The Wives of Logan's Point

By Ken Blaisdell

For Karen Skinner suicide is the only option she has left. After enduring her husband's cheating, lying, and violence for seven long years he has finally pushed her over the edge by having sex with the fifteen-year-old girl next door—in Karen's own bed.

In the early morning hours in her suburban Connecticut home Karen ends her suffering with a single gun shot to the head ... her husband's. But Karen finds herself not just relieved to be rid of her abusive SOB of a husband, she is shocked that the cold-blooded act of her “wife-assisted suicide” has given her a thrill unlike anything she has ever known before.

Thanks to Karen's meticulous planning and attention to the smallest details, the case is officially closed as a suicide. She has fooled all of the investigators ... except one. Tony LaCosta is sure that Karen murdered her husband—he just can't prove it.

Six years later, Karen has remarried and has moved to the small coastal town of Logan’s Point, Oregon—and she is feeling the urge to kill again.

Karen is one of a group of six women who live around a cul-de-sac and share a closeness that transcends the friendship of just neighbors. When one by one her friends confide their marital woes to Karen she manages to convince them that they would be better off without their respective husbands, and that murdering them is not only much simpler, faster, and cheaper than divorce, but it is infinitely more satisfying. For Karen, however, the motivation to kill is always the same; the pure thrill of it.

Through Karen's careful plotting and coaching, none of the deaths are even investigated as homicides. They are listed as natural, accidental, or suicide. Perfect crimes.

But a chance meeting threatens to burst the wives’ protective bubble of perfection when Karen runs into LaCosta at the Portland airport. Retired and in Oregon on unrelated business, he nevertheless finds the time to poke his nose into Karen's new life. Although his investigation is unofficial, he finds the deaths of so many neighborhood husbands highly suspicious, and his detective’s instincts tell him that his prediction back in Connecticut, that Karen would eventually kill again, has come to pass.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ken Blaisdell
• Release date: Nov 22, 2012
• ISBN: 9780984925728

Book preview

Prologue:

New Hampton, Connecticut.

October 11; 4:12PM

After spending three hours with a bail bondsman and presenting him with a cashier's check for $2,500—ten percent of her husband's bail—Karen Stockwell and her husband Frank walked out of the New Hampton, Connecticut jail.

Silence prevailed for the first half of the trip home. Finally, without even turning to look at Karen in the passenger seat, Frank said, I suppose you think I'm guilty, don't you?

Karen looked at him in astonishment that he felt the need to ask the question. A whole litany of venomous and vengeful replies streamed through her mind, but she controlled herself and simply answered, "Yes." Her tone made it clear that she saw that as completely obvious.

In a poorly-lit corner of her brain, Karen thought for a moment that an apology might be coming—or at least an explanation. After seven years, she should have known better.

And I suppose you'll be wanting a divorce when this is over, he said.

No! she snapped. "I don't want a divorce when this is over! I want you the hell out of my life right now! I should have thrown you out the first time I caught you screwing around on me! Or the second, third, or fourth! But I'm not even going to listen to your bullshit this time, Frank. You had sex with a fifteen-year-old, and you did it in my bed! I want you out of that house in twenty-four hours!"

Or what, Karen? he said in a belittling tone. Are you going to carry me out and throw me on the sidewalk? Are you going to have me arrested for trespassing in my own house? With a derisive laugh, he said, "Try to get a grip, okay?

You want a divorce? he went on. "You want to be an independent woman? Fine. I'll give you your divorce—but not until this is over. Then I'll give you half of everything and you can go off on your own—see how that flies. But you file for divorce now, and I'll fight you every inch of the way. Oh, I'm sure you'll get your divorce in the end, but it'll be ugly, expensive, and long."

Karen stared at him for a long while, trying to get her emotions in check before she spoke.

Why, Frank? she asked finally. You think being married is going to make you seem less guilty to a judge or jury? You don't actually expect me to show up in court and look the part of the supportive wife, do you? she asked incredulously.

No, he said. "I just expect you to keep your mouth shut. Since a wife can't testify against her husband, staying married will help me with a judge and jury, thank you very much."

Karen laughed at him. Have you even talked to a lawyer, yet? Or are you planning to defend yourself? With another laugh, she said, "Oh, please tell me you're going to defend yourself! Because, I would show up in court to see that!

And just to burst your bubble, sweetheart, she went on, "the law says that a wife can't be forced to testify against her husband, not that she can't do it voluntarily."

