Page 29 of She Didn’t See It Coming

Jayne has asked Sam Frost to come back in for further questioning.

It’s late Thursday afternoon, and her team has been busy.

Sam is on his way. She wonders if this time he will want an attorney.

They now know about the wife’s affair with Derek Gardner, and that it’s likely that he was physically abusive to his wife.

Sam had said that their marriage was perfect.

She’s about to punch a big hole in that idea.

She checks in with the team in the incident room first. The officers have reported back that no one they’ve spoken to can confirm Sam was in Washington Park on Tuesday.

The officer who took the stairs from the eighth floor to where Bryden’s body was found had run into no one.

They are interviewing everyone who lives or works in the condo building again, chasing down any visitors, hoping to find someone who might have seen somebody with the suitcase.

They are looking into Derek Gardner too.

But right now, she wants to focus her attention on the husband.

When Sam is waiting for them in the interview room, she and Kilgour enter together.

She tells him that he is here to answer questions voluntarily to help in their investigation and that he can leave at any time.

She tells him this to make him relax, in the hopes of getting more out of him.

The truth is, if he decides he doesn’t want to be here and gets up to leave, she will tell him he’s no longer here voluntarily and have Kilgour read him his rights.

He might then opt for an attorney, but at least he’s alone for now.

She asks Sam to identify himself for the tape.

“Sam,” she begins, her voice deliberately sympathetic, “how are you holding up?”

“I’m okay,” he says, not looking okay at all. His face has hollowed in the short time since his wife was reported missing. He looks like he’s barely slept and there’s a faint whiff of sweat coming from him. She notes that he’s wearing the same jeans and T-shirt he was wearing the day before.

“And how is Clara?” she asks, out of genuine concern.

She lay awake last night thinking about the little girl, what it will be like for her growing up without a mother.

What it will be like for her if it turns out her father is the one who killed her.

What it will be like for her when she’s old enough to learn the details.

“I don’t really know,” he admits. “It’s hard to know how all this will affect her. She’s so young.” His voice catches.

“Children are resilient,” Jayne says gently.

“I’ve heard that,” Sam says, looking as if he has his doubts.

Maybe he lies awake at night too, Jayne thinks, worrying about his daughter. Or maybe he lies awake worrying about himself. It’s her job to find out if this man is a murderer. She must discover the truth, for Clara’s sake.

“Tell me about the rest of the family,” Jayne says. “Are you close to Donna and Jim? Are they able to help with Clara?”

“Yes, we’re close. I’m sure they’ll help where they can, but they live in Florida.”

“What about Lizzie? Is she likely to lend a hand going forward?”

He nods. “Yes. She adores Clara.”

“She and her sister were very close, I understand.”

He gives her a look. “Is that what Lizzie told you?”

“Yes. Why, do you not think so?”

“I wouldn’t call them close . To be honest, I think they had a bit of a difficult relationship.”

“Difficult how?” Jayne asks, interested. Lizzie certainly hadn’t said anything like this, and when asked, the parents had said the girls had a “normal sibling relationship.”

“I think Lizzie is—was—a bit jealous of Bryden. She always felt like she was in Bryden’s shadow. Bryden was always careful to try to not make her feel that way. Lizzie would take offense easily. Mostly they got along. There were good times, but there was conflict.”

“I see,” Jayne says, filing that information in her mind. “Sam, we’ve had the results of the autopsy,” Jayne says quietly. She allows a short pause. “Your wife was asphyxiated, probably by some kind of plastic bag held over her head.”

Sam licks his visibly dry lips. “That’s terrible,” he whispers.

“It is,” Jayne agrees. “There was no sexual assault.” She waits another beat and adds, “Which makes it somewhat less likely that it was a stranger, and more likely it was someone she knew.” He says nothing, just swallows nervously.

“Since we spoke last night,” Jayne says, “we’ve learned some new information that I want to talk to you about. ”

He looks back at her, his eyes glazed. “What information?”

“We spoke to Bryden’s physician. She suspects that your wife was a victim of domestic violence.” Jayne can tell by the shock on Sam’s face that he wasn’t expecting this.

“That’s bullshit,” Sam says. “I loved my wife. I never laid a hand on her.”

“I’ve got her medical records. A cracked rib, about a month ago—remember that?

She saw her physician because she needed something for the pain.

Her doctor says it looked like she’d been kicked in the ribs.

Is that how you treated the wife you loved so much, Sam?

” Jayne can barely keep the hostility out of her voice.

Sam has gone completely still and silent. Jayne carries on. “You still deny you physically assaulted your wife?”

“Yes, of course I deny it. I never laid a finger on her.”

Jayne glances at Kilgour, signaling him to continue.

Kilgour says, “We’ve also learned that your wife had been having an affair.”

Jayne watches Sam closely. Sees his glazed eyes flicker, then blink. Is he surprised? She can’t tell.

“I don’t believe it,” Sam says.

“I’m afraid it’s true,” Kilgour says neutrally. “Her best friend, Paige, told us about it.”

“Bryden wouldn’t cheat,” he says bluntly. “We have a three-year-old daughter. Her family was everything to her. She wouldn’t jeopardize that.”

Jayne says, “She was sleeping with Derek Gardner, the man she had the minor car accident with several weeks ago.” She watches him clench his hands on the surface of the table between them.

“No.”

“Are you saying you didn’t know that she was having an affair?” Kilgour asks.

“Of course I didn’t know!” Sam swallows and asks, “Did he kill her?”

Kilgour ignores the question. “You were never suspicious of her?” he asks. Sam shakes his head. “Didn’t check up on her?”

He stops shaking his head. He looks at Kilgour. “What do you mean? Like hiring a private investigator to follow her?” he scoffs. “No.”

“No,” Kilgour answers. “I mean, did you ever call her employer to confirm that she had business meetings in Buffalo on”—he looks down at the folder on the desk in front of him, opens it, and scans a page—“January eighteenth and February twenty-second?”

They’ve got him, and he knows it. Jayne watches the color drain from Sam’s face.

Watches his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallows.

She waits for him to answer. When he doesn’t, she repeats the question.

“Did you call her employer to try to confirm that she was in fact away on business on these two dates?”

“I want an attorney,” Sam says, his voice breaking.