Page 64 of Whistle

“Ron. Ron Hess.”

“I’m going to need a number and address for him.”

“Yeah, sure, I understand. You have to check my story.”

Harry smiled wryly. “I’m not suggesting anything, Mr. Comstock. But I need it for the report. What time did you leave this morning?”

“After nine. Nine thirty, I guess.”

“How long did it take you to get to Brattleboro?”

“About an hour. I stopped along the way and got a coffee. Nadine usually makes—Nadine usually made the coffee in the morning, and she hadn’t yet and I was ready to go, so I said I’d get some along the way.” He shrugged. “And a donut.”

“Where was this?”

“At Dunkin’s. You want to know which one?”

Harry nodded, and Wendell told him.

“So you got to your friend’s around half-past ten?”

“Right. And then we went to look at the house, and we had some lunch and a couple of beers at his place, and then I left a little after four.”

“Okay. And got home around five. Tell me about that.”

“The front door wasn’t locked. We don’t usually lock the doors except at night, or if we’re going out, like, shopping. When Nadine’s here through the day, even if I’m not home, she wouldn’t lock up. I mean, this is a good neighborhood. We’ve never had any kind of trouble.”

“Right.”

“So I parked the car and came in the front door and I called out for her, saying I was home, and she didn’t answer, so I thought maybe she was downstairs or in the backyard. I was coming through the kitchen when I noticed the power was out.”

“How’d you discover that?”

“Well, the little digital clocks on the stove and the microwave were blank, and then I flipped on a switch and the lights didn’t come on, so I figured we’d had a power failure. You know how, when that happens, you think, is it just my house or the whole street.”

Harry glanced up at the ceiling fixture in the bedroom. The light was on.

“Did the power come back on at some point?”

“Much later, after we found out... what caused it. So, even before I went looking for Nadine, I got a flashlight out of the drawer and went down to the basement where the breaker box is. Opened it up, saw that the whole house had been tripped. I flipped it back, but itkicked out again. Came up, looked to see if Nadine was out back. And then I came up here.”

“Okay.”

“I kept calling for her, still not getting an answer, and I came in here, and saw her clothes on the bed, and that was when I looked in there.” He nodded toward the bathroom.

Nadine was still there. Her dead body in a tub full of cold water.

“I got down, put my arm into the water, around her, asking her what happened, wake up—I don’t know what I said, exactly. But I could tell... I could see...”

Wendell choked on his words. He lowered his head, ran his hand over his mouth, tried to regain his composure.

“Take your time,” Harry said, laying a hand on the man’s back.

“I could see she was... she wasn’t breathing, and her body was as cold as the water. But I called 911 anyway. I mean, I knew she couldn’t be saved, but... The fire department and the paramedics came real fast, but they said that, you know, there would have to be an investigation and that they couldn’t take her out of the bathtub.”

“We’re going to try to do what we have to do as quickly as possible, Mr. Comstock. I have to ask, had you and your wife been having difficulties lately?”

He had to ask, although Harry did not believe, at this point, that Wendell Comstock had murdered his wife. The coroner, who had made an initial assessment and was waiting downstairs, believed the woman had probably been dead since early afternoon.

---