To Love and to Kill by M. William Phelps

no notion that maybe Josh had done something to Heather, other than what he had said.
    Josh would repeat himself: “She’s closer than you think.”
    Buie and Emilia had a heated exchange over when Emilia knew what she knew and why she didn’t divulge any of it to the MCSO when she first sat down with Buie. Detective Buie was definitely annoyed that she had kept these things from him. And because of that, Buie believed Emilia was hiding even more.
    Emilia said she was “intimidated” by Buie (Josh aside), a cop who had put some pressure on her, maybe a little too much. And according to Emilia, it wasn’t until she sat down with the MCSO that she began to believe that Josh might have really done something to Heather. Emilia was always under the impression that Heather, scared of Josh, had run off to Mississippi or somewhere else. And Josh had used her not being around as a means to intimidate and threaten Emilia. Josh had even shown Emilia a letter allegedly signed by Heather in which Heather, Emilia said, had supposedly given him complete custody of the kids. Josh had brought the letter to the kids’ school. So as far as Emilia saw things up until this day she had sat down with Buie, Heather had abandoned her children and had taken off.
    Buie wanted to know one thing from Emilia: “If you saw her in that trailer?” Had Emilia ever ventured out into the trailer herself to check things out?
    â€œI haven’t seen her,” Emilia said, a touch of how-dare-you in her voice. Emilia was getting tired of being bullied by this cop. All she did, she told Buie, was lie by omission. Big deal. She didn’t tell the MCSO everything she knew. Was it any reason to be badgered like this?
    â€œI’m terrified,” Emilia told Buie.
    â€œ You’re scared?” Buie asked.
    â€œI’m scared of that man. I thought he was full of crap.”
    Buie took a breath. “He said you gave him the cards!” Buie shared with Emilia.
    She was struck by this. Heather’s debit cards? That’s what Josh was now claiming?
    It felt like Buie was fishing. He wanted Emilia to know that he was not going to let up. The suggestion to Emilia, again, was that she was trying to hide things to protect the father of the child in her belly. But by now, it seemed Emilia was done with Josh. He’d shown her who he was and what he was capable of; she wanted no part of it.
    â€œHe said you gave him the cards ... ,” Buie repeated.
    â€œWhy would she (Heather) come to my mom’s house?” Emilia asked, posing a hypothetical question. “Let me ask you that—these are the things that don’t add up. Why would she come there?”
    â€œI didn’t say she came there alive,” Buie countered.

CHAPTER 21
    AS EMILIA WAITED for Buie to return to the interrogation room, the busy detective sat down with Josh Fulgham in the hard room next door. It was 6:20 A.M.
    â€œJosh, you hungry?” Buie asked.
    The investigator had a different tone and approach with Josh. Not quite a buddy-buddy vibe, but there was a mildly friendly touch of “come clean and everything is going to be okay” in Buie’s voice. He wanted Josh to realize that he could trust the MCSO. They were there to help him as much as they could, regardless of his level of involvement. As Buie saw Josh, “He was a big talker—all over the page. He liked to hear himself talk. As much as he liked to talk, at that time he was trying to convince us that he had nothing to do with any of this, that he is totally innocent.”
    As Buie listened, he studied Josh’s body language closely—which, to Buie, told a story in and of itself. The way Josh moved, the facial expressions he used, Buie felt Josh knew what had happened to Heather. Josh couldn’t hide it in the way he shifted in his chair, dropped his shoulders at times, the way he’d flare his nostrils while trying to stay calm.