He met Beth in the lobby. As they walked to his car, he recapped Molly’s and his conversation.
“She’s suffered a trauma,” Beth said. “She’ll need therapy, more than likely for a while, maybe forever. But you are her mainstay, John. You’re her dragon slayer.”
“She said I was her go-to.”
“See? Told ya.” After a moment, she added, “Don’t underestimate the value of that. My father never faced down a dragon for me.”
“His loss,” he said, meaning it. “But after seeing how you responded to the emergency this morning, I don’t think you need a dragon slayer. Only a damn fool would mess with you.”
They got into the car, but he didn’t start it. “Okay if we sit here for a minute? I want to call Derby, see how it’s going with Wallace.” He placed the call and put it on speaker.
Derby answered and after exchanging hellos, he said, “Regarding Barker, we’re pressing to get the ballistics report back on the bullet recovered from Frank Gray. Lab is trying to lift fingerprints off your service weapon, but Barker was smart enough to make that difficult.”
“And even if his are recovered, he could explain it by saying he picked it up after I placed it on his desk.”
“Right. I think this is going to be a preponderance of evidence case. You and Mitch Haskell are material witnesses. So is everybody who saw you surrender that gun. I think Barker will be sunk; I’ve just got to figure out how to do it.”
“What about Victor Wallace?”
“Oh, he’s cute,” the detective said. “Just ask him.”
“He’s playing you?”
“Exactly like you said he would.”
“Has he said anything about Crissy Mellin?”
“He asked if he could watch Crisis Point tonight. We denied him that privilege. He speculated on where and how her body had been disposed of. He also ventured that Billy Oliver might not have been the guilty party. He asked us if we’d ever considered that someone else had abducted her.”
“Did he bring all that up before or after you’d pressed him on it?”
“That’s just it, John. Nobody had even mentioned Crissy Mellin to him.”
“Another wink,” Beth exclaimed. “He’s flirting. Please, Detective, if he gives up anything, let me know immediately. I’m hoping to keep that episode from airing, so time is of the essence.”
“I’ll goad him. If anything comes of it, I’ll be in touch.”
“Thank you.”
John disconnected, then propped his elbow on the steering wheel, cupped his hand over his mouth, and stared through the windshield.
“You’ve got that dent between your eyebrows,” Beth said.
He turned his head and looked at her. “Dent? I don’t have a dent.”
She smiled over that, waited a moment, then looked down into her lap. “John, this is my deadline, not Derby’s, not yours. You’ve got time to finagle Wallace. You don’t have to be under pressure to do so tonight.”
“What was it you said to me earlier?” He reached across and raised her chin with his fingertip. “Don’t be stupid.”
She whispered, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Then she said, “I broke your concentration. What were you thinking so hard about?”
“I was thinking that maybe Carla Mellin would be willing to have a face-to-face with Wallace, and that if she did, it would rattle him.”
He gauged Beth’s reaction and saw that she favored it. “She told us to stay away from her unless we’d caught the person who took Crissy from her. Of course, we don’t know with absolute certainty, but—”
“It feels right. And the way he’s—as you said—flirting with us about it? These guys, these sociopaths, never want to get caught, but deep down they want to boast.” Suddenly energized, he looked at his watch. “Seven-forty. Carla’s new shift, she’ll be off at eight.”
“Locally, the show airs in an hour and twenty minutes.”
“Maybe we can talk her into leaving twenty minutes early.” He had Carla’s cell number in his contacts and made the call. It went straight to voice mail.
“Do you have the number of the clinic?” Beth asked.
Within seconds, he did. A man answered. John asked to speak with Carla.
“Today’s her day off.”
“Thanks.” He disconnected.
Beth said, “We’ll try her at home.”
“It’ll be harder than launching a beach assault,” he said, but he started the car.
