“Alone, or with someone else?”

“She, she didn’t say. It’s almost like she was talking about running away. Like she was scared. But I may have read that wrong. Maybe she’s just planning a vacation. Maybe she’s going away with her boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend? She has a boyfriend?”

“Well, I don’t know for sure that she does, but I have this sense that there’s someone else. Someone she’s seeing. Or has been seeing.”

“That must hurt,” I said, “the idea that she might be unfaithful to you and all.” I thought Carpington might shoot me a look, but he missed the irony and kept staring down at his desk.

“No, I know what we’ve got and what the limits are. I know she doesn’t like me. I know why she’s doing what she’s doing. I’m not stupid. I mean, look at me. What are the chances a girl like Stefanie Knight would be interested in a guy like me?”

Well, he had me there, but I decided not to say anything. But what I was thinking was, Could this guy have any more motives for wanting Stefanie Knight dead? She was clearly part of some blackmail scheme against him. Maybe she’d been threatening to tell his wife about what they’d been up to. And there was the jealousy angle. Carpington figured she was seeing somebody else.

I was starting to feel better already. I was moving down from the number one spot on the list of possible suspects. “Sure, Detective,” I could hear myself saying in an interrogation room, “I stole her purse, but you want an even better suspect? Check out this guy.”

But all that aside, I didn’t think he was the one who’d struck Stefanie in the head with a shovel. He just didn’t seem to have it in him.

I said, “You think this boyfriend was Rick?”

“Rick?” Carpington, who I thought couldn’t look any worse, moved toward bilious. “Don’t even talk to me about him. He’s a total psychopath. He’s insane.”

“We’ve met. To be honest with you, I don’t care much for him, either. We didn’t hit it off very well.”