“It takes new money to do it,” she noted. “That activity isn’t cheap.”
“No, it’s not,” he murmured.
“So why do you do it?” she asked.
“Because money isn’t the be all and end all. You have to understand the motivation behind why you’re doing something and what it’ll cost you—whether time or money.”
“Everything has a cost,” she agreed. “We just don’t always take account of what way we have to pay.”
He smiled. “And again we have such different views but still end up at the same place.”
She frowned at that but didn’t say anything. She walked up to the front door.
He looked at her and asked, “Are you okay if I come with you on this interview?”
She nodded. “It’s probably not kosher but whatever.” She waited, and, when the door opened, a tall thin man answered her knock. He looked like he’d been weeping. She smiled, gently introduced herself. “I just have a few questions for you.”
He looked hastily behind him into the house and asked, “Do we really have to do this now?”
“No,” she replied, “of course not. But the sooner we’re able to get answers for our questions, the faster we can get to the bottom of this investigation.”
“I thought it was the ex-husband,” he replied in surprise, staring at her, with a weird blinking stare.
She frowned. “Now who would say that?”
He pointed across the road. “She did.”
“Well, Jenna’s mother might have made that assumption,” Kate noted, “but we don’t have any proof of that at this point.”
Agnew frowned. “If he hasn’t been picked up, you should be doing it right away. I mean, he killed two women. Isn’t that enough for you?”
“We don’t know for sure it was him,” she repeated. “May I ask why you’re so happy to pin it on him?”
“The guy is an asshole,” he replied, some of his spirit returning and his body straightening up in outrage. “He always hated my wife.”
“Why is that?”
“Because Jenna and Robin were such good friends, Barry blamed Robin for his divorce.” He shrugged. “And honestly I’m not sure he was wrong in that regard because my wife did thinkJenna should leave him. He was abusive. He was an asshole. He was emotionally corrupt. Just no reason for Jenna to stay with him. Threats were hurled from one side to the other. When they did finally split up, I know he blamed my wife. I would think you’d want to pick him up and throw him in jail.”
“We still must have evidence first,” she added tartly. “And I guess that, from your perspective, you may believe who did it,” she stated with emphasis, “but we, as cops, don’t know that yet and need to prove it.”
He asked, “How can you possibly prove something like that? Motive is everything, and, in this case, this guy has got all kinds of it.”
“Maybe so,” she admitted, studying him. “I would like to ask you a couple questions about their running pattern. For example, did they always go to the same place? Did they choose different trails? Did they always go at the same time of day? Did they go every day? Were they always running together?”
“Every day, same trail, all the time. Robin used to laugh that she could remember each and every branch and knew how to duck and when to jump. She told me that half the fun was anticipating what was coming, so she could actually guess the best lift, when she went over roots on the pathway.”
“They never got bored of it?”
“No, they used to sprint and run and dash around, and basically it was an excuse to go have fun,” he muttered, and she heard an almost disgruntled tone in his voice.
“You don’t run?”
“No, I’ve got bum ankles.”
“And how long had these two been running together?”
“Years,” he stated flatly. “Several years. Probably at least five, if not longer. We moved here about seven or eight years ago now, and the two of them hooked up right away, as best friends. I have never seen anything like it,” he shared, shaking his head.“I have to admit, at the time, I felt a little bit odd, maybe even jealous because they became so close so quickly. But it seemed foolish, as we were happy and had our kids here, and she was such a great mom,” he explained warmly, with a catch in his voice. “They’ll be so devastated growing up with this.” His voice thickened, as he added, “No children should wake up without their parents.”