Free Faithless by Karin Slaughter

her gloves. “It’d be closer, but they’d only let me observe.”
    “Do you have a problem with that?”
    “No,” Sara said, slipping on a surgical mask. She suppressed a shudder, thinking about what might have happened. Without prompting, Carlos came over with the body bag.
    “Careful,” Sara cautioned, handing him a mask. “We’re very lucky,” she told them, helping Carlos seal up the body. “Only about forty percent of the population can detect the odor.”
    Jeffrey told Lena, “It’s a good thing you came in today.”
    Lena looked from Sara to Jeffrey and back again. “What are you two talking about?”
    “Cyanide.” Sara zipped the bag closed. “That’s what you were smelling.” Lena still didn’t seem to be following, so Sara added, “She was poisoned.”

CHAPTER FOUR
    Jeffrey yawned so hard his jaw popped. He sat back in his chair, staring out at the squad room through his office window, trying to appear focused. Brad Stephens, the youngest patrolman on the Grant County force, gave him a goofy grin. Jeffrey nodded, feeling a shooting pain in his neck. He felt like he had slept on a slab of concrete, which was appropriate, as the only thing between him and the floor last night had been a sleeping bag that was so old and musty that Goodwill had politely refused to take it. They had, however, accepted his mattress, a couch that had seen better days and three boxes of kitchen stuff Jeffrey had fought Sara for during the divorce. Since he had not unpacked the boxes in the five years since the papers were signed, he figured it would be suicide to take them back to her place now.
    Clearing out his small house over the last few weeks, he had been startled by how little he had accumulated during his bachelorhood. Last night, as a substitute for counting sheep, he had made a mental list of new purchases. Except for ten boxes of books, some nice sheets that had been a gift from a woman he prayed to God Sara would never meet and some suits he had to buy for work over the years, Jeffrey had nothing new to show for the time they had lived apart. His bike, his lawn mower, his tools- except for a cordless drill that had been purchased when he accidentally dropped his old one into a five-gallon bucket of paint- had been in his possession that final day he’d left Sara’s house. And now, everything of value he ever owned had already been moved back.
    And he was sleeping on the floor.
    He took a swig of tepid coffee before returning to the task that had occupied the last thirty minutes of his morning. Jeffrey had never been one of those guys who thought reading directions somehow made you less of a man, but the fact that he had for the fourth time carefully followed every single step in the instruction sheet that came with the cell phone and still couldn’t program his own number into the speed dial made him feel like an idiot. He wasn’t even sure Sara would take the phone. She hated the damn things, but he didn’t want her traveling all the way to Macon without a way of getting in touch with him in case something happened.
    He mumbled under his breath, “Step one,” as if reading the directions out loud would convince the phone to see logic. Sixteen more steps went by for a fifth time, but when Jeffrey pressed the recall button, nothing happened.
    “Shit,” he said, pounding his fist into the desk, then “Fuck!” because he had used his injured left hand. He twisted his wrist, watching blood wick into the white bandage Sara had applied last night at the morgue. He threw in a “Jesus” for good measure, thinking the last ten minutes put a fine point on what was proving to be an extremely shitty day.
    As if he had been summoned, Brad Stephens stood at the office door. “Need help with that?”
    Jeffrey tossed him the phone. “Put my number on speed dial.”
    Brad pressed some buttons, asking, “Your cell number?”
    “Yeah,” he said, writing Cathy and Eddie Linton’s home number on a yellow