Practice to Deceive

continued to burst out, almost as if she was trying to delay learning whatever the two detectives were there to tell her. Even so, she had little positive to say about Russel. She said they were separated because Russel had had a couple of affairs, one of them homosexual.
    “I just couldn’t accept his deviant lifestyle,” Brenna said.
    According to his wife, Russel Douglas had been cruel and brutally open about sharing that lifestyle with her. She knew about an older woman who lived in Tacoma, Washington, twenty-six miles south of Seattle.
    “Her first name is Fran* and she’s around fifty years old. I think she works for a telecom company. Russel sometimes tries to tell me about how he parties and has sex with her. I think he does that just to get to me . . .”
    “Where do you think he is now?” Birchfield asked. “What do you think has happened to him?”
    “I don’t know. I talked to him on Christmas Day and he told me he had a promotion at work. He was happy about that.
    “I talked to his sister, Holly Hunziker, the next day; she lives in Everett. She and I are good friends, and I wanted to take her a birthday present because her birthday’s so close to Christmas, and she kind of gets left out. She said she was going out, so we just spoke on the phone. Then the kids and I went shopping and to see a movie— Hook .”
    Still, Brenna Douglas didn’t ask why they were there close to 11 P.M. , wanting to talk about her husband.
    Mike Birchfield asked about Russel’s friends and who his doctor was. She said she didn’t know. She had no idea who his friends were. He might have friends at his job, but she didn’t know any of them. If he knew anyone on Whidbey Island, he would have had to meet them through her. She stressed that point over and over. Russel had no friends on the island unless it was someone he might have met because she had many friends.
    “Are you surprised that we’re here tonight?” Birchfield finally asked bluntly.
    “Yes . . . and no. I don’t know where he is. He just came back into my life a couple of weeks ago.”
    Brenna didn’t seem to be very happy about that. She described Russel as very controlling, a man who cheated on her callously and mentally “abused” her.
    “Is he physically abusive?”
    “Not so much, but he does—did—some pushing.”
    “Does Russel own any firearms?”
    “A .22 rifle, and some knives,” she said. “No handguns.”
    “Do you own any guns?”
    Brenna Douglas didn’t blink or seem frightened by this line of questioning. “I have a .22 caliber pistol.”
    “Could we see it?”
    She walked to her bedroom and came back with the pistol. She explained that her home had been burglarized recently, and she thought it might have been Russel who broke in. She didn’t say why she thought that.
    “My stepfather gave me this gun after that happened. I only fired it once.”
    The two detectives exchanged a glance. They had been in the house for almost half an hour, and Brenna had yet to ask them why they were there, or why they were asking about her husband.
    Her behavior wasn’t as uncommon as it might seem on the surface; some people, dreading terrible news, try to stall because they don’t want to know. Brenna was placid, even stoic. As much as she denigrated her husband, he was the father of her children, and she had allowed him to stay with her over Christmas. It was even possible they had been partially reconciled.
    “Do you know why we’re here, Brenna?” Birchfield asked quietly.
    “No—not really.”
    “Russel was found dead in his car this afternoon.”
    “Oh . . .”
    That was all she said. Was she in shock? They waited, but she didn’t ask why her husband was dead, how he died, or where he was when he died. She seemed so composed that she was almost aloof.
    Or was she stunned into silence, shocked to her core?
    While Mike Birchfield continued to question the new widow for another five minutes or so, asking about the couple’s relationship, Russel’s lifestyle—even touching on his sexual habits—Brenna answered woodenly.
    But she still didn’t ask how her husband had been killed, so Birchfield kept talking.
    “He was shot in the head.”
    Brenna sat like stone, completely void of reaction. Was she in deep shock?
    Or was she not surprised?
    Now she began to speak, breathlessly running one sentence into another. She certainly didn’t avoid speaking ill of the dead. Brenna repeated that Russel had “rubbed in her