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“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.
Francesca’s eyebrows shot up. “Can’t you hear the tightness in his voice? And what about his refusal to even talk about her? If it was true that he’d never heard of her, he would’ve responded with more curiosity. He would’ve wanted to know why I was asking about her, what connection I thought she might have to him.”
“Not necessarily,” Hunsacker argued. “Not everyone would react the way you would. Maybe he was afraid you were trying to drag him even deeper into a mess he knows he’s better off avoiding. He sure as hell understands that you’re not his friend. You’ve made that clear to all of us.”
“I wonder how much you’d like him if he stood outside your car holding a baseball bat as if he was going to bash in your window?” she said.
Hunsacker frowned. “He already explained why he did that.”
“And I’m explaining that I saw fear in his eyes when I brought up Bianca,” she said. “He doesn’t want to be connected with another dead woman. He knows what that’ll mean.”
Hunsacker persisted. “Even an innocent man wouldn’t want to be connected to a dead woman. No one wants to be falsely accused. Besides, a guilty look, fear in his eyes, none of that can take the place of forensic evidence. Why do you have such a hard time understanding that we can’t just act on your gut instinct?”
Hoping to derail the conversation before it could turn into another argument, Jonah jumped in. “Don’t start on her. She’s telling us what we couldn’t see because we weren’t there. She’s not saying it’s proof. Sometimes gut instinct is what determines the direction we should take. You know that.”
“How about if you quit defending her?” Hunsacker snapped. “I can think for myself. It’s not as if you’re my boss. You’re the hired help here.”
