Hayes frowned. “Problem is, resentment is a motive, but it isn’t proof.”
“The trinket is.”
He shook his head. “You could have taken it off his jacket yourself and made Jeff out to be the bad guy as payback for his cheating. Or do the investigators know about his affair?”
Regretfully, she nodded. “If I raised the question of his missing zipper pull, it would be my word against his as to where he’d lost it and when.”
“Then it’s a damn good thing I kept that rock.”
“I’d forgotten that!” she exclaimed. “You still have it?”
“Oh yeah. A hard fall could have caused a concussion. Even the gash. But you took a blow that left strands of hair on the rock. That bothered me, enough so that I thought I’d better hold on to it. That’s also one of the main reasons I didn’t drop you at an ER when I found you. If that rock had been a weapon, whoever wielded it—”
“Remained a threat.”
“Correct. As it turns out, my hunch was right. Jeff was a threat up until you took my hand on that balcony.”
“Why didn’t you share your apprehensions with me immediately when I regained consciousness? Why didn’t you explain then why you were reluctant to take me to an ER?”
“The shape you were in, would it have calmed you down if I had started asking who in your life might want to kill you?”
She had the grace to look chagrined.
“If there was a villain, I was the logical choice,” he said. “Then you found the damn rock, and that cinched it.”
“It looked so menacing,” she said, remembering her fear when she saw it. “Can fingerprints be lifted off a surface like that? What can it prove?”
“Your blood and hair will be typed.”
“A prosecutor will still have to prove how they got there. An accident? Or with intent?”
“I don’t know what good it will do, but it’s better to have it than not. Who investigated your disappearance?” After she told him about Knight and Grange, he asked, “How much confidence do you have in them? Even with two pieces of evidence that raise questions about your ‘fall,’ will they take you seriously or dismiss you as a jealous and vindictive wife?”
“I’m not sure,” she replied honestly.
“Before you stick your neck out, you gotta be sure of them, Doc.”
“Neither likes Jeff, but they’ve been deferential and apologetic for suspecting him. I lost a lot of credibility when they saw that video.”
“Video?”
“Oh! You don’t know about that.”
By the time she’d finished, he was shaking his head with self-depreciation. “I was worried about an alarm system, motion detectors, and security cameras, but a freaking nanny cam never occurre
d to me. I’ll have to remember that.”
“For the next time you commit a Class H felony.”
He arched an eyebrow. “You’ve learned a lot today.”
“More than I wanted to. Where was I?”
“You lost credibility.”
“They wanted to know who my accomplice was, and they didn’t believe me when I couldn’t name you. They questioned the Floyds, even Pauline and Lisa. They all came down with amnesia about you, too, which was very frustrating to Knight and Grange.” She told him about their excursion to the cabin.
“I’m sorry you were put through that.”