“This is like asking someone ‘When was the last time you beat your wife?’ My dad’s feelings toward Alex were awful. I called him out on it, but he really convinced himself it was because Alex was supposedly a drug dealer. Or appeared out of nowhere buying a business that should be locally owned. Or because he didn’t make an effort to get to know my family. But all of that would have been fine with my father, if Alex hadn’t been Mexican. Or ‘a Mexican,’ as my dad would say. But that doesn’t make my dad a killer.” But was it possible she knew someone else who might be? One of the uncles? She shook the thought from her head. Fact one: Alex couldn’t swim. Fact two: Her family was bigoted. Didn’t mean there was a connection. “My father never really liked anyone I dated. So Alex was batting average, all things considered.”

“Do you know where Alex was from before he moved out here?”

“He worked on Alaskan commercial fishing boats for years. That’s where he met Frank.” She could tell the name meant nothing to the detective. “Frank Garner. Owned Reel Deal Fishing until last winter, when he sold it to Alex, whom he met, like, a decade ago.” Whom. The same writer who had told her about she versus her.

“So, we didn’t talk about that before,” the detective said. “Alex was from Alaska?”

We didn’t talk about anything before, she thought. You barely listened to me. You wrote me off as some kind of ditzy hairdresser sidepiece. You never asked me a single question.

“I told you that on Saturday,” she said. “I told you he saved up all his money from work catching salmon, and that Frank became a kind of mentor. They stayed in touch. And when Frank decided to retire, he sold the guide business to Alex. Six months ago, but that was, like, New Year’s. So this was really Alex just getting started on running the place during a season.”

“Did he grow up in Alaska?” Decker asked.

She shook her head. “Phoenix. He told me he moved to Alaska because it was basically the exact opposite of where he grew up.”

“What about his family?”

For his next of kin. That’s why you’re asking, right?