LITMIR.BIZ

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feel like you have an opinion but are holding back,” Jessie pressed.

      “Well, as I said, I hate to draw conclusions too early. But I found this a little odd,” he said, pointing at the carpet.

      “What?” she asked, unable to discern anything notable other than how thick the carpeting was.

      “You see how deep the indentations in the carpet are from our footsteps?”

      Jessie and Detective Trembley nodded.

      “When we first came in after the dog found her, there were no footprints at all.”

      “Not even hers?” Jessie asked, starting to figure it out.

      “Nope,” Hernandez answered.

      “What does that mean?” Trembley asked, not getting it yet.

      Hernandez filled him in.

      “It means that either the luxurious carpeting in here has unprecedented bounce-back capabilities or someone vacuumed it after the fact to hide the existence of footprints other than Victoria’s.”

      “That’s interesting,” Jessie said, impressed by Detective Hernandez’s attention to detail. She prided herself on reading people but would never have picked up on a physical clue like this. It reminded her that this was the man who’d been instrumental in catching Bolton Crutchfield and that she shouldn’t underestimate his skills. She could learn a lot from him.

      “Did you find a vacuum?” Trembley asked.

      “Not out here,” Hernandez said. “But folks are checking the main house.”

      “Hard to imagine either of the Missingers did a ton of housework,” Jessie surmised. “I wonder if they’d even know where the vacuum was kept. I assume they have a housekeeper?”

      “They do indeed,” Hernandez said. “Her name is Marisol Mendez. Unfortunately, she’s out of town all week, on vacation in Palm Springs apparently.”

      “So the maid is out,” Trembley said. “Anyone else work around here? They’ve got to have a ton of employees.”

      “Not as many as you might think,” Hernandez said. “Their landscaping is largely drought-resistant, so they only have a groundskeeper come in twice a month for maintenance. They have a pool management company and Missinger says someone comes around once a week, on Thursdays.”

      “So who does that leave us with?” Trembley asked, afraid to voice the clear answer for fear of being too obvious.

      “It leaves us with the same person we started with,” Hernandez said, unafraid to go there. “The husband.”

      “Does he have an alibi?” Jessie asked.

      “That is exactly what we’re going to find out,” Hernandez replied as he pulled out his radio and spoke into it. “Nettles, have Missinger transported to the station for questioning. I don’t want anyone else asking him a thing until we get him in an interrogation room.”

      “Sorry, Detective,” came a crackly, apprehensive voice over the radio. “But someone already did that. He’s en route now.”

      “Dammit,” Hernandez swore as he turned off the radio. “We have to go now.”

      “What’s the problem?” Jessie asked.

      “I wanted to be there waiting when Missinger got to the station—to be the good cop, his lifeline, his sounding board. But if he gets there first and sees all those blue uniforms, guns, and fluorescent lights, he’s going to spook and demand to see his lawyer before I can ask anything. Once that happens, we’ll never get anything useful out of him.”

      “Then we better get moving,” Jessie said, brushing past him and out the door.

      CHAPTER EIGHT

      By the time they arrived at the station, Missinger had already been there for ten minutes. Hernandez had called ahead and ordered the desk sergeant to have him taken to the family room, which was intended for crime victims and families of the deceased. It was a little less sterile than the rest of the station, with a couple of old couches, some curtains on the windows, and a few months-old magazines on the coffee table.

      Jessie, Hernandez, and Trembley rushed to the family room door, where a tall officer stood guard outside.

      “How’s he doing in there?” Hernandez asked.

      “He’s fine. Unfortunately, he demanded his lawyer the second he walked through the front door.”

      “Great,” Hernandez spat. “How long has he been waiting to make the call?”

      “He already did, sir,” the officer said, shifting uncomfortably.

      “What! Who let him do that?”

      “I did, sir. Was I not supposed to?”

      “How long have you been on the force, Officer…Beatty?” Hernandez asked, looking at the name tag on the guy’s shirt.

      “Almost a month, sir.”

      “Okay, Beatty,” Hernandez said, clearly trying to keep his frustration in check. “There’s nothing that can be done about it now. But in the future, you don’t have to immediately hand a potential suspect a phone the second he requests it. You can put him in a room and tell him you’ll get right on that. ‘Right on that’ might take a few minutes, maybe even an hour or two. It’s a tactic to give us time to develop a strategy and keep the suspect off-balance. Will you please try to remember that in the future?”

      “Yes, sir,” Beatty said sheepishly.

      “Okay. For now, take him to an open interrogation room. We probably don’t have much time before his lawyer gets here. But I’d like to use what we do have to at least get a sense of the guy. And Beatty, when you’re moving him, don’t answer any of his questions. Just put him in a room and leave, got it?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      As Beatty went into the family room to collect Missinger, Hernandez led Jessie and Trembley to the break room.

      “Let’s give him a minute to settle in,” Hernandez said. “Trembley and I will go in. Jessie, you should watch from behind the mirror. It’s too late to ask substantive questions but we can try to establish some kind of rapport with the guy. He doesn’t have to tell us anything. But we can say a lot. And that can have an effect on him. We need him feeling as uncertain as possible before his attorney gets here and starts setting him at ease. We need to get those lingering doubts in his head, so that he wonders if maybe we’re better allies to him than his high-paid lawyer. We don’t have much time to do it, so let’s get in there.”

      Jessie went to the observation room and took a seat. It was her first chance to get a look at Michael Missinger, who was standing awkwardly in a corner. If anything, he was more beautiful than his wife had been. Even at 3 a.m., wearing jeans and a sweatshirt that he must have thrown on at the last minute, he looked like he had just stepped out of a photo shoot.

      His short, sun-bleached blond hair was just mussed enough to look unpretentious but not so much as to seem disheveled. His skin was tan in parts, but white in others, the sign of a regular surfer.

      He was tall and lanky, with the look of a guy who didn’t have to work out much to get that way. The redness and puffiness of his blue eyes—likely from crying—didn’t make them any less gorgeous. Jessie had to admit, despite herself, that if this guy had approached her at the bar last night, she would not have been so cavalier toward him. Even his nervous shifting from foot to foot was frustratingly endearing.

      After a few seconds, Hernandez and Trembley walked in. They looked less impressed.

      “Have a seat, Mr. Missinger,” Hernandez said, making the instruction sound almost warm. “We know you’ve asked for your lawyer, which is fine. My understanding is that he’s on his way. In the interim, we wanted to fill you in on where things stand with our investigation. Let me first start by offering my condolences on your loss.”

      “Thank

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