between his boots. When he raised his head, he said, “Do you want to change anything you’ve told me about your activities on that day and evening?”
“No.”
Bill looked over at Thatcher, his expression pained. Going back to the doctor, he said, “What you told me about that day was that a patient, as of then unnamed, was going through a difficult breech birth. According to Mrs. Kemp, that’s not true. She said Arthur was already a month old. Which one of you is lying?”
Gabe placed his elbow on his desk again and rubbed his forehead. “I thought it would make me look bad if you knew I’d been with my mistress that night.”
“Well, you’re right about that.”
Thatcher cleared his throat. Bill said, “Mr. Hutton? Something on your mind?”
“Um-huh. I recall Mrs. Kemp’s description of Dr. Driscoll when he went back to her house that second time late that night. She said he was frantic.”
Bill said, “He’s right, Gabe. She did say that. Why were you frantic?”
“Because Norma wasn’t there, and I needed her.”
“Needed her? For what?”
“I’d just come from that ratty roadhouse where I’d tended to that girl. I think her name was Corrine. It had been a long day. I was exhausted.”
“You went seeking the womanly kind of comfort Miss Blanchard could give you?”
“You’re putting words in my mouth.”
“Then, in your words, why were you frantic?”
“Because Norma wasn’t there.”
“That’s close, but not exactly what we were told,” Thatcher said. “Mrs. Kemp’s words were that when you got there, you were ‘batshit crazy.’ You didn’t get upset after learning that Miss Blanchard wasn’t there. You were unhinged when you arrived.”
Softly, Bill said, “Why, Gabe?”
The crackup was gradual. It seemed to Thatcher that it started at his thinning hairline and worked its way down his long face. His brows drew together above the bridge of his nose. His eyes filled with tears. The tip of his nose turned red and dripped a bead of snot. Then his lower lip began to quiver and he blubbered, “I did something terrible.”
Fifty
Somewhere between his blubbered “I did something terrible” and the sheriff’s office, Gabriel Driscoll grew a pair.
That was the only explanation Thatcher had for the doctor’s change of heart. By the time he and Bill escorted him into the building, he had gone from a shattered man facing ruin to a haughty, self-righteous jerk.
Scotty and Harold, who were sharing a desk piled high with paperwork, stopped sorting through it and looked on with interest as Driscoll proclaimed that an affair was the only thing he had confessed to, and that if the sheriff and his fledgling deputy thought otherwise, they had misunderstood.
As though addressing a jury, he took the opportunity to profess his innocence. “When I said I’d done a terrible thing, I was referring to my infidelity. Nothing more. I sinned against my wife. And since you and your inept staff here haven’t uncovered a single clue as to what happened to her, she’ll never know how deeply I cared for her.”
Looking at Thatcher with malice, he said, “You still haven’t definitively accounted for yourself the night Mila disappeared.” Then he turned to Bill. “I’m not saying another word without a lawyer present.”
“Do you have one?”
“Not on retainer.”
“I’ll arrange for one, then. In the meantime, you’ll wait in a cell.” He instructed Harold to lock him up. As the deputy escorted Driscoll into the cell block, Bill quietly said to Thatcher, “I’m in no rush to call the public defender. Let’s give him a while to ruminate on his sins against his wife.”
When asked, Scotty gave Bill an update on the investigations being conducted relating to last night’s events. “We ran down two more ’shiners trying to disassemble their still for relocation. I think they were relieved it was us who found them and not the Johnsons.”
“Remember that the Johnsons were the targets and suffered the greatest losses,” Bill said.
“Which is why they’ll be primed for revenge,” Scotty said. “I think we can look forward to another active night. Meanwhile…” He passed Bill a slip of paper. “Somebody from the governor’s office. He’s called twice. Asked you to call him back.”
“He say what for?”
“He said the governor wants to know what the fuck is going on out here and what in holy hell you’re doing about it. Says moonshine wars make the state look bad.”
“The governor didn’t have the guts to call and tell me himself?”
“He was giving the invocation at a prayer breakfast.”