“Yes. I consent to being recorded.” I looked up on the wall near the ceiling where a video camera was mounted. I knew my tone was dead.

  Andrew Cawood sensed my nerves, I figured. She smiled and leaned closer. “I just want to ask you some questions, that’s all. It’s a simple process of elimination.”

  “Okay.” I couldn’t go on, though, not without knowing. “Was it him? Marc? He was the guy who was found, wasn’t he?”

  She licked her lips and drew her gaze away. Those simple movements told me everything. I steeled myself for the words I knew would follow. At the moment, though, I felt nothing but numb.

  “I wish I had better news, Mr. Blake, but yes, the victim was your husband, Marc. They found a driver’s license on the beach this morning with his name on it. His parents made a positive ID just an hour or so ago. I’m very sorry.”

  I wanted to feel more. I needed to break down in sobs—to shake, to scream. This awful nothingness inside was less tolerable than any histrionics I could imagine.

  “I’ll try to make this as brief as possible, but it’ll help us with our investigation so much if we could get your recollections. The sooner you give them, the more reliable they’ll be.”

  “Can I see him?” I blurted out.

  “What do you mean? He’s not here. He’s at the morgue.”

  “I figured that.” I shook my head. “You must have crime scene photos, right? They always take pictures. I don’t think that’s made up for TV.”

  “It’s not,” she replied. “But I’d advise against it. The images will be very disturbing. You won’t want to remember him like that. He’s gone, Mr. Blake.”

  “I understand that, but I just need to see for myself. Does that make sense?” Without seeing him, even though all the evidence in the world pointed toward the contrary, my heart wouldn’t be able to accept or even believe my Marc was gone without some form of visual proof.

  She closed her eyes, whether in disgust at my morbid needs or because she pitied me, I wasn’t sure. A black canvas bag rested on the floor at her feet. I hadn’t paid much attention to it before, although she’d had it with her when she led me back to this room. She leaned over and rummaged around in it. She pulled out a gray folder. She held it close. “Now, are you sure?” She forced me to meet her gaze and, in her eyes, there was pity and a need to protect.

  “To be honest, I’m not sure at all, Detective Cawood. But if I don’t, I don’t know if I can ever believe he’s gone.” I gasped a little at the word gone and forced myself to just breathe. I motioned with my hand. “Not really, not deep down. Does that make any sense?

  “Please. Let me see.”

  She rifled through the photographs. I guessed she was looking for one that wasn’t too gruesome. But with a murder, how could such a distinction exist?

  At last, she slid one of the eight-by-tens toward me, face-down. “When you’re ready.”

  I put my hand on the photo, but wasn’t sure I could turn it over. Despite the stunned and shocked state I was in, my hands trembled above the back of the photograph.

  This was a moment from which I could never turn back. Marc was dead, murdered, and the pain and terror of that happening was beyond my imagination. I let out a shaky breath and looked at the detective. “Could you turn it over for me?” My voice sounded weak and childish. I didn’t care.

  Detective Cawood stood and crossed the room, standing slightly behind me. She put one hand on my shoulder and, with the other, flipped the photo over.

  The air in the room vanished. The noise outside the interrogation room—phones ringing and murmuring voices—ceased. For a moment, the whole world muted, as if its breath were bated. I looked away, toward the featureless cinderblock wall before me. Then I turned to peer over my shoulder at Detective Cawood.

  “Are you okay? Shall I take it away?” She squeezed my shoulder with the gentleness of a mother.

  “No.” I shook my head to emphasize my refusal. I turned and forced myself to look.

  There he was.

  I gasped.

  My husband. My love. His face was chalky, lips blue, eyes open, filmy, and staring at nothing. His lips were parted as though he had some final words to speak, but had never got the chance. His hair clung to his head. There was a very slight spray of blood droplets on his neck.

