No Regrets

The two were legendary in the Homicide Unit in Multnomah County, having worked some of the most infamous cases in Portland’s criminal history.
    Blackie was garrulous and usually had a grin on his face; he was known all over Portland. MacNeel was more reserved. Together, they were perfect detective partners. Now the veteran investigators headed for downtown Portland, driving along glistening black pavement where Christmas lights on trees along the curb cast colored haloes through the rain. It wasn’t the first Christmas they’d been called out, not by a long shot, but the case that awaited them would flash back on their conscious minds for every Christmas that lay ahead.
    Richard Hamilton, still maintaining a rigid control of his emotions, listened once again as they read him his rights. Again he nodded that he understood. He was quite willing to talk to them, seemingly anxious to get the weight of the world off his shoulders. Sighing, he told Yazzolino and MacNeel about the upheaval in his formerly happy home.
    “It all happened in the past few weeks, and I had no idea what was coming,” he said.
    “I never expected that she would betray me like that.”
    The two detectives waited for him to go on. Hamilton said he had asked to be let off early from his job at the medical laboratory on Saturday afternoon, December 21. “I usually work Saturdays from seven in the morning until five-thirty. But I told my supervisor that I had ‘babysitting’ problems at home. I told him my wife had to work at the post office because of the Christmas rush. So I left work around three-thirty.”
    But Hamilton told Detectives Yazzolino and MacNeel that the real reason he wanted to go home early on Saturday was that he believed his wife had been seeing a man in their home, having an affair in their own bedroom. “I planned to surprise them. I’ve found evidence around the house before, and always on a Saturday.
    “I saw a man’s T-shirt lying under the bed in our bedroom once,” he said. “When I pulled it out, I saw it was not a brand I wore—and it was much too large for me. I guess I was in shock. I pushed it back under the bed. Later, it was gone, and my wife never mentioned it.”
    There were other things that made him suspicious. “I found hair on one of the pillows of our bed. It was light-colored and it was very greasy. I don’t use hair gel,” Hamilton said. “I also found indentations on the pillows, and I knew I didn’t make them.”
    Hamilton said the final blow was when he found a partially burned note in an ashtray. “It was addressed to someone named ‘Ron,’ and it was in my wife’s handwriting. It said she would be back soon.”
    “Did you ever confront your wife with your suspicions?” Yazzolino asked.
    Hamilton shook his head.
    “So what happened when you came home last Saturday?” MacNeel asked.
    Hamilton said that he’d arrived home shortly before four. When he entered his house, he’d seen a man sitting in the living room while his wife was in the kitchen. His children had both been playing inside. “The man was about twenty-five,” he said. “I’d never seen him before. He was husky, with light brown hair, and he was wearing gray fabric gloves.”
    “They didn’t hear you come in?”
    “Not at first. I was prepared to deal with them, though. I had typed out a confession for Carol to sign. I confronted them and told them what I suspected. I gave them the note of confession. It was an admission of Carol’s infidelity and she signed it.”
    “Just like that?” MacNeel asked. “She didn’t object or try to explain anything?”
    “No.”
    “Then what?” Yazzolino said, never changing expression.
    “I told her she’d have to leave and that I would help her move her things from the house.”
    Hamilton said that Carol had hurriedly packed her clothing, sheets, and blankets. “Everything. She put it all in her car that was parked in the driveway. It’s a red Ford. That was the last I saw of her or my children.”
    Dick Hamilton said that he had been completely overwhelmed by her faithlessness, so much so that he’d simply turned on his heel and walked away from his home, headed west toward the Gresham area. “I just wanted to leave all of it behind.”
    He had not yet mentioned his small son. That seemed ablazing red flag to the two detectives. They had waited for Hamilton to ask about him, but he didn’t. Yazzolino and MacNeel looked at each other. They each had more than