Page 35

“I couldn’t. Not without being seen.”

“But you thought about it,” she said.

“Wouldn’t you? If the guy you’d been seeing for four years turned you down for breakfast and you saw him out with another woman? Laughing together? Touching?”

Turner paused near the lectern. “What kind of touching?”

“She kept touching his arm. Whenever someone passed them, he put his hand on her lower back. It was familiar, okay?”

“What did this guy look like?” Josie asked.

“He was older than her,” Louis replied. “I don’t know. Gray hair. Average build.”

Turner flicked a finger against the microphone attached to the lectern but no sound came from it. “Did you ever confront her about what you saw?”

“Yes. She got mad at me for spying. But I was the one out for a jog.”

Josie said, “How often do you jog?”

He hesitated. “I don’t know. When I have time.”

“When you have time,” Josie echoed. “Did you have time that morning, or did you go to Sylvia’s house when she declined breakfast and then follow her to the city park? Is that the real reason Sylvia was angry with you?”

Louis walked over to the table near the door. He pulled the napkins from his pocket and tossed them into the trash bin. “You don’t understand. She was pulling away from me, and I was starting to think I never had a chance with her at all. Long-term, I mean. I think I was just convenient for her.”

Turner padded closer. “Did Sylvia tell you who the guy was?”

Louis didn’t turn to face him. “An old friend. That’s all she would say. When I asked if she was seeing him, she said no. When I asked more questions about him, she shut me down. Said it was none of my business and that she wasn’t happy that I didn’t trust her. Things between us had been tense since then. I barely saw her and when I did, she spent the entire time on her phone arguing with her sons about the interview.”

“When is the last time you saw her?” Turner asked.

Louis began tidying the small trays that held the individual packets of sugar and other sweeteners on the table. “We had lunch together on Friday. There’s a little place down the block. She didn’t have long because she was working. Since the interview was the next day, I let her know that no matter what our status was, I was there for her if she needed me.”

“How did she take that?” asked Josie.

“Fine. Good. There was still a bit of tension between us but things seemed much more back to normal. Then I told her I’d bring her dinner after the interview the next evening and she said it wasn’t necessary. That she’d want to be alone. I invited her to my place. She said no.”

Josie went over and leaned a hip against the edge of the table, watching Louis tense as she did. “Did you ask her if she was going to be seeing her old friend?”

He dug the heels of his palms into his eye sockets. “I just wanted to know where we stood. She said they weren’t seeing one another but I didn’t like that she wouldn’t just tell me about him.”

“Despite the fact that she told you plainly nothing was going on.” Turner moved in on Fisher’s other side, picking up a small creamer and flipping it into the air before catching it in his palm. “You thought she was seeing this guy. You thought she might be with him after the interview?”

Louis’s hands dropped from his eyes. He watched Turner toss the creamer into the air with a look of utter defeat. “I just felt like I was the one who had supported her through making the decision to do the interview, you know? Her own sons didn’t want her to do it. Why should some other guy get to step in after the fact?”

There hadn’t been any outgoing or incoming calls or text messages in Sylvia’s phone records for the night before her murder besides from her sons and Louis. If she’d intended to meet up with this “old friend,” there was no record of it.

“How did Sylvia respond when you asked her if she would be seeing her friend?” asked Josie.

He sighed. Tears filled his eyes again. “She said she wasn’t going to talk to me when I was ‘acting out,’ and to call her when I was ready to have a mature conversation.”

“Is that why you called her on Saturday?” asked Turner. “You were ready for that mature conversation? Seventeen mature conversations?”

Louis glowered. “I just wanted to make sure she was okay. That was all. But she wouldn’t answer me. I got mad, okay? Then I drank. Then I got angrier.”

“Angry enough to go over to her house before church the next morning?” Turner dropped the creamer into the bowl of single-serve coffee pods.

“No.” Louis put the creamer back in its proper place. “I thought about it but decided to wait and try to talk to her after services.”