Criminal

thirty-one

July 23, 1975

ONE WEEK LATER

Amanda smiled as she pulled into the parking lot of the Zone 1 station house. A month ago, she would’ve laughed if someone suggested that she’d be happy to be back here. A week of crossing guard duty had taught her a hard lesson.

She took one of the far spaces in the back of the lot. The engine knocked when she turned the key. Amanda checked the time. Evelyn was running late. Amanda should go inside the squad and wait for her, but she was thinking of this as their triumphant return. Having to spend five days in the grueling heat dressed in a wool uniform while lazy children tromped in and out of traffic had not negated the fact that they had caught a killer.

Amanda unzipped her purse. She took out the last report she was ever going to type for Butch Bonnie. She hadn’t done it out of kindness. She’d done it because she needed to make sure it was right.

Wilbur Trent. Amanda had named the baby because no one else would. Hank Bennett did not want to sully his family’s name. Or perhaps he didn’t want the legal entanglement of Lucy having an heir. Evelyn had been right about the insurance policies. With Hank Bennett’s parents dead and his sister murdered, he was now the sole beneficiary to their estate. He’d let the city bury his sister in a pauper’s grave while he walked away from probate court a millionaire.

So, it fell to Amanda to buy Wilbur his first blanket, his first tiny T-shirt. Leaving him at the children’s home had been the most difficult thing Amanda had ever done in her life. More difficult than facing down James Ulster. More difficult than finding her mother hanging dead from a tree.

She would keep her promise to Ulster. The child would never know his father. He would never know that his mother was a junkie and a whore.

Amanda had never written fiction before. She was nervous about the details she’d put into Butch’s report, the blatant lies she’d told about Lucy Bennett’s life before her abduction.

The boy could never know. Something good had to come out of all this misery.

“What’s the skinny?” Evelyn stood outside the car. She was dressed in brown slacks and a checkered orange shirt that buttoned up the front. The bruise on her jaw had started to yellow, but it still blackened the bottom half of her face.

Amanda asked, “Why are you dressed like a man?”

“If we’re going to be running around the city, I’m not going to ruin another pair of perfectly good pantyhose.”

“I don’t plan on doing much running anymore.” Amanda tucked the report back into her purse. She zipped the bag closed quickly. She didn’t want Evelyn to see the application she’d requested from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Her father had gotten his old job back. Captain Wilbur Wagner would be running Zone 1 again by the end of the month.

Evelyn frowned sympathetically as Amanda got out of the car. “Did you go by the children’s home again this morning?”

Amanda didn’t answer. “I need to wash my hands.”

Evelyn followed her to the back of the Plaza Theater.

Amanda gave a heavy sigh. “I only said that so you would leave me alone.”

Evelyn held open the exit door, releasing the pornographic grunts of Vixen Volleyball. The two men standing in the lobby looked very startled to see them.

“Your wives send their regards,” Evelyn told them, heading toward the bathroom.

Amanda shook her head as she followed. “You’re going to get us shot one of these days.”

Evelyn picked up their earlier conversation. “Sweetie, you can’t keep looking in on him every day. Babies need to bond with people. You don’t want him getting attached to you.”

Amanda turned on the faucet. She looked down at her hands as she washed them. That was exactly what she wanted with Wilbur, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to say the words. It was hopeless. She was twenty-five and single. There was no way the state would let her adopt. And they were probably right not to.

Evelyn asked, “Did you get that slide with the skin on it from Pete?”

She patted her face with cold water. She had the sealed evidence envelope in her purse. “I still don’t know why it matters.”

“Pete’s right about the science. They can’t use it now, but maybe one day.” She added, “You don’t want it getting lost in lockup. They’ll throw it out in five years.”

Amanda turned off the sink. “If we had the death penalty, none of this would matter.”

“Amen.” Evelyn took her compact out of her purse. “Where are you going to put the envelope?”

