make the floor uniform, especially with a baby coming. Will had not realized how important it was to have a long, straight surface until he’d rolled a tennis ball back and forth with Emma, a game that the two-year-old could play for five hours straight.
“And Beyoncé,” Faith was saying. “It took her six whole months to drop the baby weight. You’d think someone with all of her resources would lose it faster.”
Will scowled a warning at Faith as he walked toward the couch. He handed Lena the glass of water. She looked like she needed it more.
He told her, “We had some questions about one of your Grant County cases.”
“Grant County?” Lena seemed surprised by the detail. “I thought this was about the drug bust last month.”
Will could see Faith making a mental note to look into the case.
He smoothed down his tie as he sat across from Lena. “No, this was eight years ago. A guy named—”
“Daryl Nesbitt.”
Will wasn’t surprised that Lena had worked that out. The case was not the kind that you easily forget.
Lena asked, “What’s the lying pedophile saying now?”
Faith made a show of searching for her notebook in her purse.
Lena spoke to Will. “Is Nesbitt trying to leverage you into reopening his case?”
Will asked, “Why would he do that?”
“Because that is what he does. He works angles. He manipulates people. The guy is a spoon.” Lena struggled to put the glass on the coffee table. Her stomach was in the way.
Will did it for her.
“Thanks.” She sat back with a long exhale of breath. Her hands rested on her stomach. “Nesbitt had two appeals. They both failed. Then he sued Jeffrey’s estate. We’re talking less than three months after Jeffrey died. I worked with the DA behind the scenes to buy Nesbitt off. Sara was a wreck back then. We all were.”
“‘Buy him off.’” Faith had her notebook and pen ready. She was finally in the game. “What happened?”
Lena said, “Nesbitt was living on borrowed time. His disability skewed his PULHESDWIT. Then he clocked an attempted murder off a CO and hit all fours.”
She was talking about the rating system that the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification State Prison used to assign inmates to facilities. A score of mostly ones put you in minimum security. Mostly fours meant closed, or maximum, security. The first part of the PULHESDWIT ranked physical condition: upper and lower body strength, hearing and vision. The latter part got into the nitty-gritty: sentencing, psychiatric history, disability, work ability, impairment, transportability. Nesbitt had started with a deficit because of his amputation, but there was some leeway in the system. The attempted murder would’ve drawn him the high card.
Lena said, “I’m not surprised he’s figured out how to get the GBI involved. Nesbitt knows how to work the system. The civil suit was his way of getting a county jail vacation. The state paid us to warehouse his sorry ass during the trial. They didn’t want to foot the bill for transport every time there was a hearing or a motion.”
Faith asked, “So, how did you buy off Nesbitt?”
“Frank Wallace, he was interim chief after Jeffrey, went straight to the DA. We didn’t want Nesbitt in our jail. In addition to being a spoon, he was rubbing a raw nerve. The asswipe wouldn’t shut up about me, about Jeffrey. It was like he wanted someone to take him out.”
Will waited for her to get to the part where she had done something about it.
Lena said, “The DA was able to get the governor’s office involved. When a dead cop’s widow is being harassed, people return your phone calls. The day the trial was slated to start, we got Nesbitt to drop the suit in return for reclassifying him to medium security. The governor signed off. GDOC signed off. The judge dismissed the suit.”
Will rubbed his jaw. He was inclined to believe Lena was a liar, but she was offering concrete, provable details. Sara hadn’t mentioned any of this during their first phone call. Then again, that was a lot of information to convey in less than a minute.
Lena seemed to pick up on Will’s thoughts. “Sara didn’t know what was happening behind the scenes. Like I said, she was a wreck back then. There’s no doubt Nesbitt would’ve lost the suit. He had no evidence, no witnesses. I’m surprised he was able to find a lawyer, but he was getting money from somewhere. If it had been up to me, I would’ve fought Nesbitt