Busted Page 4

  Will couldn’t look at her, mostly because he felt like the worst sort of bad person, the kind who preyed on old people.

  Down the hall, he heard a thumping sound: Amanda’s high heel hitting the floor, sort of like the way a horse thief digs its heels into the flesh of an innocent pony.

  Will swallowed, then made himself look back up. “Why’d you lie?”

  “Please, mister …” Her voice took on a pleading quality. She was still afraid he would tell. “I know it’s wrong, but I had my reasons.”

  “She your granddaughter?” Will guessed from her reaction that he was on the right track. There weren’t a lot of reasons to volunteer yourself up to the police. “They’re gonna find her. They know her name. Billie Lam.”

  Maw-Maw looked terrified by the news. “How do they know?”

  “I heard the cops talking to the lesbian.” He let a smile come, figuring it might make him look devious. “They found Billie’s purse under the counter. They know she was here.”

  She slumped back into the chair, nearly disappearing in the dress. Her head started shaking. He wasn’t sure if this was on purpose or from some kind of palsy. “This is down to my worthless son-in-law.”

  “He robbed his own store?”

  “Of course not. Why would he rob himself?” She kept shaking her head. “After Billie’s mama died, all he cared about was taking them expensive fishing trips and taking money outta the store.” She shrugged. “Of course, he’s a kike. What did I expect?”

  Will wasn’t up on his racial slurs. “Kike,” he echoed. “Is that for Polacks?”

  “Jews,” she corrected. “Where’re you from?”

  “Atlanta.”

  “Huh,” she said, like that explained it. “What else did you hear the po-lice say?”

  Will took a gamble. “You first.”

  “Pierce,” she told him. “That’s the colored man got shot.”

  “I heard he got caught having sex with a student.”

  Maw-Maw raised an eyebrow, but she didn’t reveal whether or not that student had been her granddaughter. “You know what we used to call his type back in my day? Farm equipment.”

  Will found himself blinking too rapidly. Maw-Maw just sat there innocently with her hands curled in her lap, legs crossed at her tiny ankles. She had to be the most adorable racist Will had ever met in his life.

  He said, “If you really wanna help your granddaughter, you’ll tell the police where she is. They just wanna know what happened. She won’t be in any trouble.”

  She started shaking her head again. “Ain’t no situation ever got better with the police involved.”

  “She wasn’t part of the robbery. She just saw a good opportunity and took it.”

  She kept shaking her head. This time, he could tell it was on purpose.

  Will said, “You can get into a lot of trouble for lying to the police. It pisses them off, and you don’t want them pissed off when they find her.”

  Maw-Maw seemed to think it over. For just a moment, Will thought she was going to give up her granddaughter.

  And then something changed.

  She sat up in her chair. She looked down at the handcuffs around his wrists. “Why are you asking me all these questions? You sound more like the po-lice than a criminal.”

  Will caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Faith had taken Amanda’s place down the hallway. She was leaning forward, practically hanging on every word.

  Will tried, “I’m just trying to help you out.”

  “I don’t need your help,” she snapped, though he was pretty sure she couldn’t get out of the chair without assistance, let alone ensure her granddaughter’s safety. “I can do fine by myself.”

  “Lookit, I don’t care one way or the other.” Will tried to put some authority in his voice. As sexist as it sounded, women of Maw-Maw’s generation generally responded well to men in authority. “I’m just offering some friendly advice. The police can protect her. You can’t do this on your own.”

  Some of her resolve seemed to slip. “I don’t know.”

  “Anything you can tell them would be helpful.”

  “I guess I could tell them some. Since they know she’s my granddaughter anyway.” She seemed to think of an idea. “I can tell ‘em about Billie helping with the nursery at the church. She’s good like that, good with children.”

  “You need to tell them where she is.”

  Maw-Maw opened her mouth. Will could practically see the words moving to the tip of her tongue. And then she clammed up. “I just don’t know, sonny. Hand to the Bible, I would tell them where she is, but I just don’t know.”

