Now she was not.
“Bobby,” Bohannan murmured.
Bobby’s arm raised, his hand slanting to jab with his finger downward, probably because Bohannan was taller than him, and like an angry bear, he was making himself be as big as he could get.
“This is on fucking HIM! Before I shove his fucking head up there, I’m gonna bend him over his fucking sheriff desk and RAPE HIS FUCKING ASS!”
“I appreciate you’re feeling a lot right now, Bobby, but my women are here and so is yours. That means you either get a goddamned lock on it or I’m tossing you out of my house.”
Bobby swung around to look at me and Celeste.
Mostly Celeste.
And when he did, it was all over.
“Cade,” I said swiftly.
But it was too late.
Bobby’s face went red in an instant. It crumpled, and he did too.
Right to his ass on the floor.
He curled, chest into his thighs, covered his head with both arms, started rocking and moaning, “My girl. My girl. My girl.”
The woman who came with him whimpered, but she did not go to him.
Bohannan did.
He approached, crouched and patted him on the back, muttering, “Let that shit out. We got work to do, man. You gotta let that shit out.”
Bobby made a very loud snuffling noise that ended with him releasing a breath that sounded like it came from a mouth that was closed, so it made shee, shee, shee, shee noises as it broke four times.
He was crying, and it wasn’t that he didn’t want to cry and was fighting it, it was just the power of it was overwhelming to the point he could barely breathe.
Unmistakably, Malorie’s dad.
“Honey, why don’t you go upstairs,” Bohannan said to Celeste.
“Okay, Dad,” she replied.
She gave a careful, tender look to the woman, whose lips curled up in a tremulous smile before she turned away.
I took her hand, squeezed it, Celeste glanced at me while I did, then I let her go—and alive and full of youth and grace—she dashed out.
I watched her do it.
And I memorized every step.
The woman watched her do it too and didn’t quit watching even after Celeste disappeared from sight.
“Would you like to come in and sit down?” I invited, bringing her attention to me. “I can make some coffee.” I had no idea what time it was, but still, I offered, “Or open a bottle of wine.”
“No.”
That was all she said.
She wasn’t being rude.
She was Malorie’s mom and probably only had that syllable in her to give.
“Okay,” I said quietly.
Bobby was reaching out to the couch, face now nearly purple and wet, nose running, without much coordination trying to pull himself up off the floor.
I moved swiftly to the kitchen where there was a box of tissues.
“He’s fucking this up, Cade,” I heard the man say as I was on the move. “He’s relieved Harry of his duties. He fired him.”
Great.
Bobby carried on.
“He’s fired Polly. We went to the station after we went to the fucking morgue. It’s bedlam there. Half the men are packing up their desks. Leland took us into his office and told us he has it all in hand. Like we didn’t see what we saw out in the bullpen. Then Pete storms in, and he’s shouting, because some deputies came over and demanded permission to search his house. Saying some shit about how they’re building a case against Polly for obstruction.” His voice was rising. “What the fuck is going on, Cade?”
There was no table close to set it on, so I approached, arm extended, to offer tissues.
Bobby turned to me like he forgot I was there, startled and jumpy.
Bohannan took the tissues, murmuring, “Thanks, babe.”
He then offered them to Bobby, and Bobby snapped out half a dozen, using the lot to run them over his face then blowing his nose in that wet wad.
Bohannan ignored the information dump and instead remarked with studied nonchalance, “I thought Malorie was at Berkeley.”
“I thought so too,” Bobby bit off.
“She wasn’t home for a visit?”
It looked like things were going to get emotional again as Bobby groaned, “I wish she was. I wish she’d been home. We haven’t seen her since parents’ weekend in September, except her face on a fucking phone doing FaceTime. She was heading home soon. Soon.” His voice dipped with his anguish. “We were excited to have her back for Thanksgiving.”
Bohannan handed Bobby the box of tissues and reached into his back pocket.
He pulled out his phone, engaged it and extended it to me.
“Find Polly in my contacts, Larue. Phone her and reiterate what she knows. They need a warrant to search her house. They also need a warrant to arrest her. No judge has had time to sign off on either yet, and no judge in this county would do it anyway. She hunkers down. And if they try to do something stupid, she does not waive her right to an attorney.”