“Your message said you had something important to tell me,” I say, my pen poised to make a note of whatever it is that the victim’s father feels is so urgent to add to the investigation file.

“He’s wiping Sophie out of his life,” he says. “He’s unloading everything she held important in her life.”

I don’t understand. “I need to know more. Slow down.”

“I will not slow down,” he says. “If I slow down, then you and your lousy detective partner are going to botch the case like you did the Rinehart girl.”

“What do you mean ‘wiping her out of his life’?”

“Stuff,” he says, almost like ejecting a wad of spit from his mouth. “Anything that mattered to her, he’s removed it from the house. We were there when he was doing it. Gave back photos and other mementos. Really hurt Helen when he did that. Seriously. He couldn’t wait to get rid of her things. Just like he got rid of Sophie.”

“Maybe the reminders are too painful for him.”

Wrong thing to say.

“I have a reminder,” he says, his voice pulsating with bitterness. “Seeing my daughter through the window at the morgue.”

That was bad. A terrible situation. One that Sophie’s dad managed to make even worse by arranging to be there in the first place.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I know all of this is very painful.”

I can hear Frank take in a big breath. He’s locked and loaded. There is nothing I can say to this man.

“You want to know what’s painful?” he says, now yelling into the phone. “Painful is knowing that some son of a bitch piece of crap that sat at your Christmas table killed your little girl. That’s painful. I think what he did to Sophie will kill Helen. Then you’ll have another victim on your hands.”

“We have a witness, sir,” I remind him. “He was on the water with your granddaughter.”

Frank’s not having any of it. “Witness is an old codger,” he spits out. “I saw him on the news. Glasses as thick as Coke bottles.”

I let him rant. Axel Bakker had his problems, but his eyesight seemed fine. Glasses or not.

“Why aren’t you listening to me?” Frank asks.

Half my job is listening.

“I am,” I tell him. “I promise.”

“He’s a piece of crap. Thinks he’s God’s gift. Might have hired someone. Adam’s always bragging about his flunkies at the office and how he gets them to do all his work.”

“I’m on this,” I say, trying to close out a conversation I had no intention of having.

“You better be,” Frank finally says as he comes up for one more gulp of air. “You better fucking be.”