Shame on Him (Fool Me Once 3)

I am so glad I didn’t grow up in the land of Facebook. Nothing like airing your dirty laundry for the entire world to see. This just makes her even more of a suspect now in my book.

Since I don’t want anyone knowing what I’m up to, I’m using a fake name and fake reason for all of the questions. I decided a good place to start would be the ex.

“Hello, Mrs. Covington, I’m Lori Wagner. We spoke on the phone the other day?”

Stephanie Covington stands in the doorway of her condo with a cup of tea in her hand and looks at me in confusion for a few moments.

“Oh, that’s right. You’re the reporter,” she says as she nods, holding the door wider. “Come in; I was just making taheebo tea. My herbalist told me I have a sluggish liver. Would you like a cup? Do you have a sluggish liver?”

I have no idea how to respond to this, so I just smile and politely decline as I walk through the doorway.

Stephanie Covington isn’t at all what I pictured when I found out she was thirty years younger than her husband. Well, looks-wise she fits that picture to a T. She’s twenty-five years old and supermodel gorgeous with long blond hair and a chest that has had some help, judging by the way she’s practically spilling out of her skintight red dress.

But to be honest, I imagined she would behave like an elitist, gold-digging child. But when we spoke on the phone, Stephanie was more than happy to answer some of my questions and was extremely polite.

“You’ll have to excuse the mess. I’ve just been too depressed since I heard about Richard to even think about having the maid come by,” Stephanie explains.

I glance around and briefly wonder what this woman thinks is a “mess.” The place is pretty spotless from where I stand.

“I’m so sorry for your loss, Mrs. Covington. As I said on the phone, I just need to ask you a few questions.”

She sits down on the love seat in the sitting room and gestures for me to take a seat across from her on the matching couch.

“Please, call me Stephanie.” She leans over the arm of the love seat and pulls a tissue out of a box, dabbing gently under her eyes. “It’s still such a shock. We had our differences and the divorce wasn’t going very smoothly, but he was still my husband, and I loved him when we married.”

I smile softly at her and give her time to compose herself.

“If you don’t mind me asking, Stephanie, why were you and Mr. Covington separating?”

Aside from the porn addiction.

She sighs and folds her hands in her lap. “It’s the same old story. A few years after we got married, he decided to turn me in for a younger model. I caught him screwing his secretary on his desk. I had decided to surprise him with dinner when he was supposed to be working late.”

Even though I feel bad for Stephanie, she just made herself a prime suspect.

As if reading my mind, she continues. “I know what you’re thinking. I know what everyone is thinking. I killed him in a jealous rage. But Richard and I had been having problems even before I caught him cheating. To put it delicately, Richard had a fondness for pornographic movies. And I’m not just talking a few viewings here and there. I mean, he watched it all the time. Morning, noon, and night. He even took it to the office. I begged him to get help, but he just laughed it off. I told him I would leave him if he didn’t stop and the next thing I know, I’m walking in on him reenacting a scene with another woman. People think I might have killed him because he was trying to stiff me in the divorce. But Richard was worth more alive than he is dead.”

I look at her in confusion. “I’m sorry; I don’t follow.”

“My dearly departed ex didn’t believe in life insurance. He was fifty-five years old and he refused to go to the doctor even for a checkup. And now that he’s gone, his board of directors will take over the shares of his company, because even though he didn’t believe in protecting his life, he made damn sure to protect the only thing he ever loved,” she says bitterly.

Well, there goes that idea.

“Do you know anyone who might have had a grudge against your husband? A business associate or a friend whom he might have wronged?”

“I went over all of this with the detective who stopped by yesterday. Dallas, I think he said his name was. He was so nice—he took me out for drinks,” Stephanie says with a sniffle.

Oh, I’m sure Dallas was very nice at helping you forget by trying to get in your pants.

“Anyway, I just realized that I forgot to tell him last night that he should also question Richard’s old business partner, Andrew Jameson,” Stephanie tells me, crossing her legs and leaning back against the love seat.

Well, at least one good thing came from Dallas being a man whore last night: he was so busy feeding her alcohol and making her “forget,” that I know something he doesn’t.

“I don’t know everything that happened between them, but I know that they didn’t part on the best of terms when Andrew decided to leave the company. Are you going to put all of this in the article you’re writing? I don’t want Andrew to know I’m pointing fingers at him or anything.”

Oops, the article!

“Um, no, don’t worry about that at all. I’ll make sure to keep your name out of it,” I lie.

Stephanie looks relieved at my answer and continues. “I don’t know how many times I heard Richard on the phone with Andrew arguing. Richard was offering him quite a lot of money to buy him out, but Andrew felt like it wasn’t enough. Their arguments were just horrendous. They disrupted my chakras and I just couldn’t seem to get my life force back on track after that. My herbalist had to cleanse my aura three times a week just so I could sleep.”