He shot her an angry look and snapped, You're lying!

Again she laughed. Fine. Have it your way, Perry Mason, she mocked. It should make for an entertaining—if short—trial.

Fuck you! he spat as he turned the car onto their street, tires squealing at his anger-induced excessive speed.

Never again, Karen said calmly. "Not in the physical or figurative sense."

Inside the house, Frank immediately stomped down the basement stairs to his sanctuary. Karen went to the kitchen to see what leftovers were in the fridge and were still edible. It was nearing eight o'clock at night and she hadn't had anything to eat since her lunch of a granola bar and a diet Coke.

Angry, Frank went over to the basement wet bar and poured himself the first in what would be a long series of gin-and-tonics. He sat down at his laptop and typed in an Internet search. Shit! he said out loud after reading the results.

*****

Karen lay on her bed, her hands folded behind her head on the pillow. Her mind was going a mile a minute.

She looked over at her alarm clock; eleven-oh-four. Another hour, she thought. No point in rushing things.

At a quarter to twelve, she pushed her feet into her slippers and quietly made her way down the basement stairs. She turned the corner at the bottom and found the scene exactly the way she had expected it.

The TV was on the sports channel, an empty bottle of gin sat in the waste basket with another half-empty bottle on the bar, and Frank lay sprawled on the sofa, dead to the world. His big mouth hung open and his snoring sounded like he was grinding the air through a wood chopper as he inhaled.

For once, Karen was glad that Frank never changed. His preferred means of dealing with stress was to cloister himself in his little basement man-cave, drink himself into a stupor, and not think about it. That Karen had been able to push some of his buttons on the drive home and heighten his level of stress was an unexpected plus. That she had made sure there were two bottles of gin in the bar, however, was no accident.

Karen turned to go back upstairs when she noticed that Frank's laptop computer was open and on. She tapped the space-bar with her fingernail to wake it from its sleep mode.

She scanned the legal-advice web site that Frank had apparently searched out. With a smile, she read the topic in the middle of the page that discussed the often-misunderstood legalities of spouses testifying against one another. Her smile widened when she thought about how pissed off he must have been when he found out that she was right. She hadn't anticipated this, but it was perfect. Thanks, Frank.

She turned and made her way back up the stairs and to her bedroom. In her walk-in closet, she stripped out of her clothes, and took a one-piece pantsuit from its hanger. It was navy blue with a high neck and epaulets on the shoulders. It had two rows of decorative gold buttons down the front and gold piping on the sleeves that made it look a little like a Navy dress-uniform. Karen had always liked this outfit—it was fun.

She took a pair of small scissors from her sewing cabinet, snipped the buttons and epaulets off the pantsuit, and put them into a decorated wooden box that had been her grandmother's. The box held an assortment of buttons, snaps, and fasteners, some of which were probably a hundred years old.

Naked, she stepped into the pantsuit and zipped it up the back. She then went to her bathroom vanity and took out a throw-away shower cap that she had gotten at a hotel a long time ago. She fit it over her hair, pulling it down to her eyebrows and completely over her ears. She made sure that every strand of her hair was tucked inside.

Next, she slipped on a pair of plastic gloves that had been left over from a hair-coloring kit. She pulled them up over the cuffs of the pantsuit, but they wouldn't stay. Unlike surgical gloves that have stretch, these were more like sandwich bags with fingers.

Improvising, she took a couple of elastic hair ties and slid them up to her wrists, over the gloves and on top of her cuffs. She moved her hands and arms around a bit to test the connections—they stayed put just fine.

From her sock drawer, she pulled on a pair of old cotton socks, tucking her pant legs into them. She stood up and looked at herself in the full-length mirror. She was pleased with what she saw—odd looking though it was.

She walked into the upstairs den, reached around behind the computer, and unplugged the keyboard. With the keyboard in hand she went back down into the basement where Frank continued snoring away.

As she plugged the keyboard into Frank's laptop, Frank suddenly went quiet. Slowly, Karen turned to look at him. He was still in the same sprawled position, eyes closed, arms draped across his stomach—only now his mouth was closed. Karen knew from years of experience that the silence would not last long. He would be snoring again, mouth agape, in a minute or so.

Turning back to Frank's computer and typing on her own keyboard so as not to smudge his fingerprints on his keyboard, she opened a new document and typed a six-word message. Unplugging the keyboard again, she set it around the corner on one of the stairs.

