Genesis (41 page)

The wheels in Faith's brain took their time moving in a new-direction.
She looked at Sam's block handwriting, the stupid heart around
the address. "I don't know why Sam thinks he can track down the
guy in five minutes when our entire data processing division can't
find him in two days."

Faith took out her cell phone. She didn't want to bother with the
proper channels, so she called Caroline, Amanda's assistant. The
woman practically lived in the building, and she picked up the phone
on the first ring. Faith relayed Berman's address and asked her to have
the Coweta County field agent verify that this was the Jake Berman
they had been looking for.

"Do you want him to bring the guy in?" Caroline asked.

Faith thought about it, then decided she didn't want to make the
decision on her own. She asked Will, "Do you want them to bring in
Berman?"

He shrugged, but answered, "Do we want to tip him off ?"

"A cop knocking on his door is a tip-off no matter what."

Will shrugged again. "Tell him to try to verify Berman's identity
from a distance. If it's the right guy, then we'll go down there and
snatch him up. Give the agent my cell number. We'll go after you finish
talking to Simkov."

Faith passed this on to Caroline. She ended the call, and Will
turned his computer monitor toward her, saying, "I got this email
from Amanda."

Faith slid over the mouse and keyboard. She changed the color
settings so her retinas didn't spontaneously combust, then double-clicked
on the file. She summarized for Will as she read. "Tech hasn't
been able to break into any of the computers. They say the anorexia
chat room is impossible to open without a password—it's got some
kind of fancy encryption. The warrants for Olivia Tanner's bank
should be in this afternoon so we can get into her phone and files."
She scrolled down. "Hmm." She read silently, then told Will,
"Okay, well, this might be something to take to the doorman. The
fire exit door on the penthouse floor had a partial on the handle—
right thumb."

Will knew Faith had spent most of yesterday afternoon combing
through Anna Lindsey's building. "How are the stairs accessed?"

"Either the lobby or the roof," she said, reading the next passage.
"The fire escape ladder that runs down the back of the building had
another print that matched the one from the door. They're sending it
to the Michigan State Police to run comparables. If Pauline's brother
has a record, it should come up. If we can get a name, then we're
halfway there."

"We should check for parking tickets in the area. You can't just
park anywhere in Buckhead. They're pretty good about catching
you."

"Good idea," Faith said, opening up her email account to send
out the request. "I'll open it up to parking tickets in or around the
area of all the last known locations of our victims."

"Son of Sam was caught by a parking ticket."

Faith tapped the keys. "You've got to stop watching so much television."

"Not much else to do at night."

She glanced at his hands, the new scratches.

He asked, "How did he get Anna Lindsey out of the building? He
couldn't have thrown her over his shoulder and taken her down the
fire escape ladder."

Faith sent off the email before answering. "The exit door for the
stairs was wired. An alarm would have gone off if anyone had opened
the door." She asked, "Did he take her down the elevator and into
the lobby?"

"That's something to ask Simkov."

"The doorman isn't there twenty-four hours," Faith reminded
him. "The killer could've waited for Simkov to clock out, then used
the elevator to bring her body down. Simkov was supposed to keep
an eye on things after hours, but he was hardly dedicated to his job."

"There wasn't another doorman to relieve him?"

"They've been trying to find someone to fill the position for six
months," she told him. "Apparently, it's hard to find someone who
wants to sit on their ass behind a desk for eight hours a day—which is
why they put up with so much bullshit from Simkov. He was willing
to double up his shifts, such as they were."

"What about security tapes?"

"They tape over them every forty-eight hours." She had to add,
"Except for the ones from yesterday, which seem to be missing."
Amanda had made sure the tape of Will slamming Simkov's face into
the counter had been destroyed.

Will's face flooded with guilt, but still, he asked, "Anything in
Simkov's apartment?"

"We tossed it upside down. He drives an old Monte Carlo that
leaks like a sieve and there aren't any receipts for storage units."

"There's no way he could be Pauline's brother."

"We've been so focused on that that we haven't seen anything
else."

