Out of the Blues (25 page)

The Bible
, the blues. Salt palmed the walnut and turned to get ready for work.

T
he Metro section of the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
, the city's daily paper, was faceup on one of the break room tables. “One Month Later, No Arrests in Buckhead Murders,” read the headline. Salt sat down with her empty coffee cup and picked up the paper.

One month after Laura Solquist and her daughters, Juliet and Megan, were shot to death in the family's Buckhead home, detectives still have made no arrests in the case and haven't named any suspects or persons of interest.

The victims, mother and daughters, each shot once in the head, were found March 16 by the family's housekeeper. The victims' husband and father, prominent real estate atorney Arthur Solquist, was on a fishing trip with business associates when the murders are believed to have been committed. He has been in seclusion and reportedly under a doctor's care since the incident.

Laura Solquist was a native of Atlanta, her father . . .

The lengthy piece ended on an inside page with the last line
“The initial police report indicates there were no signs of forced entry.”

It was almost certain that Wills had seen the piece, but just in case he might have missed it, she folded the paper and stuffed it in the trash.

—

“
Y
OU
GOT
something pressing right now?” Wills leaned against the cubicle support of Salt's desk, slightly slanting its partition and shelving.

“Hey, big guy, you look beat.”

He looked over the room, then turned back to her, lowering his voice. “Can you stay over at my place tonight? Get Mr. Gooden to let Wonder out to do his business? I could really use some TLC.”

“I'll call him right now. Something else up?”

“Gardner is leaving early and I need someone to sit in on an interview with Patricia Morehead, one of Laura's sisters.”

—

“
L
AURA
WASN
'
T
the type to complain. We were raised like that—growing up with a certain amount of privilege, our parents made sure we knew it and knew what it was like for people who had to earn their way. We weren't allowed to complain.” Patricia's resemblance to her sister was unsettling: fine, straight blond hair, olive skin with blue eyes . . . an attractive combination. She turned as Salt lowered her eyes. “Don't worry. I'm used to it. People get over the similarity after the first time.”

They were sitting in the living room of Patricia's condo near one of the newly constructed parks along the BeltLine. The furnishings were comfortable rather than heirloom or chichi contemporary—a bright fabric sofa and matching chairs slightly shredded with picks
and pulls from the two tabby cats that wandered through their legs. Family portraits and arty photos of the cats and the city lined the walls. Patricia was single and worked for a local nonprofit.

“But I'm not nearly as easygoing or uncomplaining as Laura,” Patricia said, picking up one of the cats. She laughed. “This one”—she patted the cat—“his name is Cliché. You know, single girl, cat.” She widened her eyes and screwed up her mouth, mocking herself. “Yeah, we were taught to give back. It's one of the reasons I work where I do. I also love the job and this city.”

“Your father asked me to talk to you,” Wills prompted.

“About six months ago Laura and I managed a rare girls' night out.” She loosed Cliché to the back of the sofa. “Neither of us is a big drinker, but she'd had a couple of glasses of wine, and when I drove her home, before she got out of the car, she asked me if I kept up with Sherman Overmeyer. Sherman's family lived next door to us growing up and he'd gone to school with us. He went to law school at Emory and we see him at church sometimes.

“I didn't think anything of it and told her I'd e-mail Sherm's contact information.” Patricia untucked an embroidered handkerchief from her sleeve. “Looking back on that night, I remembered she'd made a few comments about Arthur—his being gone so much. She was worried about some of the people he had dealings with. She might have been trying to confide in me, and I didn't pick up on how bad things were for her.” Patricia looked over to the portraits on the wall, then hung her head. “Truth is, I doubted that things could really be that bad. You know, prominent husband, beautiful home, two absolutely precious daughters. I think I wasn't paying attention.” She swiped at the corners of her Laura-like eyes.

“But now—Arthur's behavior toward us is just bizarre. It's like we've become his persecutors. He won't take our phone calls. It's hard to know what to think.”

Wills nodded. “I'm having the same problem with him. Do you know if Laura ever talked to your friend? What's his name again?” Wills took out his notepad.

“Sherman Overmeyer.” Patricia picked up a sheet of paper from the lamp table beside her. “I've written out all of his contact details— mail, phone numbers, addresses. I don't know if she talked to him or not.”

—

“
Y
OU
'
RE
DEAD
TIRED
and still you want to cook?”

