Triptych

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Will kept his cell phone to his ear as he drove, praying that Amanda would be in her office. He had brought John with him because he needed to hear his story, wanted to know what kind of animal he would be dealing with when he reached Tennessee. For his part, John was more than willing to oblige. All of the man’s recalcitrance had disappeared, and Will’s head was spinning from his theories.

Caroline finally answered the phone, saying, “Amanda Wagner’s office.”

“I need Amanda now. It’s urgent.”

She put him on hold. Will kept his eyes on the road, speeding up Interstate 75 in the HOV lane thirty miles over the posted speed limit.

“Will?” Amanda said. “What’s going on?”

“I’m on my way to Tennessee.”

“I don’t recall signing off on a vacation request.”

“I think Michael Ormewood is the killer.”

“All right,” Amanda drawled. “Break it down for me, Will.”

Will told her John’s story, how Michael had tried to lean on the parole officer, how John’s sister had told him about the cabin in Tennessee. He finished with the oil stains in Michael’s driveway and what the neighbor had told Leo Donnelly.

“You checked Polaski’s house?”

“I had a cruiser go by. She’s not there. Her car’s not in the driveway.”

Amanda was silent. Will had introduced her to Angie once-not by choice. She had taken him to the hospital when Amanda had shot him with the nail gun. Inconceivably, the two women had gotten along.

Finally, she spoke. “So, what you’re saying is, based on some unanswered phone calls and a few spots on a driveway, you’re taking a convicted felon over state lines to look for an Atlanta police detective who may or may not have snatched another detective in broad daylight?”

“You need to search his house.”

“This is the house in DeKalb County’s jurisdiction? How do you propose I get a warrant, Dr. Trent? Not that your mysterious oil stains in the drive aren’t compelling, but I doubt there’s a judge alive who would sign off on it.”

“Amanda,” Will said, trying to control his voice. “You are a nasty, horrible person, but you have always had my back every time I worked a case. Don’t do this to me now.”

“Well, Will,” she countered. “You are a high-functioning dyslexic who reads on a second-grade level, but let’s not throw stones.”

Will felt all the saliva in his mouth dry up. When had she found out?

Amanda said, “I don’t have many friends in Tennessee, Will. I can’t reach out to them to help you with nothing more to go on than the bad feeling in your gut and we both know Yip Gomez would rather eat his own shit than give you a hand.” Yip was Will’s old boss in the northwest field office. She added, “This is why I keep telling you not to burn bridges,” as if now was the time for one of her lessons.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” he admitted. “You’re right. This could be nothing. I could get there and it could be just a waste of time, but I can’t stand around not doing anything, Amanda.”

“You put out an APB on Polaski’s car?” Yes.

She was silent for a few seconds, then asked, “Tell me, this Detective Donnelly, he was the last person to leave Ormewood’s house?” Yes.

“Well, look at this,” Amanda exclaimed, her voice raised in mock surprise. “Caroline just handed me a message. It’s an anonymous tip. A concerned citizen has noticed that Detective Ormewood’s back door has been busted open. I think I should check on it myself, don’t you?”

Will felt a wave of relief. Amanda was going to help him. He could almost hear her thinking it through over the phone.

“Thank you,” he breathed. “Thank you.”

“I’ll let you know when I get there.”

Will ended the call. He kept the phone in his hand as he drove, taking the exit onto 575 with an abrupt jerk of the wheel that made John Shelley grab the side of the door like he was afraid they were going to roll. Will had been in such a hurry that he hadn’t even considered how he was going to find the cabin until John had asked for a map. The five-minute detour to the gas station had seemed like a lifetime. If what the neighbor had told Donnelly was right, Michael had about an hour on them. But, then, Michael was probably driving the speed limit, staying under the radar. Will wasn’t being so careful.

John asked, “What did she say?”

“You could have prevented this,” Will told him. “You could have stopped this four days ago.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Michael was with me when Cynthia Barrett died.”

John looked down at the map he had spread across his lap. “I heard she was running across the yard and tripped. Hit her head on a rock and died.”

“Then cut out her own tongue?”

John didn’t offer an answer.

“You should have done something then.”

“What?” John demanded. “Gone to you? You don’t even believe my story now, man. What am I going to do? Turn in a cop? Who’s gonna believe an ex-con who works at a car wash?”

Will kept his hands tight around the wheel. John had brought this down on Angie. She would be safe now but for the man’s arrogance and stupidity. “You were baiting him. You knew exactly what you were doing.”

John snapped the map along a crease, folding it into a smaller section as he kept trying to defend himself. “You tell me what I should’ve done and I’ll get back in my magic time machine and do it. Tell you what, though, let’s don’t stop at four days. Let’s go back twenty years. Give me my youth back. Give me my mother and my grandparents and my family. Hell, throw in a wife and a couple of kids for me while you’re at it.”

“She was running away from something in that yard.”

John was still working on the map, but Will could hear the anguish in the other man’s voice when he said, “Don’t you think I know that?”

Will looked back at the road, watched the signs blur by, the mile markers with their bold numbers popping up along the landscape. He hadn’t thought this through; hadn’t considered that he might be endangering John.

Will said, “It violates your parole to go over state lines.”

“I know.”

“You could be arrested. I can’t help you in Tennessee.”

“You can’t help me in Atlanta, either.”

Will chewed his lip, staring at the black pavement, the other cars on the road. He had driven back and forth between Atlanta and the mountains for the last two years, so he knew exactly where all the speed traps were. He slowed down through Ellijay, not resuming his speed until he crossed Miciak Creek. He coasted by the new Wal-Mart and the old one, then past several outdoor flea markets and a couple of liquor stores. At the town of Blue Ridge, he took a left. He was flying down Coote Mason Highway, just beyond the apple orchard, when the phone rang.

He flipped it open on the side of his leg. “Amanda?”

Her tone was grim. “We found blood in the garage. Two different types and lots of it.”

“Angie?”

“She’s not here, Will.”

His mouth opened, but words failed him.

“Here’s how this is going to work,” Amanda said. “I’ve called Bob Burg at the Tee Bees.” The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. “He’s putting together a team right now. They’re about forty minutes out from the cabin.”

“I’m closer.”

“I figured you would be,” she said. “Let me speak to the pedophile. I’ve got directions to Elton Road.”