“Just tell me the truth. Please.”

“As nearly as I can tell, he was very happy. It’s one of the things that’s so strange about his death. I think you should know that he didn’t talk about you. He tried to get his first marriage behind him. Everything I’ve learned about his second marriage tells me he was very happy indeed, and very much in love.”

“Surgery without anesthetic,” she said. “I was trying to flatter myself.”

“You said you knew things about him that he didn’t know himself. What did you have in mind?”

“Maybe you know them already,” she said.

“Try me.”

“We were on our honeymoon when I told him that he was much neater about himself than most men. I was going on what I had seen of my father. Colin took excellent care of his clothes and his grooming. He was meticulous—I don’t mean fussy. It pleased him to know he was that sort of person. It was our honeymoon and it pleased him to know that something he hadn’t thought of made me proud of him.”

“His recent pictures show that he hadn’t changed his habits,” Leland said.

“I’m wasting your time,” she said.

“There are questions I want to ask you. This has you upset and you’ve drawn a blank for the moment. I’d like you to tell me about the way he drove a car.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The way he drove. In the time he was married to you, he picked up more than forty traffic and parking tickets. What can you tell me about them?”

She was staring at him, unbelieving. “Who told you that?”

“The police of Manitou and Port Smith. There’s no question of it.”

“I remember two parking tickets. He gave them to me and I bought money orders for them. Are you sure you have the same man?”

“Absolutely.”

“He handled the money. I wouldn’t have known if he had gotten all those tickets or not. He did such a good job of handling our money that I never questioned him. He could have paid the fines without letting me know.”

“He did. How did he drive?”

“Fast. He could shift gears by just stabbing at the clutch pedal, not pushing all the way down. He liked to drive and he kept testing his abilities.”

“I want to talk about money, Betty, where he got it and how he saved it. Did he borrow from his mother, for example. Give me the figures, if you can recall them.”