  In my mind, disco music played—Sylvester singing “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real).” Marc and I had danced to it on crowded dance floors up and down Halsted, the main street of Chicago’s Boystown—at Roscoe’s, at Hydrate, even at the more alternative and mixed-crowd Berlin.

  I replaced the gruesome image before me with Marc’s face on those dance floors. He always had eyes only for me when we danced. I’d once asked him why, when we were often surrounded by sweating hunks who’d shed their shirts to gyrate and grind their hips.

  “It’s like Sinead sings, honey. Nothing compares to you.” I’d rolled my eyes at the comment, thinking it saccharine, but now I clung to it. Had he meant the words when he said them, or was he trying only to make me happy? Either way, the memory was bittersweet. I looked down at eyes that had once regarded me with passion, with love, with anger, with resignation, with annoyance, with joy, and now they looked back up at me from a crime-scene photograph with no life.

  He was gone.

  I bent my head low over the photo, shuddering, but not yet allowing myself to weep.

  The world filtered back in, the sights, sounds and smells of the precinct—the laughter, the voices, the phones, the gray walls surrounding me, the odor of burned coffee over disinfectant.

  I sat back up, straighter, squaring my shoulders.

  “All right.” I slid the photo back across the table to Cawood, who had resumed sitting in her chair. She took it quickly, slid it back into the folder, and shoved the folder back into her black bag. “What can I tell you, Detective?”

  The warmth and concern she’d shown when she’d allowed me to look at the crime-scene photo all but vanished. She moved her phone a little closer to me on the table. “Why don’t you start with telling me where you were last night?”

  My stomach, already knotted and churning, if that was even possible, dropped. I had to suppress a gasp. Where was I last night? I was at the very park where Marc was murdered, for Christ’s sake. Can I tell her that? I recalled all the detective and courtroom shows I’d watched on TV over the years and how the adage always went the spouse was responsible for most murders, or at least a family member. Evidence bore this out—it was much more non-fiction than a plot device, that much I knew for sure.

  What could I do? Lie? Sure, and I might even get away with it. But even that much was doubtful. If I could manage to spin a tale giving myself an alibi, how would I frame it when Cawood would surely ask, “Do you have someone we can talk to to back that up?” Who would I say? Hunter? I had no way of contacting him. He hadn’t even told me where he was living. And even if they could find him based on his name, would he back me up? Or would he simply tell the truth and say he’d left me alone near the beach where Marc was stabbed to death? If I didn’t go down that road, what would I say? “I was home alone, watching television and then I went to bed.” Who would alibi me for that story? Vito? I let out a short burst of laughter at that thought, a little giddy and bordering on hysteria.

  “Something funny?”

  “No.” There was nothing funny in my world, not anymore. I wasn’t certain there ever would be again. Should I ask for a lawyer? Should I simply clam up? Should I tell her I was leaving? After all, no one had said I was a suspect. I was free to leave at any time, right?

  But how would that look?

  Despair washed over me. All the weird occurrences of not just the past few months, but of my entire life, going back to the night Jeb disappeared after the Fourth of July fireworks, drowned me in anxiety and fear. I felt hopeless. I sighed. “I was home alone until I took my dog out for a walk.”

  “Where’d you go? About what time?”

  Oh God, if get arrested now, so be it. What do I have to live for, anyway? My world has been ripped to shreds and then stomped on. My only worry—who would take care of my little Vito?

  “I walked down to the lakefront and then south, to the gay beach.”

  Her eyebrows went up, but she said nothing.

  I realized then her sitting there, hands in her lap, simply waiting, was a technique. Keep quiet and let them talk.

  “Yes. Kathy Osterman Beach, as the sign says. Yes, where Marc was killed.” Even though I knew it would do me no good, I added, “But I swear I didn’t see him, and I certainly had nothing to do with what happened to him.” I drew in a shaky breath, wondering if she’d say, ‘That’s what all the killers say.’ The tears I’d suppressed earlier were close to falling. My voice broke a little on the words, “I loved him.”

