Page 144 of Blood Moon

“But the seeds of doubt would have been sown. Too often retractions are overlooked because they’re not as sensational as the first news flash. You know that.”

Her lips pursed tighter; then she said, “What are you asking me to do, specifically?”

“Face Victor Wallace,” John said. “Accuse him of robbing your daughter of a long life. Accuse him of robbing you of her. It may crack him.”

“‘May,’” she huffed. “I doubt it.”

“For godsake, isn’t it worth a try?”

Carla looked at John with scorn. “Who are you doing this for? Crissy, Billy, me, orher?” She hitched her chin toward Beth. “I’m not stupid, you know.”

No, but you’re meaner than hell.He forcibly tamped down his temper, which would get him nowhere with her. Candor had worked before. “You told the people Beth works with that you suspected she and I were sleeping together.That was a crappy thing to do. But so what if we are? That has nothing to do with what happened to Crissy, or to my daughter.

“For terrorizing her, I want to put Victor Wallace away for a long, long time. I was able to stop him before he killed Molly, but I failed Crissy. For whatever he did to her, I want to put him away forlife.”

“That’s your job, Mr. Detective. Not mine. I can’t help you.”

Before she could close the door on them, it was pulled open wider. “I can help.” The young woman standing just beyond Carla’s shoulder said, “I’ll face him.”

Chapter 38

Tom Barker assessed Victor Wallace through the one-way window. “So that’s the professor I’ve been hearing so much about.”

“That’s him,” Derby said.

Barker had invited himself to the sheriff’s office and had talked his way back to the hallway of interrogation rooms where he could observe the suspect through a glass pane. Derby resented Barker’s intrusion, but there was little he could do about it.

Their criminal cases often overlapped, so the two departments had reciprocity. Barker had a right, even a duty, to be here, but Derby was having a hard time being cordial to the man he believed had killed Frank Gray less than twenty-four hours earlier.

Derby had assigned Wallace to a pair of his best interrogators. He’d told them, “He looks and acts like Mr. Rogers. Don’t be deceived. Bowie said he likes to talk. Let him.”

So far, Wallace had remained unflappable. He didn’t answer any questions except the most mundane. Instead he rambled on a number of subjects, often mentioning the popularity of his lectures and the increasing interest in his book.

Barker said now, “I was expecting someone more sinister.”

“He’s sinister, all right,” Derby said. “He was going to slice and dice John Bowie’s daughter.”

“I heard you caught him red-handed with the girl. Why are you giving him the third degree?”

“The Crissy Mellin case.”

Barker gave a start. “Crissy Mellin?”

“Bowie thinks chances are good the professor here was the perp and that he’s been waiting three years to do it again, to coincide with the blood moon.”

Tom’s distorted features twitched with amusement; then he chuckled. “Just goes to show how far ’round the bend Bowie has gone since that case. To this day, he refuses to admit that the Oliver kid was guilty. I mean, Christ, the boy wrote a confession to killing her and disposing of her!

“And I was this close,” he said, indicating an inch with his fingers, “to getting him to tell me where he had dumped her body. I told him if he gave that up, it might be a bargaining chip he could cash in at his sentencing, that it would be a demonstration of his remorse, and so on. I sent him back to his cell to think it over. You know what happened.”

He affected sadness as he shook his head. “But Bowie had been trying to steer the investigation in the wrong direction. He absolutely would not acknowledge his error. His downfall started then, and it’s continued on a greasedslope. Now, three years later, he’s completely irrational. Blood moon? Give me a break. That’s crazy. He’s surly and unreliable. Can’t control his temper.

“You only have to look at my face to see how violent he can be. I’ve given him ample opportunities to turn himself around, but after this attack on me, he gave me no choice. I had to let him go. Not just for my own safety, but for the safety of anyone else in the department who crossed him. Like Frank Gray.”

Lowering his voice, he moved closer to Derby. “Those two couldn’t stand the sight of each other. Bowie had been fired. He had nothing to lose by killing his arch-enemy.”

Derby held up his hand. “Tom, maybe you shouldn’t say anything more without an attorney present.”

“Attorney?”