"All right, so, let's take the brother out of the equation. What
about Simkov?"

"He's not smart. I mean, he's not stupid, but our killer is choosing
women he wants to conquer. I'm not saying our bad guy is a genius,
but he's a hunter. Simkov is a pathetic schmuck who keeps porn under
his mattress and takes blowjobs to let whores into empty apartments."

"You've never believed in profiles before."

"You're right, but we're spinning our wheels everywhere else.
Let's talk about our guy," Faith said, something Will usually suggested.
"Who's our killer?"

"Smart," Will admitted. "He probably works for an overbearing
woman, or has overbearing women in his life."

"That's pretty much every man on the planet these days."

"Tell me about it."

Faith smiled, taking his words as a joke. "What kind of job does
he have?"

"Something that lets him exist under the radar. He has flexible
hours. Watching these women, learning about their habits, takes a lot
of time. He's got to have a job that lets him come and go as he
pleases."

"Let's ask the same boring, stupid question one more time: What
about the women? What do they have in common?"

"The anorexia/bulimia thing."

"The chat room." She shot that one down on her own: "Of
course, even the FBI can't find out who the site is registered to. No
one has been able to break Pauline's password. How could our guy
find it?"

"Maybe he started the site himself in order to troll for victims?"

"How would he find out their true identities? Everyone's tall, thin
and blonde on the Internet. And usually twelve and horny."

He was twisting his wedding ring again, staring out the window.
Faith couldn't stop looking at the scratches on the back of his hand.
In forensic parlance, they would have called the marks defensive
wounds. Will had been behind someone who had gouged her fingernails
deep into his skin.

She asked, "How did it go with Sara last night?"

Will shrugged. "I just picked up Betty. I think she likes Sara's
dogs. She's got two greyhounds."

"I saw them yesterday morning."

"Oh, that's right."

"Sara's nice," Faith told him. "I really like her."

Will nodded.

"You should ask her out."

He laughed, shaking his head at the same time. "I don't think so."

"Because of Angie?"

He stopped twisting the ring. "Women like Sara Linton . . ." She
saw a flash of something in his eyes that she couldn't quite read. Faith
expected him to shrug it off, but he kept talking. "Faith, there's no
part of me that's not damaged." His voice sounded thick in his throat.
"I don't mean just the things you can see. There's other stuff. Bad
stuff." He shook his head again, a tight gesture, more for his own
benefit than Faith's. He finally told her, "Angie knows who I am.
Somebody like Sara . . ." Again, his voice trailed off. "If you really
like Sara Linton, then you don't want her to know me."

All Faith could think to say was his name. "Will."

He gave a forced laugh. "We gotta stop talking about this stuff before
one of us starts lactating." He took out his cell phone. "It's almost
eight. Amanda will be waiting for you in the interrogation
room."

"Are you going to watch?"

"I'm going to make some calls up to Michigan and annoy the crap
out of them until they run those fingerprints we found on Anna's fire
escape. Why don't you call me when you're out of your doctor's appointment?
If Sam found the right Jake Berman, we can go talk to
him together."

Faith had forgotten about her doctor's appointment. "If he's the
right Jake Berman, then we should scoop him up immediately."

"I'll call you if that's the case. Otherwise, go to your doctor's appointment,
then we'll start from scratch like we'd planned."

She listed it off. "The Coldfields, Rick Sigler, Olivia Tanner's
brother."

"That should keep us busy."

"You know what's bugging me?" Will shook his head, and she
told him, "We haven't gotten the reports from Rockdale County
yet." She held up her hands, knowing Rockdale was a sore point. "If
we're going to start from the beginning, we need to do just that—get
the initial crime-scene report from the first responding cop and go
over every detail point by point. I know Galloway said the guy's fishing
in Montana, but if his notes are good, then we don't need to talk
to him."

"What are you looking for?"

"I don't know. But it bothers me that Galloway hasn't faxed it
over."

"He's not exactly on top of things."

