Bette’s eyes continued to roam the room. Everything in this room was in order. It was perfect; almost too perfect. A stark contrast to the rest of the house. Bette wondered aloud; how could she have kept this room in perfect order and the rest of the house in a mess. With two small children seems like it would be hard to do.

Gibbs and Henry had been right there was really nothing to see. Absolutely nothing was out of order. I’m not buying it, Bette said to no one in particular. Something just isn’t right. She perused the room slowly one last time and then headed toward her car to begin the drive to the station.

Bette was parked in front of the McBride house, under a large pine in this quiet blue collar neighborhood.

Once in her car, her thoughts returned to Eric McBride, husband, father, and possible dirtbag.

***

 Bette approached her desk and Eric was already seated there. He was rocking wildly and crying hysterically. He just kept repeating  ‘no, it can’t be; no it can’t be.’

This cannot be the man that I was talking to 30 minutes ago, Bette mumbled to herself. He was the picture of calm and not it’s hysteria; What is he doing?  Bette continued to move toward Eric. Once she reached her desk; she pulled some Kleenex from her drawer and passed it along to the grieving husband. Unconvinced by the show he was putting on, Bette said, ‘Eric, why don’t you tell me what happened.’

As Eric composes himself he begins to speak. I went to work this morning around 8ish. I finished a project that I was working on early , so I knocked off and headed home. When I arrived at the house; I noticed that the house was very quiet.

What time did you arrive home from work?

Around 12:30pm

Okay, go on

 Once I got home; I called out to Sherry but I didn’t get any answer. When there was no response to my second call, I went into the bedroom. Sherry and the kids were in the bed napping. So I sat in my chair in the living room and dozed off. Sometime later my son and daughter woke up and came into the living room. They said that their mommy was still sleeping. Sherry had said that she didn’t feel well the night before, so I figured she was catching up on her rest.