Don’t Look Behind You

composure as he said he and Beth had been married for ten years. Responding to Nolan’s gentle questions, Martin answered that his wife was missing.
    “She didn’t come home last night,” he said anxiously. “And I haven’t heard any word from her today either. That isn’t at all like her—she always calls.”
    Bethany, whom Stokesberry said he had met and married in Scotland while he was stationed there in the air force, had occasionally stayed away all night with friends. “I didn’t want to file a missing persons report on her—and embarrass her,” he said. “But I’m really worried now. It isn’t like her to be gone for more than twenty-four hours.”
    Stokesberry agreed to accompany Dan Nolan to the King County Medical Examiner’s Office in downtown Seattle to view the body of the woman taken from the lake.
    As the long drawer slid out from a wall of body containers, Martin Stokesberry turned pale.
    “It’s her,” he said, barely breathing. “It’s my wife, Bethany.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “Yes—there’s no doubt at all.”
    When the shocked man was able to talk more, he told Nolan that he, his wife—who was thirty-one—and their two sons, seven and nine, had lived in Seattle for about four years, and that he had been employed by the same company as an electronics technician for five years.
    She was a good mother, he said, but Bethany was at home with the boys all day and Stokesberry worked a lot of overtime. His wife missed the camaraderie of pubs that were neighborhood meeting spots in Scotland where everyone knew one another and drank a few pints with their friends or played darts.
    “I was tired after working twelve-hour days,” Martin said, “and was usually glad to stay home with our boys while she went out for a few hours. She drove herself or she’d go with couples who were friends of ours.”
    “Were you ever jealous—I mean, was it possible that she might have been seeing someone?” Nolan asked quietly.
    “No. Never. We trusted each other.”
    As Stokesberry described the night of July 3 to the detectives, he said he had driven his wife to the Frontier Tavern, a neighborhood meeting spot where she often went on weekend nights to drink a few beers and chat with friends. It had been between ten and ten thirty when they had arrived and Bethany had spotted a car that looked like one belonging to Brian and Susan, a couple who were friends of theirs.
    Stokesberry warned his wife to be sure to come home with the couple. Then he wouldn’t have to worry about her. Bethany was wearing her new pantsuit and a red leatherette coat that evening, and carried about $60 in cash with her.
    In response to further questions, Stokesberry confirmed that his wife smoked Kool cigarettes. He also emphasized that she could not swim. In fact, she was almost obsessively afraid of the water.
    Stokesberry then explained that he himself had driven home because he had promised a friend—who was making his debut as a radio disc jockey—that he would tape his show that evening. He had turned on the recording device, alternately checking the transcription and watching a late movie. He couldn’t recall the name of the movie; he remembered only that it was some kind of war movie. He hadn’t watched it continuously.
    At a little after 1 a.m., Stokesberry said he’d gone to bed for the night, confident that their mutual friends would give Bethany a ride home.
    “When I left her off at the Frontier, that was the last time I saw her, and I didn’t hear anything from her until you [Detective Nolan] came to tell me that she was probably dead.”
    Many husbands would have been jealous to have their wives go to taverns alone, but Martin Stokesberry again assured the investigators that he didn’t mind. He understood that she needed to have adult conversation and a few glasses of ale occasionally. He didn’t believe she was interested in any other men.
    Even minutes count in homicide investigations, and, for the crew of King County homicide detectives, the combination of the holiday and the late-night hour when Bethany’s body was identified could not have been worse. Although the sheriff’s detectives were prepared to work all night on July Fourth, they had no luck in finding witnesses. Not only were many lakeside residents away from their homes on vacation, but when the investigators visited the Frontier Tavern, they found it was closed. Their phone calls to the number listed for the owner went