“Dog bites.”
“What? How come you didn’t call me?”
“I did,” she said. “About seventeen times last night and this morning.”
Bernie Aaliyah seemed chagrined. He looked over at Christine Prince before saying, “That damn smartphone’s the stupidest gadget I’ve ever owned.”
“Right,” Aaliyah said, and she glanced at Christine Prince, who caught her skepticism right away.
“Bernie,” she said. “I just realized I forgot my purse at the house. Pick me up in, say, an hour?”
Aaliyah’s father hesitated and then said, “Sure. That’ll do.”
“It was so nice meeting you,” Christine Prince said.
“You too,” Aaliyah said, hearing the lack of conviction in her voice.
The older woman smiled anyway, nodded, and then walked past her and down the stoop. The detective stepped inside, said, “She seems nice.”
“She is nice,” her dad growled, turning away and walking into the kitchen. “She lives down the street in the Evanses’ old house. Lost her husband in a car crash two years ago. We met three weeks ago, out walking.”
“So you an item?”
He turned, frowning. “An item? Nah. She’s just … I dunno. Nice. Funny.”
“And pretty.”
“You got a pro
blem with that, young lady?”
She shrugged. “I guess I would have expected you to mention her. But then again, you don’t answer your phone these days.”
He sighed, said, “I should have called you back. But the fish were on yesterday, and …”
“You had a dinner date,” Aaliyah said. “I get it.”
“It’s not like that,” he said flatly. Then he changed the subject. “Saw you’re working that Cross case. Good man, Cross. Wicked thing he’s going through.”
Aaliyah hesitated, and then realized it might be better to talk shop than Christine Prince. At least for the time being.
“You don’t know the half of it,” she said.
“Guess you better tell me all about it, then,” he replied. “Coffee?”
“I’d love some, Dad.”
CHAPTER
47
WHILE HER FATHER BREWED a pot, Aaliyah told him about the mysterious Thierry Mulch, about the complex and highly orchestrated kidnapping of Cross’s family, about the condition of the bodies dumped at Cross’s house, even about the fact that Bree Stone had been miraculously pregnant at the time of her death.
“Jesus,” her father said, shaking his head. “Jesus, that’s tragic.”
She agreed and went on, describing the scene at Claude Harrow’s place, focusing on the burned shack, the dog, and those ovals of drying skin.
“They a solid match to Cross’s wife and kid?”