The Husband

side of the street, tied to a mailbox post, the golden retriever rested in shade, graciously receiving the attention of a steady procession of admirers.
    Taggart smiled. "Goldens are the best. Had one as a kid. Loved that dog."
    His attention returned to Mitch. His smile remained in place, but the quality of it changed. "Those questions I mentioned. Were you in the military, Mr. Rafferty?"
    "Military? No. I was a mower jockey for another company,
    took some horticulture classes, and set up my own business a year out of high school."
    "I figured you might be ex-military, the way gunfire didn't faze you."
    "Oh, it fazed me," Mitch assured him.
    Taggart's direct gaze was intended to intimidate.
    As if Mitch's eyes were clear lenses through which his thoughts were revealed like microbes under a microscope, he felt compelled to avoid the detective's stare, but sensed that he dared not.
    "You hear a rifle," Taggart said, "see a man shot, yet you hurry across the street, into the line of fire."
    "I didn't know he was dead. Might've been something I could do for him."
    "That's commendable. Most people would scramble for cover."
    "Hey, I'm no hero. My instincts just shoved aside my common sense."
    "Maybe that's what a hero is—someone who instinctively does the right thing."
    Mitch dared to look away from Taggart, hoping that his evasion, in this context, would be interpreted as humility. "I was stupid, Lieutenant, not brave. I didn't stop to think I might be in danger."
    "What—you thought he'd been shot accidentally?"
    "No. Maybe. I don't know. I didn't think anything. I didn't think, I just reacted."
    "But you really didn't feel like you were in danger?"
    "No."
    "You didn't realize it even when you saw his head wound?"
    "Maybe a little. Mostly I was sickened."
    The questions came too fast. Mitch felt off balance. He might unwittingly reveal that he knew why the dogwalker had been killed.
    With a buzz of busy wings, the bumblebee returned. It had no interest in Taggart, but hovered near Mitch's face, as if bearing witness to his testimony.
    "You saw the head wound," Taggart continued, "but you still didn't scramble for cover."
    "No."
    "Why not?"
    "I guess I figured if somebody hadn't shot me by then, they weren't going to shoot me."
    "So you still didn't feel in danger."
    "No."
    Flipping open his small spiral-bound notebook, Taggart said, "You told the 911 operator that you were dead."
    Surprised, Mitch met the detective's eyes again. "That I was dead?"
    Taggart quoted from the notebook: "A man's been shot. I'm dead. I mean, he's dead. He's been shot, and he's dead.'"
    "Is that what I said?"
    "I've heard the recording. You were breathless. You sounded flat-out terrified."
    Mitch had forgotten that 911 calls were recorded. "I guess I was more scared than I remember."
    "Evidently, you did recognize a danger to yourself, but still you didn't take cover."
    Whether or not Taggart could read anything of Mitch's thoughts, the pages of the detective's own mind were closed, his eyes a warm but enigmatic blue.
    "'I'm dead,'" the detective quoted again.
    "A slip of the tongue. In the confusion, the panic."
    Taggart looked at the dog again, and again he smiled. In a voice softer than it had been previously, he said, "Is there anything more I should have asked you? Anything you would like to say?"
    In memory, Mitch heard Holly's cry of pain.
    Kidnappers always threaten to kill their hostage if the cops are brought in. To win, you don't have to play the game by their rules.
    The police would contact the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI had extensive experience in kidnapping cases.
    Because Mitch had no way to raise two million, the police would at first doubt his story. When the kidnapper called again, however, they would be convinced.
    What if the second call didn't come? What if, knowing that Mitch had gone to the police, the kidnapper fulfilled his threat, mutilated Holly, killed her, and never called again?
    Then they might think that Mitch had concocted the kidnapping to cover the fact that Holly was already dead, that he himself had killed her. The husband is always the primary suspect.
    If he lost her, nothing else would matter. Nothing ever. No power could heal the wound that she would leave in his life.
    But to be suspected of harming her—that would be hot shrapnel in the wound, ever burning, forever lacerating.
    Closing the notebook and returning it to a hip pocket, shifting his attention from the dog to Mitch,