Fallen by Karin Slaughter Page B

“Are you a car person?”
    “Oh, not at all, but I looked it up on the Internet because I wanted to know how much he paid for it.”
    Will waited her out.
    “I’m guessing around seventy-five thousand dollars,” the old woman confided. “Mr. Levy and I bought this house for less than half that.”
    “Did Evelyn ever tell you his name?”
    “She never acknowledged it. Despite what you men want to think, we ladies don’t sit around talking about y’all all the time.”
    Will allowed a smile. “What did he look like?”
    “Well, bald,” she said, as if this was to be expected. “A bit paunchy around the middle. He wore jeans most of the time. His shirts were often wrinkled and he kept the sleeves rolled up, which I found rather perplexing because Evelyn always liked a sharply dressed man.”
    “What age do you think he is?”
    “Without the hair, it’s hard to tell. I’d put him around Evelyn’s age.”
    “Early sixties.”
    “Oh.” She seemed surprised. “I thought Evelyn was in her forties,but I suppose that doesn’t make sense with Faith being in her thirties. And the baby’s not a baby anymore, is he?” She lowered her voice as if she was afraid someone would hear. “I guess it’s coming up on twenty years now, but that’s not the kind of pregnancy you forget. There was that bit of a scandal when she started to show. Such a pity how folks behaved. We’ve all had our bit of fun now and then, but as I told Evelyn at the time, a woman can run faster with her skirt up than a man can with his pants down.”
    Will hadn’t considered Faith’s teenage predicament beyond thinking it unusual she had kept the child, but it had probably rocked the neighborhood to have a pregnant fourteen-year-old in their refined midst. It was almost commonplace now, but back then, a girl in Faith’s predicament was generally suddenly called away to tend a never-before-mentioned frail aunt or given what was euphemistically called an appendectomy. A handful of less fortunate ones ended up in the children’s home with kids like Will.
    He asked, “So, the man in the expensive car is in his early sixties?” She nodded. “Did you ever see them being affectionate?”
    “No, but Evelyn wasn’t the showy type. She would get in the car with him and he would drive off.”
    “No kiss on the cheek?”
    “Not that I ever saw. Mind you, I never even met him. Evelyn would drop Emma off here, then go back to her house and wait.”
    Will let that sink in. “Did he ever go into her house?”
    “Not that I could tell. I guess people do things differently now. In my day, a man would knock on your door and escort you to his car. There was none of this pulling up and beeping the horn.”
    “Is that what he did—beep the horn?”
    “No, son, that was just a figure of speech. I suppose Ev must’ve been looking out the window, because she always came out as soon as he pulled up.”
    “Do you know where they went?”
    “No, but like I said, they were usually gone for a couple’a–three hours, so I assumed they were seeing a movie or having lunch.”
    That was a lot of movies. “Did the man show up today?”
    “No, and I didn’t see anyone in the street, either. No cars, no nothing. The first I heard there was trouble was when the sirens came. Then I heard the gunshots, of course, one and then about a minute later one more. I know what gunfire sounds like. Mr. Levy was a hunter. Back then, all the policemen were. He used to make me go so I could cook for them.” She rolled her eyes. “What a boring gasbag he was. Rest his soul.”
    “Lucky man to have you.”
    “Lucky for me he’s not around anymore.” She stood with difficulty from the rocker, keeping the baby steady in her arms. The bottle was empty. She put it on the table and offered Emma to Will. “Take her for a second, will you?”
    He put Emma on his shoulder and patted her back. She gave an unusually rewarding burp.
    Mrs. Levy narrowed her eyes. “You’ve