“I wish I could,” Valerie said. “But I don’t know all that much.” She told the detectives how Camille had met with her nearly a month earlier and explained her situation, that she was pregnant, that the father was a priest, and that she was considering leaving the convent.

“But she didn’t,” Montoya prodded.

“No, not by the time . . .” She cleared her throat and told herself to “tough up” as their father had always advised whenever either of his daughters came to him with a problem. “Not by the time she’d died. She sent me an e-mail, though. It was short and said that she couldn’t take it anymore, whatever that meant, and that she was leaving the order and that I know why. I guess she was talking about the pregnancy.”

“When did you receive it?”

“Last night. Late. I was worried about her and . . .” And you should have gone and visited her. Maybe you could have saved her. The recriminations rolled through her mind even though she knew better. She’d been a cop, been in Bentz’s and Montoya’s shoes, showed family members their dead loved ones, questioned them about everyone they knew. So she tried like crazy to push her guilt aside and help the cops. She told them everything she knew, from the time that she and Camille were adopted by their mother and father, through the trials and trauma of high school. She had known of Frank O’Toole’s reputation, and she recalled that Camille had dated Reuben Montoya. She admitted that she and Camille had been estranged in recent years, that part of the alienation had been her marriage to Slade, a man Camille had shown interest in.

She also reminded them of the other nun who had been involved with O’Toole, though she still wasn’t certain of her name or what became of her or really if she had existed anywhere but in Camille’s jealous mind.

“So . . .” Bentz switched his attention to Slade as rain began to tick against the window. “You were the last man she was involved with before she joined the order?”

“We weren’t involved.” Slade’s gaze was level, his words firm. “She was my sister-in-law.”

“But she . . . did what? Came onto you?” Bentz glanced at Valerie for clarification.

“You could say that.” He glanced at his wife. “She flirted.”

“Define ‘flirted,’” Montoya said, and Slade had the decency to look uncomfortable.

“You know, man. She would say things, give me a look, get all pouty.”

“Around you?” Bentz again, brows slammed together, eyes on Valerie.

She shook her head. “No, I never saw that.”

“What did you see?”

Val sighed, glanced to the window where the rain ran in zigzagging rivulets. “I saw a woman who was confused and a man who didn’t discourage her.”