Genesis (26 page)

"Thank you for coming in," Faith said, shaking the woman's
hand, then taking a seat.

Joelyn Zabel looked like a chubbier version of her sister. Not that
she was fat, but she had a healthy curve to her hips whereas Jacquelyn
had been boyishly thin. Will caught the scent of cigarette smoke as he
shook her hand.

He said, "I'm so sorry about your loss."

"Trent," she noted. "You're the one who found her."

Will tried to keep eye contact, to not convey the gut-level guilt he
still felt for not reaching the woman's sister in time. All he could
think to do was repeat himself. "I'm so sorry about your loss."

"Yeah," she snapped. "I got that."

Will sat down beside Faith, and Amanda clapped her hands together
like a kindergarten teacher getting the class's attention. She
rested her hand on top of a manila folder, which Will guessed contained
the abridged autopsy summary. Pete had been instructed to
leave off the information about the trash bags. Considering the
Rockdale County force's cozy relationship with the press, they were
running thin on guilty knowledge to pin down any future suspect.

Amanda began, "Ms. Zabel, I take it you've had time to go over
the report?"

The lawyer spoke. "I'll need a copy of that for my files, Mandy."

Amanda smiled an even sharkier smile than the lawyer had. "Of
course, Chuck."

"Great, so y'all know each other." Joelyn crossed her arms, her
shoulders bunching around her neck. "You want to explain to me
what the hell you're doing to find my sister's killer?"

Amanda's smile did not falter. "We're doing everything we can
to—"

"You find a suspect yet? I mean, shit, this guy's a fucking
animal
."

Amanda didn't answer, which Faith took as her cue to begin. "We
agree with you. Whoever did this is an animal. That's why we need
to talk to you about your sister. We need to know about her life.
Who her friends were. What her habits were."

Joelyn's eyes flashed down a minute, guilty. "I didn't have much
contact with her. We were both pretty busy. She lived in Florida."

Faith tried to soften things up. "She lived on the Bay, right?
Must've been nice down there. Good reason to sneak in a vacation
with a family visit."

"Well, yeah, it would've been, but the bitch never invited me."

Her lawyer reached out, touching her arm as a gentle reminder.
Will had watched Joelyn Zabel on every major channel, sobbing
anew over the tragic death of her sister for each new reporter. He'd
not seen one tear drop from her eyes, though she made all the motions
of someone who was crying—sniffling, wiping her eyes, rocking
back and forth. She wasn't even doing that now. Apparently, she
needed a camera rolling to feel her pain. Even more apparent, the
lawyer wasn't going to let her play anything other than the grieving
family member.

Joelyn sniffed, still with no tears. "I loved my sister very much.
My mother just moved into a nursing home. She's got maybe six
months left, and this happens to her daughter. The loss of a child is
devastating."

Faith tried to ease into more questions. "Do you have children?"

"Four." She seemed proud.

"Jacquelyn didn't have—"

"Fuck no. Three abortions before she was thirty. She was terrified
of getting fat. Can you believe that? Her sole reason for flushing
them down the toilet is her fucking weight. And then she gets in the
shadow of forty, and suddenly she wants to be a mother."

Faith hid her surprise well. "Was she trying to conceive?"

"Did you not hear me about the abortions? You can look that up.
I'm not lying about that."

Will always assumed that when people insisted they weren't lying
about a particular thing, that meant they were lying about something
else. Finding out the what else would be the key to Joelyn Zabel. She
didn't strike him as a particularly caring person, and she would
want to make sure her ten minutes of fame stretched out as long as
possible.

Faith asked, "Was Jackie looking for a surrogate?"

Joelyn seemed to realize how important her words were. She suddenly
had everyone's rapt attention. She took her time answering.
"Adoption."

"Private? Public?"

"Who the fuck knows? She had a lot of money. She was used to
buying what she wanted." She was gripping the arms of her chair,
and Will could see this was a subject she liked talking about. "That's
the real tragedy here—not being able to see her adopt some reject retard
who ends up stealing from her or going schizophrenic on her
ass."

