her condescension slide by. “I won’t know if it’s definitely Brianna’s blood until the DNA results come back, but if we look at blood typing I can determine in general if it might be hers. So, the blood on the sword is O positive.”

“Which is fairly common,” Gil said.

“Right. About forty percent of the population has it,” she said. “Now, we don’t know Brianna’s blood type, but I still have both parents’ blood samples and DNA that we took during the first investigation, so I did some more tests. It turns out her mom is O positive and her dad is O negative—”

“Oh, about that,” Gil said, interrupting.

“What?”

“I forgot to call you, but the guy we thought was Brianna’s dad—”

“Tony Herrera.”

“Right. He says he’s not,” Gil said.

“God damn it, Gil,” she said, clearly pissed. “Do you know how screwed we are now? I have to have both her parents’ DNA to prove that the bones and the blood are hers. I can’t do anything about a positive identification until we know who her dad is.”

“Liz,” Gil said hesitantly, trying not to make her any angrier, “I’m sorry.”

“Whatever,” she said. “I’ll call you later.” She hung up. Liz was prickly but always got the job done.

Gil next called Ashley’s cell phone. He wanted to check in to see if she had been released from the hospital, but also to find out if she could come down to the station to see if she recognized David Geisler. Plus, it might give Gil a chance to ask the one question he had to have answered: Who was Brianna’s father?

Mrs. Rodriguez answered, and she sounded exhausted as she explained that Ashley had started full labor. Gil knew this was bad news given how Dr. Santiago had explained the situation to them yesterday. He hesitated in asking Mrs. Rodriguez the next question but told her that they needed someone from the family to come down to the station. Mrs. Rodriguez’s only answer was to say that they would talk it over. Gil wondered if the family’s help was coming to a close once again. They hung up, and Gil tried to figure out how they could get Ashley to make an ID. Short of just going to the hospital and showing her a photo—which had a high incidence of misidentification—he was at a loss.

Gil arrived at the station before the detention center van showed up. Before Joe, too.

Gil was researching the court cases about mentally ill suspects when Joe walked in holding a twenty-two-ounce Mountain Dew. “Hiya, brother. What’s up? How did you sleep? I think I actually had nightmares last night about those crime scenes.”

Gil had slept badly after the call with Lucy, but he wasn’t about to tell Joe that. He said instead, “The transport should be getting here soon with Rudy Rodriguez and David Geisler, so we need to get them set up in interview rooms.”

“Cool,” Joe said, taking a swig out of his Mountain Dew

“Oh, and one more thing,” Gil said, trying to sound nonchalant. “I found out that the security tapes from the Capital Tribune won’t do us any good. The cameras are broken.”

“Seriously?” Joe asked. “Then what was that guy’s whole crap fest about us needing a court order?”

“I don’t know,” Gil said, before changing the subject to his calls with Liz and Mrs. Rodriguez. He was just finishing updating Joe when three corrections officers came in with the prisoner transfers for the day, including Rudy Rodriguez, who was not handcuffed and looked disheveled but sober, and David Geisler, who was completely shackled and talking to himself in a low voice. Gil went over to them to sign the release paperwork while Joe got them both situated in interview rooms.

The two men met back up at Gil’s desk, where Gil said, “So the plan is for me to do an assessment of Geisler. More to judge his mental state. Then I’ll call the DA and see if we can legally interview him. After that, I’ll interview Rodriguez.” Gil sighed. He was going to have to get Rodriguez to confess to abusing Ashley in order to ask if he was Brianna’s father.

“Sounds like a plan, man,” Joe said.

Gil unclipped his paddle holster and locked it and his gun in his desk drawer, then grabbed a notebook and went into the interview room. Geisler sat in one of the two chairs in the room, rocking back and forth, constantly saying nonsensical words. He would occasionally laugh, always putting his hand up