“And that will form part of your defense at trial,” I said. “It’s a big weakness in the prosecution’s case I plan to exploit.”
“Will it work?” Hope filled Katy’s eyes.
“It’s hard to say. But it’s a valid argument.”
Katy looked back down at the emails. “Sugar Bear? She actually has the word Sugar Bear in her email? Do you know who she really is?”
“Eric’s trying to find out. I talked to the WDTN station manager at length. He says a lot of these people are well known to all the on-air talent. Sugar Bear in particular seemed smitten with Bill Bryant, the meteorologist before she glommed on to Tom. Bill had some insights that might help identify Sugar Bear’s real name. She apparently showed up to a couple of events Bill attended years ago. Photographs were taken and posted. Eric’s working off of those.”
“But how would she have gotten into my house?” A tremor went through Katy. “My God. If she was in my house. If she killed Tom right next to me like that. Why wouldn’t she have come after me? I mean, if she was infatuated with him, shouldn’t I have been the target?”
“We can’t know the answers to those questions,” I said. “First, we have to find her. Then we have to figure out if she had an alibi. Those are a lot of ifs. I just wanted to see if Tom talked about any of this with you.”
“I wish he had,” she said. “I’m not naïve. Look, I’ll even admit that I first had a crush on Tom from seeing him on television.”
“I don’t want to get your hopes up,” I said. “This could all lead to nothing. But it won’t be enough to rely on the fact nobody actually saw you kill Tom. We have to give them an alternate suspect.”
She buried her face in her hands. “Everyone loved Tom.”
“Katy,” I said. “Are you sure about that? A lot of people showed up to his memorial service at the funeral home. The public one. But there were barely any people at the more private graveside service. No family at all. If he had a large work family, they were no-shows. Who was he really close with besides you?”
I was beginning to wonder if he had ever really been close to Katy at all, either. She shrugged helplessly.
“Sure, he had the reputation of being a bit of a cad,” she said. “That was all an act though. A persona he wore for the cameras. Tom knew exactly how handsome he was. He knew the effect he had on women. And a lot of men too. He definitely knew the effect he had on me. I just don’t know, Cass. We never talked about any of this stuff. It seemed like he always had people to go places with. I didn’t get the sense that he wasn’t well liked by people at work. I don’t know. He didn’t bring work home.”
None of this was helping. And it underscored a complaint Joe often had of Katy during their marriage. She was content with a more traditional, wifely role. She expected Joe to simply takecare of everything. She didn’t want to worry about finances. She didn’t want to hear about whatever struggles Joe had if he was between jobs. It made me wonder if it was Tom’s idea not to talk about work, or something Katy expected.
She could be shallow. But she’d always been wonderful to Emma. Despite her failings over the last couple of years, she’d been a good mother to her. For that, I’d forever be grateful.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I wish I knew more.”
“Katy, I need to be blunt. I don’t know if the jury is going to believe that things were harmonious in your marriage if I put you on the stand. And I haven’t decided whether I should. I’m leaning heavily against it.”
“But you have to let me tell my side,” she said. “How else can I clear my name?”
“What about the argument your neighbors said they overheard the night before? You still haven’t given me a solid answer what that was about.”
“It was nothing. Just normal marriage stuff. I got angry because he left his dishes in the sink. It was something stupid like that. He got angry because he felt like I was harping on him and he had a long day ahead. We both had tempers that ran hot. We would argue. Blow off steam. But then that would be the end of it. I swear. Nobody believes me. But things were good between us. Better than they’d been since before we got married. Cass, we were talking about trying to have a baby.”
I looked at her. “You never told me that.”
“I never told anyone. It was all so new. I didn’t want people asking me about it.”
“Does anyone else know that? Do you have any proof of that?”
“Would it help?”
I closed my file and slipped it back into my bag. My phone vibrated. It was an incoming call from Eric.
“It could,” I said. “It could counteract the fact that Tom went to a divorce lawyer.”
“But he never filed,” she said. “You said that matters. I swear I never knew he did that. He never told me. Which makes me think it was just something he did because he was mad at me about Joe. Which is justified. I’ve never denied that. But I am telling you, we were working things out.”
“Tell me more about the plans for a baby,” I said.
She bit her lip. “We were just starting to talk about it. But I made an appointment with a fertility specialist my doctor recommended. She had a waiting list so I wasn’t going to be able to be seen until this fall. Good lord, my appointment is probably still in Dr. Fenton’s books.”
Katy broke into near hysterical laughter.