  --4--

  Will leaned into a curve as Faith sped toward the hospital. He felt like he was on his bike again, but they were in Amanda’s SUV, which wasn’t built for zigzagging across the road.

  “She was so smug,” Faith said, meaning Maw-Maw. “It’s like she thinks we can’t touch her.”

  Will stared at her. “What did you hear in the hallway? That wasn’t my read at all.”

  “Please. She played you like a fiddle. All that old-woman bullshit, meanwhile she’s lying to the police. She’s obstructing a case. A cop was shot. Another man was killed. You were nearly shot in the process. You could’ve died. Wayne Walker caused millions of dollars in damage trying to get away. That old biddy knows something, and she should pay for holding it back.”

  “Well, when you put it that way.”

  “How else would I put it?”

  Will didn’t have an answer for her.

  “You never knew your grandmother. Trust me, they’re not all they’re cracked up to be.”

  Will tried to move her along. “What did you find out about Billie Lam?”

  Faith had to breathe through it before she could answer. “Not much more than what Maw-Maw told us, which – believe me – has me more worried than not.” She beeped her horn at a car that wasn’t moving fast enough. “Billie Lam is a college dropout. Her mother died when she was twelve. No siblings. No cousins. Maw-Maw said the father isn’t around much. He uses the income from the store to go on fishing trips down in the Gulf. They don’t see him for weeks at a time.”

  Will might have fallen for the old woman, but Faith had a point about not taking all of this information at face value. “Did you lift any prints from Lam’s purse?”

  “She’s not in the system.”

  “You ran a records check?”

  “Through the DMV, through the county systems, through every single database we have access to.” She listed it out. “We don’t know her social security number. We don’t have her credit score. We don’t have a cell phone number for her. We don’t know who her friends are. We don’t know jack.”

  “Have you talked to the father?”

  “More don’ts. No phone number. No address. His credit record is a mess, but everything is registered to the store or a PO box. Maybe he lives with his mother-in-law, but who knows? The agent who drove Maw-Maw home went into her house. You know this. There was no one inside. He checked the place top to bottom.”

  She was right. Will did know all of this. He knew that the same agent was sitting outside Maw-Maw’s house, that both Doug-Ray Pierce’s house and Wayne Walker’s apartment had been turned upside down. They’d been working this case for nearly three hours and still nothing viable had turned up.

  Faith said, “While you were enjoying your chat with Maw-Maw, I rattled some cages at the school board. Didn’t you think it was weird that Doug-Ray Pierce got fired for messing with a student, but he walked onto a job in another county?”

  “I just assumed Clayton was desperate for teachers.”

  “Me too,” Faith said, “but apparently even they have standards. Somebody pulled in some big favors to get Doug-Ray Pierce hired in Clayton County.”

  “Wayne Walker,” Will guessed, because it was the only thing that made sense. “He’s older. He had what passes for tenure around here. He’d know people at the county offi
ce.”

  “Exactly.” Faith took another sharp turn. Will grabbed the dashboard.

  She told him, “A secretary at the county office gave me the story. Walker vouched for Pierce, said that he was fired off rumors, that nothing was proven – which is technically true – that they went after him because he’s a black man and he was accused by a white student. Birth of a Nation, yada-yada.”

  Will was missing a connection. “How did Billie Lam know Wayne Walker?”

  “Walker went to their church. So says the secretary.” Faith shook her head. “This is still a small town. Everybody’s up in everybody else’s business.”

  “Not that it’s been much help.” Will rubbed his face, trying to concentrate. “Maw-Maw said the son-in-law is Jewish.”

  Faith glanced his way. “They go to an Episcopal church. His name is Gilbert Caldwell. I just assumed he was Billie’s stepfather.” She wrinkled her forehead. “Why would Maw-Maw lie about him being Jewish?”

  Will shook his head, too. It seemed Maw-Maw lied just for the sake of lying. “What about friends? Billie had pictures in her wallet. She must’ve known people from church or school.”

