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“Pretty sure that’s bogus,” Ball says, “but I could phone a colleague to make sure. Want me to do that, Inspectors?”
“I’m sure Danny will make the right call,” Davis says. The flint-eyed woman who came to Wilder High with Jalbert is gone. This woman is younger and prettier, projecting an I’m-on-your-side vibe.
At least trying to, Danny thinks.
“There’s no event data recorder on your truck,” she says. “Do you know what that is?”
Danny nods. “Darn thing doesn’t even have a backup camera. When you put it in reverse you actually have to turn around and look out the back window.”
She nods. “So you’ll have to help us with your travels over the last few weeks, can you do that?”
“There’s not much. I did go to see my brother in Boulder the weekend after school let out. I flew.”
“That would be the weekend of—?”
Jalbert is looking at his phone. “June 3rd and 4th?”
“That sounds right. He works at the Table Mesa King Soopers.” He feels like saying more, he’s very proud of Stevie, but he leaves it at that.
Earnest, wide-eyed, still smiling, Ella Davis says, “Let’s try to be exact, Danny. This is important.”
Don’t you think I know that? he wants to say. You’re playing with my life here.
“I went on Friday afternoon. Flew United. Came back on Sunday, my flight to Great Bend left late and I didn’t get home until after midnight. So actually it was Monday morning by the time I was back in my own bed.”
“Thank you, we’ll check on that. Other trips?”
Danny thinks it over. “Drove up to Wichita to see my ex on a Sunday. That was before the dream.”
Jalbert snorts.
Ball, looking at his own phone, says, “Could it have been the 11th of June?”
Danny thinks. “Must have been. Otherwise, I’ve just been here. Back and forth to school, trips to the store, picked up DJ at school a couple of times—”
“DJ?” Davis asks.
“Darla Jean. She’s my friend Becky’s daughter. Good kid.” And he can’t resist adding: “Thanks to you guys, I don’t think I’ll be seeing much of her for awhile.”
Davis ignores this. “Just to be clear, you went to Wichita to visit your ex-wife, Marjorie Coughlin, on the 11th of June?”
“Eleven,” Jalbert says, then says it again, as if to be sure of it.
“Margie, yeah. But she’s gone back to her birth name. Gervais.” Said she got tired of cough-cough-Coughlin, he doesn’t add. Once you tell yourself not to spill your guts, it gets easier.
“Hey, you were arrested for stalking her, weren’t you?” Davis says, as if just passing the time.
Ball stirs, but Danny puts a hand on his arm before he can say anything. “No. I was arrested for violating the restraining order she took out. And disturbing the peace. The charges were dropped. By her.”
“Okay, good, and now you get along!” Davis says this warmly, as if it’s an accomplishment on the level of peace between Russia and Ukraine.
Danny shrugs. “Better than the last year we were married. We had lunch that day and I fixed her turn signals. Fuse blew. So yes, we get along.”
“Okay, this is good, this is good,” Davis says, still warm and wide-eyed. “Now can you explain how Yvonne Wicker’s fingerprints happened to be on the dashboard of your truck?”
Danny ponders the question and considers the fact that he’s in an interrogation room instead of a jail cell. He gives Davis a smile and says, “Your nose is growing.”
“You think you’re very smart, don’t you?” Jalbert says from in front of the poster.
