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object of our investigation somewhat. It’s not that we’re not doing everything we can to locate Katie or some sign of where she could be, but if she was murdered, our next order of business is to identify a suspect whom we might profitably question to see whether we can move along this investigation and get to the bottom of what happened to Katie.”
    “Since you are among the people who know her best and love her”—Abby, taking over, was careful to keep references to Katie in the present tense—“we thought an interview might help to get us off on the right foot. Now we understand, as you made clear to our colleagues last week, that you’ve always been on reasonably good terms with Hal, and that you’re all going through this tragic time together, but—”
    Suddenly, Curt Dunne blurted out, “No buts. Let’s forget all that. Hal was the last one to see her alive. He had almost three hours between when he left the house and got home with his brother. Which is more than enough time to have done whatever he decided to do and—”
    “Curt!” His wife put her hand down on his arm. “Wait! We can’t just . . .”
    “The hell we can’t. We can call a spade a spade. Can you give me any other plausible scenario? Who the hell even knew he would be gone at exactly that time?”
    JaMorris threw a glance at his partner. “So I’m gathering that you, at least, Mr. Dunne, think Hal might have played a role in Katie’s disappearance? Missing Persons didn’t mention anything about your suspicions. They said you were all coming from basically the same place, which was wondering what could have happened. Has something changed since last week?”
    Curt Dunne didn’t wait for a consensus. “You’re damned straight something’s changed. It’s become obvious that Katie didn’t just walk out on her own. None of us can imagine she would have abandoned the kids, not even for a couple of minutes. And once that’s clear, who does that leave?”
    “Well, sir,” Abby said, “it leaves the whole universe, unless you’ve got some specific reason to think it was Hal.”
    The woman nearest the inspectors spoke up. “We never really thought about Hal until we started talking about him. I mean, it’s just not something we’d ever considered. We’d always assumed that they got along the way most of us did.”
    “I’m sorry,” Abby said. “Your name again?”
    “Barbara. Barbara Payson.” She spelled her last name.
    “And what did you start talking about?”
    “You know, stuff between them that we didn’t think was very important before. Stuff Katie had told us.”
    “Like what?”
    “Well,” Barbara said, “you know she was seeing a family counselor. Hal wouldn’t go with her. He thought it was a waste of money and didn’t believe they needed counseling. But their fights were getting more serious, and she was worried about them.”
    “Physical fights?”
    “No. She never said that he hit her.”
    The other sister, Sherrie, said abruptly, “She wouldn’t have said if he did.”
    “How do you know that?” JaMorris asked.
    “That’s who she was,” Sherrie replied. “She was the oldest of us and . . .”
    Carli joined the discussion. “She definitely would have left him if he’d been abusing her. But I don’t like how we’re demonizing Hal because she was going to counseling and he wouldn’t go.”
    “Was there any talk of them breaking up?” Abby asked. “Did she talk about divorcing him?”
    “I never heard that,” Barbara said.
    Sherrie added, “We really didn’t acknowledge they were in trouble until . . . until this thing. And now she’s gone, and we may never know.”
    “Still, do any of you have a specific reason for suspecting Hal?”
    “They could have had a real fight that night,” Curt said. “I mean where he actually hit her. And then he had to get rid of her so there wouldn’t be any sign of it.That could have been why he did it. To cover it up.”
    “Although