Free Busted by Karin Slaughter Page B

that’s much, considering.”
    “Where is he?”
    “Dead eight days. Slipped and fell at the store. Cracked his head open like a walnut.” She shook her head. “I swear to God, if I’d known the police was this stupid, I woulda planned this whole thing a lot different.”
    The woman had a point. Gilbert’s accident had happened in Clayton County. His death would’ve been investigated by the GBI medical examiner’s office. The autopsy report was probably making its way through the system.
    “Poor Gil,” Maw-Maw said. “Little shit couldn’t run a business to save his life. Or my life, which is the part that matters. The whole damn place was falling down. Mortgaged out the wah-hoo. And then I find out he put my house up as collateral. I was gonna lose everything.” She pointed her finger in Will’s direction. “I’ll tell you what I told Billie: ain’t nothing you can get from a man that you can’t get better from a dog and a jar of peanut butter.”
    Will felt light-headed.
    She threw back her head and laughed. “Shut your mouth before you catch some flies, boy. I may be old as dirt, but I still got some life left in me.”
    Will tasted blood in his mouth. His teeth had cut open the inside of his cheek.
    “That it?” She pressed her hand to the table, making to stand.
    “Sit down.” Will stopped thinking about what she’d said and concentrated onwhat she’d done. Her sons were dead – two of them by violent means; God only knew what had happened to the other. The boy she had raised was clinging to his life at the hospital. Billie Lam lay dead on the floor with a knife in her heart.
    And Maw-Maw was certain she was going to get away with it.
    Will reached for the phone. She clamped her hand over his. She was fast when she wanted to be. He could feel the sandpapery rub of her skin as he pulled his hand away.
    He said, “The robbery was your idea, not Wayne’s.”
    One shoulder went up in a shrug. The motion was almost lost under her loose-fitting dress. Will wondered what else she had under there. Faith’s earlier warning still echoed in his brain. He’d been played like a fiddle by this woman from the moment they’d met. Will took out his gun and put it on the table in front of him. His hand stayed on the grip.
    “Well.” She glanced down at the Glock. “That changes the tone.”
    “You’re the reason they’re dead. Wayne, Doug-Ray, maybe Pete. Certainly Billie.”
    She stubbed the end of the joint out on the table. “I only got a few years left. I’m not gonna end up spending them in some damn state-run nursing home stewing in my own piss.”
    “You sacrificed all those lives so you could enjoy your retirement?”
    “I’ve earned it.” She shrugged again, this time with both shoulders. “Two, maybe three less men walking the planet. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve done the world a favor.”
    “Not all men are bad.”
    She snorted, as if he’d told her a really bad joke. “You’d put me in jail if you could.”
    “Prison,” he told her. “Jail is where you await trial. Prison is where you go after you’re sentenced.”
    “You gonna put my picture in Busted ?” She laughed at his surprise. “I work at a convenience store, numbnuts. We look at that thing every week to see how many customers are in it.”
    “I’m going to make sure you’re the centerfold.”
    “You’d have to be a hell of a lot smarter than you come across.”
    Will leaned in closer. Maw-Maw did the same, like they were about to throw it down and arm-wrestle.
    He said, “You’ve been lying to the police all day.”
    “I did what I had to do.”
    “You lied to the police about working at the store this morning.”
    “Yep.”
    “You lied to the police about being Billie’s grandmother.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “You lied to the police about your sons being involved in the robbery.”
    “I did.”
    “You lied to the police about being in the back of the Chevy this morning.”
    She smiled.
    “I know