Every Reasonable Doubt Read Online Free PDF Page A

think that I killed my husband.” A single tear rolled down her cheek and she reached for a Kleenex from a box on the coffee table and dabbed at her cheek. “I just know how the police can turn things around.”
    Something still didn’t sit right with me. Her run-for-cover attitude just didn’t make sense. “Have you had any prior run-ins with the police?”
    Tina’s face told me that she was offended by the question and I immediately regretted asking it.
    She stared down into the goblet. “No. But I read the newspapers. They can make you a suspect and destroy your reputation without ever arresting you. In that JonBenet Ramsey case, the police leaked enough evidence to convict the parents without a trial. Same thing with that security guard who saved those people during the Olympics in Atlanta a while back. I’m just being cautious.” The woman in white appeared from nowhere and refilled Tina’s wine goblet.
    “We’d like to ask you some questions about your husband,” Neddy said. “Some of the same questions the police will likely ask.”
    Neddy spent the next few minutes covering various innocuous details of Tina and Max Montgomery’s life together. How long they had been married, where they had met, and what Tina knew about his business affairs.
    I was a little perturbed that Neddy seemed to be beating around the bush about the very reason we were there. I also wished someone would offer me something to drink other than wine. Maybe the woman in white could bring me a Diet Coke.
    I decided to interject and get to some of the important stuff. “Do you have any idea who may’ve wanted to kill your husband?”
    I wasn’t looking over at Neddy, but I could feel her staring me down.
    I couldn’t tell whether Tina noticed the tension between us. She’d had three glasses of wine since I’d arrived. Probably not.
    Tina took a moment to mull over my question. “Frankly, I have no idea who could’ve killed Max.” I heard sadness in her voice. “But I don’t think it had anything to do with his business.”
    “Why not?” I asked.
    “My husband was extremely ethical when it came to his professional life. He never cheated anybody.” She stopped to take another sip of wine. “He saved that for me.”
    “What do you mean?”
    She raised her head slightly and her words came out much softer than the ones before. “Let’s just say honoring his marriage vows wasn’t exactly high on my husband’s list of priorities.”
    She seemed embarrassed to be discussing such a personal subject with us. Her husband’s riches had allowed her to distance herself from ordinary life and mundane people. Her days were filled with formal dinner parties, trips to tropical islands, and extravagant shopping sprees. But the state of her marriage would definitely be pertinent to the police, so I forged ahead.
    “You didn’t have a happy marriage?” I asked.
    “I didn’t say that.” She seemed close to breaking down now. “It was as good as any marriage of twenty-seven years. We treated each other civilly, made our obligatory public appearances and kept our disagreements to ourselves. Max may’ve been seeing other women, but I still believed he loved me. And, of course, I loved him very much.”
    “Were you and your husband still intimate?”
    This time I felt Neddy hurling invisible daggers my way. I had no idea why. I had asked a legitimate question. We needed to know the real deal about the Montgomerys’ relationship.
    “Of course we were intimate. He was my husband.” Her suddenly snippy tone conveyed that my question was ridiculous. “But Max had a sexual addiction. There was no way one woman could satisfy him.”
    A heavy silence hung in the air. “Were you okay with him…
    uh…” I wasn’t quite sure of the appropriate verb to use, “seeing other women?”
    “No, of course not.” She paused to take another sip of wine, then looked away, in the direction of the French doors and into her beautiful garden.