Page 77 of Blood Moon

“John, you can’t get arrested.”

“The hell of it is, I can. Let’s hope I’m able to avoid it.” He hitched his chin toward the house. “She’s waving us in.”

When they reached the front door, Carla greeted them by saying, “I didn’t get to bed until two o’clock this morning, and I have to be back at work by noon.”

John said, “I thought your shift was from four to twelve.”

“They changed it. As of today, it’s noon to eightP.M.” Then she turned her back to them and started down a dim hallway.

She had dressed in an ’80s era track suit, terry cloth scuffs on her feet. She hadn’t bothered to groom herself at all. The aroma of fresh coffee filled the house. She had a mug of it, but they weren’t offered any as she led them into a small living room and ungraciously pointed them toward a sofa. She sat down in a recliner but kept it upright.

John began. “I apologize for getting you up early.”

“Well, I’m up, you’re here, what do you want?”

“We wouldn’t have bothered you at all if we didn’t think it was important.”

“Have you found Crissy?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t know what you have to say that would be of any interest to me.”

To hell with this. He didn’t have time to spar with her. “There’s a possibility that Crissy’s abductor is going to strike again, tomorrow night, if he’s not identified and stopped in time.” He paused and blandly added, “If that’s of any interest to you.”

She divided a look between them, landing back on John. “Where’d you get that notion?”

“From Ms. Collins. I’ll let her explain.”

Beth scooted forward on the sofa cushion in order to shorten the distance between them and try to establish a rapport. “Ms. Mellin, do you know what a blood moon is?”

Carla looked at John as though asking him if she’d heard right, then went back to Beth. “It turns orangey. What about it?”

“There was a blood moon the night Crissy was taken.”

“There was? News to me.”

“There was cloud cover here, and the eclipse occurred in the wee hours.”

Beth spent the next several minutes explaining why the phenomenon might be significant. John interjected only a few comments. Carla said nothing but listened intently, especially when Beth began telling her about the other women who had vanished just as Crissy had.

Beth finished by saying, “Louisiana lies in the swath of the US where tomorrow night’s blood moon will be a total eclipse, and, weather permitting, the viewing should be ideal.”

Carla looked at John. “You’ve talked to your counterparts in those other cities?” He nodded. “What were their reactions to your prediction?”

“Skeptical.”

“Doesn’t surprise me. This moon business sounds real far-fetched.”

“When Beth first bounced it off me, I thought so, too,” he said, having decided that complete transparency would be the best tack to take. “Those detectives haven’t dismissed the eclipses out of hand, but they lean toward them being coincidental. Also, no one has isolated a common trait among the four victims, which is rule of thumb for serial criminals.

“An even bigger snag for those who’ve worked those cases is that Galveston has their culprit in prison, as he was when Crissy was taken. Ours is dead by suicide. That cancels them out as possible suspects in Jackson and Shreveport.”

“Billy wasn’t your culprit,” she said flatly. “I kept telling that buffoon Barker he wasn’t. That poor boy wasn’t cleverenough to pull off something like that, even if he’d wanted to, and he wouldn’t have wanted to. He and Crissy were friends, and friends for him were hard to come by. Gracie had homeschooled him, which was good in some ways, but it had made him socially awkward.”

“We were aware of all that,” John said. “I’m not defending Barker’s stubborn belief that Billy was guilty, believe me. I’m simply pointing out facts that we, as investigators, couldn’t discount.

“Billy’s grandmother took him out of school in the middle of second grade because of behavioral issues. In his public school records there were numerous reports of aggression against teachers and classmates, general unruliness. He may not have misbehaved around you and Crissy, but—”

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