“I haven’t been holding out on you guys, guns never interested me. But I wouldn’t have had to own a gun, the gun that shot Mike was the neighbor’s, so I could have simply picked it up and killed Mike with it.” Paul was getting more and more gloomy.
“But as a first time shooter you wouldn’t be able to hit a brick wall except at very, very close range. I told you, I think you’re safe,” Jane insisted. I shook my head; disaster always seemed to follow Jane where ever she went. I doubted this would be the first or last calamity that she would get herself into.
“So are you a serious suspect, or are they just talking about the possibility?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine Jane killing anyone, no matter how quick tempered she was. If nothing else, if we were going by marksmanship, I had heard she always misses, even though she practices. She just doesn’t seem to have any talent at aim at all.
“They aren’t telling me things in that much detail. But I don’t have an alibi and I know that looks bad. I live alone as well, and didn’t go anywhere but home after I saw Mike. His wife and daughter were out; they are on tape at the superstore at the estimated time of death, so they aren’t suspected.”
“Well I don’t think anyone would suspect Mike’s wife,” Paul said and I nodded. She was far too timid for anyone to ever think of her as a killer. She had spent her entire life entirely happy to leave everything for her husband to decide. I could only suppose that now that Mike was gone that role would go down to her daughter. Mike’s daughter was just as strong willed as her father, for which I respected her. She was all of seventeen and already much more determined and ambitious then I think her mother had ever been.
“No, I don’t think they suspected Mike’s wife, she really doesn’t know what to do with Mike dead. Everything has fallen apart in that house since his death. Of course they investigated her just in case, looking for domestic abuse or something like that as a motive but of course Mike never hit her or their daughter in his life. He was always kindness itself to his family you know, even when he was drunk. There was that idea all shot to pieces. I think they suspected the daughter more then her mother even from the start though. She would do something like murder if she put her mind to it,” Jane pointed out.
“Yeah but she would have no motive, none at all. Her father always gave her everything that she could have ever wanted.”
“Yeah I think that’s what the police have decided. They have backed off from the family anyway. A good thing too, they’re in mourning after all, it wasn’t fair for them to be pestered so much. Those police, they always assume that just because a man drinks a lot he is cruel to his family.”
“Well it’s a common stereotype,” I said. “And it isn’t always wrong that drunks aren’t the best parents. I’m not saying Mike wasn’t a good guy to his family mind you,” I said hurriedly when I saw the faces of the other two.
“This whole thing would be so much easier if they would just find out who the neighbor cares enough about to protect but also had a reason to kill Mike. There can’t be that many people who fit that combination,” said Paul.
“Yes but I suppose it would be difficult to find out that much about everyone. It might be someone that none of us even know about,” I pointed out. “The police don’t have an easy job here.”
“Just who’s side are you on, the polices or what? Are you actually a undercover cop,” Jane demanded.
To be continued...
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