liberating. You’re totally free to be yourself.”
“Exactly what has he told you about himself?” Des asked.
Colin shrugged his bony shoulders, sniffling. “He’s a long-haul trucker. Owns his own rig. Spends a lot of time on the road alone.”
“And how did you two hook up?”
“We met in a gay men’s chat group. One thing led to another.”
“Which one of you initiated it?”
“We both wanted it to happen. Each of us felt something was missing from our lives…” Colin trailed off into troubled silence. “We haven’t communicated since Attila the Hen found out about us. I haven’t dared.”
“You used the word ‘ferocity’ to describe your relationship with the victim,” Soave said to him. “Had things changed between you two in recent days?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” Colin replied.
“Was she putting any pressure on you? Making any demands?”
Colin shook his head at Soave, bewildered. “Such as…?”
“Did you get her pregnant?” Soave wanted to know. “And don’t lie to me-the medical examiner will know the truth soon enough.”
“I wasn’t going to lie to you,” Colin said indignantly. “And I resent your supposition that I would.”
“As do I, Lieutenant,” Greta said to him coldly from the fireplace, where she was poking at the logs. “Colin is being candid and cooperative. You have no cause to speak to him that way.”
“You haven’t answered my question,” Soave persisted, undeterred.
“Mary Susan said nothing to me about any pregnancy,” Colin answered. “If she had, I would have been thrilled. Children are my life. I love children. I loved her, can’t you understand that?”
“Had you two discussed marriage?” Des asked him.
Colin glanced furtively at his wife. “It was something we’d talked about.”
“And…?”
“That was never going to happen,” Greta responded, with an edge of authority to her voice. “I will not be alone. Not now. Not after so many years.” She sat back down and took a sip of her wine, smacking her bright-red lips. “If you don’t mind my saying so, you officers are missing the big picture here when it comes to Colin.”
“Which is what?” Soave wondered.
“That there is a calculated, willful effort by this school board president to oust him from his job,” Greta replied. “It all comes down to this damned pissing match over Center School.”
“We can renovate it for one-third the cost of a new school,” Colin explained. “I have a good, sound plan.”
“But Babette and her little hand-picked followers on the board won’t hear of it,” Greta said, her voice rising. “They need their new school. Hell, they’ve practically turned it into a holy crusade. And when they couldn’t win Colin over to their side, Babette got down and dirty. This whole ugly business about Melanie suing the school district-that has Babette’s fingerprints all over it.”
“I believe she’s put Melanie up to it,” Colin said. “Because if Melanie truly did have a problem with my behavior, she would have told me. Okay, so it was inappropriate for me to use my office computer. An error in judgment on my part. I concede that. But do you actually throw a person away for that?”
“The real error you made,” Greta spoke angrily, “was giving Babette something she could use against you.”
“What do you think the school board will do about you?” Des asked Colin.
“I am under a doctor’s care,” he replied softly, wringing his pale hands in his lap. “When the doctor feels I’m ready, I’ll return to work. It is my hope that they’ll let me.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then we intend to sue them for violating Colin’s civil rights,” Greta said. “His doctor will certify that Colin is suffering from clinical depression, which happens to qualify as a disability, thereby entitling him to legal protection from just exactly this type of callous, discriminatory firing. Trust me, the board will not want to open up this can of worms-not unless they’re prepared to face a drawn-out court battle and a multimillion-dollar settlement. But if that’s how they choose to proceed, so be it. We will make them very, very sorry.”
Des looked at Colin and said, “Is that what you want?”
The superintendent let out a long, pained sigh. “I want my life back. I love those kids.”
“And they love you,” Greta said. “And they don’t need any new thirty-four-million-dollar school.”
Soave studied Greta in thoughtful silence for a moment, smoothing his see-through mustache. “Your husband claims he was alone in his room at the Frederick House after the victim left. Where were you at the time of the murder?”
Des glanced over at him, smiling faintly. His mind was working the same way as hers. She’d trained him well.
“I was here,” Greta answered. “Asleep in bed.”
“Alone?” Soave asked.
“Quite alone,” Greta said, nodding her silver head. “There’s not a big market out there for sixty-three-year-old bull dykes who look like they just rolled in from the Roller Derby circuit.”
“Please don’t talk about yourself that way,” Colin objected.
“Tell us a little more about Melanie Zide,” Soave went on. “What’s her situation? What’s she like?”
“You’ve seen her,” Des mentioned to him.
“I have?” Soave looked at her blankly. “When?”
“Tonight. She was the model at the art academy.”
Soave’s eyes widened in surprise. “Time-out here… Are you telling me that a woman who poses buck-naked in front of total strangers is suing the school district because this guy left some dirty words on his computer screen?”
“That’s exactly what we’re telling you,” Greta said.
“Yo, this is totally wiggy,” said Soave, scratching his head. “What the hell kind of a place is this anyway?”
“A quaint little village that positively oozes with historic New Englandy charm,” Greta responded dryly. “Me, I call it home.”
Melanie Zide lived on Griswold Avenue, a dimly lit deadend street of bungalows near Uncas Lake. Des had walked by it several times on her way up to her new place from the inn. Some of the little bungalows were well- tended and freshly painted, their lawns mowed and raked. Others showed signs of serious, long-term neglect- knee-high weeds out front, broken windowpanes, peeling paint. Melanie’s place was one of these.
Her lights were on inside the house, though no car was parked in her short gravel driveway. There was no garage. Des pulled her cruiser into the driveway and they got out, Soave waiting by the car. She climbed the two steps to the broad, sagging front porch, where an old sprung sofa sat on concrete blocks, and tapped on the door. There was no sound of footsteps inside. No response at all. Just a dog barking down the street somewhere.
Soave automatically went around to the back, just like when they’d worked together. He returned in a moment, shaking his head. “Don’t see anybody in there.”
Across the street, a man came out onto his own sagging porch to watch them. Des noticed him standing there under his porch light, arms folded before his chest. He was still standing there as she and Soave started back toward her ride.
“Be right back, Rico.” She moseyed on over there and tipped her hat at him. “Good evening, sir. I’m Resident Trooper Mitry.”
He was a big, suety man in his forties with thinning black hair, a slovenly beard and the sly, crafty eyes of a man who thought he was smart even if no one else did. He wore a blaze orange hunter’s vest over a frayed white T-shirt, jeans and work boots. What she noticed most about him was the message he had tattooed on his knuckles, one letter to a knuckle. On his right hand the tattoos spelled out J-E-S-U-S, on his left hand S-A-V-E-S. Behind him, through his open front door, she could see a living room cluttered with dirty dishes, pizza boxes and beer cans. On a card table in the middle of the room sat a personal computer, its screen illuminated. There was a stack of printouts next to it.
“We just wanted to ask your neighbor some questions,” Des explained. “Your name is…?”
