Page 65 of Whistle

“No. Things were fine.”

“Had your wife been depressed lately? Had she made previous attempts to take her own life?”

“She’d never tried anything before, at least not that I know of.”

“Do you know whether she was seeing someone?”

“You mean, like an affair?”

“No, sorry, I meant, was she seeing anyone like a psychiatrist, a therapist, to help her if she was feeling down?”

“No. I’d have known if she was doing that. But the truth is, we... we didn’t have what you’d call a real happy marriage, at least not until lately.”

“Lately?”

The man nodded. “We just discovered, after all this time, kind of by accident, that we had something in common. Things were looking... they were looking better. So I don’t understand why... oh God, I’m going to have to call her parents. Jesus. This’ll kill them.” He bit his lower lip.

“I know,” Harry said. “I’m so sorry.” He paused, then asked, “Did she ever ask about, you know, questions about electrical things? Short circuits? What would happen if you dropped a toaster in a tub filled with water?”

“It wasn’t a toaster.”

“I’m sorry?”

“It wasn’t a toaster.”

Harry hadn’t had a close look himself at what was in the bathtub with the dead woman. When he’d arrived, one of the firefighting staff had said the woman had died from knocking a toaster into the tub.

“Give me a second,” Harry said, and excused himself. He went into the bathroom and looked at the black object down by the dead woman’s foot. It definitely was not a toaster. It was slightly smaller than a toaster, and there were no slots in the top, but instead a little handle and a couple of buttons and lights.

He thought he knew what it was but wasn’t certain.

He returned to the bedroom and asked Wendell what that device was.

“A transformer.”

“What kind of transformer?”

“For running trains.”

“Where would your wife get one of those?”

“Follow me,” Wendell said.

He led the chief down to the first floor, then to a door off the kitchen, and finally down a flight of stairs to the basement.

He pointed to the train setup on the Ping-Pong table.

“It powered this,” he said. “She had to have unplugged it, disconnected the wires from the track, and taken it upstairs. I can’t... I can’t imagine what got into her head.” He looked at the trains and the buildings on the table. “I’m getting rid of all of this. I don’t ever want to see any of it again.”

As if struck by a sudden impulse, he crossed the room and grabbed a large cardboard detergent box that was in a far corner of the room. He brought it back to the table, picked up a caboose, and threw it forcefully into the box.

“Goddamn fucking things!” he said. Before he could grab another car, Harry reached for his arm.

“Mr. Comstock, please leave everything as it is for now, okay?”

The man stared vacantly at Harry, almost as though he couldn’t see him standing there.

“Mr. Comstock?”

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