“Do you mind if I ask a couple of questions?”

A flicker of silence, but in the main, she was loosening up. “I divorced Ned Lowe years ago. Good riddance to bad rubbish and that’s the end of it as far as I’m concerned.”

I gave her a brief rundown, “brief” being a relative term. I told her about Taryn Sizemore’s lawsuit, how the mailing pouch meant for April had fallen into my hands, and summed up the few facts I’d picked up in Burning Oaks. I also told her about Pete’s death, which was really the starting point of my investigation.

At the end of my summary she said, “How recently did you see April?”

“This afternoon.”

“How’s she doing?”

“She’s fine, married to an orthodontist and expecting her first child.”

“Well, tell her I said hello. I can’t tell you how often I’ve thought of her. She was nine when I left. Talk about a lost lamb.”

“Actually, she was under the impression the marriage broke up because of her.”

“Because of her? Where’d she get that idea?”

“She thought playing mother to a seven-year-old wasn’t your cup of tea.”

“Bet you that was Ned’s claim, the son of a bitch. It had nothing to do with April, which he damn well knew.”

“How long were you married?”

“Two years, which was two years too long. The man was impossible. Clinging and needy. Then he’d do a complete about-face and be suspicious, controlling, and paranoid. I’d say manic-depressive, but it was more like Jekyll and Hyde. The change wasn’t quite that literal, but I could see it come over him and I knew enough to get out of his way. I thought of it as his seasonal affective disorder because it happened in the spring, like an allergy.”

“Sounds charming. What do you think it was?”

“Who knows? Maybe he had a secret life. In the end, I didn’t care if he had an entire family on the side; I just wanted out. I’d have stuck with him for April’s sake, but I had to save myself while I could.”

“Why did you marry him?”

“Well, that’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, isn’t it? You think I haven’t beat myself up over that dumb move? Not that this is any excuse, but I was newly divorced, unemployed, overweight, and I’d developed some sort of nervous condition that made my hair fall out in clumps. He could see how vulnerable I was and knew I’d be easy to manipulate. Which, I’m ashamed to say, I was.

“I’ll tell you one more thing, and this is embarrassing. I don’t even know why I’m ’fessing up except I’m sure I wasn’t the first or the last woman he tried this on. We sometimes smoked a little dope back then just for the hell of it. We’d get high and hit the sack. He had this trick . . . this choking thing he did. He told me he learned it in high school. He’d take me just to the point of passing out and he’d bring me to orgasm. I’d never experienced that before and I was . . . I couldn’t help it. I’m ashamed to admit sex had such a hold on me when Ned himself was so disgusting.”