  “What time was this?”

  “Late. I wasn’t paying much attention.”

  “Did you see anyone? Talk to somebody, maybe? I just want to place you, track your movements. Let me help you.”

  Help me what?

  Do I tell her?

  A voice inside, sensible, urged me to ask for counsel, to see if I could get out and away from her and her questions. I knew enough about police procedure from countless books and crime documentaries and podcasts to know that the police often weren’t seeking the truth, but looking to close a case with any person who fit.

  I fit.

  I knew it.

  Hopelessness caused me to answer, my voice coming out in a flat monotone. “Hunter. Hunter Graves.”

  “And who was he?”

  It was time, I guess, to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

  God help me.

  “Hunter Graves came to me last summer.” And I went on, rolling out the story in bursts as I thought of various details, but moving back and forth in time, starting with Jeb’s abduction. I even added what I’d learned from Hunter—how he and Jeb had been Keith Walker’s prime fodder for human trafficking. I told her how the pair of them eventually split—a sort of yin and yang, where one was a victim and the other became a villain.

  “I suppose they both dealt with the horror of what happened to them in their own ways.”

  I shuddered as something occurred to me—was Hunter wrong? Was Jeb still alive? Really, Hunter had only an assumption to go on. At least that was what he led me to believe.

  And if Hunter was wrong and Jeb was still alive…

  “Mr. Blake? Sam? Do you want to answer the question?” Detective Cawood stared at me. I felt as though I’d just swam up to the surface from a dream—or a nightmare.

  “I’m sorry. What?”

  “I asked if you could give me contact information for this—” She interrupted herself to peek at her notes. “This Hunter Graves.”

  “I only know his name. I don’t know where he is.” I did wonder if he was staying at the shithole on the southside—Keith Walker’s last known address. I’d already told her about my trip down there and now, I suggested it could be worth checking into. I took out my phone and scrolled through my email until I found the information the private detective I’d hired, Harriet McGill, had given me a few weeks ago. I opened her attachment and found the address and gave it to Cawood.

  She jotted it down. “Thanks. We’ll see if this leads anywhere.”

  We fell silent. I looked down at my phone and was stunned to see I’d already been here more than two hours.

  Weariness washed over me. I thought of Vito, who was probably going nuts with his need to go outside. He rarely had accidents, but even if I were to leave and go home in a few minutes, it would still take me another couple of hours to get to him.

  Marc was there, pressing at the edges of my consciousness and begging me to recognize, to see and absorb, his death. Grief waited for me. “Are we all done here, then?”

  Detective Cawood glanced at her watch. “Mr. Blake, I’d really like to keep you here a little while longer. What I want to do is take a break and check out the things you told me—see if we can find any information on this Keith Walker, on Jeb Kleber, and on Hunter Graves. They might be linked to your husband’s murder. They might not be. But I agree, the circumstances are very unusual and suspicious.” She leaned forward. “I’ll be upfront with you. You’re now what we call a ‘person of interest’ and that means I need to make sure, before I can release you, that I don’t need anything more from you.”

  “And what if you don’t release me? What if the questions just keep coming?” I gulped. “And the suspicions? What then? Arrest me?”

  She raised a not-so-placating hand toward me. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, okay? You’re not a suspect. And if you really need to leave, then go. If you want an attorney, then by all means, call one.”

  “You think I need one?”

  “I can’t advise you on that.”

  “So, I can just go. I have a dog at home that needs me.”

  My last statement elicited a smile, which vanished as abruptly as it had come. “Do you have someone you can call who can check on your dog?”

  I shook my head.

  “As I said, you’re free to go at any time. But I would appreciate your staying here. And, like I mentioned, I’d prefer a little time to check out some of the details of your story. Once I have those, we can make a better determination of what more I may or may not need from you. Okay?”

