“No one could have slipped in unnoticed?”
“Oh, I don’t think so.”
“Alarm system?”
“Yes. I guess. I don’t know really. Nathan took care of that. I’m not very good about mechanical things.”
I looked at Rita.
“Cops say the alarm was on,” Rita said.
“Anyone have a key?” I said. “Or knowledge of the alarm code?”
“Alarm code?”
“The code you punch in to override the alarm,” I said.
“I don’t know what that means.”
I nodded. “How about a key?” I said. “Who might have a key?”
“I have one.”
“Good. Anyone else?”
“Nathan.”
“Anyone else?”
“No. Nathan was very security-conscious. He didn’t even give a key to Esther.”
“Esther?”
Mary Smith nodded eagerly.
“Who’s Esther?” I said.
“Our cleaning woman. I love her. She’s so good.”
“What if she came to clean and no one was there?”
“I don’t know. I guess she’d have to come back.”
“So just you and Nathan had a key to the house.” I found myself speaking very slowly.
“Yes.”
“And only Nathan knew the alarm code.”
“I really just don’t know how those things work,” she said.
“So who shot him?” I said.
“I don’t know.”
She closed her eyes and sat perfectly still for a moment. “I don’t even like to think about it,” she said.
“I don’t blame you,” I said. “But we sort of have to think about it. Because the cops think you did it.”
“I don’t know how they can think that,” she said.
I knew the remark was rhetorical. I let it pass. “You and Nathan get along well?” I said.
“Oh, yes. We were happy as clams.”
“Cops say you tried to have him killed a while ago.”
“I never did,” she said. “I never did any such thing.”
“You have a big fight with him the evening he was killed?”
“No.”
“Cops have witnesses,” I said.
“I don’t care what they got, Nathan and I were happy as clams.”
“Nathan have enemies?”
“No. Not at all. Everybody liked Nathan.”
“Almost everybody,” I said. “Anyone else in your life?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Boyfriends?”
“No. Of course not. Absolutely not.”
“How long you been married?” I said.
“Seven years.”
“You going with anyone before you married him?”
“I dated, of course, I mean, look at me. Of course I dated.”
