“Leviticus 20:13, states, ‘If a man lies with a male, as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.’ I tend to agree with him, and I was under the impression that as an American, I’m free to pursue my own beliefs.”

“He was a hell of a guy that Leviticus, wasn’t he Detective Cruz?” Sam said.

“In our time, he’d be considered a bigot,” Freddie said with a pointed look at Diandra.

“I’m not a bigot, Detective. My beliefs are grounded in scripture.”

“Your friend, Leviticus also recommends stoning for married couples who engage in intercourse during the woman’s period,” Freddie said. “I sure hope you’ve never done that.”

“It’s not the same thing,” Diandra snapped. “A woman’s period is a natural event.”

“How do you reconcile the unnatural ‘abomination’ with the commandment to love thy neighbor?” Freddie asked. “And Jesus himself said, ‘If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.’”

Diandra glared at him.

Fascinated by the debate, Sam was reluctant to interrupt but needed to get back to the investigation. “Do either you or your husband own a gun?”

Diandra was clearly caught off guard by the change in direction. “We have a gun we keep locked in the house for protection. I’ve attracted my share of detractors.”

“You say that you have no hatred for homosexuals, but would you say you hated your brother-in-law Julian?”

Diandra’s posture lost some of its rigidity. “I was once very close to Julian. We lived for many years in Boston while Preston completed graduate studies at Harvard. We spent a lot of time with Julian.”

“Yet you never had any idea that Julian was gay?”

She shook her head. “It came as a total shock to me. Like I said the other day, we’d allowed our young, impressionable sons to spend time in his home, to sleep there.” She shuddered. “God only knows what they were subjected to.”

“Did you suspect that he abused them?”

Diandra’s eyes flashed with anger. “Of course not! He would never harm them. He loved those boys. I never doubted that.”

“Did Duncan spend the night with Julian when the boys were there?”

“Not that I was ever aware of.”

“So your brother-in-law, who was clearly devoted to your sons and who seemed to go to some lengths to keep his orientation hidden from them, was none-the-less banished from their lives?”

“You don’t understand, Lieutenant.”

“Then make me.”

Diandra folded her hands on the table and focused on them. “Times were different then. People were less accepting of alternative lifestyles. Preston and I were building our careers, pursuing our goals—”

“And there was no room for his gay brother in the midst of all that ambition?”

“We didn’t want our sons to be influenced.”