Criminal

right now belied that assertion.
    Eventually, she said, “Hank always hated women. I imagine he hated Lucy for her independence. Her free spirit. That she made choices for herself. She was going to school. Living in Atlanta. Hank thought women should stay in their place. Most men did back then. Not all of them, but—” She shrugged her shoulder again. “All you need to know is that your mother was a good person. She was smart and independent, and she loved you.”
    A cable truck drove down the street. Will could hear the hum of the wheels on the road. He wondered what it felt like to live in a mansion, to watch the rest of the world pass you by.
    Amanda said, “Everyone I interviewed at the school loved her.”
    Will shook his head. He’d heard enough.
    “She was funny and kind. She was very popular. All of her professors were devastated when they heard what happened. She had great promise.”
    He tried to swallow the glass in his throat.
    “I was there when she died.” Amanda paused again. “Her last words were for you, Will. She said that she loved you. She wouldn’t let go until she was certain we heard her, until she knew that we understood that with every breath in her body, she loved you.”
    Will pressed his fingers into his eyes. He wasn’t going to cry in front of her. There would be no going back from that.
    “She hid you in the trashcan to save you from your father.” Amanda paused. “Evelyn was there. We found you together. I don’t think I’ve ever been so angry in my life. Not before or since.”
    Will swallowed again. He had to clear his throat to speak. “Edna Flannigan. You knew her.”
    “A lot of my cases took me to the children’s home.” Amanda adjusted the strap on her sling. “No one told me she’d passed away. When I found out—” She looked Will straight in the eye. “Trust me, her replacement was duly punished for his actions.”
    Will couldn’t help but take some pleasure in the thought of Amanda annihilating the man who’d kicked him out into the street. “What was in the basement? What were you looking for?”
    She stared back at the lawn, letting out a long sigh. “I wonder if we’ll ever know.”
    Will remembered the scratches in the coal chute. He’d assumed they had been made by an animal, but now he knew it was probably one of Amanda’s old broads. “Someone went back there while we were at the hospital.”
    “Really?” Amanda pretended to be surprised.
    Will tried to let her know he wasn’t a complete idiot. There was no way a slide had been in police custody for thirty-seven years. “Archival evidence.”
    “Archival evidence?” She had an infuriating smile on her lips, and he knew she was back in full dissembling mode before she even opened her mouth. “Never heard of it.”
    “Cindy Murray,” he continued. Will’s caseworker, the woman who’d helped him get off the streets and into college.
    “Murray?” Amanda drew out the name, finally shaking her head. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”
    “Captain Scott at the jail—”
    She chuckled. “Remind me to tell you stories about the old jail sometime. It was awful before Holly cleaned it up.”
    “Rachel Foster.” Amanda still called on the federal judge to sign off on her warrants. “I know you’re friends with her.”
    “Rachel and I came up together. She worked dispatch, the night shift, so she could go to law school during the day.”
    “She expunged my record when I graduated from college.”
    Amanda would only say, “Rachel’s a good gal.”
    Will couldn’t help himself. He had to find at least one crack. “I’ve never known you to go on another GBI recruiting trip. Not once in fifteen years. Just the one where you got me to sign up.”
    “Well.” She adjusted the sling again. “No one really enjoys those trips. You talk to fifty people and half of them are illiterate.” She smiled at him. “Not that that’s a bad thing.”
    “Did I get it from him?” He couldn’t look at her. Amanda knew about his dyslexia. “My problem?”
    “No.” She spoke with certainty. “You saw his Bible. He was constantly reading.”
    “That girl—Suzanna Ford. She saw—”
    “She saw a tall man. That’s all. You’re nothing like him, Will. I knew James Ulster. I talked to him. I looked him in the eye. There’s not a drop of your father inside of you. It’s all Lucy. Everything about you comes straight from your mother. You have to believe me on that, at least. I wouldn’t