“So it’s over,” I say. “Now you know Zach is capable of violence. He’s going to prison, right?”

Bowman laughs a little. “Not so fast, friendo. What did Zach say when he was here?”

I look to Diana, who has the phone to her ear again. She nods, telling me I can answer her question.

“He admitted assaulting Madeline that night,” I say. “The way Rebecca Knox described it. Of course, he didn’t exactly see it as an assault. I think he said he got a little ‘handsy.’ ”

“Ugh.”

Bowman and I both look at Diana when she makes the noise. She continues with her phone call, but she’s shaking her head over Zach’s choice of words.

“He actually thinks I killed his wife,” I say. “And Madeline. He was pretty inflamed, so he wanted to take it out on me. Or drag me in to be arrested.” I try to go back to summon as many details as I can. “I think he’d been drinking. His eyes were glazed. And I smelled it on him when he got close to me.”

“He’d had a few too many,” Bowman says. “That didn’t help his judgment.”

“It never does,” I say. “But he was so angry. It seems like he was really wound up. Was it just the booze and feeling like he was being wrongly pursued?”

“What do you mean?” Bowman asks.

“I don’t know. Why come here now? Why attack instead of run?”

“Some people are fighters,” Bowman says. “When backed into a corner, they claw and slash. He knew we had new evidence in his wife’s case, that we’d been talking to you. I have to keep him abreast of developments up to a point.”

Diana asks Bowman, “Did you all find out who Madeline was dating back then? Anybody?”

Bowman hesitates a moment, like she isn’t sure she should share such sensitive information. But she relents. “We didn’t find evidence she was romantically involved with anyone. If she was, she kept it hidden. Madeline didn’t have a ton of close friends. She didn’t text or use social media a lot. She didn’t have a lot of money. She worked a job outside of school. She may not have had a big social life.”

“She didn’t seem to have a great family,” I say.

“What about colleagues of yours?” Bowman asks. “Now, that party was at whose house? Someone you teach with, right? Hoffman? Is that the name?”

“What are you asking me?”

“Was Madeline involved with one of your colleagues?”

“I didn’t know anything about that.”