Scattered Graves

the food like he’d never seen food before,
or like it reminded him of a life he used to have.
Diane remembered what it was like to not have an
appetite, having grief eat at the pit of your stomach
so you thought it would never hold anything again.
She also remembered that when she began eating
again, her body started coping better.
‘‘This is really good,’’ said Izzy after taking a couple
of bites of his steak. ‘‘I can’t remember the last time I
had a really good meal. I need to bring Evie to the
restaurant here soon. We haven’t been out together
since, well, since before . . .’’ He let the sentence trail off. ‘‘I do like the food here,’’ said Diane.
Izzy ate a few more bites, took a long drink of tea,
set the glass down, and paused as if not really wanting
to talk about what he had come for. Diane under
stood. This must be a tiny respite for him.
‘‘You ever wonder why Garnett didn’t just find a
new job, maybe in Atlanta, the way they were treating
him? It would have been the smart thing to do rather
than waiting for them to replace him like we all knew they would.’’ Izzy didn’t wait for an answer. ‘‘He did it for the rest of us. Peeks began showing himself early on, and Garnett saw what political animals Peeks and Jefferies were. Not that Garnett’s a stranger to politics himself, but he’s always been good to the people
under him.’’
‘‘And Peeks wasn’t?’’ said Diane. ‘‘Didn’t he and
Jefferies purchase new state-of-the-art bulletproof
vests for the police?’’
Izzy made a derisive noise. ‘‘State-of-the-art my...
Those vests were so old they wouldn’t stop rubber
bullets. Everything they did was just for show. They
made sure the newspapers made a big deal of it, but
like I said, it was just show. We figured they ordered
out-of-date vests and pocketed the rest of the money,
but we can’t prove it.’’
‘‘That’s disappointing,’’ said Diane. ‘‘Did anyone in
form the newspapers?’’
‘‘We tried to leak it, but they sent a couple of
vests—good ones—over to the newspaper office to
show them. They’re slick. Garnett thinks Jefferies was
planning a run for governor and maybe from there to
senator, and we were just a stepping-stone.’’ ‘‘What do you think?’’ asked Diane.
‘‘I agree. We were just a stepping-stone.’’ ‘‘You said Garnett stayed to help. With what ex
actly?’’ asked Diane.
‘‘Peeks likes to replace people. You know that; you
were one of them he replaced. But you at least had
another job. He was getting rid of people who didn’t
have a fallback position. People with families, people
with a pension coming. Garnett fought for them. He
got Colin Prehoda involved. Put a stop to a lot of it.
Prehoda drove them crazy too. They hated not getting
their way. They started in on Garnett, trying to re
move him. Had him investigated by Internal Affairs,
accused him of malfeasance when he was chief of de
tectives. It blew up big when he refused to say you
turned over the bone lab to the city. Garnett was
heard threatening the mayor. He said somebody like him didn’t deserve to be around decent people, didn’t
deserve to be around at all. Something like that.’’ Wow , thought Diane. She had no idea she had be
come such a part of local politics. ‘‘Is there any other
evidence against Garnett?’’ asked Diane.
‘‘He was seen leaving the mayor’s house at the right
time,’’ said Izzy. ‘‘Really, I’m not sure what they have.
Peeks isn’t saying much.’’
‘‘What does Garnett say?’’ asked Diane.
‘‘Nothing much at the moment. Colin Prehoda’s his
attorney, and you know how they are. They tell you
to shut up,’’ said Izzy. ‘‘That’s probably a good thing.’’ ‘‘Who is working the crime scene?’’ asked Diane,
hoping that it was the Georgia Bureau of Investigation
and not Bryce.’’
‘‘I don’t know that anybody is right now,’’ said Izzy.
‘‘But I imagine it will be Bryce. At least Neva and
David will do a good job.’’
‘‘David resigned,’’ said Diane.
‘‘Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.’’ He paused for several
moments. ‘‘You know, I just can’t see Edgar Peeks
inviting the GBI in.’’
‘‘He may not have a choice. Having a mayor gunned
down might attract the people in Homeland Security,’’
she said.
‘‘I don’t know if that would be good or bad,’’ said
Izzy. ‘‘I don’t trust Bryce. He doesn’t seem too