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had always dreamed of that. Now … it hardly seems to matter.” He took another drink of whiskey—more of a gulp, this time. When he put the glass down on a marble coaster, his gaze lingered on the wedding portrait. Fresh tears glistened in his eyes.
    Roelke closed his notebook, and decided to edge into deeper waters. “Mr. Sabatola, I’m sorry to say that I’ve seen other cases like this. I hope you don’t blame yourself. Sometimes women have everything they could ever want, and still …” He let the sentence trail away.
    “Bonnie did have everything.” Sabatola tossed back another gulp of whiskey. “Everything any woman could dream of.”
    Roelke shook his head sadly. “Thank you, Mr. Sabatola. I’ll be in touch if I need to speak with you again.”
    “I’ll be back in the office tomorrow. I couldn’t face it today, but … I find that rattling around this house is even worse.” Sabatola looked around the living room—stylish, cold, empty. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without her. I just can’t imagine coming home from work and her not being here.”
    Both men stood. “I’ll call my secretary to show you out,” Sabatola said. When he left the room he took his whiskey with him.
    Roelke waited for the promised escort, not realizing until Edwin Guest appeared that he’d already met Sabatola’s secretary. “Thank you,” Roelke said when they reached the door. Guest nodded.
    Once outside, the door firmly closed behind him, Roelke sucked in a deep breath and blew it out again. He knew better than to admit it to Libby or Chloe, but male secretaries—or nurses, or flight attendants—made him uncomfortable. He wasn’t proud of that, but there it was.
    He could almost hear Chloe calling him a Neanderthal. That pushed his thoughts to the last time he’d seen her. For a moment he’d forgotten about Alpine Boy. For a moment, it had been just him and Chloe, picking things up right where they’d left off before her stupid Swiss ex had popped up.
    You need to be thinking about Simon Sabatola, not Chloe, Roelke chided himself. He drove a mile and pulled over. He wanted to flesh out his notes while the conversation was still fresh. Once he’d done so, he stared at the page. Simon Sabatola had not been able to offer any explanations for Bonnie’s suicide. Had Bonnie truly been such a skilled actress? Or had Sabatola’s business trips and aspirations blinded him to the fact that his wife was struggling?
    Still, the widower had obviously been in real pain, experiencing deep grief. He may not have been a particularly attentive husband … but he’d loved Bonnie.
    Roelke slipped his notebook away. He wasn’t finished with Simon Sabatola. Next step: a visit to AgriFutures. Roelke was planning to attend Bonnie’s funeral, too, with eyes and ears wide open.

“This,” Chloe muttered, as she turned into the village of New Glarus on Saturday morning, “was a big mistake.” She already felt emotionally assaulted. The area had been settled by Swiss immigrants in the 1850s. Now, tourism based on Swiss heritage was a huge part of the town’s economy and identity. Many of the commercial buildings resembled Swiss chalets. Canton flags hung proudly from poles. Signs identified the Swiss bakery, the Swiss embroidery factory, the Sw iss pharmacy and imports store.
    Chloe inched her Pinto into a parking spot on Main Street and sat clenching the steering wheel. She hadn’t wanted to invite Markus into her world, but coming into his was just as brainless. Finally she took a deep breath, pried her fingers free, and climbed from the car. She wasn’t going to run away with her proverbial tail between her proverbial legs. She had a firm plan established: Meet her ex, say some things that needed to be said, and turn her back on him. Forever.
    The New Glarus Hotel was a village landmark. The big frame structure, originally known as the Glarus House, had been welcoming hungry travelers for well over a century.