Wills stood at the stove, a glass of red wine on the counter beside him. “Cooking is therapeutic for me. Besides, we like to eat. Right?” The aroma of garlic and onions simmering filled the kitchen.

“Your case seems to be gaining complications, too much for one detective to try to follow up on each thread. You've got leads on her husband's business dealings; information from cops, informants, and people from the projects on a shooter; the family's suspicions; and now working with the feds.” Salt simultaneously rubbed Pansy and Violet, who were parked on either side of her feet.

Wills stirred eggs into the pan. “Yeah, but if one person is the repository for all the information, then there's a better chance of fitting the pieces together. The picture that's coming together for me right now is that Arthur Solquist's wife found out something about his business, something either he or his associates may not have felt comfortable with her knowing, especially if she was becoming unhappy in the marriage.” Wills flipped the omelet, then slid it onto a plate. “I think it's ready.”

T
he tall, square-jawed, evenly featured officer from the department's Public Affairs Unit stood halfway out the door of Huff's office. “Sergeant Huff, I don't think you really want me to tell them that,” he was saying as Salt passed on her way to the conference room. Wills had asked the feds for help in following Arthur Solquist's financial dealings, and for the entire unit's benefit they'd offered to do a day's training on money laundering and financial fraud crime.

“The press is hounding us for updates on the Solquist case . . . No, sir,” the PA guy said. “We don't suck media dick.”

Huff brushed past him in the doorway.

—

S
ALT
WAS
in her cubicle going back through the physical evidence lists in the Michael Anderson file, hoping that something from the scant documents would connect with the little she felt she had learned, when her phone rang. “It's Shepherd,” said the voice. “I already talked
to your sergeant and lieutenant. I took your suggestion and made the first buy myself.”

Absorbed in the file, it took her a minute to switch gears. “I appreciate that. I can't think of any supervisors who'd do that. You've done your time. You didn't need to put yourself out there anymore,” Salt said. “Thank you.”

“Really, it went fine. Just like you said—they sold to me mostly because I looked the part. Stripper came from the back when I asked for snow and sold to me. Easy. Your Man was right on that count. I'll make one more buy before the end of the week and we'll be set for our probable cause.”

“It's nice of you to call me. You didn't have to, just like you didn't have to do the buy.” Salt tucked her chin to the phone.

“Yes, I did, Salt. You know, I have to admit I do have a special place in my heart for women in the PD trying to do a good job. I guess it's a combination of identifying with them and wanting them—us—to succeed. It was really hard when I first came on. But also, your dad was kind to me once when I was a rookie and really needed someone in my corner.”

“My dad?” Salt sat up and leaned over the phone. “I didn't know that there was anybody left who knew him. You're the only person on the job who's ever talked to me about having worked with him.”

“Could be they don't know how to bring it up, uncomfortable with suicide, you know. And I didn't really know him. But on the night I'm talking about I was driving the wagon on morning watch, hauling the drunks to jail from the clubs in Buckhead, and I sideswiped a college kid's Beamer. There were drunks coming out of the bars, cursing me, having fun at my expense. And I was scared, thought they'd fire me because I was still on probation. Then your dad pulled up. He had someone come and take over the wagon, got me to a diner around
the corner away from the crowd of drunks, bought me coffee, and somehow made it all go away. I never heard from court, a supervisor, nothing. 'Course that was back when things like that could be made to go away. But my point is, he did it for me—a black chick, a rookie he didn't know from Adam. I never got the chance to thank him. I was so shook up. I've always been sorry I didn't seek him out to say that. You there?” asked Lieutenant Shepherd.

Salt nodded at the phone.

“Salt?”

“Thanks,” she whispered.

“Okay. I'll see you at the planning meeting.” The lieutenant hung up.

Salt was glad now that Huff had stuck her in a cubicle in the back corner, grateful when Thing One and Two glanced at her and kept on walking.

T
he upper and lower lots across from the shelter were half-block slabs of broken concrete where businesses had once thrived but then struggled and given up after Haven House took over the building next door and the area had become the nexus for so many desperate, homeless people. It had become a regular stop for the beat officers, a checkpoint for keeping up with the street. So Salt wasn't surprised when a patrol car pulled into the lower lot just in front of her Taurus and stopped across from the wall that divided the upper lot from the lower. The wall would have brought a kind of liveliness to the grimy spot, with its psychedelic kaleidoscope of bright-colored graffiti, except that taggers had marred the mural with amateur single-line scribblings. Pieces of the wall were coming loose, exposing the red clay and the roots of junk trees that were causing the concrete to buckle.

