“You did,” Vince said. “Once. People change. Life changes them.”

“I just couldn’t see him doing the things that were done to those women.”

“Farman didn’t kill those women,” Vince said.

The men on either side of him sat up straight in shock, and said, “What?”

“Farman killed his wife. He wasn’t See-No-Evil.”

“But it all fits,” Mendez argued.

“Almost. But not quite.”

“But Vince, I saw what he did to his wife. She looked just like the others—”

“And why wouldn’t she?” he asked. “Frank knew the details of those cases.”

“You think he just pulled a copycat?” Dixon asked.

“My story of Frank Farman goes like this,” Vince said. “Last night Frank got drunk, he got mean, he beat his wife. Not for the first time, but this time it went wrong, and she died. But Frank’s a smart guy when he sobers up in the light of day. He knows he’s got a lot to lose. He figures he can make his wife’s death look like the other murders. Hang it on a real bad guy. It was an accident, anyhow, and he’ll never do another bad thing in his life, so why should he go to prison?

“He can’t go to prison, he’s Frank Farman, Chief Deputy. Four more years working up to his twenty, and he’s got a boatload of commendations. He should be sheriff one day, damn it. He’s worked his ass off for it.

“So he does a copycat job after the fact—glues her eyes and mouth shut, cuts her up. She’s dead already. It’s not like he’s hurting her.

“He’s keeping his cool at this point. He’s got to do what he’s got to do. It’s business now. He figures he’ll plant her someplace once it gets dark. Only Frank’s day goes from bad to worse, to worse still.

“His kid tries to kill someone, then fingers him for killing his wife. He never counted on that. The people he respects most—yourself, Sheriff—are already looking at him sideways on account of him writing up the Vickers girl, and the business with the finger. Above anything else that’s happened to Frank, he can’t take that: tarnish on his image. He’s all about the image.

“So now he’s starting to fray around the edges. He’s not a killer by nature, so that’s weighing on him. He can’t stand people thinking he’s a bad cop, he’s a bad father. He goes home. He starts drinking. Then Child Protective Services pays a visit because Anne Navarre called them yesterday and reported him for possible abuse. More tarnish on the armor.