When I had first come into Wendell’s office, Nick was still there in the bathroom, trying to wipe fingerprints away from the sink, counters, and doorknobs. Hearing me, he had bolted, but the fact that he was left-handed had kept him safely to the left side of the stairwell, out of my range of vision, as I chased him down. When he reached the bottom, he simply exited the stairwell, walked to the car that he had left waiting in a loading zone around the side of the building, and drove away. Nick and Marion drove around for about 20 minutes before returning to the Smythe offices. This time, Marion came up on the elevator, acting confused about the presence of emergency personnel and feigning surprise at the news of her husband’s death.

“When I realized you would be investigating the murder,” Marion said to me, “I was worried at first. But then I knew the best way to distract you might be to bring Alan’s crimes to light, since that was all happening at the same time anyway. I put the records together in a box and locked it in the safe. I knew the time would come when I could show it to you, and that you would take it from there.”

I had bought her story, the day of the funeral, that she had “just discovered” the incriminating papers in Wendell’s safe. As Harriet would say, like a bloodhound on the scent of a grouse, I had taken things from there, pursuing Alan with a vengeance. Little had either Marion or I known at the time, of course, that Alan hadn’t finished yet; his subsequent theft and attempted escape had only helped solidify Marion’s plan and my suspicions.

I knew that I had played right into Marion’s hands. Yet, oddly, I wasn’t as angry with her as I was with Nick. When he realized I was coming too close to the truth, he panicked. Loyalty for his beloved friend and employer had made him act out of desperation.

“I was not going to kill you,” he rasped mournfully from his place on the couch. “I just wanted to scare you into keeping quiet.”

I looked over at him, thinking that perhaps I would never know for sure. I was going to let a jury decide that one.

“We had no choice, you see,” Marion said. “Wendell was planning to kill himself. Better I do it for him, Callie. Better I give him one last kiss and then fill him with insulin and let him die from that. Better his death at my hand than at his own.”

“But why?” I asked, struggling to understand.

Marion didn’t reply for a long while.

“Because I loved him,” she said finally, simply. “I didn’t want his life to end in suicide.”