Page 87 of Blood Moon

“Lasagna?”

“You know how to make lasagna?”

“I know how to take it from the freezer and turn on the oven.”

“Fine.”

He sat down at his computer and accessed his file on the Mellin case. Once the frozen entree was in the oven, Beth sat down beside him. “How can I help?”

He explained, “I copied notes taken by every detective and patrol officer who’d interviewed anyone about Crissy. As I find a name, you consult Wallace’s list.”

They’d been at it for about twenty minutes when one of John’s phones rang. He looked at the readout, snatched up the phone, and put it to his ear. He was looking at Beth in wonderment as he answered. “Isabel?”

Chapter 24

John said, “Thank you for calling me back.”

Deputy Sanchez’s voice was breathy and faint. “When my husband got home from work, I couldn’t hide how upset I was. I told him what had happened today. He wanted to go straight to the police.” She laughed shakily. “I told him that’s the last thing we should do. He insisted that I call you. He’s here with me.”

John put his phone on speaker but indicated to Beth that she shouldn’t make her presence known. Introducing her now and explaining why she was in Auclair might rattle Isabel. He didn’t want to give her any cause to hang up.

He said, “Who got to you, Isabel?”

She didn’t pretend not to understand the question. “Frank Gray.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“You know how intimidating that man can be before he says a word. When I opened the door, I recoiled at the sight of him.”

“Why did you even open your door?”

“He said it would be a bad judgment call not to.”

“So he began with a veiled threat.”

“Yes, but after I complied, he turned casual and chatty. He asked how I’d been. Did I miss my old job and all my cronies in the sheriff’s office? Then, as though in passing, he asked me about my children. What grades were they in, did they like sports, music, what? That made my blood run cold. I knew he was leading up to something.

“Then he asked if I’d heard that you’d been fired. I told him no. How would I have heard? I hadn’t had contact with you in years. He said that was good, because you had threatened retribution against Tom Barker and that any friend of yours was an enemy of Barker’s and, by extension, of the entire PD. He advised me to play it smart and not to talk to you. Anor elsewas implied. Then he left. Not long after that, you called. I was still shaking.”

“Did he say what not to talk to me about? Was it Billy Oliver?”

She began to cry. In the background, her husband could be heard speaking softly, lending encouragement.

John kept his voice soft. He didn’t want her to feel pressured. “Isabel, did you know that Billy was dyslexic?”

“Dyslexic? No.”

“I learned that today from Carla Mellin. The odds that Billy wrote that confession are practically nil.”

“He couldn’t have written it if he’d been Shakespeare,” she said. “He didn’t have anything to write with.”

“That came up when we were investigating his suicide,” John said. “How the hell did Billy get access to pencil andpaper? The only explanation offered was that he’d sneaked them past all of you guards.”

“John, he didn’t. I and all the other deputies in the rotation were being scrupulous. Billy was so distraught over his missing friend, and being accused of taking her, we were afraid he would harm himself. Anytime he was returned to his cell after being out, we made sure he wasn’t bringing anything in.”

“Why wasn’t he on suicide watch?”

“We suggested it, then requested it, but it was never implemented.”