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kill them?"
    She shook her head. "I'm not sure. Just all of a sudden, he became enraged when you just mentioned their names."
    "But he never said why?"
    "Never."
    "He has a drinking problem, doesn't he?"
    "Bad one. He's been through detox in Cedar Rapids twice in the past three years."
    "Did he ever beat you up?"
    "Pushed me around a little, but not beat me up."
    "You think he's capable of murdering somebody?"
    She hesitated. "I suppose. That's the only way I can answer honestly. Under most circumstances, no. He's a brawler but he's not a killer. But under the right circumstances . . ."
    "If he was drinking, you mean."
    "Yes, and if he'd been hurt badly enough."
    "Hurt?"
    "He's one of those rough, tough men who is very vulnerable. He doesn't want to be but he can't help it. He feels betrayed very easily. And if he's been drinking on top of it . . ."
    "You have any idea what the sisters could have done to make him hate them so much?"
    "Not really. He came over to my place one night real drunk and put his head down on my kitchen table and just started sobbing. I'd never heard him cry like that before. It was really sad and sort of scary, too."
    "How so?"
    "All the crying — I saw how desperate he was. He was really lost."
    "Did he give you any hints about why?"
    "Just that he had been going to get married and she broke it off. He was devastated." She sighed, glanced out the window again. "It's funny how you can smell rain coming, isn't it?"
    "I was just thinking the same thing."
    "I had a dog on the settlement — a teeny tiny puppy. He got lost in a rainstorm one night when I was a little girl. In the morning my father found him drowned in a storm sewer. Even now, when I know it's going to rain, I get scared. I can't help it."
    I studied her a moment. I liked her. Ever since my wife died I've come to have a special appreciation of women, their patience, their courage, their gentle wisdom. My wife was like that, too. I just hope I told her enough how much she meant to me.
    "You're a damned nice woman, anybody tell you that lately?" I said.
    She smiled. "No, I guess not." Then she laughed. "But I guess I wouldn't mind hearing it every now and then."
    "Well, somebody should tell you that at least once a day." Her puppy and the miscarriages and loving a husband who was long past loving her — and enduring it all with intelligence and dignity and even some humor. You can keep your movie stars and politicians. It's the brave everyday people who impress me the most. They don't have any agents or consultants to keep them from colliding with reality. They just have to do the best they can by themselves.
    But I was getting choked up over my wife again. This was how it usually manifested itself, in a sudden gushy sentimentality that could get sticky if I wasn't careful. So I said, "What does your boss think about the murder?"
    "If David killed her or not?"
    "Uh-huh."
    "He's sure David killed her."
    "Why's he so sure?"
    She tapped the report that sat on the edge of her desk. "He doesn't believe in any of this. He'll fly off to a crime conference or two every year but basically he thinks the whole scientific approach to crime is just a way of keeping the Washington bureaucrats in big salaries."
    "In some cases, he's probably right."
    "But in this case, he's wrong. He's sure David did it because David is a drunk and has a bad temper and because he was seen arguing with the sisters several times."
    "How about crime-scene evidence? Anything to tie David in there?"
    "Unfortunately, yes. There were some cotton-and-polyester fibers found under the fingernails of Sandra Moore's right hand. They match the fibers of the shirt David was wearing that night. The problem is, Sears was having a sale that week and they sold around one hundred shirts just like it."
    "So the Chief needs a little more evidence?"
    "Yes. And he's getting around to it. He's interviewing a farmer who claims to have seen David near the woods the night Sandra was