“I understand, Gage, and I appreciate you’re explaining why you’re asking. Yes, it’s personal, but I don’t have anything to hide. I went to bed first. It was about half an hour after they left. Steven was still in the study. I stopped by there long enough to say goodnight, and went to my room.”
Gage nodded his head, one sharp jerk up and down, and she bit her lips to keep from smiling. The movement epitomized him; simple, brief, efficient. Right now, he seemed all business, not like the man in New Orleans, the one who’d shown concern and empathy and even friendship when she’d almost been kidnapped. She wanted that man back, not this stiff, formal automaton.
“How long after you went to bed did Steven retire to his room?”
“Not long after me. Can you just get to the point?”
“I need to be thorough. You want me to find out who killed your husband, you need to let me work the way I’m used to. Which means covering every minute detail, every angle, no matter how small or insignificant it might seem.”
She lowered her gaze to stare at her hands. “I’m sorry, you’re right. Steven went to his room about ten minutes or so after I climbed into bed, so it was maybe twenty minutes.”
“I know this next part is a bit sensitive, but I have to ask. You mentioned you and your husband slept in separate beds, separate rooms. That night he asked you to come and sleep with him.”
“Yes.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “When we first met, I told you my husband suffered from night terrors, which caused him to thrash about violently in his sleep. It’s why he asked me to sleep in a different room. The might Steven…died, he came to my room. There was something different, though I’ve tried every day since then to figure out what made him ask me to sleep with him. He said he wanted to hold me until he fell asleep.”
“This was unusual?”
Suzanna sighed before slowly nodding. “Neither my husband nor I were overly demonstrative people. There weren’t any public displays of affection, other than holding hands going into an event, and the occasional kiss on the cheek. Please understand, I loved my husband and he loved me. But we were not—intimate. From time to time, my husband would ask me to be with him, sleep with him. On those occasions, he’d pull my close and hold me in his arms. There was something about hugging me close that seemed to, I don’t know, soothe him. This didn’t happen often, because of the night terrors. I know they were getting worse. He’d been seeing a psychologist, trying to figure out what caused them. They think it was some type of posttraumatic stress disorder, but that’s something Stevendidn’t discuss with me. Whenever he had the events, they’d last anywhere from a few minutes to half an hour or so, and he’d never remember anything that happened during one. He rarely drank because alcohol could trigger a night terror episode.”
Gage slowly began moving the porch swing, the motion slow and almost hypnotic, as though he wasn’t aware he was even doing it, and she could almost see him mulling over the things she’d said in his head. She wanted to give him the answers he needed, she was tired of waking up every day with a sword hanging over her head, wondering when the police were going to show up on her doorstep to arrest her. Sometimes she’d wake in the middle of the night, wondering if the killer would show up and finish the job, and kill her too.
“So you went to Steven’s room. Spent the night in his arms.”
“Yes.”
“Did he have a night terror episode the night he died?”
“No, he didn’t. As far as I know, he slept through the night.”
“As far as you know?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, I was asleep the entire night.” Suzanna stopped, realizing something she hadn’t even considered before. “I’m normally a fairly light sleeper, which was another reason Steven wanted to sleep alone. Because he was so restless, it often either kept me awake, or would constantly wake me up throughout the night. But the night he died, I don’t remember ever waking up throughout the entire night. I just remembered that.”
“Did you have anything to drink that night?” Gage had turned to fully face here, the motion of the porch swing slowing to a stop.
“I had a glass of wine with dinner. I barely drank more than a couple of sips. I don’t like the taste of alcohol, so I rarely have any. I only had that because Donald and Elizabeth brought it togo with dinner.” She scrunched up her nose. “I didn’t care for it, but I didn’t want to be rude.”
“Did everyone drink the wine?”
“I think so?” The way she answered made it sound more like a question, because she couldn’t remember if everybody drank the wine. “I know Steven poured glasses for each of us, but I didn’t really pay attention to whether everybody drank it. But I would think we all had at least a sip of two.”
“Did you feel stranger or different after drinking the wine?”
“No, I didn’t like how it tasted, but I don’t remember feeling any different.” She didn’t like the direction his questions seemed to be heading, but she’d wait for another few minutes. Maybe there was a method to his madness, as they say.
“Was it usual for them to bring wine when they visited?”
Again with the wine?
“Not really. Why are you asking about the wine?”
“Just getting all the facts about the night your husband was killed. Every detail, no matter how big or small, adds to the picture. It’s the way I work. It’s like a jigsaw puzzle, and each clue, each piece is carefully put into place until I see the whole picture.”
“I hope you’re seeing more of the picture than I am, because I don’t have any idea who wanted Steven dead.”
“We’ll figure it out. I have to ask, when Steven went to bed, did he usually take any kind of sleep aid or medication to help him relax?”
“No…well, if he did, I didn’t know about it. It’s possible his psychiatrist prescribed something, but we’d have to ask her.”
