[Georgia 03] Fallen

blood spilled is on your hands, Amanda. You did this to Faith. You did this to all of us.”
    Amanda turned her head away from him. She didn’t answer Will, but he could see the truth in her eyes. She knew that he was right.
    Her silent acceptance was no consolation, but Will backed off anyway. He had been looming over her like a bully, clutching his rifle so hard that his hands were shaking. Shame crowded out his anger. He made his grip loosen, his jaw relax.
    “Ha,” Mrs. Levy laughed. “You gonna take that tone from him, Wag?” She had re-loaded the Python. She snapped the cylinder home, telling Will, “That’s what we used to call her—Wag, because she shut up and wagged her tail like a dog every time a man was around.”
    Will was shocked by her words, mostly because he couldn’t imagine anything that could be further from the truth.
    Mrs. Levy hefted the Python in her hands. She told Amanda, “Talk about swinging your dick around. You could’ve stopped this twenty years ago if you’d’a had the balls to force Ev to—”
    Amanda hissed, “Spare me your sanctimonious bullshit, Roz. If it wasn’t for me standing between you and your cookie recipe, you’d be on death row right now.”
    “I warned you when it happened. You don’t mix pigeons and bluebirds.”
    “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. You never have.” Amanda barked more orders into the walkie-talkie. Her voice shook, which worried Will as much as anything that had happened in the last ten minutes. “Take out that black van. I want all four tires down. Clear out this block as quickly as you can. Call in APD to gumshoe it and give me an ETA on SWAT within the next five minutes or don’t bother showing up for work tomorrow.”
    Will put his eye back to the camera. Faith was still talking. At least, her mouth was moving. Her arms were crossed over her chest. Will found his mind working through Roz Levy’s mildly racist choice of words: pigeons and bluebirds. Mrs. Levy was full of old adages, like the one she’d told him two days ago: A woman can run faster with her skirt up than a man can with his pants down. It was a strange thing to say about a pregnant fourteen-year-old girl who’d had a baby by the age of fifteen.
    Will asked the old woman, “Why didn’t you take that Python over to Evelyn’s when you heard the shots the other day?”
    She looked down at the gun. There was a bit of petulance in her tone. “Ev told me not to come over no matter what.”
    Will hadn’t pegged her as an order-follower, but maybe her bark was worse than her bite. Poisoning was a coward’s choice, coldblooded murder without the inconvenience of getting your hands dirty. He tried to push her toward the truth. “But you heard gunshots.”
    “I assumed Evelyn was taking care of some old business.” She jabbed her thumb Amanda’s way. “Notice she didn’t call her for help.”
    Amanda rested her chin on the walkie-talkie. She was watching Will like she was waiting for a pot to boil. She was always ten steps ahead of him. She knew where his brain was going even before he did.
    She told Mrs. Levy, “I knew Evelyn was seeing Hector again. She told me months ago.”
    “Like hell she did. You were as shocked to see that picture as I was when I took it.”
    “Does it matter, Roz? After all this time, does it really matter?”
    The old woman seemed to think that it did. “It’s not my fault she was willing to gamble away her life for ten seconds of pleasure.”
    Amanda laughed, incredulous. “Ten seconds? No wonder you murdered your husband. Is that all the old bastard could give you—ten seconds?” Her tone was cutting, rueful, the same one she’d used on the phone half an hour ago.
    There are other things a man can gamble with besides money .
    She was talking about Will and Sara. She was talking about the inherent risks that came with love.
    Will turned back to the camera. Faith was still talking. Had Roz Levy set up the camera today, or had it been there all along? The view into the house was clear. What would she have seen two days ago? Evelyn making sandwiches. Hector Ortiz carrying in groceries. They were comfortable around each other. They had a history. A history that Evelyn was trying to hide from her family.
    Pigeons and bluebirds.
    Will looked up from the camera. “He’s Evelyn’s son.” Both women stopped talking.
    Will said, “Hector’s the father, right? That’s the mistake Evelyn made twenty years