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to the Bible, I would tell them where she is, but I just don’t know.”

--4--
    Will leaned into a curve as Faith sped toward the hospital. He felt like he was on his bike again, but they were in Amanda’s SUV, which wasn’t built for zigzagging across the road.
    “She was so smug,” Faith said, meaning Maw-Maw. “It’s like she thinks we can’t touch her.”
    Will stared at her. “What did you hear in the hallway? That wasn’t my read at all.”
    “Please. She played you like a fiddle. All that old-woman bullshit, meanwhile she’s lying to the police. She’s obstructing a case. A cop was shot. Another man was killed. You were nearly shot in the process. You could’ve died. Wayne Walker caused millions of dollars in damage trying to get away. That old biddy knows something, and she should pay for holding it back.”
    “Well, when you put it that way.”
    “How else would I put it?”
    Will didn’t have an answer for her.
    “You never knew your grandmother. Trust me, they’re not all they’re cracked up to be.”
    Will tried to move her along. “What did you find out about Billie Lam?”
    Faith had to breathe through it before she could answer. “Not much more than what Maw-Maw told us, which – believe me – has me more worried than not.” Shebeeped her horn at a car that wasn’t moving fast enough. “Billie Lam is a college dropout. Her mother died when she was twelve. No siblings. No cousins. Maw-Maw said the father isn’t around much. He uses the income from the store to go on fishing trips down in the Gulf. They don’t see him for weeks at a time.”
    Will might have fallen for the old woman, but Faith had a point about not taking all of this information at face value. “Did you lift any prints from Lam’s purse?”
    “She’s not in the system.”
    “You ran a records check?”
    “Through the DMV, through the county systems, through every single database we have access to.” She listed it out. “We don’t know her social security number. We don’t have her credit score. We don’t have a cell phone number for her. We don’t know who her friends are. We don’t know jack.”
    “Have you talked to the father?”
    “More don’ts. No phone number. No address. His credit record is a mess, but everything is registered to the store or a PO box. Maybe he lives with his mother-in-law, but who knows? The agent who drove Maw-Maw home went into her house. You know this. There was no one inside. He checked the place top to bottom.”
    She was right. Will did know all of this. He knew that the same agent was sitting outside Maw-Maw’s house, that both Doug-Ray Pierce’s house and Wayne Walker’s apartment had been turned upside down. They’d been working this case for nearly three hours and still nothing viable had turned up.
    Faith said, “While you were enjoying your chat with Maw-Maw, I rattled some cages at the school board. Didn’t you think it was weird that Doug-Ray Pierce got firedfor messing with a student, but he walked onto a job in another county?”
    “I just assumed Clayton was desperate for teachers.”
    “Me too,” Faith said, “but apparently even they have standards. Somebody pulled in some big favors to get Doug-Ray Pierce hired in Clayton County.”
    “Wayne Walker,” Will guessed, because it was the only thing that made sense. “He’s older. He had what passes for tenure around here. He’d know people at the county office.”
    “Exactly.” Faith took another sharp turn. Will grabbed the dashboard.
    She told him, “A secretary at the county office gave me the story. Walker vouched for Pierce, said that he was fired off rumors, that nothing was proven – which is technically true – that they went after him because he’s a black man and he was accused by a white student. Birth of a Nation , yada-yada.”
    Will was missing a connection. “How did Billie Lam know Wayne Walker?”
    “Walker went to their church. So says the secretary.” Faith shook her