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Galloway held up his hands, smiling at Will. "Your partner always this hysterical? Maybe it's her time of month."
Faith felt her fists clench. He was about to see hysterical in the worst way.
"Listen," Will interrupted, stepping between the two of them. "Just tell us about the car, and anything else you know. We're not going to make trouble for you. We don't want to have to get this information the hard way." Will walked over to the chair and picked up Faith's purse before sitting down. He kept the bag in his lap, which made him look ridiculous, a man standing outside the changing room while his wife tried on clothes.
He indicated that Galloway should sit across from him, saying, "We've got one victim in the hospital who's probably in an irreversible coma. Jacquelyn Zabel, the woman from the tree, her autopsy didn't give us any leads. There's another woman missing now. She was taken from the parking lot of a grocery store. Her child was left in the left in the back seat. Felix—six years old. He's in custody now, staying with strangers. He just wants his mom back."
Galloway was unmoved.
Will continued, "They didn't give you that detective shield for your good looks. There were roadblocks last night. You knew about the second car the Coldfields saw. You were stopping people." He changed tactics. "We didn't go to your boss on this. We didn't get our boss to come down like a hammer. We don't have the luxury of time here. Felix's mom is missing. She could be in another cave, strapped to another bed, with another spot underneath for the next victim. You want that on your head?"
Finally, Galloway heaved a heavy sigh and sat down. He leaned up in the chair, pulling his notebook out of his back pocket, groaning like it caused him physical pain.
Galloway said, "They told you it was white, probably a sedan?"
"Yes," Will answered. "Henry Coldfield didn't know the model. He said it was an older car."
Galloway nodded. He handed Will his notebook. Will looked down, flipped through the pages like he was taking the information on board, then handed it to Faith. She saw a list of three names with a Tennessee address and phone number. She took her purse back from Will so she could copy the information.
The detective said, "Two women—sisters—and their father. They were on their way back from Florida, going home to Tennessee. Their car broke down on the side of the road about six miles from where the Buick hit our first victim. They saw a white sedan coming. One of the women tried to flag it down. It slowed but didn't stop."
"Could she see the driver?"
"Black, baseball cap, loud music thumping. She said she was kind of glad he didn't stop."
"Did they see a license plate?"
"Just three letters, alpha, foxtrot, charlie, which pulled up about three hundred thousand cars, sixteen thousand of them are white, half of them are registered in the immediate area."
Faith wrote down the corresponding letters, A-F-C, thinking the license plate was a bust unless they just happened to stumble on the matching car. She flipped through Galloway's notes, trying to find what else he was hiding.
Will said, "I'd like to talk to all three of them."
"Too late," Galloway said. "They went back to Tennessee this morning. The father's an old guy, not doing too well. Sounded like they were taking him home to die. You could call them, maybe drive up there. I'm telling you, though, we got everything out of them that we could."
Will asked, "Was there anything else at the scene?"
"Just what you read in the reports."
"We haven't gotten the reports yet."
Galloway seemed almost contrite. "Sorry. The girl should've faxed them to you first thing. They're probably buried on her desk somewhere."
"We can get them before we leave," Will offered. "Can you just run it down for me?"
"It's what you'd expect. When the cruiser showed up, the guy who stopped, the paramedic, was working on the victim. Judith Coldfield was freaking out about her husband, worried he was having a heart attack. The ambulance came and took the victim away. The old man was better by then, so he waited for the second ambulance. That came a few minutes later. Our guys called in the detectives, started marking out the scene. The usual stuff. I'm being honest here. Nothing came up."
"We'd like to talk to the cop who was first on the scene, get his impressions."
"He's fishing in Montana with his father-in-law right now." Galloway shrugged. "I'm not giving y'all the runaround here. The guy's had this vacation planned for a while."
Faith had found a familiar name in Galloway's notes. "What's this about Jake Berman?" For Will's benefit, she explained, "Rick Sigler and Jake Berman were the two men who stopped to help Anna."
"Anna?" Galloway asked.
"That's the name she gave at the hospital," Will told him. "Rick Sigler was the off-duty EMT, right?"
"Right," Galloway confirmed. "Their story about the movie seemed kind of sketchy to me."
Faith made a noise of disgust, wondering how many dead ends this guy had to hit before he passed out from sheer stupidity.
"Anyway," Galloway said, making a point of ignoring Faith. "I ran them both through the computer. Sigler's clean, but Berman's got a record."
Faith felt her stomach drop. She'd spent two hours on the computer this morning and it had never occurred to her to check the men for a criminal history.
"Solicitation for lewd acts," Galloway smiled at Faith's stunned reaction. "Guy's married with two kids. Got picked up for screwing another guy in a toilet stall at the Mall of Georgia six months ago. Some teenage kid walked in and found them heel to toe. Goddamn pervert. My wife shops at that mall."
"Have you talked to Berman?" Will asked.
"He gave me a bogus number." Galloway shot Faith another scathing look. "The address on his driver's license is out of date, too, and nothing came up on a cross-match."
She saw a hole in his story and pounced. "How do you know he has a wife and two kids?"
"It's in the arrest report. He had them with him at the mall. They were waiting for him to come out of the bathroom." Galloway's lips twisted in disgust. "You want my advice, he's the one you should be looking at."
"The women were raped," Faith said, tossing back his notebook. "Gay men don't go after women. It's sort of what makes them gay."
"This bad guy strike you as the type of person who likes women?"
Faith didn't answer him, mostly because he had a point.
Will asked, "What about Rick Sigler?"
Galloway took his time folding his notebook closed, sticking it into his pocket. "He came back clean. Been working as a paramedic for sixteen years. Guy went to Heritage High School right down the road from here." His mouth twisted in disgust. "Played on the football team, if you can believe that."
Will took his time getting to his last question. "What else are you holding back?"
Galloway looked him right in the eye. "That's all I got, kemo sabe."
Faith didn't believe him, but Will seemed satisfied. He actually reached out and shook the man's hand. "Thank you for your time, detective."
