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When they’re gone, Jalbert turns off the camera and the recorder.

“That was interesting.”

She nods.

He peers into her face.

“Any doubts?”

“No.”

“Because a couple of times you looked like he might actually be convincing you.”

“No doubts.

He knew where she was because he put her there.

That’s the logic.

The dream story is TV bullshit.”

Jalbert takes Danny’s phone from the pocket of his coat.

He punches in the passcode, swipes through the various apps, then turns it off again.

“We’ll get this to forensics ASAP and they’ll go through the whole schmear, not just his locations going back to June 1st.

Emails, texts, photos, search history.

Clone it, get it back to him tomorrow or Monday.”

“Given the way he turned it over to us, I don’t think we’ll find much,” Davis says.

“I didn’t expect that.”

“He’s a confident son-of-a-buck, but he may have forgotten something.

Just one single text could be enough.”

Davis remembers Jalbert saying that same thing, or close to it, about one single hair in the cab of Coughlin’s truck being enough.

But they found nothing.

She says, “We’ll just find the one trip out to Gunnel.

You know that, right? His phone was back at his trailer when he killed her and when he buried her, both at the same time or separately.

Count on it.”

Jalbert says, “Four.”

“Pardon me?”

“Nothing.

Just thinking out loud.

We’ll get him, Ella.

That confidence of his… the arrogance… will bring him down.”

“How serious were you about the polygraph?”

Jalbert gives a humorless laugh.

“He’s either a sociopath or an outright psychopath.

Did you feel that?”

She considers, then says, “Actually I’m not sure I did.”

“I am sure.

Seen his kind before.

And nine times out of ten they can beat the poly.

Which would make it pointless.”

They leave the room and walk down the hall.

The young cop who brought Coughlin in asks them how it went.

“Turning the screws,” Davis says.

Jalbert likes that and gives her a pat on the arm.

When they’re outside, Davis digs her cigarettes out of her bag and offers them to Jalbert, who shakes his head but tells her to go ahead, the smoking lamp is lit.

She flicks her Bic and takes a deep drag.

“The lawyer was right.

We don’t have much, do we?”

Jalbert looks out over Main Street where not much is happening—par for the course in Manitou.

“We will, Ella.

Count on it.

All else aside, he really does want to confess.

You almost had him.

He was wavering.”

Davis doesn’t think he was wavering at all, but doesn’t say so.

Jalbert has been doing this for a long time and she trusts his instincts over her own.

“Two things continue to bother me,” she says.

“What?”

“How relieved he looked when you told him you had DNA from the doer and how he smiled when I told him we had her fingerprints on the dashboard of his truck.

He knew I was lying.”

Jalbert runs a hand through what remains of his red and gray hair.

“He knew you were bluffing.”

“But the DNA thing, it was just so…”

“So what?”

“So immediate.

Like he thought he was off the hook.”

He turns to her.

“Think about the dream, Ella.

Did you believe that for even a single second?”

She answers without hesitation.

“No.

He was lying.

There was no dream.”

He nods.

“Keep that centered in your thoughts, and you’ll be fine.”