Will could feel Faith stiffen beside him. He took over the questioning.
"When was the last time you talked to your sister?"

"About a month ago. She was waxing on about motherhood, like
she understands the first thing about it. Talking about adopting some
kid from China or Russia or something. You know, some of those
kids turn out to be killers. They're abused, just sick in the head.
They're never right."

"We see that a lot." Will shook his head sadly, like this was a common
tragedy. "Was she making any progress? Do you know what
agency she was working with?"

She turned reticent when pressed for details. "Jackie wasn't into
sharing. She was always phobic about her privacy." She jerked her
head toward the state lawyers, who were doing their best to blend in
with the upholstery. "I know those tools sitting on the couch aren't
going to let you apologize, but you could at least acknowledge that
you fucked up."

Amanda jumped back in. "Ms. Zabel, the autopsy shows—"

Joelyn gave a belligerent half-shrug. "All it shows is what I already
know: You dumbasses were standing around doing
nothing
while my sister died."

"Perhaps you didn't read the report carefully enough, Ms. Zabel."
Amanda's voice was gentle sounding, the soothing sort of tone she'd
used earlier in the hall before humiliating Will. "Your sister took her
own life."

"Only because y'all weren't doing a damn thing to help her."

"You realize that she was blind and deaf ?" Amanda asked.

Will could tell from the way that Zabel's eyes shifted to the
lawyer that she had not, in fact, realized this.

Amanda removed another folder from the top drawer of her desk.
She thumbed through it, and he could see color photos of Jacquelyn
Zabel in the tree, in the morgue. Will found this particularly cruel,
even for Amanda. No matter how horrible Joelyn Zabel was, she had
still lost her sister in the worst way. He saw Faith shift in her seat and
knew she was thinking the same thing.

Amanda took her time searching for the right page, which seemed
to be buried among the worst of the photographs. Finally, she found
the passage relating to the external examination of the body.
"Second paragraph," she said.

Joelyn hesitated before sitting on the edge of her seat. She was
trying to get a better look at the photos the way some people slow
down to look at a particularly terrible car accident. Finally, she sat
back with the report. Will watched her eyes move back and forth as
she read, but then they suddenly stopped tracking, and he knew that
she wasn't seeing anything at all.

Her throat worked as she swallowed. She stood up, mumbling
"Excuse me" as she bolted from the room.

The air seemed to leave with her. Faith stared straight ahead.
Amanda took her time stacking the photos into a neat pile.

The lawyer said, "Not nice, Mandy."

"Them's the breaks, Chuck."

Will stood. "I'm going to stretch my legs."

He left the room before anyone could respond. Caroline,
Amanda's secretary, was at her desk. Will lifted his chin, and she
whispered, "In the bathroom."

Will walked down the hall, hands in his pockets. He stopped in
front of the women's room door, pressing it open with his foot. He
leaned in. Joelyn Zabel stood in front of the mirror. She had a lighted
cigarette in her hand, and she startled when she saw Will.

"You can't be in here," she snapped, holding up her fist like she
expected some kind of fight.

"No smoking is allowed in the building." Will walked into the
room and put his back against the closed door, keeping his hands in
his pockets.

"What are you doing in here?"

"I wanted to make sure you were okay."

She took a hard hit off the cigarette. "By barging into the ladies'
room? This is off-limits, okay? It's not allowed."

Will glanced around. He had never been in a women's restroom
before. There was a comfortable-looking couch with flowers in a
vase on the table beside it. The air had the scent of perfume, the paper
dispensers were stocked, and there was no water splashed around
the basin so that you got the front of your pants wet when you
washed your hands. It was no wonder women spent so much time in
this place.

"Hello?" Joelyn asked. "Crazy man? Get out of the ladies' room."

"What aren't you telling me?"

"I told you everything I know."

He shook his head. "Cameras aren't rolling in here. No lawyers,
no audience. Tell me what you're not telling me."