"No, but everything he's held back until now has been for a reason.
You said it yourself. People don't do stupid things without a logical
explanation."

"I'll put a call in to his office and see if the secretary can handle it
without getting Galloway involved."

"You should get those scratches on the back of your hand looked
at, too."

He glanced down at his hand. "I think you've looked at them
plenty."

EXCEPT FOR TALKING
to Anna Lindsey in the hospital the day before,
Faith had never worked directly with Amanda on a case. The
extent of their interaction tended to be with a desk between them,
Amanda on one side with her hands steepled in front of her like a disapproving
schoolmarm and Faith fidgeting in her chair as she gave
her report. Because of this, Faith tended to forget that Amanda had
clawed her way up the ranks back during a time when women in uniform
were relegated to fetching coffee and typing reports. They
weren't even allowed to carry guns, because the brass thought that,
given the choice between shooting a bad guy and not breaking a nail,
the latter would win out.

Amanda had been the first female officer to disabuse them of this
theory. She had been at the bank cashing her paycheck when a robber
decided to take an early withdrawal. One of the tellers had panicked,
and the robber had started to pistol-whip her. Amanda shot him once
in the heart, what was called a K-5 for the circle it corresponded to
on the shooting range target. She'd told Faith once that she had gotten
her nails done afterward.

Otik Simkov, the doorman from Anna Lindsey's building, would
have benefited from knowing this story. Or maybe not. The little
troll had an air of arrogance about him, despite being stuffed into a
too-small, Day-Glo orange prison uniform and open-toed sandals
that had been worn by a thousand prisoners before him. His face was
bruised and battered, but he still held himself upright, shoulders
squared. As Faith entered the interrogation room, he gave her the
same look of appraisal a farmer might give a cow.

Cal Finney, Simkov's lawyer, made a show of looking at his watch.
Faith had seen him on television many times; Finney's commercials
had their own annoying jingle. He was as handsome in person as he
was on the set. The watch on his arm could've put Jeremy through
college.

"Sorry I'm late." Faith directed the apology toward Amanda,
knowing she was the only one who mattered. She sat in the chair opposite
Finney, catching the look of distaste on Simkov's face as he
openly stared at her. This was not a man who had learned to respect
women. Maybe Amanda would change that.

"Thank you for speaking with us, Mr. Simkov," Amanda began.
She was still using her pleasant voice, but Faith had been in enough
meetings with her boss to know that Simkov was in trouble. She had
her hands resting lightly on a file folder. If experience was anything
to go by, she would open the folder at some point, unleashing the
gates of hell.

She said, "We just have a few question to ask you regarding—"

"Screw you, lady," Simkov barked. "Talk to my lawyer."

"Dr. Wagner," Finney said. "I'm sure you're aware that we filed a
lawsuit against the city this morning for police brutality." He
snapped open his briefcase and pulled out a stack of papers, which he
dropped with a thunk on the table.

Faith felt her face flush, but Amanda didn't seem fazed. "I understand
that, Mr. Finney, but your client is looking at a charge of obstructing
justice in a particularly heinous case. Under his watch, one
of the tenants in his building was abducted. She was raped and tortured.
She barely managed to escape with her life. I'm sure you saw it
on the news. Her child was left to die, again under Mr. Simkov's
watch. The victim will never regain her vision. You can see why we
are somewhat frustrated that your client has been less than forthcoming
about what, exactly, was going on in his building."

"I know nothing," Simkov insisted, his accent so thick Faith expected
him at any moment to start talking about capturing Moose
and Squirrel. He told the lawyer, "Get me out of here. Why am I a
prisoner? I am soon a wealthy man."

Finney ignored his client, asking Amanda, "How long will this
take?"

"Not long." Her smile indicated otherwise.

Finney wasn't fooled. "You've got ten minutes. Keep all your
questions to the Anna Lindsey case." He advised Simkov, "Your cooperation
now will reflect well during your civil suit."

Unsurprisingly, he was swayed by the prospect of money. "Yeah.
Okay. What are your questions?"