thought about it. “A very competent one, I would say. He’s in his sixties, and I understand he’s held the job for over twenty years. But his health is failing; for the past month or more I believe he’s been at the Mayo Clinic. But I wasn’t mistreated, if that’s what you mean; it was just so terrifying. The Sheriff himself is a very courteous old gentleman, and while I began to feel after a while that Redfield disliked me intensely there was nothing mean or vicious in the way he treated me. Certainly there were no third-degree methods used.”
“Were you arrested?”
“Yes. But not right at first. In the beginning they were just trying to find out whether my husband knew Strader and if they’d planned to go fishing together and what time he’d left here, and so on and if I’d heard Strader's car leave or come back. Then about nine o’clock that morning they found out from the cook at the Silver King that he’d seen the car drive in and that it was a woman who got out of it. I was taken in to the Sheriff’s office then, and late in the afternoon I was charged with suspicion of murder and put in jail. I was questioned for hours at a time for three days before they finally dropped the charge for lack of evidence and released me.”
“And all the time they were hammering at you along one line? They wanted an admission, or proof of some kind, that you and Strader were—I mean—”
She smiled faintly. “Lovers,” she said calmly. “Yes. And after a while I began to be terrified. It just didn’t seem possible that they could believe a thing like that, but then I started seeing not only how they could but that it all looked so damaging they might even be able to convince a jury of it. In the first place, I’d told them originally I didn’t know Strader, and didn’t even know he was registered here. I’d just learned my husband had been killed and I was numb with shock, so naturally the name meant nothing to me. It didn’t even register in my mind. Then later, when I was able to think a little, I did remember I’d been in the office the evening before when he came in and asked for a room. So they wanted to know if I’d ever seen him before. I told them no, which was true to the best of my knowledge. Then they showed me two registration cards for the previous month—October—both with Strader's name and automobile number on them. It was merely a simple matter of my husband’s having been in the office on each of these times when he registered, but by now it had begun to snowball and everything looked suspicious. There was the fact I’d gone to Miami, alone, near the middle of October, between the first and second time Strader had come up here—”
“You went to Miami?” I hadn’t heard that part before.
“Yes.” She took another cigarette, and I lit it for her. “I went to see a doctor. They wanted to know why, of course, when we had a family doctor here—Dr. Graham. My nerves were just about at the snapping point by this time and I was on the ragged edge of hysteria, so my reaction was enough to arouse suspicion in itself. I became furious and refused to tell them why. Naturally, as soon as I realized the stupidity of this, I did explain, and they verified it with the doctor by long distance, but it was still damaging because it was something that could have been deliberately arranged as an excuse for going to Miami to meet Strader if I were carrying on an affair with him. I mean, I had appointments with the doctor for an hour each morning for two successive days, and while I did see an old friend or two while I was there, I was still alone in Miami for a large part of two afternoons and two nights. And then it wasn’t a case of my being ill—”
She hesitated.
“It’s all right,” I said. “You don’t have to go into it.”
She made a little gesture, and smiled. “Oh, why should it be embarrassing? My husband and I were very anxious to have a baby and were beginning to be concerned. It happens all the time. But I was furious when they were questioning me.”
“Well, look,” I said. “One of