"Fuck off."

He felt the door being gently pressed against his back, then close
just as quickly. He said, "You didn't like your sister."

"No shit, Sherlock." Her hand shook as she took another hit of
smoke into her lungs.

"What did she do to you?"

"She was a bitch."

The same could be said for Joelyn, but Will kept that to himself.
"Was there any specific way this manifested itself toward you, or is
that just a general statement?"

She stared at him. "What the hell does that mean?"

"It means that I don't care what you're going to do after you leave
here. Sue the state. Don't sue the state. Sue me personally. I don't
care. Whoever killed your sister probably has someone else—some
woman who's being tortured and raped right now as we speak—and
your keeping something from me is just as good as saying that what's
happening to this other woman is okay."

"Don't put that on me."

"Then tell me what you're hiding."

"I'm not hiding anything." She turned from the mirror, wiping
under her eyes with her fingers so she wouldn't smudge her makeup.
"It's Jackie who was hiding things."

Will kept silent.

"She was always secretive, always acting like she was better than
me."

He nodded, like he got it.

"She got all the attention, all the boyfriends." She shook her
head, turning to face Will. She leaned against the counter, hand beside
the sink. "My weight went up and down when I was a kid. Jackie
used to tease me about being beached whenever we'd go to lay out."

"You've obviously outgrown that problem."

She shook off the compliment, disbelieving. "Everything always
came so easy to her. Money, men, success. People liked her."

"Not really," Will disagreed. "None of her neighbors seem too
shaken up that she's missing. They didn't even notice until the cops
knocked on their doors. I got the feeling they were relieved she's
gone."

"I don't believe you."

"Your mother's neighbor, Candy, doesn't seem too broken up
about it, either."

She was obviously unconvinced. "No, Jackie said Candy was like
a toy poodle nipping at her heels, always wanting to hang out with
her."

"That's not true," Will said. "Candy wasn't very fond of her. I'd
even say she was less fond of your sister than you are."

She finished the cigarette, then went into one of the stalls to flush
it down the toilet. Will could see her processing this new information
about her sister, liking it. Joelyn went back to the sink, leaned
against the counter again. "She was always a liar. Lied about little
things, things that didn't even matter."

"Like what?"

"Like, that she was going to the store when she was going to the
library. Like that she was dating one guy when she was really dating
another one."

"Seems kind of devious."

"She was. That's a perfect word for her—devious. She drove our
mother nuts."

"Did she get into much trouble?"

Joelyn snorted a laugh. "Jackie was always the teacher's pet, always
sucking up to the right people. She had them all fooled."

"Not all of them," Will pointed out. "You said she drove your
mother nuts. Your mom must've known what was going on."

"She did. Spent all kinds of money trying to get Jackie help. It
ruined my fucking childhood. Everything was always about
Jackie
—
how she was feeling, what
she
was out doing, whether
she
was happy.
Nobody worried whether or not
I
was happy."

"Tell me about this adoption thing. What agency was she talking
to?"

Joelyn looked down, guilt flashing in her eyes.

Will kept his tone neutral. "This is why I'm asking: If Jackie was
trying to adopt a child, we're going to have to go to Florida and find
the agency. If there's an overseas connection, we might have to go to
Russia or China to see if their operations are legitimate. If Jackie was
trying to contract with a surrogate at home, we'll have to talk to
every woman who might have spoken to her. We'll have to dig into
every agency down there until we find something, anything, that
connects to your sister, because she met a very bad person who tortured
and raped her for at least a week, and if we can find out how
your sister met her abductor, then maybe we can find out who that
man is." He let her consider his words for a few seconds. "Will we
find a connection through an adoption agency, Joelyn?"

She looked down at her hands, not answering. Will counted the
tiles on the wall behind her head. He was at thirty-six when she
finally spoke. "I just said that—the stuff about getting a kid. Jackie
was talking about it, but she wasn't going to do it. She liked the idea
of being a mother, but she knew she would never be able to pull it
off."