Page 30 of Dear Wife

“Was anyone there with you?” I ask.

“I live alone.”

“Okay. Is there anyone who can verify your whereabouts? A neighbor, maybe, or a client who called on the house line.”

“No,” she says, then brightens. “But I was online all day. I can prove I was there with the IPs from websites I visited, and the emails in my Sent folder.”

“You know how to do that?” Jeffrey sounds dubious, like he doesn’t think she’s that capable.

“Yes,” she says, slow and satisfied. “I have a degree in computer science.”

Mentally, I shuffle the sister to the bottom of my list. Ingrid is a spinster, the kind of woman who lives alone, works alone, stays alone, but so far, everything I’ve seen and heard from her seems sincere. As suspects go, she’s not a strong one.

Jeffrey, on the other hand. He checks all the boxes. Every single one.

He clears his throat, folds his hands atop his lap. “Well, let’s see. I landed at just after noon or so—”

I nod. “At 12:05 p.m.”

Surprise flashes across his face, though it shouldn’t. I already told him I looked up his flight number, which means I’ll also know when he landed. I’m not a small-town cop, and I’ve done my homework.

“Your plane arrived at the gate at 12:11,” I say without consulting my notes. “By 12:24, everyone but the crew had deplaned.”

“Okay,” he says, thinking. “But I was all the way in the back, so one of the last people off the plane, and then it took forever to get my bag. The Little Rock Airport is notoriously slow. After that I grabbed some lunch.”

“At the airport?”

“No. At a little Italian place near the airport. I don’t remember the name.”

Ingrid makes a sound:convenient.

“What time was this?” I ask.

“I don’t know. After one, for sure. Maybe closer to one thirty.”

“Did you use a card?”

“I paid cash.”

Ingrid gives up all pretense. She blows out a sigh, long and loud, and sits up straight in her chair. She’s ready for me to arrest him, to slap some cuffs on him and cart him downstairs.

“What time did you get back to Pine Bluff?”

He shrugs. “I think it was around four or so.”

“Your neighbor, a Mrs. Ashby, confirms it to be around four ten. She remembers because she was watching a rerun ofEllen, who’d just finished her dance. Mrs. Ashby was in the kitchen during the commercial break, making herself a snack.”

He makes a noise deep in his throat. “More likely pouring herself a drink. Rita Ashby is a nosy old hag whose face is pressed to the kitchen window more often than not. She’s also a drunk. In all those years we’ve lived there, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her sober.” He’s trying to distract me, buy some time. He knows the question coming next.

“Why so late?” When he doesn’t immediately answer, I add, “I mean, by my math, even accounting for the baggage delay and the lunch stop and afternoon traffic, which we all know can be a real bitch, you should have been home by 2:30 p.m. at the latest. How come you were so late? What were you doing for that hour and a half?”

His shrug is trying too hard, as is his tone, too high and much too smooth. “It was a nice day, and I’d spent all week cooped up inside at a conference. Don’t tell my boss, but I really didn’t want to go back to the office. I stopped off at a park along the river to read.”

“Which park?”

“Tar Camp.”

A forested recreation area popular with families and fishermen, about halfway between Little Rock and Pine Bluff. Emma and I used to go camping there, back when we were newlyweds.

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