  “We’re talking to people from both, but Billie’s a ghost. She’s nineteen years old. We don’t know what school she went to because Maw-Maw can’t remember. Billie doesn’t have a record. She doesn’t own a car. She’s never filed a tax return. We don’t know her social security number, so we can’t pull her bank accounts. I’m sure she has a cell phone but who the hell knows what the number is.” Faith slowed the Suburban, turning in to the hospital parking lot. “I tried to look her up on Twitter and Facebook, but the only Lam in the area is a sixty-year-old parole officer who lives in Atlanta. I sent her a message. She’s never heard of her.”

  Will racked his brain for other ways to find the girl. “The family doesn’t have other properties? She’s hiding out somewhere.”

  “No properties. We’re knocking on every door at every fleabag motel around.”

  “That’s a lot of motels,” Will said. Forest Park was near the airport. You couldn’t throw a rock without hitting a motel. “Billie got to work somehow. She has to have a car.”

  “Maw-Maw’s powder blue Honda was parked behind the store. We turned it inside out.” Faith bumped the gear into park. “Nothing. That’s the story of this case: nothing.”

  Will pushed open the car door. “Either she’s a criminal mastermind or she’s very lucky.”

  “Or both.”

  He followed Faith to the loading dock, asking, “Any reason Amanda wants me here?”

  “I don’t question orders.”

  She was a better liar than Maw-Maw. “I’m still maintaining my cover, right?”

  “I guess so. She told me to bring you through the back. McClendon’s out of surgery, but there are still cops all over the place.” She stepped on a chock and boosted herself onto the loading dock. “Pete McClendon, that’s the name of the cop who was shot.”

  “He clean?”

  “Who the hell knows? The doctors are keeping him in a coma because of the pain. We won’t get to talk to him for another day at least.”

  The large metal door was rolled only partway up. Faith walked underneath, but Will had to bend down to make the clearance. He pulled his phone out of his pocket to check the time. The glass was scratched. He felt lucky Amanda hadn’t logged it into evidence just to prove a point. It was only a few minutes after noon. Will guessed all the dockworkers were at lunch.

  Faith took a moment to get her bearings, consulting the emergency exit map to find the freight elevator. Will helped her lift the heavy door, which opened like a guillotine. Carts of soiled laundry lined the back wall of the car. They both stared ahead as the elevator creaked into action, taking them to the top floor.

  Will said, “All this because of the blinking light on an Icee machine.”

  Her jaw set. “Sure. That’s why.”

  “Five minutes later, I would’ve been out of there.”

  She wouldn’t look at him.

  He said, “There was a Triumph at the impound lot. I guess I can use that when I go down to Macon.”

  “Make sure it has a cup holder.”

  The elevator groaned to a stop. She finally looked at him.

  “Oh.” Will was slow on the uptake. He would’ve been trapped at the store even longer while he drank the Icee. “Have I ever told you that you’re a really good detective?”

  “Whatever.” Faith lifted the elevator door. She didn’t look back to make sure Will followed. They had about twenty feet of hallway before a turn. He tried to think of a witty rejoinder, but then he turned the corner and saw Amanda.

  She was waiting for them by the nurses’ station. As usual, she was reading something on her phone. She didn’t look up as she asked, “Anything?”

  Will figured it was his turn to take one for the team. “No, ma’am. We’re trying to verify Maw-Maw’s story, but we’re hitting a lot of dead ends.”

  She still didn’t look up. “Talk to that patrolman over there.”

  Faith walked over to the cop. He was so young Will doubted he had to shave more than twice a week. “You have something for us—” Faith read his name off his uniform – “Mixon?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” The cop took off his hat. “Pete was in that store every day at the same time. I was his boot for three months. We went there every single day.”

  Will knew a boot was what they called a patrolman in training. He asked, “Why did he go in there?”

  Mixon didn’t seem to want to answer Will’s question, probably because Will looked like a thug.

  Faith said, “Why did he go there?”

  Mixon was still reluctant, but he finally said, “He was sweet on the girl worked behind the counter.”

