"I left the house about ten, ten-thirty maybe, and I went to The Sport Spot and had a few too many drinks."
"Do you usually go out drinking like that at night, or did something happen at home?" Clinton asked.
"What he’s askin’ is; how were things with you and your wife?" Minter asked bluntly.
"Not that good. My wife had had two miscarriages, and after the last one, she went into a manic depression," I began slowly. "Recently, she had stopped going to treatment and refused to take her medication, so her depression was getting worse."
"Why’d she stop?" Minter asked.
"She didn’t like the way they made her feel."
"How was that?" Clinton needed to know.
"She said they made her feel weak and slow. She said it was hard for her to concentrate, like she couldn’t focus on anything without getting confused."
"Go on, Mr. James, what happened that night?" Minter asked.
"I tried to talk to her about getting back into treatment with a new doctor, that maybe they could find something that could help her, and not make her feel that way."
"What did she say?"
"Nothing. Unless she needed to speak to me, she didn’t."
"That must’ve been hard on you?" Clinton followed.
I didn’t answer him. I just dropped my head and shook it.
"When was the last time you had sex with your wife, Mr. James?" Minter asked.
I didn’t answer him either, but I looked him in the eyes.
"I know it’s a very personal question, and I wouldn’t ask unless it was important."
"I don’t understand why, but—" I paused. "I can’t tell you exactly, but I can tell you it’s been a long time."
"A week? A month?" Clinton asked.
"It’s been over a year now, detective."
"I see," he said.
"What happened after you tried to talk to her about treatment, Mr. James?" Minter asked.
"I went to The Sport Spot, I woke up in jail, I came home and Winston and I found her body." I dropped my head again. "You have any idea who did this?" I asked him.
"As near as we can tell, this was a robbery that went way wrong. There are signs of forced entry at the back door. The robbers came in through there, found your wife home alone."
"She takes sleeping pills at night, so she wouldn’t have heard them come in."
"Yes, we found the pills by the bed," Detective Clinton said, and then he paused. "Mr. James, your wife was raped before she was murdered."
"I figured that when I saw her tied up that way," I said, and looked away.
"The good news is that we were able to get a sperm sample," Clinton said.
"What?" I interrupted quickly. "I’m sorry, what did you say?"
"Sorry, I didn’t mean to say it that way, Mr. James. I mean the part about good news, I mean. There is nothing good about any of this. What I said was that we were able to get a sperm sample, and we’re running that DNA against our database. Hopefully, we’ll find a match."