you to check out?”

  Will skirted the question. “This is a sensitive case, Leo. Bentley plays golf with the governor. He sits on the board of half the charities in town. Wouldn’t you be more surprised if we weren’t here?”