“So where’d it come from?” he said.
“Sounds like a payoff to me,” I said.
“Yeah, I came to that same conclusion,” he said. “Any idea who?”
I shrugged.
“Maybe Bobby Earl’s paying off someone to do his business behind bars or to turn their heads while someone else does it.”
“Maybe,” I said.
He didn’t respond, and we sat in silence for a few minutes.
“I didn’t look for very long,” I said. “But it looked like her face had been beaten very badly.”
“Yeah?” he said.
“So her killer probably knew her pretty well,” I said.
“Possibly,” he said, pulling a small plastic bag from his coat pocket. “We found this on the floor near the door.” Handing me the bag, he added, “I think he hit her so hard it flew out of her mouth and across the room. It’s a piece of candy.”
I held up the plastic bag and examined its contents. It held a round pink piece of hard candy that was circled by red and white streaks.
I swallowed hard, my heart and stomach in my throat, my forehead breaking out into a cold sweat.
“Not finding very much about the Caldwells,” he said. “We need to get them back down here, but that’s not gonna happen.”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Yeah?”
“I’m doing a memorial service for Nicole,” I said.
His eyebrows shot up along with the corners of his lips and he nodded in appreciation. “That just might work, but I thought you were against her coming in-why memorialize her in front of all the inmates?”
“To see what happens,” I said. “And not all-just those who were here the night it happened.”
“I like it,” he said. “Still, we don’t have any real evidence yet.”
“We will,” I said.
“We?” he said.
“You,” I corrected. “You will.”
“When is the service?”
“This afternoon,” I said.
“This afternoon,” he yelled, jumping to his feet and heading toward the door. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
“Where’re you going?” I asked.
“To try to get enough evidence to build a case by then.”
CHAPTER 48
As I began to study for my homily, I noticed again the stack of greeting cards on my desk. I picked them up and rifled through them. To my surprise, all the cards had envelopes. More to the point, all the envelopes had cards. Finding an actual clue, I almost didn’t know what to do. And before I could do anything, Pete Fortner knocked on my door and walked in.
Sitting down, he looked around my office uneasily. As he stared at the spot where Nicole’s body had lain, I remembered that he had been the second one at the scene, and I knew he still saw her broken little body there just as I did.
“How can you-” he started, but stopped when his eyes rested on the picture Nicole had colored for me. I had framed it and hung it on the center of the wall behind me. The most prominent place in my office.
“How can you work in here?” he asked.
“I don’t,” I said. “I mean, I haven’t. I’ve pretty much just been working her case. And she helps me with that. It’s like she’s still present. I don’t know… I feel her guiding me. I like being in here. I think soon the violence will fade and just her precious spirit will remain.”
He nodded without saying anything. There was nothing in his body language or facial expression to suggest it, but I got the sense that I had made him uncomfortable.
His mustache had thickened and he rubbed at it absently. When he turned to the side the sunlight outlined his profile, illuminating several nose hairs which had grown so long they blended with his mustache.
“That was good work with Malcolm and Muhammin the other night,” he said. “But are you sure they didn’t kill Nicole?”
“As sure as you can be about such things,” I said.
“You’re probably right. Guess what we found inside a small hole in Paul Register’s mattress?”
“Nicole’s crayons?” I asked.
His mouth dropped open. “Just how the hell did you know that?”
“I didn’t until just now,” I said. “You told me to guess.”
He shook his head and smiled appreciatively.
“Who found them?” I asked.
“Officer Coel,” he said.
I nodded. “When?”
“Yesterday,” he said. “The hole was tiny. I don’t see how he ever found them.”
“Did you ask him what made him look there in the first place?”
“Yeah,” he said. “At first he said it was just part of a routine search of the cell. They toss them every two weeks or so, but then when I pressed him on it, he said he got an anonymous tip.”
“He say from who?”
“Never would,” he said, shaking his head. “Said he’d lose his informants if he gave them up, but that the person was credible.”
I thought about it.
“You wanna talk to him?”
“Who?”
“Either one.”
“Yeah.”
“Who?”
“Both of them,” I said. “Please just help make sure all our suspects are here for the memorial service.”
“Word on the compound is Nicole’s killer’ll be arrested today,” he said.
I shook my head. “That’s not good.”
“Is it true?” he asked.
“You’d have to ask Daniels.”
“You think he knows who did it?”
I shrugged.
“If he had any sense, he’d ask for your help,” he said. “I-” he started, then paused for a moment before awkwardly beginning again. “I–I’ve got a lot of respect for you-as a man of God, of course, but as a… I don’t know… cop, too. You’re the best I’ve worked with. I can’t believe you’re not up in Atlanta working high profile cases.”
“Pete, in Atlanta I was a small town cop,” I said. “I wasn’t APD. I was a cop for the little tourist town of Stone Mountain. I did it while I was in seminary. I had worked for Dad down here and it was an easy job to get. It just happened to be at a time when a high profile case was going on.”
“You’re the one who stopped him-the Stone Cold Killer. You’ll always be the one who stopped him.”
We were silent a moment and he shifted in his chair and recrossed his legs. His movements were hesitant and awkward, his eyes seeming to search for criticism or ridicule. I felt sorry for him and regretted not having done more to encourage and edify him.
“And always the one who let the Atlanta Child Murderer get away,” I said.
His eyes widened in surprise, his eyebrows popping up into question marks. “You worked the Williams’ case,” he said, adding quickly, “and let him get away?”
“No,” I said. “He’d been in prison a good while when I went up there. But there was another one-some say a second one. I say he was working at the time of Williams and hid his victims like trees in Williams’ forest. The point is, I not only let him get away, I let him kill a little boy I should’ve been protecting. There are no experts in murder investigations. Not really. And if there are, I am certainly not one of them.”
“Well, I think you are,” he said.
“Thanks.”
“I got that information you asked me to,” he said, pulling out a folded sheet of paper from his shirt pocket. “Three inmates have sent Bobby Earl Freeing the Captives Ministries very large contributions since you’ve been back from New Orleans.”
“Any of our suspects?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Most of them don’t send or receive much mail. Porter hasn’t gotten a single letter the entire time he’s been inside. Register is the only one who sends and receives a lot, but none of it to or from Bobby Earl.”
“The three who sent contributions mailed them to the post office box, right?”
He nodded. “How’d you know they would?” he asked. “And before Bobby Earl came, not afterward.”
“Because,” I said, “the checks aren’t to support a ministry, but a habit.”