Fred looked from Browning to Willow, then nodded weakly. The uniformed officer walked Fred to his patrol car and patted him down for weapons before putting him in the back seat. Without waiting for the detectives, he got into the driver’s seat and pulled away from the curb, heading for the station.
A moment later, Tower emerged from the house with keys in hand. “She’s not here,” he told Browning, locking the door. “And the Taurus is gone from out back.”
Browning pressed his lips together and nodded.
“Do you think she did the shoe?” Tower asked.
“I guess we’ll find out,” Browning answered and they headed back to the station.
0742 hours
Crawford was waiting for them at Browning’s desk.
“Where’s the crazy lady?”
“Out grocery shopping,” Tower said.
“You’re kidding me.”
Both men shook their heads.
Crawford sighed and pointed to the interview room. Willow stood guard at the door. “Henderson is in there.”
“I figured,” Browning said, watching Crawford carefully. “What’s up, Lieutenant?”
“Diane from CSFU called,” Crawford said. “The Medical Examiner is working on the little girl right now. But she wanted you to know something.”
“What?”
Crawford looked from face to face, then said. “They found evidence of sexual assault. Torn tissues and fluids.”
Tower’s face whitened. “That sick son of a bitch.” His eyes flicked to the closed interview room door.
Browning clenched his jaw, but withheld any other reactions. “Thanks, Lieutenant,” he said.
Crawford nodded. He pointed to the observation room between the interview rooms. “I’ll be in there, watching.”
“Okay,” Browning said. Then he turned to Tower. “Get on your game face, John.”
0800 hours
Katie MacLeod sat in the quiet of her apartment and stared at the walls. The late morning light painted the walls a pale white. Her chest ached and her throat was raw from all the crying she’d done, but she was finished crying now.
The small radio in her kitchen played one soft song after another. Most were sugary pop tunes that she ignored and embraced at the same time while she tried to cope with the images on the bridge. She’d seen the wild eyes of the man all morning whenever she closed her own eyes. His cavalier, almost peaceful expression before he pitched the baby over the side of the bridge flashed in her mind’s eye no matter what she did.
Rather than battle her grief and pain, Katie MacLeod opened her heart and strode directly into them. As the gentle strands of a soft guitar floated from the kitchen radio, she forced herself to see it all again. She pictured the baby dangling by his clothing from his father’s fist. Watched the blue-clad infant tumble from that grip. Watched him fall a hundred feet and into the river below.
Heard the splash over the rush of water.
She saw the flash of blue in the river water, darting in the current like a trout.
Saw it disappear.
She listened again to her own screams. Felt her fists land on the motionless father.
She saw the look of horror on the face of the baby’s mother as the woman was huddled in a blanket and pulled away. Forced herself to endure the look of blame that the mother shot at Katie right as they put her into a car.
The lyrics from the song on the radio cut into her thoughts.
When you reach the part where the heartaches come
The hero would be me
But heroes often fail.
Katie slammed her eyes shut and took a deep breath. The singer’s voice and the flowing guitar washed over her.
It wasn’t her fault.
She ran the scenario through her mind again, like a video tape alternating between rewind and play. She imagined different actions she might have taken. None of them realistically changed the outcome.
She couldn’t save him, but it wasn’t her fault. It was a terrible thing, one of many she’d seen. Hell, probably one of many she would see in the future.
But it wasn’t her fault.
She wondered if she would ever believe that.
0823 hours
Fred Henderson was proving to be tougher than Tower foretold. Browning figured that it hearkened back to the prison stretch Fred had served when in Colorado. So far, he’d resisted Browning’s gentle suggestions and mild persuasions and he continued to maintain the party line. Still, his constant shifting in his seat, darting eyes and sweaty upper lip told Browning he was on the right track.
“I’ve never even met that little girl, detective,” he said. “The one time Nancy has seen her since we’ve been married, I wasn’t there. It was just Nancy, her daughter and the little girl.”
It was his fifth denial since they’d entered the room. Browning decided to get a couple more.
“Ever talk to her on the telephone?”
“No,” Fred said.
“Sneak into a school play or something?”
“Never.”
“Did Nancy?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Would you know if she did?”
“I think so, yes.”
Browning paused in his questioning then glanced imperceptibly toward Tower.
Tower leaned forward, a hard look painted on his face. “How many vehicles do you own, Fred?”
“Just the Ford Taurus. Nancy took it shopping.”
Tower slammed his palm down on the interview table, causing Fred to jump. Browning watched as the suspect eyed Tower cautiously.
“Fred,” Tower gritted, “if you‘re going to lie to us, then we are going to start to think terrible things about you.”
“I’m not lying,” Fred said, but his words were slightly shaky.
“Yes,” Tower told him. “You are. So let me tell you what we’re going to do. We’re going to stop this interview until you decide you want to tell us the truth. Okay?”
“Fine,” Fred bristled. “Maybe I’ll even go get a lawyer.”
“You go right ahead,” Tower said. “In the meantime, we wait for the forensics to come back.”
Fred’s eyes widened slightly.
Tower nodded, “Yeah, we have some evidence being processed in the lab right now. And we’ll get some more, I’m sure, when we go back to your house and poke around with a platelet detector.”
“What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
“The detector thing,” Fred asked. “What’s that? I never heard of it.”
Tower shrugged. “That doesn’t surprise me. It’s an expensive piece of equipment.”
“What’s it do?”
“It detects blood or blood traces down to the platelet level,” Tower said. “Which works really slick, because even if someone cleans up and bleaches the area, there’s still enough blood for the instrument to detect.”
Fred whitened, but said nothing. Browning pretended to write something on his notepad.
“So we’ll go back through your house with the instrument and we’ll see what we find,” Tower told him evenly. “On top of that, we’ll finish examining the evidence collected from the burned out van.”
“What van?” Fred’s voice wavered.
Tower gave him a look and said, “Come on, Fred. You think we’re stupid? The van you bought up in Hillyard from Brad Dexter. You paid cash and didn’t transfer the title.”
Fred said nothing, but trembled slightly.
“The van you burned up down by the river last night,” Tower continued.
Fred wiped sweat from his upper lip.
“The van you and Nancy used to grab up Amy Dugger.”
Fred shook his head, small little shakes that resembled shivers. “I–I didn’t-“
“Drop it, Fred,” Tower said. “It’s not a question of whether you two took Amy anymore. It’s only a matter of why.”
“You can’t prove anything,” Fred said, sounding as if he were trying to convince himself.
Tower raised his eyebrows. “Really? I can’t prove anything? Well, I can guarantee you that when we do our search of your home with the platelet detector, we will find some blood. Probably in the attic. When we find that, we’ll do a closer search for hair and skin that’s been shed. Do you know how much hair and skin we shed every day? Thousands of cells, Fred. Thousands.”