The Mourning Mail (final release candidate #7)

Chapter 48

Holy crap. I wasn't prepared for Sheryl's revelation, and it took a moment to absorb its significance.

I'd assumed Theresa's homicide was another one of those in-the-dark-of-night things where a solo attacker waits to ambush the victim. From what I knew of the man, that would have been Seaver's style.

Learning that Sheryl was in the house at the time of the homicide was surprising in its own right. But it would have been too much to expect Sheryl to be in the same room when James Seaver killed his wife. And if the police had any idea the murder happened in front of her in real-time, they would have found Sheryl before I did.

How much more of this story had I—and everyone else—missed?

"I've never told anyone this before, but I saw Doc kill Theresa," Sheryl repeated, slowly shaking her head as she looked down and hugged a pillow that she'd pulled off the bed. She was still visibly upset, but calmer, her tone softer. Her shoulders sagged, and the expression had gone flat.

"It didn't happen the way people think."

I realized that what I heard in her voice wasn't despair as much as the acceptance of defeat—she was giving up the fight.

"You are a material witness to a homicide?" I asked incredulously. "Maybe you should tell me the whole thing right from the beginning. I want to record this and give you a copy of the tape. That protects you from someone saying you said something you didn't. Once I know the entire story, I can help you figure out the best thing for you to do."

"Only if you promise you won't share the recording with anyone," Sheryl said.

The memory installed on my burner phone wasn't enough to record long conversations, so I took my handheld digital recorder out of my purse.

"They can't make me reveal my sources. And I won't let them have anything you give me unless you tell me it is alright with you," I said. I wanted the recording only as source material for what I would write—I had no intention of sharing it with anyone. But I did have an ulterior motive. Hundreds of interviews have taught me that recordings are helpful. Especially in those situations where a subject later gets cold feet and wants to recant or deny something they said. That can happen with someone as malleable as Sheryl seemed to be.

"Okay. So, everybody thinks Doc came up with this fancy master plan to kill Theresa," Sheryl explained, "and that's how she must have died, something clever and well-considered... What's that word? 'Nefarious'? But it wasn't like that at all."

"He didn't intend to kill her?" I asked.

"He was planning to get rid of her somehow to collect her inheritance. Eventually. But not that day, and not that way."

"So, what happened was spontaneous, then?" I asked.

"Sort of, I guess. So, here's how it worked. Doc and I have been tight for a long time, and he used to take great care of me. He'd buy me things, give me gifts, and we'd go out for nice dinners. But mostly, we liked to sleep together, sometimes at his place or maybe mine. Now and then, we'd go to a motel or do it right out in public places. Whenever we wanted—we were seeing and getting married to other people, but Doc and I had a thing. I can't explain it."

"Chemistry. Sometimes there's just no way to account for it," I said.

"Yeah, and besides that, Doc's wife, Theresa, could be a real bitch sometimes," Sheryl continued. "Okay, maybe all the time. She'd rag at him over the least little thing, and lately, she had been questioning him about what he was doing with her money."

"They were fighting a lot, then?" I asked, as I remembered Darrell Woodson telling me how hard it was to get along with Theresa.

"Nag, nag, nag. All the time. And she was such a prude. She didn't want to do any of the things Doc likes, and Doc likes a lot of things," Sheryl said with a bashful smile.