The Good Daughter (The Good Daughter #1) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,26

Ben was one of six lawyers in the district attorney’s office.

She asked, “Is Ken going to ask for help?”

“They’re already here,” Ben said. “Everybody just showed up. Troopers. State police. Sheriff’s office. We didn’t even have to call them.”

“That’s good.”

“Yeah.” He picked at the corner of the folder with his fingers. His lips twitched the way they always did when he chewed at the tip of his tongue. It was an old habit that wouldn’t die. Charlie had once seen his mother reach across the dinner table and slap his hand to make him stop.

She asked, “You saw the bodies?”

He didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. Charlie knew that Ben had seen the crime scene. She could tell by the somber tone in his voice, the slump in his shoulders. Pikeville had grown over the last two decades, but it was still a small town, the kind of place where heroin was a much larger concern than homicide.

Ben said, “You know it takes time, but I told them to move the bodies as soon as possible.”

Charlie looked up at the ceiling to keep the tears in her eyes. He had awakened her dozens of times from her worst nightmare: a day in the life, Charlie and Rusty going about their mundane chores inside the old farmhouse, cooking meals and doing laundry and washing dishes while Gamma’s body rotted against the cabinets because the police had forgotten to take her away.

It was probably the piece of tooth Charlie had found in the back of the cabinet, because what else had they missed?

Ben said, “Your car is parked behind your office. They locked down the school. It’ll probably be closed for the rest of the week. There’s already a news van up from Atlanta.”

“Is that where Dad is, combing his hair?”

They both smiled a little, because they both knew that her father loved nothing more than to see himself on television.

Ben said, “He told you to hang tight. When I called him. That’s what Rusty said—‘Tell that girl to hang tight.’”

Which meant that Rusty wasn’t going to ride to her rescue. That he assumed his tough daughter could handle herself in a room full of Keystone Kops while he rushed to Kelly Wilson’s house and got her parents to sign his fee agreement.

When people talked about how much they hated lawyers, it was Rusty who came to mind.

Ben said, “I can have one of the squad cars take you to your office.”

“I’m not getting in a car with any of those assholes.”

Ben ran his fingers through his hair. He needed a trim. His shirt was wrinkled. His suit was missing a button. She wanted to think he was falling apart without her, but the truth was that he was always disheveled and Charlie was more likely to tease him about looking like a hipster hobo than to take out a needle and thread.

She said, “Kelly Wilson was in their custody. She wasn’t resisting. The moment they cuffed her, they were responsible for her safety.”

“Greg’s daughter goes to that school.”

“So does Kelly.” Charlie leaned closer. “We’re not living in Abu Ghraib, okay? Kelly Wilson has a constitutional right to due process under the law. It’s up to a judge and jury to decide, not a bunch of vigilante cops with hard-ons to beat down a teenage girl.”

“I get it. We all get it.” Ben thought she was grandstanding for the great Oz behind the mirror. “‘A just society is a lawful society. You can’t be a good guy if you act like a bad guy.’”

He was quoting Rusty.

She said, “They were going to beat the shit out of her. Or worse.”

“So you volunteered yourself instead?”

Charlie felt a burning sensation in her hands. Without thinking, she was scratching at the dried blood, rolling it into tiny balls. Her fingernails were ten black crescents.

She looked up at her husband. “You said you took nine witness statements?”

Ben gave a single, reluctant nod. He knew why she was asking the question.

Eight cops. Mrs. Pinkman wasn’t there when Charlie’s nose was broken, which meant that the ninth statement had come from Huck, which meant that Ben had already talked to him.

She asked, “Do you know?” That was the only thing that mattered between them right now, whether or not Ben knew why she had been at the school this morning. Because if Ben knew, then everyone else knew, which meant that Charlie had yet again found another uniquely cruel way to humiliate her husband.

“Ben?” she asked.

He ran