  “I guess.” Even though she said I had a choice, I didn’t really feel like I did.

  She stood. “It’s been a long time. Are you hungry? I can get you a sandwich. Coffee? A Coke?”

  “I’m okay.”

  She peered at me. “No, you’re not. I’m going to have someone bring you some food. Eat it or not. But at least I’ve done my duty.” She smiled. “In my other life, believe it or not, I’m a mom and half Italian. It’s important to me that people eat.”

  “Okay.”

  She left me alone with far too many thoughts and worries, the biggest one being not would I get out of here today, but would something prevent me from leaving for a very, very long time?

  And who would take care of Vito?

  In spite of my refusal, I looked forward to that sandwich and drink. Not because I was hungry, but because eating and drinking would be something to do to stave off the tsunami of grief over Marc I knew was out there—and biding its time.

  III

  I began to wonder if Detective Cawood would ever return. And with good reason, she’d been gone now almost as long as she’d interviewed me. I was certain it was beginning to get dark outside. I felt like I’d entered some alternate universe.

  She breezed into the room as though she’d been gone a mere few minutes, rather than a few hours. My back ached. My worry had peaked, and I was certain my freedom in this world was about to be severely curtailed. After all, why wouldn’t she arrest me? I placed myself at the scene of the crime. That I had motive—a spurned love—could be effectively argued. I had no one, really, to come to my defense.

  I eyed the handcuffs dangling from her waist and wondered how they’d feel around my wrists.

  I wanted to ask why she was smiling, but I didn’t dare. I was afraid the answer would be, “You have the right to remain silent…”

  But she didn’t read me my Miranda Rights off a card. No, she sat across from me, hands folded, with that idiotic grin on her face. If I didn’t think it would go even worse for me, I would have slapped the expression right off her smug face.

  But when she spoke, what she said shocked me to the core.

  “So?” That was about all I could make myself say.

  “I checked everything out as best I could. And it looks, Mr. Blake, as though everything you told me was the truth. Thank you for that.”

  “Okay.” I nodded.

  “But that’s not the best part.”

  I slid down a bit in my seat. Just get it over with. “What’s the best part?” I asked with absolutely no enthusiasm. I couldn’t image what could be best about this whole situation. There may have been a best for her, but I was sure there wasn’t one for me.

  “Well, Mr. Blake, first off—you, sir, are free to go. You can take care of that dog of yours.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “I never kid.” She frowned.

  I believed her.

  “What’s second?” I was dying to know. What had she discovered during her time away that had caused her to come back with words of liberation for me?

  “Jeb Kleber. That’s what’s second.”

  I cocked my head. The room spun a little. I felt dizzy and nauseated. Isn’t Jeb dead? Did they find him now? “What do you mean?”

  “It’s weird. While I was tracking down the details of your story, someone came into the station. Without going into a lot of details, because I’m unable to at this point, it was Jeb Kleber. We’ve verified it.”

  “I thought he was dead.”

  “He’s very much alive.” She reached across the table and placed her hand over mine, squeezed a couple of times before letting it go. “He came into the station, the same station we’re in right now, to confess.”

  I didn’t know what to say. “He killed Marc.” It wasn’t a question. Somehow, I knew.

  She was guarded. “Yes. That’s what he’s confessed to. And right now, his story is credible. He knew details we hadn’t released—details only the killer would know.”

  “Did he say why?” I took a sip of water. I was suddenly parched, as though my insides were drying out with each word the detective spoke.

  She sighed and I could tell from the way her mouth was poised that she wanted to tell me more. But she caught herself. “That’s all I can say for right now.” She reached into her jacket pocket and brought out a card. “My card. You can call me in a few days and I can probably share more with you if the press doesn’t get to it first.”

  I simply sat, slumped.

  She smiled. “You can go. Do you need a ride?”

  “I need a lot of things, Detective, but a ride isn’t one of them.” I stood. “I need to get home to my dog.”