Triptych (Will Trent #1) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,100

and he’ll be even worse than this Morrison, if that’s possible.”

“Gran?” Cedric asked. He was still in the bedroom, peeking around the edge of the door. “I finished cleaning the room.”

“Come here, child.” She reached out her arm for him and he came. She told Will, “I called the police as soon as I realized Jasmine was missing. I’m sure you can guess their response.”

“They told you to give it twenty-four hours, maybe forty-eight if they know she’s run away before.”

“Correct.”

Will addressed his words to Cedric. “You sounded pretty upset when you called me. Can you tell me why?”

Cedric looked at his grandmother, then back at Will. His shoulders went up into a shrug.

The old woman stirred, reaching into the front pocket of her housedress. “Walk Mr. Trent out and check the mail for me, baby. Mr. Trent?” Will struggled to get out of the chair. “Thank you for your concern.”

“Please don’t bother,” he said, noticing that she was trying to stand. “I’ll let you know what I find out.” He reached out to shake her hand, remembering at the last moment that the arthritis would make it too painful. She grabbed his hand before he could stop her, and he was surprised by the intensity of her grip. “Please,” she begged. “Please find her, Mr. Trent.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, knowing that she was proud and that it took everything she had to ask him for help.

He followed Cedric down the stairs and out into the parking lot. The overhead lights cast a strange glow over everything and Will realized that it was only a few hours past the time that Aleesha Monroe had been murdered on Sunday night. Cedric walked to the grassy area by the mailboxes where Jasmine had jumped him this morning.

Will watched the boy slip his key into the lock, waiting until he’d retrieved the mail to tell him, “This is serious, Cedric.”

“I know.”

“You’ve got to tell me what you know about Jasmine. Why did she tell you not to talk to the cops?”

“She said y’all are bad.”

That was a sentiment shared by pretty much everyone within a five-mile radius. “Tell me what happened on Sunday.”

“Nothing.”

“That’s not going to work this time, Cedric. Jasmine’s gone, and you heard your granny in there. I know you were listening at the door. I saw your shadow underneath.”

Cedric licked his lips, sorting through the mail.

Will knelt down in front of him, put both his hands on Cedric’s shoulders. “Tell me.”

“There was a man,” Cedric finally admitted his grammar improved now that his guard was down. “He paid Jazz some money to make a phone call. That’s all.”

“What kind of phone call?”

“To the police. To say Leesha was being hurt.”

Will looked over his shoulder at the pay phone. The booth was dark, the overhead light busted out. “He told her to call from the pay phone?”

Cedric nodded. “Didn’t make no sense. She could’a used her cell. Everybody knows y’all can’t trace a cell.”

“Did he pay her?” Will guessed.

“Twenty bucks,” Cedric admitted. “And then he gave her a dime for the phone.”

Will dropped his hands and sat back on his heels. “What’s that phone cost, about fifty cents?”

“Yeah,” Cedric answered. “Jazz told him that a dime don’t buy shit, and then he got all nervous and gave her two quarters.”

Will wondered what the odds were that they’d find two quarters in the coin box that had the murderer’s fingerprints on them. Then he wondered if it was Aleesha’s murderer who had paid the girl to make the call. Why would the killer pay someone to report his own crime?

Will asked, “Did you recognize the man?”

The boy went back to shuffling the mail in his hands.

“Do you think you’d remember him if you saw a picture of him?”

“He was white,” Cedric said. “I didn’t see him too good. I was over here.”

Will turned back to the phone booth. The lights around the parking lot and the mailboxes were strong enough to blind a grown man, but none of them would have illuminated the pay phone.

He asked Cedric, “What do you think happened?”

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he started shuffling the mail again. “She always told me before,” he said. “When she was going off with Luther, she always told me so I wouldn’t worry.”

“After Jasmine made the call, which way did the man go when he left?”

Cedric pointed up the street toward the exit.

“He didn’t have a car?”

“Don’t know,” the boy admitted. “We was out here on our way to Freddy’s,