"You know he's dead, too.”
"I heard. Too bad for him.”
"Convenient for you.”
"Keeps him from banging my wife.”
"Well, your wife’s not going to be sleeping with anyone ever again.”
He frowned.
"Have you seen your wife today?"
Muscles in his jaw flexed, and he swallowed. "No."
"Are you sure about that?”
He hesitated, then nodded. "Yeah. I’m sure."
Bobby hadn't asked me how she died. I suspected he already knew.
"How did you feel when you found out she was having an affair with Andrew?"
"I felt like someone had stabbed a knife into my belly.”
I lifted a curious eyebrow and shared a glance with JD. Interesting choice of words. I said to Bobby, "I bet you were devastated.”
"That's an understatement. She was everything to me. I never could have imagined she was capable of such betrayal."
"Made you mad, didn't it?”
Bobby’s eyes narrowed at me. "No, it made me overjoyed," he snarked. "How do you think it made me feel? Have you ever been cheated on, deputy?”
"I bet you wanted to kill both of them.”
"The thought had crossed my mind. But it was just a thought," he assured.
"You mind if we take a look around your boat?"
"You do not have permission to search.”
I smiled. "Good thing we don't need permission to do a routine compliance inspection. You have everything in order?”
His face tensed again. “It’s not my boat.”
"It seems to me you're currently in control of the vessel," I said.
We carried out our inspection, and it didn't take long to find a fire extinguisher past its expiration date. But that wasn't the most interesting thing we stumbled across.
The sneakers on the deck in the forward V berth had what appeared to be speckles of blood on them.
I pulled a pair of latex gloves from my pocket, slipped them on, then picked up the shoes and looked at the tread. I showed themto Jack with a knowing glance. Crusted blood lined the grooves in the tread. The pattern matched the shoe prints at Tess’s residence.
Bobby went pale when we found the shoes. "I can explain that."
"Oh, I'm all ears," I replied.
"Tess called. She wanted to talk. I went over to the house, and when I found her, she was dead. I freaked out. I didn't know what to do. I stepped beside her and felt for a pulse. Her skin was cold. I left and came back here."