Karen then walked over to Frank's gun safe and turned the dial left and right through its four-number combination. She pulled open the steel door and looked in at Frank's collection of vintage firearms.

Standing in the rack were a Winchester Model 1866 Yellow Boy rifle, a civil-war era Colt revolving rifle, a Browning over-under shotgun from the late 1800's, and a flintlock Kentucky long rifle which was reported to have been used in the battle of the Alamo. Although the gun was authenticated to be old enough, Frank was never able to document that it had ever even been in Texas, much less fired-in-anger at the Alamo. That was too bad, because it would have increased its value by a hundred-fold.

On a shelf in the safe sat a Colt Peacemaker revolver from Billy the Kid's time, a flintlock pistol from the revolutionary war era, and a World War II M1911 Colt .45 automatic pistol. According to Frank's papers on the last gun, it had been the sidearm of an Army MP during the Nuremburg war-crimes trials at the close of WW II.

With gloved hands, Karen carefully took the .45-automatic from its satin-lined display box. She took the loaded seven-round clip from the box and inserted it into the gun's grip until she heard the click of it latching into place. She pulled back the slide and then eased it forward, allowing it to push the first bullet off the top of the clip and into the firing chamber. She then flipped the safety into its on position. With the gun cocked and ready to fire, this was no time for a stupid accident.

When Karen and Frank had first gotten married, Frank had insisted on teaching Karen all about his guns. He had even taken her to a sporting-goods store with an indoor shooting range and had her fire several of his weapons. He believed that once she understood them, and felt the thrill—the power—of firing them, she would be hooked and they would enjoy his passion as one. He was wrong. She hated the guns even more after she had experienced them than when she saw them as simply noisy, smelly, expensive toys for men who needed to compensate for something.

Karen was glad, now, for Frank's forced education. Her only disappointment was that he would never realize how much he should regret it.

She carried the gun over to where Frank lay sprawled and snoring on the sofa. Gently, she lifted his left hand, and turned it palm up. She pressed the bottom of the gun firmly onto his palm and lifted it away. She then gently laid his hand back on his stomach.

She turned the gun upside-down and tilted it until she got the light to shine across the bottom of the clip. She smiled when she saw the clear lines of his palm-print on the otherwise pristine flat surface. She had once called him anal about how he cleaned and oiled his precious guns before putting them away. Now, she was glad for his obsessive behavior. His prints would be the only ones on the gun, and they would be fresh and clear.

Her heartbeat picking up, Karen took Frank's right hand, gently turned it over, and opened it. If she had really thought about it, she'd have realized that she needn't be so gentle with him; when he was in one of his drunken comas like this a train wreck wouldn't wake him. It was just her nature to be cautious.

She laid the gun in his open hand and wrapped his thumb around the back of the grip and curled three of his fingers around the front. She then carefully crooked his index finger and guided it through the trigger guard. Using his thumb, she then pulled the safety lever down, making sure to leave a smudged print.

Finally, with her gloved hands guiding his, but with as little contact and as light a grip as she could manage, she bent his arm at the elbow and pointed the gun up towards his head.

Unconsciously, she held her breath as she raised his arm and moved it forward, guiding the barrel of the gun into his open, snoring mouth.

At that instant Frank stopped snoring and his mouth closed down on the barrel of the gun, his teeth making a clack as they struck the metal. Without waking up, he instinctively tried to move away from whatever it was that was in his mouth, but his head was on a pillow and the cold, hard object remained between his teeth.

His eyes blinked open and through the fog of his interrupted dream he took in the surreal image of his wife staring at him, wearing some sort of stupid hat. And what the hell was she trying to stick in his mouth? Was that his …

Frank's brain never completed the thought because Karen pulled the trigger half way through it.

Although Karen had fired the .45 before, she had worn ear-muffs then and it had been in a large practice range. She wasn't anticipating the deafening explosion in the dead silence of the small wood-paneled room, and it left her ears ringing.

She was also not prepared for the kick-back of the gun. The recoil caused the pistol to jerk out of Frank's mouth, twist from her light grip, and tumble to the carpet.

Karen's instant reaction was to try to catch it as it fell, but she stopped herself just in time and pulled her hands back. Had she grabbed the gun, she would likely have smudged Frank's prints or disturbed the powder residue. And she certainly knew better than to pick the gun up and put it back in Frank's hand. She was far better off to leave the scene in its natural state, even if it didn't look exactly as she had planned.

