Three-Day Town - By Margaret Maron Page 0,41

can make it brief, I’ll stay in the room if you like.”

He rose, but Sigrid lifted a hand to keep him from leaving. “Something you need to know, Doctor. Mrs. Lundigren’s husband was murdered last night.”

Again the doctor looked at his watch and gave an impatient scowl. “I’m perfectly aware of that, Lieutenant. Her grief and panic are precisely what we are dealing with here.”

Sigrid stopped him with a cool, level-eyed look. “Are you also aware, Doctor, that her husband was a woman, not a man?”

“What?”

“He—she—had evidently been passing as a man for years,” Hentz said bluntly. “According to the ME, she had not been surgically altered and everything was intact.”

Dr. Penny sank back into the chair. His belt disappeared into his belly and his chubby thighs strained the seams of his pants. “Well now, that does put a different spin on the ball. One hesitates to leap to conclusions based on insufficient data, yet one immediately has to wonder if her social anxiety disorder has been exacerbated by a closeted lesbianism. Not once in our talks did she refer to her partner as anything but ‘he.’ Surely she knows?”

“There was only one bed in their apartment, Doc,” said Hentz, “and they’ve lived there together for at least nineteen years.”

“I see.” He heaved himself to his feet. “Very well. But please try not to upset her more than she already is.”

“Will she be released today?” Sigrid asked.

“Before your revelation, I would have said yes. Now it will depend on how this session goes.”

They followed him halfway down the hall. He lightly rapped on a door and pushed it open. “Denise? It’s Dr. Penny again. These are police officers and they have some questions for you.”

Denise Lundigren sat in a chair by the far wall on the other side of the single bed. Her hair was neatly combed this morning, but her pretty heart-shaped face was scrubbed clean of the heavy makeup she had worn the night before, although a faint trace of eyeliner remained. Despite the dark shadows beneath her frightened eyes and the inevitable wrinkles, she actually looked younger and seemed more vulnerable than when they last saw her. Her hospital-issued gown and robe had been washed so many times that the floral pattern had faded to pale pink, and she hunched into the robe, pulling the front sides protectively across her thin chest.

Sigrid remained near the door. Hentz had been able to calm her initial fears last night until they told her of Phil Lundigren’s death, and she was quite willing to let him try to connect again.

He sat down on the near end of the bed and began talking to the pillow in a soothing voice. “We’re very sorry for your loss, Mrs. Lundigren, and we hate to have to bother you again, but you do want to help us catch whoever did this to Phil, don’t you?”

Hesitantly, the woman nodded.

“We’re not going to be able to unless you can tell us about last night. Did Phil seem the same as usual? Was he upset about anything?”

“Yes,” she whispered as tears filled her eyes. “He was upset.”

“What about, Denise?”

She shook her head.

“Upset with someone in the building?”

She didn’t reply, just clutched the faded robe tighter, but now she was watching Hentz’s face.

Without looking at her, he smoothed the pillow that lay between them and kept his voice low and matter-of-fact. “Was it one of his coworkers or one of the tenants?”

No response.

“Was it you?” Sigrid asked.

Startled, the older woman half swiveled in her chair and turned her face to the wall.

“Sorry,” Sigrid said.

“All couples have their squabbles, Denise,” Hentz said quietly. “Did you and Phil fight last night?”

She kept her face averted.

“What did you fight about, Denise?”

There was another long moment of silence, then the woman sighed and said, “I—I sometimes take things. I can’t help myself. Little things. Mostly animal things.”

“Was that what you fought about? You had taken something?”

“I try not to, but sometimes I just can’t help it and he gets mad if I don’t remember where I got something. Like the cat.”

“The cat?”

Relaxing a little, she released her white-knuckled grasp on the robe. “It was so cute. Purple and pink and little yellow whiskers! But Phil got mad and said I was going to get him fired and he had to put it back. He knew I’d cleaned 6-A the day before, so he thought it was Mr. Lacour’s. I was pretty sure it was Luna DiSimone’s, though, but he made me so