the scene for the last four hours. Will was out on his morning run when the call had pulled Sara out of bed. She had left him a note with a heart drawn in the corner.
He had stared at that heart for longer than he would admit to any living person.
Faith said, “Okay, so, the riot kicked off two days ago. Eleven fifty-eight on Saturday morning.”
Will pulled his attention away from Sara. He waited for Faith to continue.
She said, “Two cons started throwing punches. The first CO who tried to break it up was knocked out. Elbow to the head, head to the floor, see ya later alligator. Once the first CO went down, it was game on. The second CO was choked out. A third CO who ran in to help was cold-cocked. Then somebody grabbed the tasers and someone else grabbed the keys and it was riot city. Clearly, the murderer was prepared.”
Will nodded at the clearly, because prison riots tended to come on like rashes. There was always a tell-tale itch, and there was always a guy, or group of guys, who felt that itch and started planning how to use the riot to their advantage. Raid the commissary? Put some guards in their place? Take out a few rivals?
The question was whether or not the murder victim had been collateral damage or specifically targeted. It was hard to judge from outside the cafeteria door. Will looked through the window again. He counted thirty picnic tables, each with seating for twelve, all bolted down to the floor. Trays were scattered across the room. Paper napkins. Rotting food. Lots of dried liquids, most of it blood. Some teeth. Will could see a frozen hand reaching out from under one of the tables that he assumed belonged to their victim. The man’s body was under another table near the kitchen. His back was to the door. His bleached white prison uniform with blue stripe accents gave the crime scene an ice-cream-parlor-massacre vibe.
Faith said, “Look, if you’re still upset about Emma and the battery, don’t be. It’s not your fault they look so delicious.”
Will guessed the sight of Sara had made him throw off a signal that Faith was picking up on.
She said, “Toddlers are like the worst inmates. When they’re not lying to your face and tearing up your shit, they’re napping, pooping, or trying to think of different ways to fuck with you.”
The CO lifted his chin. True that.
Faith asked the man, “Can you let our people know we’re here?”
The guy nodded a sure thing, lady, I live to serve before shuffling off.
Will watched Sara through the window. She was making a notation on a clipboard. She had unzipped her suit and tied the arms around her waist. The baseball cap was gone. She’d pulled her hair into a loose ponytail.
Faith asked, “Is it Sara?”
Will looked down at Faith. He often forgot how tiny she was. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Look of perpetual disappointment. With her hands on her hips and her head bent up so far that her chin was level with his chest, she reminded him of Pearl Pureheart, Mighty Mouse’s girlfriend, if Pearl had gotten pregnant at fifteen, then pregnant again at thirty-two.
Which was the first reason that Will would not talk to her about Sara. Faith forcibly mothered everybody in her orbit, whether it was a suspect in custody or the cashier at the grocery store. Will’s childhood had been pretty rough. He knew a lot of things about the world that most kids had never learned, but he did not know how to be mothered.
The second reason for his silence was that Faith was a damn good cop. She would need about two seconds to solve the Case of the Suddenly Silent Girlfriend.
Clue number one: Sara was an extremely logical and consistent person. Unlike Will’s psychotic ex-wife, Sara had not been vomited up from a rollercoaster hellmouth. If Sara was mad or irritated or annoyed or happy, she reliably told Will how she had gotten that way and what she wanted to do about it.
Clue number two: Sara didn’t play games. There was no silent treatment or pouting or nasty quips to interpret. Will never had to guess what she was thinking because she told him.
Clue number three: Sara clearly liked being married. In her previous life, she had been married twice, both times to the same man. She would still be married to Jeffrey Tolliver right now if he hadn’t been murdered five years ago.
Solution: Sara didn’t have an objection to marriage, or to sideways proposals.
She had an objection to marrying Will.
“Voldemort,” Faith said, just as the clippity clop of Deputy Director Amanda Wagner’s high heels reached Will’s ears.
Amanda had her phone in her hands as she walked down the hall. She was always texting or making calls to get information through her old gal network, a frightening group of women, most retired from the job, whom Will imagined sitting around a secret lair knitting hand-grenade cozies until they were activated.
Faith’s mother was one of them.
“Well.” Amanda clocked Will’s cheddar-streaked pants from ten yards. “Agent Trent, were you the only hobo who fell off the train or should we look for others?”
Will cleared his throat.
“Okay.” Faith flipped through her notebook, diving straight in. “Victim is Jesus Rodrigo Vasquez, thirty-eight-year-old Hispanic male, six years into a full dime for AWD after failing a meth quiz on ER three months prior.”
Will silently translated: Vasquez, convicted for assault with a deadly weapon, served six years before he was paroled, then three months ago failed his drug test while on early release, so was sent back to prison to serve the remainder of his ten-year sentence.
Amanda asked, “Affiliation?”
Was he in a gang?
“Switzerland,” Faith said. Neutral. “His sheet’s full of shots for keistering phones.” He was caught multiple times hiding cell phones in his ass. “I gather the guy was a real spoon.” Always stirring up shit. “My guess is he got taken out because he kept running his mouth.”
“Problem solved.” Amanda knocked on the glass for attention. “Dr. Linton?”
Sara stopped to grab some supplies before opening the door. “We’re finished processing the murder scene. You don’t need suits, but there’s a lot of blood and fluids.”
She handed out shoe protectors and face masks. Her fingers squeezed Will’s when he took his share.
She said, “The body is out of rigor and entering decomp, so that, combined with the victim’s liver temp and the higher ambient temperature, gives us a physiological time of death that’s consistent with reports that Vasquez was attacked roughly forty-eight hours ago, which puts time of death toward the beginning of the riot.”
Amanda asked, “First minutes or first hours?”
“Ballpark is between noon and four on Saturday. If you want to narrow down an exact time, you’ll have to rely on witness statements.” Sara adjusted Will’s mask as she reminded Amanda, “Obviously, science alone cannot pinpoint precise time of death.”
“Obviously.” Amanda was not a fan of ballparks.
Sara
