was the kind of backward scrawl you’d find on the walls at the local kindergarten. Amanda was prone to giving out long lists of tasks. The only way Will could keep up with them was to record her so that he could take his time transcribing her words onto the computer. Two years ago, she had caught him red-handed in a meeting. Amanda hadn’t liked being taped without her permission and of course she had assumed Will was doing it for nefarious reasons. He would be damned if he told her about his reading problem, and even if he’d been inclined, Amanda had transferred him to the North Pole before he could get his snowshoes on.
“All right,” she said. “Tell me about your case.”
Will gave her a briefing on what little he had. He ran through the case files of the three girls he had found, said he believed two of them were connected. He told her he had read about Aleesha Monroe, the slain prostitute, on the GBIs daily report that highlighted crimes around the state. Following protocol, he had asked Lieutenant Ted Greer to be let in on the case and been assigned to Michael Ormewood, the lead detective. When he got to the part about Ormewood’s dead neighbor, Amanda stopped him.
“The tongue was bitten off?”
“I’m not certain how it was removed,” Will told her. “Perhaps if I had known you were going to be late this morning, I could have taken the time to discuss this with the coroner so that I would be better informed for this briefing.”
“Don’t whine, Dr. Trent.
Amanda went back to the case. “The tongues weren’t taken from the scene in the previous crimes?”
“No, ma’am,” Will told her. “The first girl’s tongue wasn’t completely severed. The second was holding it in her hand when they found her, but it was too late to do anything about it. Monroe’s tongue was left on the stairs. Spit out, most likely. Cynthia Barrett’s tongue was not found at the scene.”
“Did you search the Barrett house?”
“The DeKalb PD did,” Will told her. “From what I gathered, they didn’t find anything unusual.”
“From what you gathered?” she echoed.
“I didn’t want to step on their toes.”
“Probably wise,” Amanda admitted. DeKalb County was still tightly controlled by a handful of men who didn’t like the state-or anyone, for that matter-messing in their business. Six years ago, DeKalb sheriff-elect Derwin Brown had been assassinated in his own driveway while he was carrying in some Christmas packages from his car. He was three days away from being sworn into office, and Sidney Dorsey, the outgoing sheriff, hadn’t taken the defeat well.
Amanda took a file out of the top drawer of her desk and opened it to the first page. “What do you think of this Michael Timothy Ormewood?”
“I haven’t yet formed an opinion,” Will answered, thinking that if she had pulled Ormewood’s personnel file, she already knew more than Will did.
She read aloud as she traced down the page with her finger. “Army man. Sixteen years Atlanta PD. Worked his way up from foot beat to his gold shield. Accused in ninety-eight of excessive use of force.” She made a jerking-off motion with her fist, dismissing the complaint. “He moved up pretty quickly. Narcotics-not for long, probably got bored-Vice, and now Homicide. No college education.” She glanced up at Will. “Do try not to lord your fancy Two Egg degree over him, Dr. Trent.” Yes, ma am.
She turned the page. “Commendation for saving a civilian. Even you have one of those. They hand them out like candy.” She closed the file. “Nothing to shout home about. Wears beige and keeps quiet.” This was a general phrase she used for cops who did their jobs and waited out their pensions. It was not a compliment.
“Anything else?” Will asked, knowing full well there was.
She smiled. “I put in a call to a friend in uniform.” Amanda always had friends. Considering her personality, Will wondered about the nature of these relationships, and if by friend she meant someone she gripped by the short hairs. “Ormewood worked in supply when he was over in Kuwait. Never made it past the rank of private.”
Will was mildly surprised. “Is that so?”
“He was honorably discharged, which is all the Atlanta PD would have known-or cared-about. My guy says he was wounded his second week overseas, and that they never did find out who shot him.”
“The wound was self-inflicted?”
She shrugged. “Wouldn’t you shoot yourself in the leg to get out of that hellhole?”
Will would have shot himself in the leg to get out of Amanda’s office.
“So.” Amanda pressed her palms together as she leaned back in the chair. “Plan of action?”
“I need to talk to Ormewood. It can’t be a fluke that this has happened in his own backyard.”
“Do you think he might have gotten too close to the doer in the Monroe case?”
“Cynthia Barrett’s body was fresh when we got there, probably no more than an hour old. I was with Ormewood the whole morning and I didn’t see that we made any great strides toward breaking the case, let alone pushed someone so hard that they jumped in their car, went to his house and mutilated his next-door neighbor.”
Amanda nodded for him to continue.
“We talked to Monroe’s pimp. He didn’t strike me as the type to cut off a good source of income, but obviously I’ll go back at him today.”
“And?”
“And as I said, I’ll talk to Ormewood about this, ask if he saw or did anything unusual the night of the Monroe murder.”
“Is he in today or did he take compassionate leave?”
“I have no idea,” Will answered. “Wherever he is, I’ll find him.”
She picked up one of her messages. “A Leo Donnelly was trying to get your personnel file.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“I sealed it,” she said. “No one needs to smell your dirty laundry.”
“No one but you,” Will corrected. He looked at his watch as he stood. “If that’s all, Dr. Wagner?”
She held her hands out in an open gesture. “By all means, Dr. Trent. Go forth and conquer.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
8:56 am
John had been forced to get rid of his shoes. He wasn’t sure if he had left any footprints at the scene, but he wasn’t taking any chances. When he got back to the flophouse, he had cut at the soles with a kitchen knife, altering the waffle pattern. Not trusting his luck, he had then gotten on the bus, paying cash so his Trans Card wouldn’t track him, and ridden to Cobb Parkway all the way up in Marietta. There he had walked around for an hour, dragging his feet on the hot asphalt, scoring the soles some more.
At the Target, he’d bought a new pair of sneakers-twenty-six dollars he could ill-afford-then tossed his old shoes into a Dumpster behind a shady-looking Chinese restaurant. His stomach had rumbled at the smells coming from the kitchen. Twenty-six dollars. He could have bought a nice meal, had a waitress bring him food, keep his glass filled with iced tea, talked to her about the crazy weather.
All the tea in the world wasn’t worth going back to prison.
God, he was in such a fucking mess. He shuddered, thinking how that girl’s tongue had felt when he’d pinched it between his thumb and forefinger. Even through the latex glove, he could feel the texture of the thing, the warmness to it from being in her mouth. John put his hand to his own mouth, trying not to vomit. She’d been an innocent, just a little girl who had been too curious, too easily swayed.
John’s only consolation was the thought of Michael Ormewood’s face when he went into his garage in search of the porn he kept in the bottom of his toolbox and found his trusty knife sitting beside his teenage victim’s tongue.
“Shelley!” Art yelled. John bolted up. He had been kneeling beside a sedan, rubbing bug guts off the front
