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“You told her you wouldn’t stick,” I insert. “I have it from a couple of people that you told her you weren’t ready to be a dad, and not to expect you to be around.”
He scoffs and sits back. “I’m not father material, Detective. I’m the fuckin’oppositeof father material. My absence would be a favor to the kid. But I would have paid child support. I was staying away for its benefit, but I wasn’t walking without taking care of the financial side of things.”
“Did you talk to Ms. Boyd again after that day she called and asked you to brunch?”
He reaches back to scratch his hair. “She texted me a couple times to say she was doing well.” Dropping his hand, he stops talking a moment as a slow smile creeps along his lips. “I liked that she sent those. Kept me from vibrating outta my skin with worry.”
“But you didn’t reply?”
“It was best I didn’t,” he counters immediately. “She was the marry-and-settle-down type, and I come from a long line of wife-beaters who screw everything up. Trust me, Coppers, I was doing her a favor.”
“Were you aware that Ms. Boyd was married before you met?”
Going by the shock in his eyes, that’s a no. “What?”
“Married her high school sweetheart,” Fletch says. “They were each other’s first everything. They got married. Spent a couple of years together. Then last year, they got a divorce.”
“Was she still married when we…” He swallows ‘fucked’down, and instead, replaces it with “hung out?”
“Freshly divorced,” I answer. “She’d been with this other guy for about ten years by this point. High school. Prom. Trade school. First car. First house. They knew each other’s families and went through all the steps. Then she called it quits, and soon after that, she met a guy in a club and got herself knocked up.”
“Now she’s dead,” he whispers under his breath, sadness and grief coalescing in his tone. “She’s gone.”
“You said she called twice.” Fletch sits forward in his chair. “When was the second time?”
Silence hangs across the room for a minute. A bone-deep gloom. Then Stan produces his phone and opens it to the screen showing his call log.
Setting the phone on the table, he turns it and pushes it closer to us. “She called me last night. But I didn’t take it. She called me for a save,” he realizes with a crackle in his voice, “and I left her hanging.” Shaking his head, he meets my eyes. “Like I said, I come from a long line of baby-daddies who screw everything up.”
* * *
“That was fuckin’ brutal.” Heading back into the war room, Fletch leans over a chair at the table and places his hands on the back. Dropping his head, he shakes it side to side and breathes. “Stan didn’t kill her, Arch.”
“Nope.” Crossing to the wall of evidence, I stop and stare up at what we’ve collected so far in a day. “He didn’t kill her.”
“But he’s gonna blame himself for the rest of his life.” Pushing up to stand tall, his chest broadens as he takes a deep breath. “He didn’t realize till today how important that call was. And now his kid is missing and the woman he clearly has a fondness for is dead.Fuck.” He smacks the back of the chair and turns to thread his hands in his hair. “It’s going on twenty-four hours, and we have no fucking clue where that baby is or if it’s even alive.”
“We have alerts with every hospital, clinic, police station, fire station, and medical center in the city. If a newborn is brought in, they’re gonna check to see if it’s ours. We have uniforms canvassing the streets and checking trashcans, and we’ve put a stop to all garbage collection until the search for the infant is done. We have another team at the dump, just in case it got that far already.” I run a hand along my chin. “We’re doing everything we can. And since we haven’t found a body yet, chances are, it’s alive and being cared for.”
“Or our killer just hasn’t thrown it away yet.” Frustrated, he rubs his hands over his face. “Shit. Fuck. Okay.” Turning to the wall, he takes a long look at every face we have tacked up. “We need more than a gut feeling to let him off the hook, but we agree it wasn’t Stanley Mathouson?”
“Agreed.” I grab his picture and set it beside Trudy. Then I point at Anton. “What are we thinking?”
“Top suspect in my eyes.” Fletch crosses the room and taps a finger to Anton’s face. “He loved her. He wanted to keep her. He tried to control her, and when she wouldn’t go along with things, he tried coercion and emotional manipulation.”
“Doesn’t make him a killer.”
“Nope. But it’s a damn good start. Add in that the love of his life left her marriage and went on to bang a guy like Stan, andthenshe gets knocked upandkeeps the kid.” He taps Anton’s face again. “A lot of guys would crack from that.”
“I’d crack Stan’s face,” I admit. “I wouldn’t hurt Minka.”
“No, just like I never hurt Jada. But you and I are cut from a different cloth than Anton. And I suspect Stan would fall on our side of things, if it was all reversed and she was his wife. He’s not gonna hurt her. He’s gonna scatter the other guy’s face.”
“Probably shoulda put a set of eyes on him before he left,” I ponder. “He might find the baby before we do.”
“Let him go.” Stepping away from the wall, Fletch reaches into his pocket and groans when his phone chirps. Checking the screen, he sighs before bringing it to his ear. “I’m so sorry, Ms. Pendergast. I know we had an appointment, but I’ve been b—”
He stops. Listens. “I know. I’m a police officer, Ms. Pendergast. To work for me, to care for my daughter, you need to understand my work first and foremost. Sometimes, finding a killer is more important to me than finding a nanny.”
