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“We’re just trying to understand who might have had a reason to resent your wife,” Faith replied.
He nodded. “Well, yes, they knew, and yes, I think they resented it a little bit. No one likes to know that their friend’s wife thinks they’re a bad influence on her husband, but they didn’t hate her for it. They … well … I think part of the reason Amanda didn’t like them is that they’re kind of immature.”
“How do you mean?” Faith said.
“Well, you know,” he said. “They used to tease me about her. Make jokes like, ‘Hey, the old ball-and-chain let you play outside today,’ or ‘Just tell Mandy it was apple juice.’ You know, stupid stuff.”
“Is that how they would express their resentment?” Faith asked.
Benjamin nodded. “Yeah, it was all fun, you know. I think … I guess we kind of took for granted that that’s how women are. No offense.”
Faith smiled softly. “I’m very hard to offend, Mr. Montgomery. I appreciate the truth.”
“Right,” he said. “Well, I reacted pretty much how you expect. I screamed her name, begged her to wake up, wept while I held her. Finally, I called the police on my cell phone. They told me to wait where I was. They didn’t want me tracking blood all over the house. Said I would contaminate the evidence.”
His face screwed up in anger again. “That’s all she was to them. Evidence. There was no, ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ no, ‘We’ll catch this bastard, I promise you.’ Just, ‘Please don’t contaminate the evidence further.’ Like I was some kind of moron for crying over my dead wife. Can you believe that?”
Faith said nothing. She would have advocated for more compassion in that instance, but she was an investigator herself, and she knew the police were right to instruct him not to contaminate the evidence any further. She also knew that at the time, he would have been the prime suspect, and part of the reason for their instruction was intended to keep him from cleaning up the scene. If they saw evidence of him disregarding their instruction, it would have looked very bad for him.
“She always believed that people were basically good,” he said. “She believed in sin, obviously, but she didn’t believe that people were naturally evil. She thought that if you lived a good, loving life, you’d receive love in return. Well, that didn’t help her much, did it?”
Faith didn’t answer that. “Have you found your wife’s wedding ring?” she asked.
“Her wedding ring?” Benjamin seemed genuinely surprised that Faith brought it up. “I didn’t notice it was missing. I guess I assumed she took it off when she was about to shower.”
“We believe the killer may have taken it,” Michael said.
“Like what, as a trophy?”
Michael lowered his eyes and nodded.
“Well, he can keep it,” Benjamin said, “for all the good it will do him.”
“You don’t want it back if we find it?” Faith asked.
He scoffed. “I want my wife back, Special Agent. I don’t care about the ring. That was always more important to Amanda anyway. If I get that ring back, I’ll just smell that damned smell all over again.”
Once more, the two agents fell silent. “Detective Brown tells me the police will release the scene tomorrow. You should be able to move back home the next day.”
“Oh, I’m not going back there,” he said. “I’ll never go back to that house. I’ll always smell that smell.”
***
It was nine o’clock when the detectives dropped the three of them off at their hotel. It wasn’t as spartan as Faith expected, given the Boss’s unhappiness with their liberal use of the Field Office’s expense account. It wasn’t palatial by any means, but it was comfortable enough, and the Wi-Fi connection was strong, which was more important than comfort anyway.
They reviewed the files while Turk ate some of the food Faith had packed for him.
“Well,” Michael said, “once more, there doesn’t seem to be a connection between the two victims other than that they were both married women who were home alone.”
“That’s probably important,” Faith said. “It’s more than we had with Greenwood at first.”
“Yeah, but it’s still not much,” Michael said.
“I’m interested in the wedding rings,” Faith said. “If this killer is taking wedding rings, then he clearly has a type.”
“What, married women between thirty and forty-five?” Michael said. “That doesn’t really narrow it down.”
“Baby steps, Michael,” Faith reminded him. Michael was notoriously impatient, especially at the start of a case when things moved slowly.