She stood and looked down at her lifeless husband, his unseeing eyes staring up at her. Behind his head the pale blue pillow was turning dark red, almost brown. His mouth hung slightly open, and a trickle of blood ran from the corner.

She had been thinking about this moment—fantasizing really—for a long time and she always wondered what she might feel after she pulled the trigger. Would it be remorse, fear, revulsion, liberation? What she felt surprised and confused her. It was a sense of exhilaration that was different than anything she'd ever experienced. But it was more than a feeling of satisfaction that she had actually carried out what she'd been planning for weeks. Was it a feeling of victory that she had beaten Frank? Relief that she was finally free of him? Or was she feeling the power of life and death? The thrill of killing.

As fascinating and as stimulating as the reaction was, it took her only a few seconds to get back on track. She had a lot left to do, and very little time to do it.

Two minutes later, she had her gloves, shower cap, and socks all flushed down the toilet in the master bath. Then, so she wouldn't carry any transfer evidence through the house, she stripped out of the pantsuit, and left it on the tile floor while she went naked to plug the keyboard back into her computer.

When she returned, she took a pair of scissors and began to hack the light fabric of the pantsuit into pieces. She cut the legs and arms into three pieces each, and the torso into half a dozen sections. When she finished, she took three of the leg pieces from the pile and dropped them into the toilet. She pushed the lever and watched as the swirling water sucked the fabric down and out of sight, sending them into the city sewer system. She picked up another three pieces and dropped them into the rising water.

This time when she flushed, however, the wet material only went half way down and stopped. She had not given the toilet tank enough time to refill completely! She realized her mistake immediately and she looked out at the clock on her nightstand. It had been six minutes since she had shot Frank. She didn't have the time to wait for the toilet to keep refilling—she would need to be calling 9-1-1 very shortly. She was hoping—gambling—that a neighbor or passer-by hadn't heard the shot and had already called the police.

She scooped up about half of the pieces if fabric, leaving the others on the bathroom floor, and she ran to the guest bath. She flushed another three pieces down that toilet, and while it refilled, she ran back to the master bath and flushed that one again. It took another three minutes to get all of the jumpsuit flushed down the two toilets, but she was finally ready to call the police. She dared not call before she was completely done disposing of the evidence, on the off-chance that a patrol car might be very nearby, and could be there in seconds, rather than minutes.

After washing her face and putting on a dressing gown and robe Karen made the call to 9-1-1. As she spoke to the dispatcher she walked back down to the basement and over next to Frank. At this point, she wasn't concerned about stepping in any blood splatter that might be on the floor, and in fact, when she leaned over to feel his pulse—which she was sure would be nonexistent—she made sure that her robe draped against the body. When she straightened up she looked down at where the robe had contacted him. She saw two small spots of his blood. Perfect. She went back upstairs to wait for the police and EMTs to arrive.

A marked patrol car was the first to arrive, followed a minute later by an ambulance. Five minutes after they arrived, the ambulance was pulling away. The EMTs noted in their log that the subject of the call was deceased upon arrival from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

Twenty minutes later, two detectives from the homicide division arrived and conferred with the two patrol officers. The detectives examined the scene, and then took a statement from Karen while they waited for the medical examiner to arrive.

At two-ten, a little more than two hours after Frank had died, a white medical examiner's van pulled into the driveway of the Stockwell's residence. While the ME was getting out of the van, Detective Tony LaCosta pulled his sedan to the curb, and the two walked into the house together.

Those'll kill you, you know, the ME said to LaCosta as the detective took a long last drag on his cigarette.

Yeah, so I've heard, LaCosta said, flicking the half-finished butt onto the lawn. And eating fried food will give me a heart attack, and drinking will pickle my liver. I try to overdo all of them equally so none of them has a clear advantage on which will kill me.

At the bottom of the basement stairs, as the newcomers looked over at the body on the couch, the homicide detectives explained to the ME and LaCosta what they had so far.

Looks like he couldn't face going to jail for twenty years, the younger detective, Gary Dupree, speculated, so he blew his brains out. Single shot into the mouth. Judging by the blood on the pillow, it blew the back of his head off, but we haven't touched the body to see. Not much point, really—he's obviously dead.

Did he leave a note? LaCosta asked.

See for yourself, the other detective answered. His name was Jake Crossly. He and LaCosta had worked together in homicide before LaCosta transferred to the sex-crimes unit a year ago.

They walked over to Frank's laptop and LaCosta tapped the space-bar with the back of his pen to wake the computer up. The screen came to life and he read, PROSECUTE THIS, ASSHOLES! FUCK YOU ALL!

