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 vacation. The state paid us to warehouse his sorry ass during the trial. They didn’t want to foot the bill for transport every time there was a hearing or a motion.”
Faith asked, “So, how did you buy off Nesbitt?”
“Frank Wallace, he was interim chief after Jeffrey, went straight to the DA. We didn’t want Nesbitt in our jail. In addition to being a spoon, he was rubbing a raw nerve. The asswipe wouldn’t shut up about me, about Jeffrey. It was like he wanted someone to take him out.”
Will waited for her to get to the part where she had done something about it.
Lena said, “The DA was able to get the governor’s office involved. When a dead cop’s widow is being harassed, people return your phone calls. The day the trial was slated to start, we got Nesbitt to drop the suit in return for reclassifying him to medium security. The governor signed off. GDOC signed off. The judge dismissed the suit.”
Will rubbed his jaw. He was inclined to believe Lena was a liar, but she was offering concrete, provable details. Sara hadn’t mentioned any of this during their first phone call. Then again, that was a lot of information to convey in less than a minute.
Lena seemed to pick up on Will’s thoughts. “Sara didn’t know what was happening behind the scenes. Like I said, she was a wreck back then. There’s no doubt Nesbitt would’ve lost the suit. He had no evidence, no witnesses. I’m surprised he was able to find a lawyer, but he was getting money from somewhere. If it had been up to me, I would’ve fought Nesbitt to the fucking grave, but Sara could barely keep her head up. Frank and I had a talk about it. Jeffrey would’ve wanted us to take care of Sara. So, we took care of Sara.”
Will felt a tickling at the back of his neck. He knew how Lena worked. She was being reasonable, almost compassionate, but history told him the sentiments would not last.
Faith said, “Sometimes, inmates file civil suits to get information on their criminal cases. It gives them a chance to depose witnesses on the record. They can subpoena case files and internal reports. And they can get your notebooks.”
“Yeah,” Lena said. “They can.”
There was a subtle shift in her tone. Will could practically see Lena’s antenna go up.
Faith had obviously picked up on it, too. She adjusted her approach. “Why did Nesbitt ask for medium security instead of minimum?”
“There’s no way he would’ve gotten minimum. Not with attempted murder of a CO on his jacket.” Lena shrugged. “Like I said, the guy knows the system. And he plays the long game. He’s too smart to be where he is. We’re lucky we caught him on the child porn.”
Faith said, “About that—”
“If you’re going to ask me about the computer, I stand by my initial report and my depositions and my sworn testimony at trial. I was looking for weapons in the desk drawers. I accidentally bumped the laptop. I saw several photos of nude children on the screen. You can read the appeals court transcripts. The judges were unanimous. They said there was no doubt that I was telling the truth.”
Sitting across from her, Will couldn’t tell whether or not she was lying, but he felt like Lena was one hundred percent certain that she was being honest. Which was one of the many quandaries of being Lena Adams. She was always her own victim.
“We’re not here to question how you found the porn,” Faith lied. “We want to look at the original investigation. Do you have your files, or maybe your notebooks from the case?”
“No.”
“No?” Faith echoed, because cops did not get rid of their notebooks. Will’s were stored in his attic. Faith kept hers at her mother’s house alongside the notebooks her mother had kept dating back to the 1970s, when she’d first joined the Atlanta Police Department. There was no telling when a case would come back and bite you in the ass.
Lena said, “I shredded all of my notebooks before I moved to Macon.”
“Shredded?” Faith and Will said the same word with the exact same amount of shock.
“Yeah, I wanted to put it all behind me.” She winked at Will. “Fresh start.”
He knew why Lena had wanted to make a fresh start. There were only so many bridges you could burn before your feet got singed. The Grant County force had been toxic when Will had investigated it. Lena was lucky that Macon hadn’t smelled the taint.
But shredding her notebooks was not a fresh start. It was destroying possibly incriminating evidence.
Faith asked, “When exactly did you shred them?”
“Exactly?” Lena shook her head. “Don’t remember.”
Faith asked, “Was it before or after the civil suit?”
“Could’ve been before? Or maybe not?” Lena kept shaking her head, but her sly smile said she was enjoying the game. “You know how it is, Faith. Pregnancy brain. I’m in a fog right now.”
Faith nodded, but not in agreement. Lena had figured her out. There was no need to pretend anymore.
Faith said, “Nesbitt would’ve subpoenaed your notebooks as part of the civil suit.”
“I’m sure he did,” Lena said. “All of my official reports were in the mainframe at the station.”
“But, your notebooks would have the underlying documentation.”
“Right.”
“Your notebooks are also where you would’ve recorded anything that seemed odd, but didn’t have enough foundation to make it into your report.”
“Correct.”
“But your notebooks are gone.”
“Shredded.” She was no longer trying to hide her smile. The real Lena seemed happy to finally be out. “Is there anything else I can do for the GBI today?”
Faith’s eyes narrowed. She wasn’t going to give up that easily. “Rebecca Caterino. Do you remember her?”
“Vaguely.” Lena stifled a yawn. “Sorry, y’all, I’m really tired.”