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But Dixon held his temper. He stopped his pacing, staring down at the gray industrial-grade carpet on the floor.
“Frank’s wife is missing,” he said quietly. “His son is saying Frank killed her.”
Mendez felt all the blood in his body free-fall to his feet. Hicks got up from the arm on the other end of the sofa and said, “What?”
Dixon filled them in on what had transpired that afternoon while they had been at the hospital with Wendy Morgan and Cody Roache.
“Where is he now?” Mendez asked.
“Home,” Dixon said. “We don’t know that Sharon is dead or even missing. I’ve got Trammell and Hamilton calling her friends and relatives. Frank claims she left on her own. And the boy is less than reliable. I don’t even know if he has a firm grasp on reality. He seems almost catatonic for the most part.”
“Except the part where he said his father killed his mother,” Mendez said.
“Frank let me have a look around his house. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.”
“Or he wouldn’t have consented,” Mendez pointed out.
“It’s a catch-twenty-two,” Dixon conceded. “And you know damn well I wouldn’t cut him any slack on a charge like this. We simply have nothing to indicate a crime has been committed. We’ve got nothing to hold him on.”
Mendez put his hands on his head and turned around in a circle. “What a fucking mess.”
Vince approached Karly Vickers’s room with the same kind of quiet respect he would have used in church. Jane Thomas sat beside the girl’s bed, holding her hand, the gold necklace laced through fingers entwined.
“She’s lucky to have you on her side,” he said softly.
“I don’t know how she’s going to make it through this,” Thomas confessed. “She’d been through so much before she ever came to the center.”
“She wants to live,” Vince said. “Or she wouldn’t be here now. She’ll find a way to make it, and you’ll find a way to help her.”
Tears glittered in her green eyes as she looked up at him as if he might actually have an answer. “Why does it have to be so hard?”
“I don’t know. I only know my part, and that’s helping find the animal who did this to her. Can you help me with that?”
Jane Thomas helped him catalog the wounds Karly Vickers’s tormentor had carved into her, and Vince left her with a promise to do everything in his power to bring a madman to justice.
And he walked out of the room and away from the ICU thinking the same thing she had asked him: Why does it have to be so hard?
73
When A
“You look very nice tonight, Tommy.”
“Thank you. So do you, Miss Navarre,” he said, terribly serious.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
He had run out of things to say. He sighed and tried not to fidget. A
“Not a problem,” he said. “I appreciate your concern for setting the record straight. Why don’t we go inside? The smell of that pizza is too much to resist.”
They went into the restaurant and found a booth. The place was booming with Saturday night customers-college kids, families, teenagers traveling in packs. Video games bleeped and growled in their own alcove at the rear of the place. Tommy was wide-eyed, taking it all in.
“We don’t get to come here very often, do we, Tommy?” Peter Crane said.
Tommy shook his head.
“Tommy’s mom is a member of the food police,” Crane explained. “All healthy, all the time.”
“And as a dentist, you must agree with that,” A
“I don’t think the occasional pizza is such a bad thing. Tommy and I sneak in some fun stuff every once in a while, don’t we, Sport?”
Tongue-tied, Tommy nodded.
“What do you like on your pizza, Tommy?” A
“Cheese.”
“Me too. What about pepperoni?”
The shy smile tucked up one corner of his mouth as he nodded again.
“What about Brussels sprouts?”
“No!” he said emphatically, shaking his head so hard his whole body swung from side to side.
A
A waitress came and took their order for pizza with no Brussels sprouts. When she had gone, A
“Tommy, after seeing your mom last night, I just want to make sure you don’t have the wrong idea about something,” she began. “When I asked you those questions I never meant for you to think that your father might be involved in what happened, or that I might think that. Do you understand?”
“I guess,” he said in a tone of voice that was less than convincing.
“You know the detectives have to ask a lot of questions when they’re investigating a crime,” A
“Detective Leone asked me to find out from you if your dad was home that night. And you told me he was. That’s all they wanted to know.”
Tommy’s brow furrowed. “But why didn’t they just ask my dad?”
“They did ask me,” Peter Crane said. “But not everybody tells them the truth. They need to get confirmation from other people-like you or Mom.”
“My dad would never kill anybody,” Tommy said. “He’s a good person. He doesn’t even ever yell-not even at my mom. And even if he wasn’t home, that doesn’t mean he would kill somebody.”
“No, it doesn’t,” A
“My dad helps people,” Tommy said. “That’s what he does. Even when he doesn’t have to.”
“That’s great,” A
“My mom says he’s a pillar of the community,” he said, not exactly sure what that meant, but certain it was something very admirable.
“I’m sure he is. And I’m sure you will be too, when you grow up,” A
At the mention of his friend’s name, Tommy’s face went very sober. “De
“Yes, I know,” A
“Wendy called and told me,” Tommy said. “She said De
“He had a knife,” A
“My mom says De
“De
“Why?” Tommy said with all the brutally honest incredulity of a child.