Brief and to the point, Crossly commented.

Who told you he was looking at twenty years for something? LaCosta asked as he looked at the boxes along the bottom of the screen. One showed that the computer was connected to an Internet site.

The wife, Dupree answered. Said he was out on bail on a charge of raping the fifteen-year-old girl next door. She said you were the detective in charge of the case; that's why we had dispatch call you.

Statutory rape, LaCosta corrected as he pulled a rubber glove from his jacket pocket. The girl admits the sex was consensual. He stretched on the glove and used the computer's mouse button to switch the screen to the web site.

At fifteen, that's still rape and he's still a scumbag, Dupree countered.

Yeah, well I knew the guy and being a scumbag was something he was apparently comfortable with, LaCosta said, so that wasn't his motive for suicide. As to the rape charge, he thought he was going to be able to beat it. This guy thought he could talk his way out of anything.

The web page opened and they all looked at the legal-advice site showing the topic of spouses testifying against each other.

You think she was going to testify against him? Crossly asked LaCosta.

Don't know, he replied as he clicked the back button and brought up another web site on the same subject. "But it looks like it was a concern to him."

LaCosta turned to the body and looked at the location of the gun on the floor. He looked at Frank's face, and closely at his mouth, which held a pool of blood. Nobody's touched anything? he asked.

The wife said she felt for a pulse when she came down after hearing the shot, Dupree said. And the EMTs did the same thing when they got here.

He's missing a front tooth, LaCosta said. Probably broke off when the gun recoiled. He looked on Frank's chest, and then on the floor, but he didn't see it. He turned to the ME and said, When you process the body keep an eye out for it, okay? It might even be in his mouth still, so check before you move him and it slides down his throat.

Is CSS on the way? LaCosta asked the other two detectives, referring to the Crime Scene Services forensic-evidence team.

We called them the same time as we asked dispatch to get in touch with you, Dupree answered.

LaCosta turned to the ME, and said, You mind waiting until the CSS folks get here before you get started? I want them to look at some things before the body gets moved. That okay?

Yeah, that's fine, the ME replied. He's not going anywhere. You see something you don't like?

There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact, LaCosta answered, quoting Sherlock Holmes. When everything looks just right, it's time to take a closer look.

Bristling at LaCosta's apparent I'm-in-charge-here attitude, Dupree said, Aren't you with the sex crimes unit? This is a homicide investigation. I think we can handle it.

LaCosta fixed the young detective with a cold stare. Dupree had never met LaCosta before, but Crossly had known him for years. The senior detective was about to say something in LaCosta's defense, but LaCosta spoke first.

Sorry there, Scooter, LaCosta said condescendingly. "Old habits die hard, I guess. But you're right. With your months of experience on the job, I'm sure you've got it covered. You don't need an old gumshoe like me offering advice." Without waiting for any kind of reply, he walked to the basement steps and started up.

What the hell's a gumshoe? LaCosta overheard Dupree repeat to Crossly. He just rolled his eyes and continued up the stairs.

Two CSS technicians carrying their analysis kits were just starting down, and one of them recognized LaCosta.

Hi, Tony. You working this case? He knew LaCosta as a hard man to work with, gruff, demanding, and short-tempered. But he also knew that he had a knack for seeing past what seemed to most to be completely obvious, and dragging out the real facts in a case.

Nope, he said as he passed them. Junior down there has it all figured out. I'm surprised he even called you guys.

LaCosta was headed toward the front door to leave when he noticed Karen in the living room. She was sitting on the sofa, flipping through a copy of Good Housekeeping.

Any tips in there on getting blood out of a sofa cushion? he asked her.

She looked up and held his eyes for a long moment before answering. Karen knew LaCosta, having met him several times over the past few weeks as he investigated the statutory rape case against her husband. Aside from bringing closure to that case, she wasn't even sure why he was here.

That's a bit cold, don't you think, Detective?

Sorry, he said without much feeling. You just seemed a bit detached from the whole thing, sitting there reading a magazine with your husband downstairs in a pool of blood.

Meaning what? she asked.

No meaning, he said with a shrug, just an observation. It's what I do.

You think I should be sitting here a blubbering, emotional wreck because the husband who's been cheating on me for years, and who was going to go to jail for screwing the kid next door, has taken the coward's way out of the mess he was in by blowing his brains out?

You think that's what happened? LaCosta asked.

