The Dead Husband by Carter Wilson (best summer reads of all time .txt) 📗

with any case I’m working. Makes it easier to remember things. I’m a bit of a stickler for details and procedure.”

“You can call me Rose.”

“Thanks, Rose. And you can call me Colin, or Detective Pearson, whichever you prefer.”

“Well, then.” She leaned back and pulled a strand of hair off her face as he started asking questions.

He went light and easy, as was the plan, telling her he had a few routine follow-up questions in the matter of her husband’s death. He was only a few questions in when it became clear she wasn’t buying it.

“Routine things are usually handled through the phone,” Rose said. “But you came all the way from Milwaukee to New Hampshire. That means you had to get approval for a travel budget from your department, which I’m sure isn’t easy. And certainly not something approved for routine questions.”

Colin nodded rather than smiled; that would come off as patronizing. “I suppose that’s the mystery writer in you coming out. I imagine you’ve researched a lot of police procedure for your books.”

There was a brief widening of her eyes. She was surprised he knew she was a novelist, Colin guessed. “I have. Talked to a lot of cops, a few in your own department even. But not you.”

“Well, I normally don’t work cases like this. But I transferred from Madison not too long ago and I’m helping the department pick up some slack.”

Then followed a slight beat where Rose seemed at a loss for words, compensating by gesturing to the table between them.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I never offered you coffee. This is usually the time I have my last cup for the day. Can I get you some?”

“No, thank you, ma’am.”

“Rose.”

“No, thank you, Rose. But you go right ahead.”

The moment she left the room was when he felt the relief. Her relief. The relief of someone who didn’t want to be interviewed getting a brief reprieve. Rose didn’t want coffee, Colin thought. She wanted to get away.

In her absence, he leaned back in his chair and tried to massage the bias from his brain. There was a big difference between being attuned to suspicious behavior and trying to shoehorn some narrative into a predetermined judgment of guilt. Rose Yates was innocent until someone other than Colin said otherwise. It was just his job to ask some questions.

But…goddamn it. There was guilt in the air, he was sure of it. Maybe it wasn’t even her. Hell, the whole house felt guilty.

When she returned, cup in hand, Colin decided to be more direct with his questioning.

How would you characterize the relationship between you and your husband?

Were you having issues?

She replied with mild offense, but it had an air of desperation to it. Trying too hard, Colin thought. She said all couples had issues, and she and Riley were no exception. He poked and prodded into this as best he could, but she put up a wall he couldn’t penetrate.

Then he’d told Rose he’d read all her books.

“Well, that makes an even dozen of you now,” she said.

“I read them back-to-back,” Colin said. “Real quick, like two days each. And each one got better. More suspenseful, you know? You can really see how you were progressing as an author. Your main character, Jenna Black, she doesn’t get boring. You keep her fresh.”

Rose took a moment, then leaned forward toward him. Body-language experts would deem it a subtly aggressive move. “This is the part where you tell me the thing you really came here for.”

He matched her posture. “Well, now, Rose. I’m not trying to make things sound so sinister or anything. And you, having interviewed so many cops with all your research and all, I’m sure you can appreciate that something in your books made me a little curious.”

“The Broken Child.”

“Correct. Your third book. Or I guess I should say J. L. Sharp’s third book. You can understand why a scene where an abusive husband is poisoned by his wife might arouse some interest.”

“Riley wasn’t poisoned. It was an accidental overdose.”

Colin scratched the back of his hand though it didn’t itch. “Still, you can see where that scene piqued my curiosity a bit. Piqued. That’s the right word, isn’t it?”

“Detective, if I were guilty of all the crimes my characters have committed, I’d be on death row a hundred times over.”

He held eye contact and she didn’t back away, though she seemed to want to look anywhere but his face. “Oh, sure. I’m well aware of that, Rose. Like I said, I’m not trying to spook you. This is pretty routine stuff. But I wouldn’t be doing what the citizens of Wisconsin pay me to do if I’d not followed up with a couple of questions. Want to be thorough.”

He’d tried to slip back into a folksy charm but it was too late. The cloud that passed over Rose’s face assured him so.

“I’m going to say this once.” Rose reached over and grabbed the recorder. Colin thought she was going to turn it off, but she actually held it to her mouth as she spoke. “I’m assuming you’ve never lost a spouse, so you can’t understand what it’s like, expecting to see them in the morning getting ready for the day only to find them still in bed. Then to go over and touch them, only to feel that unnatural cold on their skin. To know they’d been taking sleeping pills and anxiety pills for years, all the while mixing them with alcohol, and they were always fine. What they needed to sleep at night. And you…you eventually stopped protesting. Because, after all, they always got up in the morning, right? And then, one day, they don’t. Gone.”

Colin watched every tick of her face, every shift of her eyes. If she was lying, she was good. But he had run into more than his fair share of good liars in his work.

“I’m not offended by your questions,” she continued. “I know you have a job to do. But I can