sense. Sorry. I’ll see you later.” She hung up before he could ask her more.

Lucy stood in her bedroom, with water dripping down her skin and onto the floor. She was too lost in thought to notice. They had arrested someone with schizophrenia in the skull case. It made no sense to her. The crime and the aftermath simply didn’t match the medical manifestation of the disorder.

Lucy popped open her cell phone again and dialed.

Gil was about to go back into the interview room with Rodriguez when the front desk told him that Alex Stevens had arrived. Stevens came in looking tired with wrinkled clothes. Gil shook his hand and said, “I guess congratulations are in order.”

“Not quite yet. Ashley’s still got to get it out,” Stevens said with a yawn.

“How’s she doing?”

“Tired. She didn’t sleep at all last night and the contractions . . . she’s not handling it all too great.” Joe came over to join them. “So,” Stevens continued, “I hear you need some help with an identification.”

Joe nodded. “We just want to know if you recognize the guy from anywhere.”

“Who is he?” Stevens asked.

“We can’t really get into that,” Gil said quickly before Joe could answer. “We just want to know if you’ve ever seen him.”

They went into the viewing room, which had a two-way mirror that looked into the interview room where Geisler was being held. Geisler was now sitting cross-legged in the corner, talking to himself. Stevens furrowed his brow before saying, “I think I know that guy.”

“Really?” Joe said, surprised. “How?”

“I don’t know. I think I’ve seen him on the street by the house,” Stevens said. “Does he live in the neighborhood?”

Joe started to say, “Yeah, he—” but Gil interrupted with “Do you remember anything else?”

“I’m not sure,” Stevens said, “but there was this one guy who would stop and talk with Brianna pretty often and sometimes play with her. I think that’s the guy.”

“What?” Joe said, clearly surprised. “What are you talking about? Dude, how many times did we ask you about strangers who talked to her? It’s been a year and this is the first I’ve heard of it?” Joe shot Gil a worried look, like he expected to get reprimanded. Like it was his fault this had never come out before. Gil wasn’t sure if it was or not.

“I told the police about it,” Stevens said. “The other detective. The first one I met.”

“Fisher?” Joe asked with a hint of disbelief.

“Yeah,” Stevens said. “He said he’d check into it, but I never heard anything else about it.”

“Hang on,” Gil said, mostly to calm Joe. “This man you saw playing with Brianna. Is this him?” he asked, pointing at Geisler.

“I think so,” Stevens said. “I can’t be a hundred percent sure, but it sure looks like him.”

“How long did he play with her?” Gil asked.

“I don’t know,” Stevens said. “I saw him one day with Brianna in the front yard when I pulled up in my truck.”

“They were playing?” Gil asked.

“Yeah, it looked like they were playing with some dolls.”

Joe turned to look at Gil. Gil guessed what he was thinking about. The doll-head necklace found on the first statue of Mary.

“Did you speak to him?” Gil asked.

“No, he got up and ran away,” Stevens said. “I yelled after him, but then Ashley came out and said it was okay, that he was just a neighbor who sometimes stopped to say hi.”

“Did Ashley say anything else?”

“Only that the guy seemed a little off.”

“When was the last time you saw him?” Gil asked.

“About a month before Brianna disappeared.”

“Alex, I have to admit that it concerns me that we’re just hearing about this now,” Gil said.

“Don’t blame me,” Stevens said, starting to get defensive. “I told that other detective. You’re the ones who dropped the ball, not us.”

Joe, looking furious, did the only right thing he could have done in the situation—he walked out of the room. Gil thanked Stevens and said they would stop by the hospital later to talk with Ashley and get a formal statement from him, after the baby was born. Gil knew Stevens would want to hurry back to the hospital and he hoped the gesture of goodwill would smooth over Joe’s attitude issues.

Gil was about to go find Joe and try to calm him down when his cell phone rang. He answered, but before he could say anything, he heard Lucy’s distinctive voice.

“You arrested someone in the skull case?”

“Lucy, I can’t—”

“Gil, look, I’m not asking you as