"What the hell do you think happened down there?"

Well, aside from the obvious fact that someone shot your husband, I'm not really sure.

"Someone? she repeated. You don't think he shot himself? Why in the world would you think that?"

Old habits … he said. I was in homicide for eight years. I learned to always assume the worst then let the facts prove me wrong ... or right, as the case may be.

What happened to innocent until proven guilty? Karen asked.

That's how the courts work, LaCosta answered. Investigations are pretty much the other way around. Sort of a Sherlock Holmes thing; eliminate the impossible, and whatever is left must be the truth.

However improbable, she said, finishing the quote. But he also said, 'The temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane of your profession.'

Easier said in fiction, than done in reality. LaCosta countered.

So, should I call a lawyer before talking to you any more? Karen asked.

You think you need a lawyer?

Do you ever answer a question directly, Detective? Karen asked.

You may recall from my talking with you husband that I'm a lot more comfortable with the asking than the answering, he replied.

Karen had been impressed with—even enjoyed—LaCosta's aggressiveness as he went after Frank, not taking any of her husband's usual lying bullshit. She hadn't expected him to be part of this investigation, but at least she knew what he was like and that she needed to be very wary of him. Being from the sex crimes unit, she didn't know how official his questions were, but she made the safe assumption that anything she said could and would be used against her.

Are we chatting on or off the record here? Karen asked, just to get his reaction.

On, LaCosta said.

Whoa! A direct answer! Karen said in mock astonishment.

LaCosta smiled. Now your turn, he said. Did you kill your husband?

He asked, getting right to the point … she commented. Then, looking him in the eyes, she said flatly, No, Detective, I did not kill my husband. To herself, she finished the sentence with, "A .45-calibur bullet through the brain did that."

Your turn, again, she said to him. Why are you asking? I mean, aren't those other two guys from the homicide division? Doesn't your involvement pretty much end with Frank's death? Regardless of how he died?

Detective Crossly—he's the one in charge here—commented that when he talked to you he didn't think you seemed very distraught for someone who had just discovered her husband's bloody body in the basement.

Bloody body in the basement? You do enjoy your hyperbole, don't you Detective? You make it sound like there was a chainsaw murder down there. Sorry to disappoint you, but as I told your colleague earlier, when I heard the gunshot it confused me at first—it woke me out of a sound sleep. But then, when I thought about it I had a pretty good idea of what I was going to find when I went downstairs.

Did your husband have suicidal tendencies?

No. He was a coward.

You think putting a gun in your mouth and pulling the trigger is cowardly?

Of course it is. Taking responsibility for your own actions and facing the consequences is the tough part of life. Lying, blaming other people, running away—that's cowardly. This is the ultimate run-away.

Maybe he was guilt-ridden over what he'd done to you—over what you'd have to go through with a trial and all. Ever think of that?

Karen gave a scornful little laugh. No, Detective. That would never have entered my mind, she said. "And it would never have entered Frank's either. Frank was never sorry for anything he did. He wasn't even sorry when he got caught—he was just annoyed. If you or Detective Crossly were expecting tears or hysteria you're five or six years too late.

Frank started cheating on me before we'd been married a month—and with my maid of honor, to add insult to injury. I'm sure of a dozen other affairs he's had, and I suspect at least that many more that I couldn't prove. And that's not even counting the one you know about; the kid next door.

Infidelity's been the motive behind a lot of murdered spouses, LaCosta said.

Well, not this one, Karen said definitively. You asked if I killed Frank. The answer is, no. Now, ask me if I'm glad he's dead, Detective.

There was no real need for him to repeat the question, of course, but she sat there looking at him, waiting for him to comply.

Are you glad that your husband is dead, Mrs. Stockwell? he asked with a slight grin, amused at Karen's gamesmanship.

No, Detective, I'm actually not. Frank would have been out of my life in a few months anyway, thanks to you, and I've already talked to a divorce attorney who informed me that as soon as Frank was convicted—and I'm sure he would have been—about all I'd have to do under the circumstances, was to ask, and any judge would grant me a divorce. So I really had no motive to kill him. Why would I risk going to jail myself to speed up the inevitable by a month or two?

Dead and divorced are two different things, LaCosta said. With dead you get everything; with divorced you only get fifty-percent. Greed is right up there on the hit parade of motives for murder. Right behind jealousy and rage.

"If I'd killed Frank in a fit of rage, there'd be seven bullets in him, not one. And the first