Hank clasped his hands in front of him. "Thank you for that."

They were all silent, then Jeffrey said, "I guess you know why we're here."

"About Sibyl," Nan answered, her voice a few octaves lower, probably from crying all night.

"Right," Jeffrey said, indicating the sofa. He waited for Nan to sit, then took the space beside her. Lena was surprised when he took Nan's hand and said, "I'm so sorry for your loss, Nan."

Tears welled into Nan's eyes. She actually smiled. "Thank you."

"We're doing everything we can to find out who did this," he continued. "I want you to know if there's anything else you need we're here for you."

She whispered another thank-you, looking down, picking at a string on her sweat pants.

Jeffrey asked, "Was anybody angry at you or Sibyl, do you know?"

"No," Nan answered. "I told Lena last night. Everything's been the same as usual lately."

"I know that Sibyl and you chose to live kind of quietly," Jeffrey said.

Lena got his meaning. He was being a lot more subtle than she had been last night.

"Yeah," Nan agreed. "We like it here. We're both small-town people."

Jeffrey asked, "You can't think of anybody who might have figured something out?"

Nan shook her head. She looked down, her lips trembling. There was nothing else she could tell him.

"Okay," he said, standing. He put his hand on Nan's shoulder, indicating she should stay seated. "I'll let myself out." He reached into his pocket and brought out a card. Lena watched as he cupped it in one hand and wrote on the back. "This is my home number," he said. "Call me if you think of anything."

"Thank you," Nan said, taking the card.

Jeffrey turned to Hank. "Do you mind giving Lena a ride home?"

Lena felt dumbstruck. She couldn't stay here.

Hank was obviously taken aback as well. "No," he mumbled. "That's fine."

"Good." He patted Nan on the shoulder, then said to Lena, "You and Nan can take tonight to put together a list of the people Sibyl worked with." Jeffrey gave Lena a knowing smile. "Be at the station at seven tomorrow morning. We'll go over to the college before classes start."

Lena didn't understand. "Am I back with Brad?"

He shook his head. "You're with me."

Wednesday

Chapter Eleven

BEN Walker, the chief of police before Jeffrey, had kept his office in the back of the station, just off the briefing room. A desk the size of an upended commercial refrigerator was in the center of the room with a row of uncomfortable chairs in front of it. Every morning, the men on the senior squad were called into Ben's office to hear their assignments for the day, then they left and the chief shut his door. What Ben did from this time until five o'clock, when he could be seen scooting down the street to the diner for his supper, was a mystery.

Jeffreys first task when he took over Ben's job was to move his office to the front of the squad room. U sing a skill saw, Jeffrey cut a hole in the Sheetrock and installed a glass picture window so that he could sit at his desk and see his men and, more important, so that his men could see him. There were blinds on the window, but he never closed them, and for the most part, his office door was always open.

Two days after Sibyl Adams's body had been found, Jeffrey sat in his office, reading a report that Maria had just handed him. Nick Shelton at the GBI had been kind enough to rush through the analysis on the box of tea. Results: it was tea.

Jeffrey scratched his chin, looking around his office. It was a small room, but he had built a set of bookshelves into one of the walls in order to keep things neat. Field manuals and statistical reports were stacked alongside marksman trophies he had won at the Birmingham competitions and a signed team football from when he had played at Auburn. Not that he really played. Jeffrey had spent most of his time on the bench, watching the other players build careers for themselves.

A photograph of his mother was tucked into the far corner of the shelf. She was wearing a pink blouse and holding a small wrist corsage in her hands. The photo was taken at Jeffreys high school graduation. He had caught his mother giving one of her rare smiles in front of the camera. Her eyes were lit up, probably with the possibilities she saw in front of her son. That he had dropped out of Auburn a year from graduation and taken a job on the Birmingham police force was something she still had not forgiven her only child for.

Maria tapped on his office door, holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a doughnut in the other. On Jeffrey's first day, she told him that she had never fetched coffee for Ben Walker and she wasn't about to fetch it for him. Jeffrey had laughed; the thought had never occurred to him. Maria had been bringing him his coffee ever since.

"The doughnuts for me," she said, handing him the paper cup. "Nick Shelton's on line three."

"Thank you," he said, waiting for her to leave. Jeffrey sat back in his chair as he picked up the phone. "Nick?"

Nick's southern drawl came across the line. "How you?"

"Not so great," Jeffrey answered.

"I hear you," Nick returned. Then, "Got my report?"

"On the tea?" Jeffrey picked up the sheet of paper, looking over the analysis. For such a simple beverage, a lot of chemicals went into processing tea. "It's just cheap store-bought tea, right?"

"You got it," Nick said. "Listen, I tried to call Sara this morning, but I couldn't find her."

"That so?"

Nick gave a low chuckle. "You're never gonna forgive me for asking her out that time, are you, buddy?"

Jeffrey smiled. "Nope."

"One of my drug people here at the lab is hot on this belladonna. Not many cases come in, and he volunteered to give you guys a face-to-face rundown."

"That'd be an awfully big help," Jeffrey said. He saw Lena through the glass window and waved her in.

"Sara talking to you this week?" Nick didn't wait for an answer. "My guy is gonna want to talk to her about how the victim presented."

Jeffrey bit back the cutting remark that wanted to come, forcing some cheerfulness into his voice as he said, "How about around ten?"

Jeffrey was noting the meeting on his calendar when Lena walked in. As soon as he looked up, she began speaking.

"He doesn't do drugs anymore."

"What?"

"At least I don't think so."

Jeffrey shook his head, not understanding. "What are you talking about?"

She lowered her voice, saying, "My uncle Hank." She held her forearms out to him.

"Oh." Jeffrey finally got it. He had not been sure if Hank Norton was a past drug addict or had been in a disfiguring fire, his arms were so scarred. "Yeah, I saw they were old."

She said, "He was a speed freak, okay?"

Her tone was hostile. Jeffrey gathered she had been stewing on this since he had left her at Nan Thomas's house. So, this made two things she was ashamed of, her sister's homosexuality and her uncle's past drug problem. Jeffrey wondered if there was anything in Lena's life other than her job that gave Lena pleasure.

"What?" Lena demanded.

"Nothing," Jeffrey said, standing. He took his suit coat off the peg behind his door and ushered Lena out of the office. "You got the list?"

She seemed irritated that he did not want to chastise her for her uncle's old drug habit.

She handed him a sheet of notebook paper. "This is what Nan and I came up with last night. It's a list of people who worked with Sibyl, who might have talked to her before she…" Lena did not finish the sentence.

Jeffrey glanced down. There were six names. One had a star drawn beside it. Lena seemed to anticipate his question.

She said, "Richard Carter is her GTA. Graduate teaching assistant. She had a nine o'clock class at the school. Other than Pete, he's probably the last person who saw her alive."