“I’m not sure I can make promises. I’m going to do whatever it takes to find Olivia.” Sharp was prepared to work around, over, or through any obstacles. “If you don’t want me along on the interview, I can always catch up with Alexander when you’re done with him.”

He was being a dick, but he couldn’t help it.

Stella gave him a look. “Or you could play nice. I have enormous respect for you as a detective. You helped train me when I was a rookie. With Brody on vacation, I could use a second set of ears and eyes. Your experience is invaluable.”

“What do you want me to do?” Sharp grumbled.

“Not break any more laws,” Stella said. “At least not when you’re with me.”

“All right.” If necessary, Sharp could ditch her and circumvent the law afterward. “Let’s go.”

“Morgan and I are headed for the DA’s office,” Lance said. “Let us know what happens in the interview.”

Sharp grabbed his jacket and led the way into the hall.

Stella zipped her jacket and followed him. “Unlike the Olanders, Ronald has a colorful history. He worked for Olander Dairy for ten years. But before that, he served a year in jail for criminal possession of a firearm and did a six-month stint for assault. He beat up a neighbor who let his dog poop on his lawn.”

They walked to her unmarked police car. Sharp went around to the passenger side.

Stella drove away from the office. “In an interesting twist, his assault victim refused to sign a complaint. Alexander was convicted on the eyewitness testimony of another neighbor.”

“The victim was afraid of him.” Sharp had seen it before.

Unlike on TV, no citizen can press charges against another. Only the DA can charge someone with a crime. It wasn’t unusual for a victim to refuse to sign a complaint or to withdraw their complaint for fear of retribution. The DA does not need the cooperation of the victim. Although getting a conviction can be more difficult without a victim’s support, the DA can charge a suspect as long as there is sufficient evidence.

“Does he have a wife?” Sharp stared out the passenger window as the houses rolled by. They passed Olivia’s street, and the air left his lungs, the hollowness aching.

Is she still alive?

“Yes. He’s been married to the same woman for twenty years.” Stella looked both ways at a stop sign, then turned onto the main road that bisected the small business district. “Once he started working for Olander Dairy, he stopped getting into trouble.”

But Alexander was definitely capable of violence.

Chapter Nineteen

In the conference room of the DA’s office, Morgan opened her file. “Thank you for agreeing to meet with us. We won’t keep you long. You’re already working overtime. Big case?”

“No.” Across the table, ADA Anthony Esposito tugged at his french cuffs, then leaned on his forearms. Dark and precisely groomed, Esposito was slick from his whitened teeth to his black Ferragamo shoes. Even on a weekend, he was dressed in a custom-tailored gray suit. “I work every Saturday. It’s the only time the office is quiet.”

Morgan had almost worked for the Randolph County Prosecutor’s Office the previous year. After she’d agreed to defend her neighbor’s son, who’d been accused of a horrible murder, her offer of employment had been withdrawn. Eventually, Anthony Esposito had been hired to fill the vacancy.

She did not regret her decision one bit. Morgan was able to keep her caseload to a more manageable size. She only worked weekends when she accepted a high-profile case, which wasn’t often. Most weekdays she was home by five thirty, and she did her best to reserve Saturdays and Sundays for family time.

When she accepted a high-stakes case, like Olivia’s disappearance, she could work overtime without guilt.

As if that were possible for any working mom.

But at least she could keep her guilt to a minimum by working reasonable hours most of the time.

“I assume you’ve heard that Olivia Cruz is missing.” Morgan clicked her pen open and held it poised over her notepad.

“Yes,” Esposito said. “I’m sorry to hear about Ms. Cruz, but I’m not sure how I can help.”

“We’re not sure either,” Lance commented from the seat next to Morgan. “But one angle we’ve been working is her current book research. Olivia was digging into the Erik Olander case.”

“Why would that case interest her?” Esposito leaned back and crossed his arms. He kept his eyes on Morgan and ignored Lance. “It was a relatively easy case to prosecute. Erik tried to stage the scene to look like an intruder had killed his wife. But forensic evidence was able to cut through that little piece of bullshit like a chain saw through butter.”

“How?” Morgan was still waiting for the full transcript of Erik’s trial.

Esposito shifted forward and rested his elbows on the table. “His wife was beaten and strangled. Despite all his efforts to make it appear as if someone had broken into the house, the latent fingerprint examiner was able to lift two of Erik’s thumbprints from his wife’s throat.”

“Nice break,” Lance said. “It isn’t easy to lift prints from human skin.”

“The tech used black magnetic powder and lifted them with white silicone, and we got lucky. They were beautiful.” Esposito’s eyes gleamed. “And, if that wasn’t enough, the lab was able to extract touch DNA from the prints.”

Touch DNA was exactly what it sounded like, the skin cells left behind when a person touched an object.

“With Erik’s thumbprint taken from his wife’s neck, the DNA presence was overkill, but juries love forensics.” Esposito understood his job wasn’t to prove the defendant guilty. It was to convince a jury the defendant was guilty.

“Did he explain his DNA on his wife’s neck?” Morgan would have argued a husband’s DNA would naturally be on his wife’s body.

“He said he touched her neck after she was dead to see if she had a pulse, but the positioning of the prints was perfect for strangulation, not medical assistance.” Esposito opened his fingers and mimicked wrapping them around a person’s neck. He wiggled his thumbs. “The thumbs were on each side of her neck, as if he had been straddling her.”

“Hard to check someone’s pulse that way,” Lance said.

“There was bruising as well, so it wasn’t the gentle, loving touch he claimed.” Esposito flicked a brief, irritated glance at Lance. “Also, Natalie’s friends testified she was terrified of her husband and that he tried to keep her isolated. They’d seen bruises on her body in the past. We also got a big break with Natalie’s use of the library internet to research domestic violence shelters.”

“You never had any doubts Erik killed his wife?” Morgan asked.

Esposito shook his head. “Never.”

Lance leaned forward. “Did you have any suspicions that someone helped Erik?”

“Are you thinking the father?” Esposito asked.

Lance nodded. “That’s exactly what we were thinking.”

“It’s possible.” Esposito shrugged. “But there was no evidence of it. The old man doesn’t even have a speeding ticket on his record, let alone anything criminal. He was so clean, he squeaked. But there was one thing that bugged me during the trial preparation.”