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here.”
    For the next few minutes Justin told a story of how one fateful evening a year earlier, he and Rachel had spent an evening at her parents’ house in Midland. Things hadn’t gone well and had ended worse. Tempers flared, harsh words were exchanged. Justin and Rachel argued on the drive home. Her defending her parents made him feel she was showing disloyalty to him and disrespecting their marriage. Distracted from the road and his driving, too late he saw a speeding car weaving in and out of lanes and closing on them. The car swerved to dodge a truck and crashed directly into them on the passenger side, killing Rachel on impact. At the time, Justin had been too shaken to realize immediately what had happened, but drivers behind him had verified the facts to the DPS troopers who investigated the accident.
    Other than a cut on his forehead, which the EMTs covered with a butterfly bandage, Justin had been spared injury.Knowing he hadn’t suffered physically and had only his heart and mind to nurse back to health had only made him feel worse.
    “Oh, my God, Justin, that was you?” Debbie Sue said. “I remember when that happened.”
    Silence filled the house for several seconds. Finally, Edwina spoke up. “Hon, that must have been hard for you to tell us and I can see where you’d feel some guilt. But there’s always gonna be stuff that happens in life that we can’t control. You just have to keep on living.”
    “I know this is no consolation, Justin,” Debbie Sue said softly, “but my husband was one of the troopers who investigated that wreck. I do remember him saying the blame lay squarely on the drunk driver.”
    Justin cleared his throat, trying to dislodge the lump that had stuck there. “He plea-bargained,” Justin said bitterly. “Pled guilty to manslaughter. He’s serving time in Huntsville, but he’ll soon be out.”
    Debbie Sue sat straighter, pushed her hair away from her face and continued, her tone serious but friendlier than it had been earlier. “You mentioned your wife’s perfume and her wedding set. Where do you normally keep those things?”
    “The rings are in a velvet box on the dresser. The perfume is there too.”
    “So they’re accessible to anyone that enters the house?”
    “I suppose so.”
    “Has there ever been a forced entry into your house, broken windows, jimmied locks?”
    “No, nothing like that.”
    “But the locks look pretty old,” Debbie Sue said. “I noticed them when we came in. They’re probably the original ones from when the house was built. Let me show you something.” Among the many things Debbie Sue had learned since she became a detective was breaking and entering. She fished around inside her purse and came up with a metal nail file. At the front door, she pushed the button that locked it, approached the lock from the outside with the file and in a matter of two seconds of maneuvering the nail file, popped the lock.
    “Good Lord,” Justin said, awed. “I guess I need to get some new locks.”
    “And these things that have happened in your house,” Debbie Sue said, “they’ve always occurred when you’re gone? Nothing strange or out of the ordinary has occurred when you’re home?”
    “Yes, I’ve always been gone,” he answered, still studying the door lock.
    “That says the person doing this doesn’t want to be seen,” Edwina said. “If a ghost was doing it, being seen wouldn’t be a real problem, would it? A ghost wouldn’t care if you were gone or not. I mean, who can see a ghost?”
    Justin swung a look from one woman to the other. “But today, these roses, when I came home these roses were in this vase on the coffee table. I didn’t put them there. Rachel was the one who loved roses. She always put them out when company came over.”
    “You want it to be Rachel, don’t you, hon?” Edwina said.
    “The Styling Station is on the main street in town, Justin,” Debbie Sue said. “Anyone could have seen you talking to us