Triptych (Will Trent #1) - Karin Slaughter Page 0,129

smoke. “Nothing. I ran her in a few times, like Polaski said.”

“Aleesha?”

“Yeah. Couple of times, maybe three. I wrote down the dates. You want me to get them? She was part of the sweeps we did, just like I told you. Twenty, thirty girls at a time. I’m not surprised I didn’t remember her.”

“How about Baby G?”

“Nothing on him. He’s pretty new at the Homes. I could’a met him before, but there’s nothing in my files about it and I sure as shit don’t remember. Maybe we should go at him again? Bring him down to the station and see what he knows?”

Will wondered if he knew the pimp was dead.

“So,” Michael continued. “How’s it going? Anything on Aleesha?”

“Nothing big,” Will answered. “Tell me about Jasmine.”

“Is that one of the girls?”

“She’s the kid who took some skin off your face.”

“Oh, that one.” Michael’s laugh sounded strained. “Yeah. Little hellfire.”

“Did she say anything to you before she ran up the stairs?”

“Nothing I want to repeat in front of my wife.”

“Your wife’s there with you?”

He gave that laugh again. “Where else would she be?”

There was a long stretch of silence. Michael had said less than a minute ago that his family was staying with his mother-in-law. Why was he lying?

“Anyway,” Michael said. “The girl—what’s her name? She didn’t say anything. You think she saw something the night Aleesha was killed?”

“I don’t know.” Was he embarrassed? Is that why he lied?

“I’d bring her into the station if you’re gonna question her, man. I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job or anything, but you don’t want some black brat bringing a charge against you. I was lucky I got away with a slap.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Will wondered if Michael had already found out that Jasmine was missing. If he’d lie about one thing, he’d certainly have no problem lying about another. “I’ve been thinking, Michael, how strange it is that Aleesha is so much older than the other victims.”

“How’s that?”

“She’s a grown woman. The other girls were teenagers. Then there’s the tongue. Your neighbor’s was cut out, the rest of the girls had theirs bitten.”

“Yeah,” Michael allowed, his tone measured. “Come to think of it, that is kind of strange.”

Will watched Julie Cooper giving her statement on his computer screen. She was about to ask the detectives to turn off the camera for a minute so she could collect herself. How did a young girl survive that kind of thing? How did she manage to go to school, do her homework like every other teenager, with the knowledge of what she had endured always lurking in her mind?

Michael suggested, “Maybe he’s been visiting the hookers to blow off some steam in between stalking these girls.” He paused. “I remember when I was in Vice how these girls used to talk themselves into trouble with the johns. Sometimes they’d get in the middle of things and go up on the price. Sometimes they’d negotiate certain acts, positions, whatever, just to get the guy to go back to their place, then they’d change the rules, say they weren’t going to do it or they wanted more money.”

Will hadn’t considered that angle, but it was actually a good avenue to follow. That still didn’t explain Cynthia Barrett, though.

He asked, “Are you sure you didn’t piss somebody off, Michael? Maybe piss them off enough for them to do some kind of copycat thing with Cynthia, bring it to your back door?”

Michael laughed. “Are you being serious?”

“You tell me.”

“That’s fucking crazy, man.”

“How’s that?”

“They’d have to know a hell of a lot about the case,” Michael pointed out. “We didn’t release the detail about Monroe’s tongue to the press. The only people who knew about that were cops.” Michael muffled the phone, but Will heard him say, “Yeah, baby, I’ll be right there.” He said to Will, “Listen, Gina needs my help with Tim. Can I call you back in about ten minutes?”

“No,” Will told him. “I don’t need anything else.”

“Just call if you do.”

Will hung up the phone. He leaned back in his chair as he stared out the window. It had been dark out for some time, but the streetlights cast an unnatural spotlight on the abandoned rail yard next to the building. Will had gotten used to the depressing view.

The computer tooted like a steam train and Will closed the DVD program and opened his e-mail. The state computer wasn’t very sophisticated—the dictionary was extremely limited and the spell-check didn’t know