  “Seems like a lot of men were,” Faith noted. “Why wasn’t McClendon wearing his vest when he went into the store?”

  Mixon shrugged. “He always had it on when I worked with him.”

  “His logs didn’t report anything suspicious at the store. Did he say something to you? Indicate there might be a problem?”

  “No, ma’am. I’d tell you straight out.” He rolled his hat in his hands like pizza dough. “I was thinking, though, if they cased the place, then they’d know Pete was there at the same time every day. Maybe this was a hit? Something professional set up by one of the gangs?”

  “Did McClendon deal with any gangs?”

  “Well, no, ma’am. His beat cuts through an industrial area. He was mostly called out to break-ins and such. There’s been a ton of robberies around there, usually in the early hours, sometimes late at night. Smash and grab. Real organized. We got our detectives on it, but they ain’t caught nobody yet.”

  Faith had spent the first decade of her career in a squad car. She knew what the pay was like. “Did McClendon have any other jobs? Something he did for extra cash?”

  “I know he taught CPR classes over at Spivey. Some of the teachers wanted to get certified ’cause of all these school shootings.”

  “Spivey,” Faith echoed. “Thank you, Officer. We’ll be in touch if we have any questions.”

  He put his hat back on and headed toward the stairs.

  Faith said, “Pete McClendon worked at Spivey Senior High.”

  As usual, Amanda was a step ahead of them. “According to the principal, Wayne Walker recommended McClendon to teach the CPR course.”

  Will tried to get a handle on where they were. They’d all worked robberies before. Usually it was through familial or community connections that they were able to break open a case. “We’ve got Pete McClendon tied to Wayne Walker through the school, Wayne Walker to Billie Lam through the church, Doug-Ray Pierce to Billie Lam possibly through softball camp, maybe even a teacher-student affair.”

  Faith added, “What about the third man in the back of the truck? Where are we on finding him?”

  “The same place we were three hours ago – clueless.” Amanda sounded exasperated
. “Wayne Walker just woke up from surgery. They stopped the bleeding, set his pelvis and both arms, wrapped his ribs, which have been rendered into oatmeal, but he’s refused further treatment.”

  “Can he do that?”

  “This is America. We have a constitutional right to make unhealthy choices.” Amanda started down the hall. They followed. “His fever’s spiked. The gunshot wound was a ricochet, low velocity. It’s just a matter of time.”

  Will knew this was bad news. A high-velocity bullet generated enough heat to cauterize and disinfect the wound. A low-velocity shot opened up the body to all kinds of infection.

  Amanda said, “He wasn’t in the best of health to begin with. Brittle diabetic, pack-a-day smoker, high blood pressure, overweight, and then there’s the melanoma he’s been fighting for the last four years.” She stopped outside a closed door where a GBI agent stood guard. “He knows he’s going to die without treatment. Let’s pray he wants to unburden his soul.”

  Faith started to go in, but Amanda stopped her.

  “Mr. Walker has made it clear he’s not going to waste the last few hours of his life explaining himself to a woman.”

  At least Will finally understood why Amanda had let him come to the hospital. He pushed open the door. Sunlight flooded the room, probably some doctor’s or nurse’s attempt to bring in some UV rays and kill the infection.

  And there was no mistaking that an infection was raging inside Wayne Walker’s body. The blankets covering him were soaked through. He shivered like a parody of someone who was freezing to death. His teeth chattered. What was left of his hair was stuck to his head like pieces of moldy straw. His eyes were wide with panic. Sweat dripped down his face, pooled under his chin. He looked exactly like what he was: a man who was in the process of dying.

  Still, Will took his time. Under Walker’s watchful gaze, he dragged over a chair, letting the legs scrape the floor. Will stopped a few feet from the bed. He tried to keep his expression passive. In Will’s experience, deathbed confessions weren’t all they were cracked up to be. On the one hand, there were the people who held out a tiny sliver of hope that a miracle would occur. On the other were the people like Wayne Walker, who seemed ready to not only embrace death but give it a big, wet kiss.