Death Before Facebook

property.”
    “Yes.”
    “Probably the sort who’d follow you—maybe have you followed—if he thought you were having an affair.”
    “He might.”
    She thought it time to up the ante. “Look, things happen. Sometimes there’s a good reason for things. Maybe he found out and he started knocking you around. This time it got to be too much, so you got his gun and killed him.”
    Cappello shook her head in sympathy. “Battered wife syndrome. Ummm-ummm.”
    “A lot of women just get pushed a little too far. We know a lot more about it now than we did then.”
    Cappello said, “Good for you, Marguerite. Goddammit, you had to protect yourself.”
    “I didn’t kill Leighton,” she said simply. “I told you. I’d have liked to. I didn’t.”
    “Are you saying Butsy did?”
    “Butsy was a very different person then. A very loving person.” Her eyes brimmed.
    “You were in love with him.”
    “Yes. He was everything Leighton wasn’t. Full of good cheer. Full of love. Nothing like he is today.”
    “Still, if he’s a nut case now, he must have had hostility in him all along. Or maybe he just loved you so much he lost it with Leighton.”
    “I really don’t think so.”
    “Why not?”
    She was starting to cry again. “He never would confront things. Or people. He was a conflict avoider. The last thing he’d have done is cause trouble.”
    “I’m not saying he did. Leighton caused trouble. Butsy had to defend himself.”
    “No.” She wasn’t sobbing this time, but tears were dripping onto her sweater, falling fast. She sniffed.
    “You must have loved him very much.”
    “I did, God help me.”
    “Then why’d you marry Mike?”
    She stood up. “Goddammit. Goddammit. Goddammit. How dare you?”
    Skip gave Cappello a glance. Cappello nodded briefly, moved one hand a tiny bit:
It’s okay. I’m alert.
    She continued sitting, but Skip stood, not sure what Marguerite would do. “Why didn’t you marry the man you loved?”
    “Oh, goddammit, how can you be so cruel? I just don’t understand some people. Why do you think I didn’t marry him? Because he wouldn’t marry me, goddammit! Because he already had a wife!” She was screaming so loud Skip heard hurried footsteps, officers coming to help.
    Marguerite turned to the wall, put up her arms, fingers to elbows, as braces, and rammed her body hard into it. She pulled back, bowed her head, and began beating it against the hard surface.
    When Skip and Cappello had subdued her, had turned her gladly over to Cole, they went back to the squad room, Skip for one horribly discouraged. They were no closer than ever to knowing if Marguerite was the killer, and now had a new suspect—as if there hadn’t been enough to begin with.
    Outside the locked door to Homicide, the little reception room, was a man in a chair. Skip, in deep conversation with Cappello, noticed only that that there was a man there, somewhere off in her peripheral vision.
    “Skip,” he said, and she felt rather than saw him stand.
    She turned. “Oh, shit.”
    It was Steve Steinman. His face was a triangle of misery, pinched and drawn, not that different from Marguerite’s.
    “Steve,” she said, before he could comment on her comment. “I’m… This is a bad time.”
    Wind whooshed past her as the door closed behind Cappello.
    “I’ll wait,” he said. “I don’t have anything else to do.”
    She looked at her watch. Nearly lunchtime, and she was starving. Losing sleep made her hungry. “Maybe we could have lunch.”
    “I don’t think I could eat anything.”
    “Wait for me.”
    She went to get her purse, thinking she probably wouldn’t be able to eat either. But she had to, to keep going. How dare he put her in this position?
    She was furious.
    Yet by the time she’d returned, she was a little shaken as well, moved by his coming here, but she wasn’t sure how. She knew she felt something—but what was it?
    I don’t want to know. I haven’t got time for this shit.
    They went to a utilitarian restaurant not too far away, yet one you had to drive to—she had little time to waste walking back and forth.
    And I don’t want to spend that much time with him, either.
    When they were seated and she had ordered a sandwich, he a Coke, he said, “I can’t just let you kiss me off like this.”
    She didn’t know how to answer. Finally, she said, “You’re the one who did the kissing off.”
    That made him angry. “Can’t you be patient? What’s a year or two out