“Why would you ask that? Is it something Sara mentioned?”
“No, she was not very transparent with me on her relationships.”
“I thought you two were close. You said you talked pretty much weekly.”
Ellen looked uncomfortable with the question. “The fact is, Sara and I were estranged over the last year or so. She seemed to have changed.”
“Changed? How so?”
“She was not the girl that I raised,” replied Ellen.
“I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to. I just want to know if you could have been the father.”
“Okay, do they know how far along Sara was?” asked Devine.
“Eight weeks. At least that’s what we were told.”
“And when did she have the procedure done?”
“In December,” Ellen replied.
“Then I was not the father. I hadn’t even met her at that point.”
“But you had sex with her? Outside of marriage?”
“Is that the reason for the estrangement? Sara was having sex outside of marriage?”
“That is not how we raised her.” She glanced at her husband. “Fred?”
He didn’t look at her or Devine. He merely said, “Young people sometimes make . . . poor decisions.”
Ellen rolled her eyes at this mild rebuke and shook her head. “Yes, very poor. She took the life of our grandchild, which is a mortal sin.”
“I’m sure it must have been an incredibly difficult decision for her,” said Devine.
“It shouldn’t have been her decision at all,” Ellen said heatedly.
He put up a hand. “I’m not going to get into all that with you right now. But she must have had a good reason. The woman I knew was kind and gentle.”
Ellen exclaimed, “Then you obviously didn’t know her. But, no, you did know her. You slept with her like the slut she was.”
“How can you say that? She was your child,” Devine snapped back. “She was a good person. And she didn’t deserve to be murdered!”
“Neither did that poor, innocent baby.”
Silence lingered for a few moments until Devine broke it. “Did anyone check Sara’s social media accounts? I know she was on Instagram.”
Fred said, “The police looked at all that and found nothing helpful. No pictures or references to current or past boyfriends.”
“But that could mean nothing, since you weren’t on any of it, Travis,” noted Ellen sharply.
“Did the police tell you that specifically?”
She looked down and didn’t answer.
“Did they ever find her diary?” asked Devine.