Will allowed himself a petty sense of satisfaction. He’d gathered that Jeffrey Tolliver had been the kind of man who didn’t quickly finish construction projects. By contrast, Will would not sleep until the last nail hole was puttied and the third coat of paint applied.
“Psst.” Faith was at it again. She nodded toward a photograph that looked like Lena was kissing another woman on the mouth.
Will said, “Sibyl, her twin sister. She died a few years ago.”
Faith looked mildly disappointed.
“Will?” Lena was making her way up the hallway. Her hands were pressed against the walls for balance. She was normally a very petite woman, but the pregnancy had rounded out her face and taken some of the luster from her dark brown hair. Jared was right about the difficult homestretch. Lena’s normally light brown skin was the color of a tube sock. Her eyes were bloodshot. She looked exhausted. Nothing glowed about her but misery. The swell in her belly reminded Will of a softball crammed inside of a straw.
“Wow,” Faith said. “You’re so huge! You must be due any day now.”
For some reason, Lena looked aghast. “It’s next month.”
“Oh.” Faith gave the word some space. “You’re carrying so low. Is it twins?”
“No, uh, just one.” Lena gave Will a panicked look that he didn’t quite understand. She was smoothing her hands over her belly the way you’d calm a frightened dog. She asked Faith, “Who are you?”
“I’m Faith Mitchell, Will’s partner.” Faith vigorously shook Lena’s hand. “Sorry I jumped straight in. I’ve got two of my own. I loved being pregnant.”
Okay, so, she was fucking with Lena.
“You said one more month?” Faith’s voice was filled with false exuberance. “That’s such a fractious time. Right before your whole life changes forever. My first one went two weeks past his due date. I thought I was going to explode. They say you forget the pain, but my God, it was like sitting on a table saw. I hope Jared likes cuddling.”
Faith laughed. Lena laughed. Only one of them meant it.
Will suggested, “Should we sit down?”
Lena looked relieved as she padded toward the couch.
Faith waited until the last second to ask, “Could I have a glass of water?”
Lena struggled between sitting and standing.
“I’ll get it.” Will hoped his expression conveyed to Faith that she needed to knock this off.
It did not.
She kept babbling as Will walked into the kitchen.
He easily found a glass in the cabinet because the doors were stacked on top of the fridge. He turned on the faucet. The floor had clearly been swept, but grit bit into the soles of his shoes. Grout. The sub-floor showed gouges where tiles had been ripped up. It made sense to make the floor uniform, especially with a baby coming. Will had not realized how important it was to have a long, straight surface until he’d rolled a tennis ball back and forth with Emma, a game that the two-year-old could play for five hours straight.
“And Beyoncé,” Faith was saying. “It took her six whole months to drop the baby weight. You’d think someone with all of her resources would lose it faster.”
Will scowled a warning at Faith as he walked toward the couch. He handed Lena the glass of water. She looked like she needed it more.
He told her, “We had some questions about one of your Grant County cases.”
“Grant County?” Lena seemed surprised by the detail. “I thought this was about the drug bust last month.”
Will could see Faith making a mental note to look into the case.
He smoothed down his tie as he sat across from Lena. “No, this was eight years ago. A guy named—”
“Daryl Nesbitt.”
Will wasn’t surprised that Lena had worked that out. The case was not the kind that you easily forget.
Lena asked, “What’s the lying pedophile saying now?”
Faith made a show of searching for her notebook in her purse.
Lena spoke to Will. “Is Nesbitt trying to leverage you into reopening his case?”
Will asked, “Why would he do that?”
“Because that is what he does. He works angles. He manipulates people. The guy is a spoon.” Lena struggled to put the glass on the coffee table. Her stomach was in the way.
Will did it for her.
“Thanks.” She sat back with a long exhale of breath. Her hands rested on her stomach. “Nesbitt had two appeals. They both failed. Then he sued Jeffrey’s estate. We’re talking less than three months after Jeffrey died. I worked with the DA behind the scenes to buy Nesbitt off. Sara was a wreck back then. We all were.”
“‘Buy him off.’” Faith had her notebook and pen ready. She was finally in the game. “What happened?”
Lena said, “Nesbitt was living on borrowed time. His disability skewed his PULHESDWIT. Then he clocked an attempted murder off a CO and hit all fours.”
She was talking about the rating system that the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison used to assign inmates to facilities. A score of mostly ones put you in minimum security. Mostly fours meant closed, or maximum, security. The first part of the PULHESDWIT ranked physical condition: upper and lower body strength, hearing and vision. The latter part got into the nitty-gritty: sentencing, psychiatric history, disability, work ability, impairment, transportability. Nesbitt had started with a deficit because of his amputation, but there was some leeway in the system. The attempted murder would’ve drawn him the high card.
Lena said, “I’m not surprised he’s figured out how to get the GBI involved. Nesbitt knows how to work the system. The civil suit was his way of getting a county jail
