He said, “Sorry about that.”
“About what?”
Which was how they were going to leave it.
Will followed Faith into the squad room. She sat at one of the desks in the front row. Will felt like he needed to recalibrate his opinion of what they could talk about. Not that they had talked about anything last night. When he’d knocked on Faith’s door, she hadn’t asked him what the hell he was doing there. She had fed him a gallon of ice cream and beat his ass up and down Vice City until midnight.
“’Sup?” Charlie Reed took a seat beside Faith. Rasheed was next. He came in carrying two cups of coffee that apparently were not meant to be shared. Gary Quintana, Sara’s assistant, joined them on the front row, all lined up like teacher’s pets.
Will leaned his back against the wall. He was not a teacher’s pet.
“Mornin’, bud.” Nick Shelton clapped Will on the shoulder as he passed by, doing that weird grip-pat thing again. His jeans were so tight that Will imagined he had to lie down on the floor to tug them on. Nick sat a few chairs away from Charlie. He opened up his tooled-leather briefcase that looked like it had been stolen from Patsy Cline.
“Hey.” Sara winked at him as she entered the room. Will watched her walk to the front row. She had pinned up her hair. He studied the graceful curve of her neck as she sat beside Faith. Sara gave her a one-armed hug that Faith seemed happy to return, a woman’s version of a fist bump to smooth things over.
Will guessed he should sit down, if only to avoid Amanda’s further ire. He took the desk in the row behind Sara, off to the side so he could see her profile. She was reading her notes. Her fingers absently twirled her hair.
He made himself look at something other than Sara.
The briefing room was a typical government rectangle with frayed carpet and a drop-ceiling that had dropped too many times. The floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the parking lot. Water stains spotted the tiles. The desks were mostly squeaky or broken or both. The overhead projector was a relic that Amanda would not let go of. The television was the tube kind with a portable VCR the size of a wooden pallet. The only indication that they were living in the twenty-first century came from the four Smart Boards at the front of the room. The interactive displays could be hooked up to computers, tablets, even phones.
Will recognized Faith’s handiwork. She had projected Gerald Caterino’s murder closet across the four panels. Every photograph, printout, police report and notation that had been recorded on her phone was blown up onto the boards.
He still had no idea how Faith had figured out that Heath Caterino was Beckey’s child. The saliva on the back of Daryl Nesbitt’s prison envelope had proven Faith’s hypothesis. Gerald had shown them the DNA test results from the strip-mall lab that specialized in forcing men to pay child support. All of the genetic markers excluded Daryl Nesbitt from paternity. He was not Heath’s father, which meant he had not raped Beckey Caterino.
No wonder the girl’s father had slept with a gun by his bed for the past five years.
Will heard the click of Amanda’s cloven hooves in the hallway. She was texting on her phone even as she took her place at the podium. Eventually, she looked up. No preamble. She jumped right in.
“We have several unknowns, but this is where we’re at: As Dr. Linton will outline, there are compelling circumstantial connections between the two Grant County victims and the murder of Alexandra McAllister. That’s it. For the purposes of our discussion, we treat the Caterino, Truong and McAllister cases as most likely perpetrated by the same unknown suspect. As to the other victims from the newspaper articles, we have nothing but supposition. For those of you keeping score, it takes three victims to make a serial killer. For those of you who cannot count, we have two dead women. Rebecca Caterino is most certainly alive. Will? You’re first. Then Dr. Linton, then Faith, then I need Nick and Rasheed to update me on the Vasquez murder at the prison.”
Will felt a nauseating stir deep within his bowels. He would’ve loosened his tie if he had been wearing one. Which was clearly Amanda’s point.
He said, “We interviewed—”
“Podium.”
Fuck.
Will felt roughly ten years old as he walked to the front of the class. He stacked his papers on the podium. He stared down at the jumble of words. Stress exacerbated his issue. All he could make out were numbers. Fortunately, yesterday had been the kind of exhausting day that had imprinted itself into every fold of his brain.
He said, “At eleven forty-five yesterday morning, Faith and I interviewed Lena Adams at her home in Macon, Georgia. She was notably belligerent.”
Someone snorted. He assumed Faith.
He said, “Faith managed to extract two useful pieces of information from Adams. One, Daryl Nesbitt’s lawsuit was funded by a benefactor. Later investigation revealed that benefactor was Gerald Caterino. Two, Bonita Truong, who was the mother of Leslie, relayed during a phone call with Gerald Caterino that a week prior to her daughter’s disappearance, she reported being upset about a stolen personal item. Again, Gerald Caterino was able to supply us with the information that the item was a headband. When Faith pushed him, he equivocated, stating there might have been other stolen items such as clothing. But the headband could be significant. According to Caterino’s notes on the conversations he had with parents and other survivors, the women from the articles were also missing hair items, like a comb or a brush or a clip. You can see the list on the board.”
“If I may?” Sara had her hand raised. He couldn’t tell if she was trying to bail him out, but he welcomed the interruption. “According to
