A Widow's Guilty Secret. Marie Ferrarella

even though she knew that it was necessary and, most likely, routine.

      “My sister called me at around four o’clock yesterday to see how I was doing. Does that count?”

      He nodded, couching his words carefully. “If it checks out on your phone bill, it does.”

      “Not a very trusting soul, are you?” she tossed over her shoulder.

      From the ripe smell that was coming from Andy’s lower half, she knew that the first order of business was to change him. She took him over to the changing table. Both ends of the table were buffered with the latest, most absorbent diapers on the market. Never having so much as looked at a diaper until two months ago, she’d gotten very proficient at changing them in the past eight weeks.

      “It’s not a very trusting line of business,” Nick answered. “You should know that,” he added, “seeing as how your husband was the county sheriff.”

      Was. Not is. It was really hard to absorb that, she thought.

      “Like I said,” Suzy said out loud with emphasis, “I wasn’t privy to my husband’s professional life. Or his private one, it’s beginning to seem,” she added under her breath. She spared Nick another glance as she deftly went about the task of getting rid of the soiled diaper and putting a brand-new one on the baby. “And as far as alibis go—that’s what this is about, right?—this is my alibi,” she informed him, nodding at the baby on the changing table. “Andy kept me busy all day. He hardly slept at all. That didn’t leave me any time to—how was my husband killed?” she asked, suddenly realizing that she couldn’t remember if the detective had told her that or not. If he had, she’d blocked it out. But now she wanted to know.

      Had Peter been shot, stabbed, strangled or mowed down by some vehicle? The very thought of each method made her want to shiver.

      “You really don’t want to know,” Nick told her quietly.

      “Yes, I do,” she said emphatically. In a strange way, she felt she owed it to Peter to know all the details regarding his death. She could at least do that much for him.

      “All right—just remember, you asked to hear this. Your husband was strangled,” Nick told her crisply. “The medical examiner will give the official verdict, but from the looks of it, I’d say someone put a plastic bag over the sheriff’s head and held it tight against his face until he suffocated.”

      Now she did shiver, visualizing the scenario in her mind. Peter might not have been the husband she’d always dreamed of, but he didn’t deserve to die like that.

      He didn’t deserve to die at all, but to live a long life, being there for his son even if they weren’t going to be there for each other much longer. She hoped he hadn’t suffered.

      “How do you know it was a plastic bag?” she asked. “Maybe someone just strangled him with their bare hands—or hung him.” Each method she suggested just made it that much worse for her. But now that the detective was talking about it, she wanted all the details—and then she’d lock this subject away forever. She never wanted to revisit it for any reason.

      “Well, for one thing, there were no dark ligature marks around his neck. If he was hung or manually strangled, there would have been telltale marks left around his neck.”

      Nick paused a moment, thinking of the card that had been found on the sheriff’s person. Specifically, in his pocket. Similar cards, with something different written on each, were found on the other two men who had been dug up.

      He considered withholding this from her, then decided that it might be better out in the open. You never knew where something might lead.

      “He had a card on him.”

      “A card?” she repeated, puzzled. “You mean like a playing card or a business card?”

      “More like the kind that’s used to print business cards, except that there was nothing printed on it except for just one word, and that was handwritten.”

      She didn’t know why she instinctively braced herself, but she did. “What was the word?”

      “Liar.”

      Suzy blinked and stared at him. Had he just accused her of lying? About what? “Excuse me?” she cried.

      “That was the word written on the card—liar,” he explained. “Would you know anyone who would accuse your husband of being a liar?”

      She shook her head, painfully aware that she was no help in finding Peter’s killer. The detective was probably tired of hearing her negative answers. But she couldn’t exactly tell him what she didn’t know.

      “Can’t think of a single person. As far as I know, Peter was regarded as a pillar of the community, a real good guy. I don’t know of anyone who would accuse him of being a liar. Unless it was one of the women he was seeing,” she amended. Now that she said it out loud, his “good guy” status was on shaky ground.

      Suzy shrugged her shoulders again in a hapless gesture. “And, like I already told you, I don’t even have any proof that he was seeing other women. It wasn’t as if I’d found any love notes in his pockets, or any lipstick smeared on his collar. It was just a feeling I had,” she admitted, “because things were so strained between us lately.”

      “Maybe that wasn’t your fault,” Nick suggested. When she glanced in his direction, confusion written on her features, he added, “Maybe the sheriff was acting that way because of whatever got him killed.”

      She supposed it was possible. But then, why hadn’t Peter said something? Why had he shouldered this burden on his own?

      A ragged sigh broke free as she finished changing the baby.

      She looked at the detective, her eyes meeting his. Hers were guilt ridden. “He should have talked to me, told me what was going on.”

      “Maybe he just didn’t want to burden you—or get you involved,” Nick told her.

      But she was already involved. She was his wife and this was where the words for better or for worse came into play.

      Had she failed Peter?

      She couldn’t think about that now. If she let herself get mired in guilt, she wouldn’t be of any use to Andy and right now, he was her top priority.

      Replaying the detective’s words in her head, Suzy suddenly realized something. With a now fresher-smelling Andy in her arms, she turned to look at the man who’d forced her into all this introspection.

      “I take it that by saying that, you no longer find me to be a—how do they put it?” she asked, searching for the right terms. “A person of interest?” she recalled.

      He wouldn’t exactly say that, Nick thought. Not by a long shot. But since he didn’t mean the phrase the same way she meant it, he refrained from making a direct comment on her question.

      Even if he did find her person to be of interest.