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leave?”
    â€œAt the end of the next week. I’ve already given notice at the store in Stonestown where I work.” Her mouth bent downward at the corners, making the facial droop seem even more pronounced. “Now … If they don’t hire me back I don’t know what I’ll do.”
    â€œHow were you going to finance the move?”
    â€œFinance it? Oh … I managed to save some money while Ray was … away. Not a lot, but enough for a new start. And Ray said he might be able to get a loan to help us out.”
    â€œOh? From whom?”
    â€œA friend. Joe Buckner.”
    â€œHow large a loan?”
    â€œHe didn’t say, but it couldn’t have been very much. Joe isn’t well-off; he works as a bartender.”
    â€œDid Buckner agree to the loan?”
    â€œI don’t know if Ray had asked him yet.”
    I let a few seconds slide away before I said, “Do you know if your husband was acquainted with Floyd Mears?”
    â€œHe never mentioned the name to me. Or said anything about the Russian River—it’s not a place we ever went to.”
    â€œYet he went to see Mears that night.”
    â€œI can’t imagine why. I wish to God I knew.”
    â€œWhere did he tell you he was going?”
    â€œHe didn’t. All he said was that he had some business to attend to and he might be back late.”
    â€œHow did he seem when he left?”
    â€œSeem?”
    â€œHis mood, his frame of mind.”
    She chewed at her underlip. “A little … I don’t know, a little nervous. But he was that way from the time he came home.”
    â€œI have to say this, Mrs. Fentress. It’s possible your husband had no intention of asking his friend Buckner for a loan. There’s another way he could have gotten money to help finance your move, another explanation for why he went to see Mears.”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    â€œMarijuana is a highly salable commodity, as I’m sure you know.”
    â€œYou think Ray— No. He wasn’t a thief and he would never have sold drugs.” She drew a deep, shuddery breath. “My husband made mistakes, God knows, but he was a good man at heart. I was married to him for nineteen years. Don’t you think I would have known if he wasn’t?”
    Not necessarily. Nobody knows anybody all that well, spouses included. Spouses especially in some cases. I thought that, and then I thought cynically: Salt of the earth, Ray Fentress. Incapable of killing, except where four-footed animals like deer were concerned; never owned a handgun, never smoked, and wouldn’t ever sell dope. Good husband, good man at heart, hardworking average citizen. Until he drove drunk one night, resisted arrest and assaulted a police officer, and got himself locked up in a cell for eighteen months.
    I said, “Why did you want to see me, Mrs. Fentress? I can’t tell you anything to ease your mind, and if you’re thinking of hiring me to investigate the shootings, I couldn’t oblige you if I wanted to. A private detective has no legal right to interfere in an open homicide case.”
    â€œIt’s not open, it’s closed. The man in charge up there, I can’t remember his name—”
    â€œLieutenant Heidegger.”
    â€œYes. He as much as told me so.”
    I doubted that. No homicide investigation, especially one with as many quirks and questions as this one, gets marked closed in only three days. Still, inasmuch as Heidegger and his crew hadn’t turned up any new evidence and the sheriff’s department likely was overworked and understaffed, they might well be leaning toward an acceptance of the most obvious explanation. The lieutenant wouldn’t have told Doreen Fentress that, but then he might have said something to her that hinted at it.
    â€œI’m sorry,” I said, “truly, but that’s not official and probably won’t be for