Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder

be a cop realized.
    They found an apartment in Lake Hills where the rent was cheap; at least it seemed that way in the summertime. Bill and Sue moved in, but when the weather turned cold they discovered that the heating bill made the low rent seem something less than a bargain.
    Still, the young couple were both earning good salaries—Bill as a deputy with the sheriff’s office and Sue in a rather unusual job for a woman. During the summers while she was in college, she worked for Sears in the automotive department as a “tire buster.” She got thirty-five cents more per hour than regular clerks. She didn’t mind putting on new tires or installing batteries, and she made as much money as any of the male employees.
    In her early twenties, Sue Harris Jensen was a confident young woman, happy in her marriage, and solidly behind her husband’s goals.
    As the Jensens settled in, she took a job with Automotive Wholesalers as a sales representative. She knew what she was talking about as she sold their products to auto parts, hardware, variety, and grocery stores.
    “I always liked cars,” she said, “and as a commission-only sales rep it wasn’t long before I was making more money than Bill was.”
    Bill didn’t seem to mind. He had grown up without money, and he didn’t care who made the higher salary; he was glad that Sue was pitching in to build their bank account. In most things, Sue was amenable to doing things Bill’s way, although she wasn’t a subservient wife. She knew Bill admired her ability to talk to perfect strangers, and to find common interests with them.
    Bill and Sue Jensen agreed that they wanted to have children one day, but they decided to wait four or five years. They were young, and they were both happy in their jobs. Bill had reached the first steps of his ambitions as a police officer, and Sue liked her job, too. She ended up working for Automotive Wholesalers for six years. With Sue focusing most of her attention on her husband, their relationship worked. They got along well during the first five years of their marriage.
    Sue didn’t become pregnant until mid-1984. She was delighted, although their good news was somewhat bittersweet. Lorraine Harris had been diagnosed with terminal breast cancer, and her family all knew that she probably wouldn’t be around to enjoy her grandchild for long. Still, Sue’s mother was upbeat and optimistic about Sue’s pregnancy, and both Sue and Carol tried to spend as much time with their mother as they could.
    Bill too seemed pleased that they were going to have a baby. But they began to have serious arguments. In one awful fight, Bill kicked Sue in the abdomen, and she was terrified that he had hurt the baby. She didn’t report that to the police; it would have endangered his job. In time, she managed to push the memory of that violence to the back of her mind, making up excuses for him.
    When Jennifer was born in March 1985, Bill was very proud of his beautiful blond baby daughter. Sue had worked selling auto parts right up until Jenny was born, and she was happy to retire to be a stay-at-home mom.
    In the fall of 1985, Lorraine Harris’s doctors told her daughters that she probably didn’t have much longer to live, and Sue spent every moment she could with her mother, watching Lorraine with baby Jenny. She was grateful for every day her mother had to enjoy her granddaughter, as brief as their time together was.
    Working as a deputy sheriff can be a very stressful occupation, and there were times when Bill seemed tense and anxious. When he struck out at Sue, he blamed it on his job. Even so, Sue was shocked when, as her mother was dying, Bill announced that he needed a vacation. He wanted her to go to Hawaii with him. He appeared to have no perception at all that his mother-in-law was dying, and that she should come first. Instead, he was irritated that Sue thought his need for a vacation wasn’t the most important problem they had. Rather than stand by her and her sister as Lorraine slipped away, Bill went to Hawaii with a high school friend instead.
    Lorraine Harris passed away on November 18, 1985.
    Sue remembered this insensitivity of Bill’s, but they were both so happy with their new baby that, once more, she put it out of her mind. She tried to see things from her husband’s point of view and thought that he must have been under more stress than she had known. But admittedly, she was less patient with his moods and his pouting now