From the other side of the lot a white female sergeant about Salt's age got out of the patrol car and stood leaning against the car door, checking the area, glancing at Salt. Then the sergeant raised her hand in recognition of Salt's unmarked. She walked down the wall,
stopping to make notes on a pocket notepad, and then came over. “Salt, right?” She stepped back so Salt could open the door. “I've seen you a few times in court, but we've not really met. I'm Laurel Fellows.” She put out her hand.

“You just made sergeant. I saw your name on the list. Good for you.” Salt shook her hand. “I heard some of the guys saying you deserved the promotion.”

“And you, congrats as well.”

“So why are two nice girls hanging around this urban art installation?” Salt swept her arm toward the wall.

Fellows grinned. “I don't know. Why are we?” The creases were still sharp along the front of her newly striped uniform slacks. She shifted and adjusted the gear belt with its new brass-studded belt keepers. The shiny finish on the sergeant's badge caught the light.

“Last year I came to the shelter looking for a guy from my beat,” Salt said.

“The Homes, right? People say you worked it. Props. Not many girls get that kind of respect.”

“I know you worked this zone before your promotion. They obviously think you're good since they kept you after you made sergeant.”

“I worked FIT, kept my head low.” Fellows was referring to the Field Investigative Team, a small, plainclothes, as-needed unit that responded to crime patterns: thefts, burglaries, car break-ins, muggings. “Can I help you with something here?” She nodded toward Haven House.

“I don't know. It keeps coming up in this old case I'm working.” Salt was wary of any possible connections to Sandy Madison.

As if reading her mind, Fellows said, “Stay away from True Grit Madison then. He controls the EJs here and at the church, not to mention how many other places. He's gotten in our way so many
times, especially on the drug stuff. I don't understand how he stays off Internal Affairs' radar.”

Two men crossed the street from the shelter. One carried a white five-gallon bucket, the other carried long- and short-handled paint rollers.

“Whadda ya know,” said Fellows as the men opened the bucket and began painting over the wall graffiti with a pea-green color. “I've never seen that before.”

The two men got right to work on some large black letters, “D.V. SUCKS,” quickly reducing them to “UCKS” as the slight breeze brought whiffs of the paint.

“I'd guess Haven House doesn't usually take much interest in its effect on the quality of life in the neighborhood?” Salt asked.

“They didn't want the addicts arrested when we caught them in buys. They say they just want the dealers arrested. They don't seem to understand that when police witness a transaction that both parties are culpable. We can't pick and choose who gets arrested when we witness crimes. I don't personally think the war on drugs is effective, but I've sworn to uphold the law.

“The neighborhood is swarming with addicts and dealers, but the shelter doesn't have in-patient treatment or wraparound services. We arrest dealers, but because of the huge market—the shelter has five hundred beds, well, mattresses—before the ink is dry on the arrest tickets, other dealers have moved in. It's just too lucrative, too big a demand.”

A white limousine pulled alongside the curb on the street above, and the young man Salt had encountered at the church with Midas Prince got out from the passenger compartment. He glanced at Salt and Fellows and at the men painting the wall, lifted his chin, shook out his cuffs like Salt had seen Midas do, and crossed the street to the shelter entrance as the limo pulled away.

“That was the little man himself,” said Fellows.

“Who?”

“That slender young guy runs Haven House now. He's Reverend Prince's right-hand man, Brother Twiggs.”

“I heard Reverend Gray quit. He helped me last year. Do you know where he went?” Salt asked.

“He was a good guy, but I'm sure he must have burned out. He tried to work with us, but he was limited by lack of funds for treatment and programs, and by whoever controlled the money. I don't know where he's working now, but if anyone would know where the bodies are buried, he would.” Fellows leaned her ear toward the mic on her shoulder, tapped the hood of the car, and said, “Gotta run. I hear the call of the wild.” She started for her car. “Nice talking to you,” she said over her shoulder as she strode to the patrol car.

Salt remembered that Jackson Thornton from the HOPE Team had told her about Gray leaving Haven House. He answered on the first ring, but all she heard was what sounded like breathing. “Hello?” Salt said.

“Hey. Salt. Sorry. Give me a second,” said Thornton. More breathing and moving around. “Whew. I was coming from the tracks, up a bank. What's up?”