“I have no idea.” She couldn’t very well walk into the bank and ask for a safe deposit box without Duke’s signature. “How about your gun safe?”

“It should stay with the baby. Get Edna to hide it somewhere.” She smiled. “Make sure she doesn’t lock it in the pantry.”

Amanda laughed. Edna Flannigan had a reputation around child services, but she was a good woman who cared about the kids. She had taken a shine to Wilbur. Amanda could tell. He was an easy baby to love.

“Can I have one of your textbooks?”

Evelyn stopped powdering her nose. “Why?”

“Edna said we could leave some stuff for the baby to have when he grows up. I thought we could …”

Evelyn knew about the story of Lucy Bennett, star student. She’d helped craft it, giving some inside details about Georgia Tech so the lies seemed more plausible. “If I give you one of my statistics books, will you promise to stop moping?”

“I’m not moping.”

Evelyn snapped her compact closed. “We need to talk about our next case.”

“What’s that?”

“The DNF. We can look into those murders.”

“Are you forgetting Landry’s the one who got us busted to crossing guards?” Duke had found him out in two phone calls. Landry was drinking buddies with the commander who’d signed off on the transfer. It wasn’t a conspiracy so much as a male chauvinist pig who couldn’t take two women trying to do his job. “That’s all we need to do is put ourselves in his crosshairs again.”

“I’m not afraid of that blowhard.” She fluffed her hair in the mirror. “We saved a life, Amanda.”

“We lost three, maybe four.” God knew where Kitty Treadwell was. Probably buried in the city dump. Not that her father cared. Andrew Treadwell refused to return their phone calls, let alone admit that he had a second daughter. “And neither one of us came out unscathed.”

“But we know people now. We have sources. We have a network. We can work cases just like the boys—even better.”

Amanda could only stare at her. The grunting sounds from the porn movie only added to the ridiculousness of her statement. “Is there anything you can’t put a positive spin on?”

“Hitler. World hunger. Redheads—I just don’t trust them.” Evelyn checked her makeup again. Amanda did the same, frowning at what she saw. Evelyn wasn’t the only one who was bruised. Amanda’s neck was still ringed dark from Ulster’s hands. Her ribs were tender to the touch. The cuts on her palms and the soles of her feet were just starting to scab.

Evelyn caught her eye in the mirror.

War wounds.

They were both smiling as they left the bathroom.

Evelyn asked, “Did I tell you about that Green Beret in North Carolina who murdered his entire family?”

“Yes.” Amanda held up her hand to stop her. “Twice. I would rather talk about the case again than hear the details, thank you very much.”

The lobby was empty. Evelyn stopped. She put her hands on her hips. “You know the insurance policies still bother me.”

Hank Bennett. She couldn’t let it go.

Evelyn pressed, “Bennett went to the mission looking for Lucy. It follows that he’d end up at the soup kitchen and meet James Ulster.”

“Maybe they met, but to say they were working together …” Amanda shook her head. “Why? What would be the point?”

“Bennett gets his sister out of the picture so she can’t inherit his parents’ money. He keeps Kitty Treadwell for himself—and her money, because you know there has to be some.”

“You think Hank Bennett’s hiding Kitty somewhere.” It wasn’t a question. She’d been beating that dead horse all week. “To what end?”

“To blackmail Andrew Treadwell.” She had a smile on her face. “Mark my word, Hank Bennett’s going to be running that firm one day.”

Amanda sighed. She wondered if Evelyn’s magazines were to blame for these crazy conspiracies. “Kitty Treadwell is buried somewhere in a shallow grave. Ulster took them to kill them, not rehabilitate them.”

“Someone put that baby in the trashcan.”

Amanda didn’t have an answer for her. Part of Lucy’s body was still sewn to the mattress when they found her. Pete Hanson couldn’t give them an exact window for the time between Wilbur’s birth and Lucy’s death. They could only assume the girl had been free at some point and hidden the baby.

