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wife’s senseless fatal accident. He had watched in numbed silence as the ambulance crew strapped her to the stretcher and wheeled her from the kitchen. One side of the sheet covering her face had a bright red splotch that had looked almost like a rose. As much as he hated to, for the sake of appearances he had to call Debbie’s sister and ask her to come over and stay with the kids while he went down to the police station and explained what had happened.
    “Yeah, we’d had an argument,” Alex said. His voice was strained and raw. “About money. What else do married people argue about? Yesterday afternoon, she’d spent some of this week’s grocery money on sneakers for the kids, and I had thought she spent a little too much, so I kind of freaked out a little.”
    “So tell me again— exactly —what happened?”
    Alex took a shuddering breath and sighed. “Well, I called her from work, to tell her I was going out for a few drinks with some friends—”
    “To the strip joint on Morrison Ave—Mark’s Showplace, correct?”
    Alex nodded.
    “She told me then that she had spent the money, and I got a little hot under the collar at her. We didn’t have an argument then or anything.”
    “You mean over the phone.”
    “Yeah. I just said something like we’d talk about it when I got home.”
    “So then, when you came home—around midnight, right?”
    Alex nodded and sniffed.
    “Once you got home, that’s when you started arguing, right?”
    Alex felt a flush of anger rise under his collar. He hated the way this detective was grinding at him, making him say the same thing over and over again. Shit what was his name? Murphy? Murray? Something like that. He wasn’t thinking straight! How could he keep his story straight if he couldn’t even remember this fucker’s name? The cop had already written everything down in his notebook when he first took his statement. Why the hell did he have to keep at him like this? Alex felt confident that he could hold it together if he could just take his time and think things through. He had to play the shocked, grieving husband, but he was having trouble concentrating with this asshole getting on him like this.
    “Well—yeah. Maybe. We’d had some angry words. Nothing major. I mean, I earn a damned good paycheck, working out at the airport, but these days—hell, who can make money stretch far enough, huh? So—yeah. I told her that I thought she had spent a little too much for sneakers, and then she told me she’d also gone out to lunch that afternoon with her sister.”
    “And did that upset you?”
    Alex fought back the rush of anger he felt just thinking about Cindy, Debbie’s sister, but he was positive it didn’t show. His face remained a twisted, grief-stricken wreck as he squinted his eyes and forced the tears to flow from his eyes.
    “Well—yeah, it upsets me that she—” He sniffed and rubbed his nose hard with the back of his hand. “Oh, God! Oh my God! I can’t believe it! I can’t believe that she’s… that she’s—my Debbie! Oh, God! My wife! How can she be dead?”
    He slumped forward and, burying his face in his hands, sobbed loudly. He stayed like that for a long while, pretending to try to speak but choking his voice off as though he were strangling with this outpouring of emotion. He kept it up long enough, hoping that the detective would begin to feel uncomfortable watching him fall apart like this. In truth, the only clear thought in his mind was that he had to be careful; he couldn’t let the cop trip him up; he had to be sure to keep his story consistent. Every detail, every word he said would be written down and thrown back at him if the cops ever decided to press charges against him.
    “I work real hard for my money,” he said after a while. His face felt slick with tears as he looked back at the detective.
    Shit! What was his name? Detective Murray. Yeah! Pete Murray. That was it!
    “I busted my ass at work that day, and—yeah,