“Have you caught him?” Mullins asked. The wide-eyed look he gave them almost made Laura want to laugh.
“Yes,” Nate said, leaning forward across the table and looking at him meaningfully.
“What?” Mullins said, looking between him and Laura as if for some kind of clarification. “You don’t… you don’t mean me?”
There was silence as both Laura and Nate stared at him, leaving him to come to the right conclusion himself.
People said a lot when you left them a silence to fill.
“I had nothing to do with it,” he said, eyes even wider than before. “I would never hurt Alana! I…I like her! She was always nice to me at work. We were both interested in the same stuff. I wouldn’t hurt her.”
“You seem to like her a lot,” Laura said casually, leaning on the desk. “Does she like you back?”
Mullins blinked. “I mean—not like that,” he said. “She’s older than me. Too much older.”
“Is that what she said when she knocked you back?” Nate asked.
Mullins looked at him so fast it was like he had whiplash. “What?”
“Did you feel angry that she wasn’t interested in you? Was that why you made her your latest victim?”
Laura knew what Nate was doing. It was simple but effective. If he was right, Mullins would feel himself backed into a corner and perhaps admit it. And if he was wrong, there was a good chance that Mullins would speak up to try to correct him—to show that he wasn’t a sexually-motivated killer, but that he’d done it because…
Because what?
“I didn’t attack her!” he said. “This is crazy. Why would you think I did this?”
“Let’s go into that, shall we?” Laura asked, seeing an opportunity herself. “Why did you refuse to come with us when you arrested you?”
Mullins shifted and looked away.
“Hello?” Nate said. “Did you hear her question?”
“I didn’t want to because of this,” Mullins snapped, his voice considerably more upset than before.
“This?” Laura repeated, needing him to elaborate.
“This,” Mullins said, waving his hands angrily in their general direction. “Being falsely accused. I’m afraid of…of police.” He had a look of shame by his last words, the very last one said in a low voice as if admitting it was going to give them more power.
“Why?” Laura asked simply. Had it happened before? Had he reason to believe it would happen to him because of something specific?
“I don’t know.” He rubbed his hands over his head, down over his eyes. “Ever since my breakdown, every little thing seems to trigger me. I can’t go near the water anymore. Can’t even look at it. I can’t handle it. Every time I do, I just picture myself drowning.”
“Have you ever had a near-drowning experience, or known someone who drowned?” Laura asked.
“No,” Mullins said. “That’s just it. None of it makes any sense. I had this breakdown, and everything seemed—everything was dark. Horrible. Everything was a threat. And I haven’t been able to shake all of it.”
“What triggered your breakdown?” Nate asked. Laura wouldn’t exactly say he sounded like he didn’t believe Mullins, but his tone was not as kind as hers had been.
“The death of my parents,” Mullins said. He rubbed a hand over his face again and sighed. “They were old, I guess, and I didn’t think they were going to live forever. But I always thought they’d be around at least to see me walk down the aisle with someone or have my first child. It was a car crash. Both of them gone just like that, on the way to their vacation.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Nate’s voice softened now, seemingly unable to stay as hard as he had been.
“It was all the pressure of it,” Mullins said, shrugging helplessly. He was talking freely right now, like they were his therapists listening to all of his problems. “Not just the funerals to organize, but trying to get refunds on the vacation, figuring out life insurance and wills, everything doubled. It all fell to me. No help. When I was done with all of it, I thought it was over, but that was when the grief finally hit. It was too much. Your brain can only take so much trauma and stress before it gives up completely.”
“Can you tell us where you were last night?” Laura asked.
“I was working late,” Mullins said. “I’ve been putting in as many shifts at the site as I can. I stayed late with the evening crew, got a bit of overtime. We ended up finishing past midnight.”