Probably the booking officer who took her mugshot.
The door popped open. Four patrolmen came in, so lost in conversation that they barely acknowledged Lena. She tucked Jared’s picture into her back pocket. Her socks were soaking wet, but she slid on her spare sneakers anyway. She just wanted to get out of here. She would walk through the squad room, right past Will Trent, get into her car and go home to Jared.
Lena would start packing tonight. She’d be one of those people who left her house key in the mailbox for the bank. Her car was in good shape. She had enough in savings to last her three months, four if Jared didn’t expect her to help out with rent. She would move in with him and try to get over this, try to find a way to live her life without being a cop.
If she wasn’t in jail for obstructing an investigation. If she wasn’t convicted of negligence. If Gordon Braham didn’t sue her into the ground. If Frank didn’t fill Jared’s ear with poison. Poison Jared would believe, because the great thing about lying was people believed it so long as the lie was close enough to the truth.
Lena slammed the locker closed, pressing her hand against the cool metal.
One of the patrolmen said, “You let that GBI asshole slip and hit his head, we’re not going to shed any tears.”
They were all suiting up, pulling on their heavy rain gear. Will had taken photographs and samples from the bark and soil by the tree, but he had ordered a full-scale search of the woods. He wanted more photographs, drawings, diagrams. He wanted to make sure the force knew that they had made a mistake. That Lena had made a mistake.
“Fucking retard,” another cop said.
Lena didn’t know if he meant Will or Tommy. Either way, she managed some false bravado. “Wish he was a little smarter so he knew how stupid he was.”
They were all laughing when she left the locker room. Lena pulled on her jacket. She walked through the squad room with more swagger than she felt. She had to get her composure back. She had to steel herself against the next barrage of questions from Will Trent. The fewer answers she gave him, the better off she would be.
The paper Marla had given her was in her hand. Lena skimmed the words as she walked so she wouldn’t have to talk to anybody. She stopped as she reached the front door. She read the transcript again. The words were in her handwriting, but the last few lines from the call were missing. The caller had mentioned that Allison had gotten into a fight with her boyfriend. Why was that part taken out?
She glanced at Marla behind the front desk. Marla stared back, one eyebrow raised above her glasses. She was either still pissed or sending Lena a message. It was hard to tell. Lena looked at the transcript again. The last part was gone, the cut clean so that you would never know it was missing. Had Marla taken a shot at tampering with police evidence? Frank had gone through her files last night. Why would he edit the transcript without telling Lena? Christ, she had her notebook in her back pocket with the original transcript. All Trent had to do was ask her to see it and Lena would be looking at an obstruction charge for tampering with evidence.
The front door opened before Lena could reach it. Will Trent had obviously grown impatient waiting outside.
“Detective,” he said by way of greeting. He’d changed back into his dress shoes and shed Carl Phillips’s jacket. He looked as eager as she was reticent.
Lena handed him the paper. “Marla told me to give you this. She said you’d have to track down the audio from Eaton yourself.”
Will called to Marla at the desk. “Thank you, Mrs. Simms.” He took the paper from Lena’s hand. His eyes scanned back and forth. “You heard the call, right?” He looked up. “You made the transcript from the audio?”
“They dictated it to me from the screen. The audiotapes are stored off-site. They’re not hard to get.” Lena held her breath, praying that he would not ask her to track them down.
“Any idea who made the call?”
She shook her head. “It was a woman’s voice. The number was blocked and she wouldn’t leave her details.”
“Did you make this copy for me?”
“No. Marla handed it to me.”
He pointed at a black dot on the page. “You’ve got some gum on the glass in your copier.”
Lena wondered why the hell he was telling her this. Will Trent was like no cop she had ever seen. He had a habit of skirting around the real questions, making random comments or observations that seemed to lead nowhere until suddenly it was too late and she felt the noose tighten around her neck. He was playing chess and she was sucking at checkers.
Lena tried her own diversion. “We should get out to the crime scene if you want to be back in time for the autopsies.”
“Weren’t we just at the crime scene?”
“We don’t know for a fact what happened. Tommy could’ve lied. That happens in Atlanta, right? Bad guys lie to the cops?”
“More often than I’d like.” He slipped the transcript into his briefcase. “What time are the procedures supposed to start?”
“Frank said eleven-thirty.”
“This was when you talked to him last night?”
Lena tried to remember the answer she had given Will the first time he’d asked this question. She had talked to Frank twice. Both times he had drilled her on Tommy’s confession. Both times he had renewed his threat to tear down her life if she didn’t cover his drunk ass.
Lena cast out a nonanswer, hoping Will would bite. “It’s like I told you before.”
He held open the front door for her. “Any idea why the press isn’t all over this?”
“The press?” She would have laughed if she hadn’t been standing up to her knees in shit. “The paper’s closed for the holiday. Thomas Ross always goes skiing this time of year.”
Will laughed good-naturedly. “You gotta love small towns.” A cold wind made him have to put his shoulder into closing the glass door. He tucked his hands into his jeans pockets. The cuffs of his pants were still wet. “Let’s take your car.”
She felt uncomfortable having him in her Celica, so she nodded toward Frank’s Town Car. Lena pulled her key chain from her pocket. The county was on a tight budget and they both were supposed to share the car.
She pressed the button to unlock the doors.
Will didn’t get in. Instead, he scowled at the smell that wafted through the morning air. “Smoker?”
“Frank,” she said. The stink was worse than usual. He must have chain-smoked the whole trip to and from Macon last night.
Will asked, “This is Chief Wallace’s car?”
She nodded.
“Where’s Chief Wallace if this is his car?”
Lena managed to swallow the bile in her throat. “He took a cruiser to the hospital.”
Will didn’t comment, though she wondered if he’d made a mark in his book. Frank had taken the cruiser so he wouldn’t get stopped along the way. Speeding during a nonemergency situation was illegal, but it was the sort of illegal cops danced around all the time.
Will asked, “Can you drive a stick?”
It was her turn to scowl. Of course she could drive a stick.
Will said, “Let’s take my car.”
“Are you kidding me?” Lena had heard about the Porsche before she’d made it to the station this morning. The whole town was talking about it—what it must’ve cost, why a state investigator would be driving it, and, more important, that it was parked in front of the Linton house all night.