“After stealing it in the first place,” she broke in.
“I didn’t steal it! It was gone by the time I came back to look for it. I think my freak of a brother-in-law grabbed it. That’s all I can figure, because he’s the one who brought it to me last night.”
Francesca remembered ringing the doorbell and getting no response. “Dean was home that day?”
“Of course he was. He’s usually home. He can’t drive because of his meds. Besides, you’ve seen what he’s like. Who’d want to hang out with him?”
“Honestly?” she said. “He seems a lot nicer than you.”
“Maybe you should get to know him better.”
“Maybe I will.”
He shoved a hand through his hair, making it stand up in front. “This was a mistake,” he said, and stalked out, leaving her alone in his office with that air conditioner chugging for all it was worth and his coffee growing cold on his desk.
Could Butch be telling the truth? Francesca wondered. She could see him getting fed up with the actions of some jealous husband. She could even understand how her own fears might’ve created certainties in her mind that shouldn’t have been there. She’d mistaken that mannequin for a corpse, after all….
She could’ve bought it—if he hadn’t acted so strange when she mentioned Bianca Andersen. He knew Bianca; Francesca was sure of it.
“I’m done here,” she said to the men who were listening.
She was about to let herself out when she caught sight of movement at the window and realized Dean was peering in at her. Tossing her newly recovered purse over her shoulder, she headed for the door. She thought he might scurry off, pretend he hadn’t been stealing glimpses of her through those dirty panes, but he didn’t. He waited. Then he fell in step beside her.
“What’d Butch have to say?” he asked.
The sun burned so bright it blinded her. Rooting through her purse, she came up with her sunglasses. “Nothing. Why?”
“You two were in there for quite a while.”
Once she had her glasses on and could see him without squinting, she tried to analyze what he was feeling, without success. He held himself rigid, as if he was upset, and yet his voice was as calm as ever. “He apologized for our little misunderstanding the other day.”
“Is that what you think it was? A misunderstanding?”
Stopping, she faced him. “Isn’t that what you’d call it?”
He glanced around as if he was taking a big risk by speaking out. “He’s not a nice person,” he whispered. “You should know that.”
It was Francesca’s turn to see if she could catch a glimpse of Butch, but they seemed to be alone. “Give me some specific details, Dean.”
At the gravity in her voice, he shook his head. “No. Never mind. I don’t know anything. Butch is a good guy, like I said on the phone. I didn’t mean it when I said he wasn’t. I swear,” he said and, running with an awkward gait, he took off for the house.
14
Jonah watched Francesca pull the wire out from under her shirt and place it on the conference table.
“So? What do you make of what you heard?” she asked.
Finch sat next to her, near the blackboard, Hunsacker across from her. Jonah had purposely taken the seat farthest away, near the television stored on a rolling cart in the corner. Now that he knew she was out of physical danger, at least for the moment, he couldn’t think of anything except the smooth texture of the skin he’d felt when he taped that listening device to her body. And because physical gratification should’ve been the last thing that mattered to him, considering the gravity of the situation, he was more than a little irritated with himself. If he was going to do his job the way it needed to be done, he had to overcome his attraction to Francesca.
Why couldn’t his body stop craving what his mind was telling him he could never have?
“The brother-in-law knows something,” Finch said.
“That’s the feeling I got,” Francesca agreed. “But he’s scared.”
Finch tapped his pen on the wooden table. “If Butch is what we think he is, Dean has reason to be scared.”
“Hang on a second.” A yellow writing pad waited in front of every seat, ready for any meeting that took place. Hunsacker pushed his away. “We can’t jump to conclusions. Dean seems scared, but it could be unwarranted. He already admitted he’s crazy, told you flat out that he can’t think straight without his daily meds.” He turned to Finch. “You saw him the other day. He was on his feet but he was completely zoned out. A person like that could imagine just about anything and believe it was real. Until we have hard evidence, I’m not so sure we should focus exclusively on Butch. He could be telling the truth about dropping April at the side of the road.”
“I, for one, don’t believe it,” Francesca said.
“Because you made up your mind that he was a killer from day one. I’m just saying we can’t ignore the possibility that it could be someone else,” Hunsacker reiterated.
Refusing to look at Francesca for fear his eyes would betray the conflict inside him, Jonah kept his gaze fastened on Finch. “Before we do anything, we need to talk to Dean’s shrink or whoever’s prescribing his medication, find out what he’s diagnosed with and what he’s taking.”
“We also need to check with the staff at the Rio Grande and make sure Butch and April really came in that night,” Finch said. “If we poke around the area enough, maybe we’ll find someone who saw or heard something that’ll either corroborate or refute his story.”
“Butch has more to hide than what happened to April,” Francesca warned.
Hunsacker scowled at her. “What are you talking about now?”
“You should’ve seen his face when I mentioned Bianca Andersen.”
Telling himself she was no different to him than any other woman, Jonah allowed his eyes to rest where they’d been tempted to go all along. “He recognized the name?”
Obviously agitated, she rewound the tape and played it for them again. “Listen.”
Have you ever heard of Bianca Andersen?
Who? Bianca Andersen.
No.
Aren’t you going to ask me who she is? Or why I’m mentioning her?
I’d like you to leave. Now.
“That isn’t particularly revealing,” Hunsacker said the moment she hit the stop button.