Getting up, I left the room and walked down to where they were all standing and talking about it.
“Logan, you did really good in there.”
He had his back to me as he answered DB. “Thanks. It’s hard interviewing a woman her age, and Mrs. Bane… Jesus, that was hard. She’s always been part of the town, and it’s like interrogating my own grandmother.”
“I feel you. What are your thoughts?” I asked as I reached them.
“She’s already admitted to the affair with the pastor, so I think some of her responses have guilt and discomfort in them because she feels embarrassed and guilty about that,” Logan said, looking at Carter and getting a nod of agreement.
“I think she’s hiding something that her husband was up to, though. When we asked how the relationship was and expanded on it, she displayed deception and avoidance signs. She knows more than she’s letting on there. She’s also changed her answers on some things, like the neighbor’s attitude after Alan went missing.”
Carter moved so he was leaning against the wall and stared unseeingly across the hallway.
“I agree with Logan, but she’s also lying about some of the things we showed her. There’s a receipt for cigarettes, but Mr. Bane didn’t smoke, and neither did she. The condom was something she was angry about but kept saying she didn’t know whose it was and denied it was his.
“The sock is an unknown to her completely. When Logan asked her if anyone had a reason to hurt her husband, she lied outright.”
DB looked at me, and when I gave him a nod of confirmation, his lips tightened.
“Okay, Logan, come and watch it with me in the viewing room and see if you can see anything else while Alex and Carter talk to her.”
Saluting him, Logan walked down the hallway to the room, looking relieved. Yeah, no one wants to interrogate an older woman, especially not one he’d known his whole life and who was close friends with his grandad.
Following behind Carter, I walked into the room and sat down, smiling at Mrs. Bane.
“Are you warm enough or want something to drink?” I asked as I placed my pen on top of my notebook.
“I’m fine, thank you.”
Inclining my head slightly, I moved it onward. “Mrs. Bane, I don’t believe you killed your husband.” At her relieved sigh, I added, “But I think you know who did or at least suspect someone.”
“I—” Her mouth snapped shut almost immediately, and she lowered her head to stare at her fingers. “You don’t understand,” she whispered finally. “a lot of lives will change if I say it.”
“Your husband’s life already did change, and whoever did it may well have done it again afterward. If you have any suspicions or know who did it and why we need to know so we can get your husband the justice he deserves,” I pointed out gently.
Mrs. Bane clenched her eyes shut as two tears slowly trailed down her wrinkled cheeks, and when she opened them again, it took her a minute to talk.
“What I’m going to tell you will cause you a lot of trouble, son. Be sure you want that.”
“It’s our job, ma’am,” Carter said gently. “But what’s also our job is making sure you’re safe and that any hold on you the person who did it has had since is gone. Can you let us do that for you?”
Yeah, he’d come to the same conclusion I had. She’d either been threatened or blackmailed by whoever had done it, and that scared her more than us potentially arresting her.
Pushing forward the box of tissues that’d been resting near his elbow, Carter waited for her to pull some out before moving them back into place.
What she told us did blow our minds, and we could also see how well the murderer had scared her into staying silent. In all of the possibilities, I never expected her to come out with what she did. Hell, my initial suspicions had been on the fucking pastor of all people, seeing as how he was the one she was having an affair with.
Later, when we came back from dropping her off at the retirement home and made sure she was okay, I saw the same feelings Carter and I were feeling reflected in Logan and DB’s eyes as they met us as we came through the door to the station.
None of us said a word about it until the door to DB’s office shut behind him.
“We’ll need to call Judd Bailey down to talk to him about this.”
I agreed with my son, but something else had occurred to me during the drive back. “The lab doing the DNA analysis on the condom’s in Palmerstown, DB. If they find a profile after all of these years, they’ll immediately run it through the database.”