And then Ulster had come home and sewn her back down?

Evelyn said, “I just feel like we’re missing something.”

Amanda didn’t want to feed the flame, but she had the same bad feeling. “Who else could’ve helped him?” she asked. “Trey Callahan was caught in Biloxi with his fiancée.” The man claimed that he’d only stolen the money from the mission in order to self-publish his book. “Obviously, Ulster was trying to frame Callahan with all that Ophelia stuff. Don’t you think if there was a second killer, then Ulster would’ve framed that person instead?”

“How about this: where’s the money coming from?”

Herman Centrello. Evelyn was determined to find out how James Ulster was paying for the best criminal defense lawyer in the Southeast.

Amanda shook her head. “Why does it matter? No lawyer in the world can get him out of this. Ulster was caught red-handed. His bloody fingerprints are on the knife.”

“He’ll skate on the other girls. We don’t have anything to tie him to Jane or Mary. We don’t have Kitty’s body—if it’s out there. Ulster could eventually get paroled. That’s why you need to hold on to that slide. Maybe the science will be ready for it by then.”

“He’ll be in his sixties. He’ll be too old to walk, let alone hurt anybody.”

Evelyn pushed open the exit door. “And we’ll be retired little grannies, living with our husbands in Florida, wondering why our children never call.”

Amanda wanted to hold on to that image. She wanted to think about it tonight when she tried to go to sleep and all she could see was that condescending look in Ulster’s eyes. He’d been laughing at her. He was holding something back, and he knew that it gave him power over everyone else.

Evelyn asked, “Did Kenny call you?”

Amanda let her blush be her answer. She adjusted her purse over her shoulder as they walked toward the station. There was a commotion going on by the front door. Two cops were wrangling with a wino. He already had a resisting-arrest turban. His hands waved wildly as he was jerked back by his collar.

Amanda said, “We actually wanted to come back to this.”

Evelyn looked at her watch. “Crap, we’re late for roll call.”

So much for their triumphant return. Luther Hodge would probably put them on desk duty all week. Amanda hated filing, but at least she’d have Evelyn to commiserate with. Maybe they could look at some of the cases on the missing black girls. There was no harm in putting together another construction paper puzzle.

“Hey!” The wino was still struggling as they walked to the entrance of the station. One of the patrolmen smacked him on the ear. The man’s head jerked like a sling.

The squad was as smoke-filled and dingy as usual. The room looked the same: crooked rows of tables crossing the room, white on one side, black on the other. Men in front, women in back. Hodge was at the podium. Everyone was seated for roll call.

But for some reason, they started to stand.

First, it was some of the white detectives, then slowly the blacks stood from their tables. It went around the room in a slow wave, ending with Vanessa Livingston, who, as usual, was sitting in the last row. She gave them both a thumbs-up. Her teeth showed in a proud grin.

Evelyn seemed momentarily stunned, but she kept her head high as she walked into the room. Amanda tried to do the same as she followed. The men cleared a path for them. No one spoke. They didn’t whistle. They didn’t make catcalls. Some of them nodded. Rick Landry was the only one who remained seated, but standing beside him was Butch Bonnie, who seemed to have some grudging respect in his eyes.

Then the moment was ruined as the wino was thrown into the squad room. He jumped up from the floor, screaming, “I’ll sue you motherfuckers!”

The room tensed. The drunk’s eyes widened as he realized he was facing down a room full of cops. He nervously glanced at Amanda, then Evelyn. “Uh … s’cuse the language, ladies.”

“Shee-it.” Butch took the toothpick out of his mouth. “They ain’t no ladies, fella. They’re the po-lice.”

The room heaved a collective sigh. Jokes were passed around. The drunk was wrangled out the door. Hodge banged the podium for silence.

Amanda fought the smile on her lips as she walked to the back of the room. She could feel Evelyn behind her, knew she was thinking the same thing.

Finally—acceptance.