“Never mind that,” Connor said.“Where were you?”
Selena angled her notebook, ready to write.
“Let me think.”Renee looked toward the ceiling as if searching a calendar written there.“I was with Sandra, actually.I stayed over to help her.Poor thing was in pieces.”
“At Sandra Holt’s house?”Selena asked.
“Yes.”
“All night?”
“From early evening until morning.”
“Sandra can verify that?”
“I’m sure she can.Though we slept through most of the night.Well, tried to.Sandra had taken something to help her rest.I sat up with her a good while before that.”
“What time did you arrive?”
“Six or so.Maybe a little before.”
“What time did you leave?”
“After breakfast.Around nine.”
Connor stood.
The motion made Renee’s hands tighten in her lap.
“And what about Gary, Renee?”
Selena looked up from the notebook.
Renee stared at Connor.“What about Gary?”
“When he died, we thought it was a little strange you didn’t call us sooner.”
“Connor,” Selena warned quietly, hoping he wouldn’t scare her off by being too direct.
He did not look at her.“He’d been in the water the best part of the day when we found him.”
Renee’s face drained.“Sheriff, please.Gary always stayed away when he went fishing.Sometimes all day.Sometimes longer if he drank too much and slept it off in his truck.”
“You didn’t worry?”
“Of course I worried.I always worried.That doesn’t mean I called the sheriff every time my husband behaved like my husband.”
Connor stepped closer to the mantel.Gary’s photograph watched above him.
“Didn’t you and Gary have a falling-out before he died?”
Renee’s mouth opened slightly.“Well… Marriages, you know.”
Connor looked at her.“Didn’t you think he had eyes on Mavis Turnberry at the bakery?”
The color that had left Renee’s face returned in hot patches.Her eyes filled, not slowly but all at once.
“I loved my husband.”
