Mr. Ballin

Verrier had spoken to Marc on the phone, and Marc had talked about Patrick like he was a saint, a guy who would drop everything to help out somebody in a jam, who never got into fights and had really no enemies.

But Verrier didn't necessarily believe this, because in his experience, people who inexplicably vanished

oftentimes were kidnapped or murdered.

Now, he had no reason to actually suspect that around Patrick.

You know, he could have just as easily gotten into an accident, you know, fallen off a cliff, or maybe he chose to vanish.

But at this point, what Verrier really needed to do was, on his own, dig into who Patrick was and figure out if there was a reason why he wasn't here right now.

A few minutes later, Verriere followed Patrique's ex-wife, whose name was Claude Aziz, into her living room, and they both sat down.

Verriere switched on his recording device, and he asked Claude where she was on the day Patrique went missing.

Claude said it was just an ordinary Monday for her, and that after work, she had picked up their daughter, Alabama, from school and driven her to her dance recital.

She had expected to meet Patrique there at the recital, and it really surprised her when he didn't show up, because even though Patrique had plenty of flaws,

He was a good dad.

And at that, Merriere sort of leaned forward because Patryk's flaws were actually what he wanted to know about.

Now, he didn't think Claude was guilty of anything here since she had a pretty strong alibi and didn't really stand to benefit from Patryk's disappearance.

But he hoped she could maybe tell him about any old habits or current habits that could have gotten Patryk into trouble.

And so when he asked her about this, Claude hesitated before saying she really didn't want to badmouth Patrique, but he drank and gambled a lot more than he should.

At this point, Verriere pressed her for more details, but Claude just insisted that Patrique had really always kept that part of his life away from her.

But after she thought about it for a moment, she said there was someone who might be able to tell Verriere more.

And then she called their 12-year-old daughter, Alabama, into the room.

Alabama appeared very visibly nervous and shaken up by everything going on with her dad.

But her mother, Claude, took her hand and encouraged her to share her story.