Brian Freeman - Goodbye to the Dead (Jonathan Stride Book 7)

Seymour Pugh was a white Rav owner with a criminal record, and unless he was driving a truck between here and Milwaukee that night, he had no alibi. Even so, he had no history of resorting to violence or using a gun in any of his crimes. He didn’t trust a cop showing up at his door, but she couldn’t blame him for that.

More than anything else, Maggie realized she liked him.

‘Nathan Skinner?’ Stride asked.

He saw a flush in Janine’s face as she nodded. She’d said she was embarrassed, but he also thought there was sexual arousal in her expression. Cindy had told him on more than one occasion that a man who could melt through the ice cap of Janine Snow would find a volcano underneath.

He didn’t say anything immediately. Instead, he assessed her credibility. And Archie Gale’s. Nothing came free with Gale. Nothing was given up to the police or the prosecutors without an upside for him. If Janine was freely willing to confess to an affair, there had to be a strategy behind it. Either Gale wanted credit for providing information that the police would have discovered anyway — or he wanted to cloud the facts by handing them a shiny new suspect in Jay’s murder.

Nathan Skinner.

‘You were sleeping with a man who lost his job because of your husband?’ Stride said.

‘Yes.’

‘Well, tell me how this affair came about.’

Janine regained some of her composure and arrogance. Her blue eyes met his. She moistened her lips and brushed the loose hair from her face. ‘Nathan was working overnight security at St. Anne’s last May. I often work late, and we got to know each other.’

‘You knew who he was?’

‘Yes, of course I did.’

‘And yet you engaged with him anyway,’ Stride said.

‘He approached me, not the other way around. This isn’t hard to figure out, Lieutenant. Nathan’s motives were transparent. He sought a friendship with me, because — how should I phrase this? — he was interested in screwing me as a way to get back at Jay for screwing him.’

‘I understand his motives. It’s yours I’m struggling with.’

‘Is it a blindness of handsome men that they don’t recognize it in others? You’re very attractive yourself, Lieutenant, which you obviously know. I’ve said as much to Cindy. Nathan Skinner is an extremely attractive man, too. So yes, I allowed him to seduce me.’

‘Getting into a relationship with Nathan Skinner sounds a lot more complicated than you’re letting on,’ Stride said.

Janine shrugged. ‘Last May was a difficult time for me. Jay and I were struggling. I was in severe pain much of the time because I’d broken my ankle over the winter. So to be honest, Nathan’s attentions were flattering. That was exactly what I needed at the time.’

‘Is the affair still going on?’

‘No, I broke it off in December.’

‘Why?’

Janine hesitated. ‘Jay confronted me about it. He knew. I didn’t realize he’d hired a private detective, but the fact is, these things have a way of coming out. It was just a matter of time.’

‘What was Jay’s reaction?’

‘He was upset, of course. He wanted me to break it off with Nathan, and I agreed to do so. Frankly, the affair was becoming uncomfortable for me anyway. Nathan had developed an emotional attraction. He was falling in love. For me, it was just sex. He wanted more.’

Stride listened to the monotone in her voice and didn’t like it. ‘You make this confrontation sound pretty bloodless, Dr. Snow. I find that hard to believe. I would have expected a much more volatile argument with your husband over something like this. Particularly given what he thought about Nathan Skinner.’

‘I think Jay was saving his anger for Nathan,’ Janine replied.

Stride heard the emphasis in her voice. ‘You think Jay confronted Nathan about the affair?’

‘I have no idea, but Jay didn’t take humiliations lightly.’

It was a convenient story. Impossible to prove. Easy to deny. It laid the groundwork for an explosive fight between two men who already hated each other. Jay found out about the affair. Nathan was in love with Janine and didn’t want to let her go. Situations like that had a way of ending with a man dead on the floor.

‘You said that you and Jay were struggling in your relationship,’ Stride reminded her. ‘Did you want a divorce?’

‘I don’t think that topic is part of this conversation—’ Gale began, but Janine reached over and put a hand on her attorney’s sleeve.

‘It’s all right, Archie. What’s the point in denying it? Yes, Jonathan, I wanted a divorce. Jay and I were a mistake from the beginning. It hurts to say that now, but it’s true. When we met, there was this electricity between us. I’ll be the first to acknowledge it was extremely physical. We got swept up in each other, and we got married before we came off the high. But we fell far and fast. The things that attracted us became the things we hated about each other. Jay was a person who wore his emotions on his sleeve. I’m not. He became more and more desperate to draw me out, to get a reaction.’

‘Sleeping with Nathan Skinner sounds like a reaction,’ Stride said.

‘I suppose you’re right.’

‘You also cut off Jay’s credit cards without telling him last July. That sounds like a reaction, too.’

‘Okay, yes, I was being a bitch.’

‘You turned the money back on not long after. Why?’

‘I decided it was childish. We were playing tit-for-tat games. That wasn’t a way to solve our problems. The way to resolve it was to end our relationship.’ She added quickly: ‘By divorce.’

‘Jay’s brother Clyde says Jay didn’t want a divorce.’

‘Originally, yes, that’s true,’ Janine acknowledged. ‘Jay enjoyed playing the game. Frankly, I think he liked making me miserable. But eventually, he got tired of all the fighting. He wanted out, too.’

‘If the two of you divorced, Jay would have gotten nothing. Wasn’t it in his interest to stay married to you?’

Janine shook her head firmly. ‘Prenup or not, we would have come to a financial arrangement. I wasn’t trying to starve him, Lieutenant. I bought him a new Hummer when he lost his truck on the ice. We both wanted an amicable end.’

‘You’re saying Jay was willing to grant you a divorce. Despite what Clyde told me.’

‘Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying,’ Janine insisted. ‘He consulted a divorce attorney. A woman named Tamara Fellowes.’

‘We know about his call to Ms. Fellowes. She wouldn’t tell us what she and Jay discussed, which I’m sure you know.’

‘Well, I’m telling you myself. Jay wanted to talk about divorce.’

‘Ms. Fellowes practices with the Stanhope law firm. They’re suing you, aren’t they, over the death of one of your patients? Ira Rose.’

‘Yes, that’s true. So?’

‘It’s an interesting coincidence,’ Stride said.

‘Not really. Jay and Tamara were college classmates.’

‘What’s the status of Mrs. Rose’s lawsuit against you?’ Stride asked.

Janine shrugged. ‘I have no idea. I have my own attorneys who handle those things. I felt awful about what happened to Ira Rose. Unfortunately, cardiac surgery is inherently risky. It’s become so commonplace that patients don’t always think through the seriousness of it. Much as I would like to guarantee a positive outcome every time, I’m just a human being, not a god. I don’t resent Esther for suing. It comes with the territory. Lawsuits are an unfortunate reality of the medical profession these days. My insurer will settle, and all of our health premiums will go up. That’s life without tort reform.’

Stride stared at this woman and tried to understand her. She was smart. Calm. Beautiful. Sexual. She had an answer for everything. That was what bothered him. Murder was messy, and yet she could explain away all of the questions as if they didn’t matter at all.