What happened to Jim?

He got up, paid the barkeep for the beer, and went for home. When he got there, he gave his wife the roses, and a big hug and kiss.

"OH, THANK YOU! I love you so much, Dan!" she exclaimed.

He had been trying to pay attention to see if she looked guilty, but none was forthcoming. She genuinely seemed to be happy. He would have to get to the bottom of where she was going, if not directly home after work.

They did go out for dinner, to a nice Italian restaurant, his favorite. They ate, had some good wine, and even shared a nice Tiramisu cake for dessert. When they got home, they cleaned up and went to bed, snuggling. He had completely forgotten his intention to talk with her about starting their family, distracted as he was.

*******

Carly went straight home, and took a shower to wash off the filth of work. She dried off, and went out to join her family. Her husband and son were busy whipping something up for dinner, so she just found something else to do until it was ready. She put in a load of her son's laundry, and even got a chance to dust a little around the house. It was a rare day when she got time to do that.

Before long, she heard the usual, "MOOOOOOMMMMM! Dinnow's weady!" God bless toddlers, she thought.

"OK Honey, be right there!" she yelled back.

The smell coming from the dining room was making her salivate. She sat at the table, just as they had finished putting all the food out. The spread looked marvelous. They had made some baked chicken, with mashed potatoes and gravy. On the side, there were dinner rolls and some sort of mixed fruit bowl.

"Mommy, we made this for you," her son proclaimed.

A huge smile and laugh, "Oh honey, I love you guys. Thank you!"

"Our pleasure, dear," her husband added.

He had a gleam in his eyes. She knew what that meant. He wanted to get some tonight. She had every intention of granting him that wish, as she returned his beaming smile with a wink.

They dug in, and enjoyed the great meal. The chicken was perfectly tender, and the gravy was excellent. It seemed like a Thanksgiving dinner, and they joked and laughed when their son told them about his day at Kindergarten.

After dinner and cleanup, they put their son to bed. They made slow, sensuous love that night. Her husband left no skin untouched, by his smooth and graceful fingers. He kissed her all over, and made her squeal with delight. There was no rush to get to the finish line that night, and both fell asleep as content as they had ever been, snuggling in each other's arms.

As they drifted off, she told him, "I love you, babe."

He replied, "I love you more."

*******

The next morning, Smith and Dunleavey met at the coffee shop, and had their ritual cup of coffee. She broke the silence first.

"You seem distracted this morning. Everything ok?"

"Yeah, just stressing a little about my wife. I wanted to talk with her last night, about starting our family, but didn't get around to it," he replied. She just waited, expecting more forthcoming.

"See, for two nights in a row now, she has been getting home late from work. I trust her, but now have this little seed of doubt planted, and it's bothering the shit outta me."

"Have you asked her what has been keeping her at work longer? You realize that you really have to talk things out? They won't just magically heal themselves," she asked her partner.

"I know, I know. I just don't know how to bring it up, without sounding like a jealous asshole husband."

They sat in silence for a minute, and then she decided it was time to get the day started. It would also distract her troubled partner to have some work to do.

"So Dan, ready to go check on those banks and phone records?" she asked.

He snapped out of whatever funk he was in, quickly. "Yep, let's get going."

They both went to the station, and immediately started making phone calls. Most of the banks were cooperating with them, and sent over the financial information they were looking for. One bank balked at the request, stating they needed a warrant in order to release one of their customers' records.

The phone companies were a bit different. They all played hardball, and would only say that they too needed warrants before any personal information was given out. They broke for lunch, and sat at the picnic table by the taco truck again.

"This stuff will kill us one day, you do realize that, right?" Smith asked.

"AH, I can think of worse ways to die, than by some cheap tacos," she laughed in reply.

"So this afternoon, should we start with the one bank holding out on us, or the phone companies?" he asked.

"I think we should go for the phone companies. I think we have a better chance of getting something from them than the one bank. We can always stop by that bank tomorrow."

So that's what they did. They went to the local branch stores for the cell phone companies, warrants in hand. They also had to go and serve the one traditional phone company, at their regional office. By the end of the day, they had all the call records they would need, either in hand or on the way by morning.

Back at the office, they reviewed the call records they did have. They saw calls going to the insurance agency from several people, but couldn't rule out if it was for business or otherwise. All but Matt and Jennifer Jordan had made at least one call to the agency in the last two weeks. There had been some calls FROM the agency, to everyone on their list, aside from Ted Smith. At that point, they crossed Ted Smith off the board as a possible suspect. There really wasn't anything to tie him to Jim at all, aside from being a normal customer.

They didn't find any out-going calls to the burner phone, from any of their suspects. That meant one of two things. One, the suspect could have also had a burner phone, which was most likely. Alternately, the suspect could have made the call from a pay phone, or a work number. They would have to review the calls received on that burner phone again.

The tech guy at the station assured them, that whoever had used the burner phone, had wiped its memory completely before dumping it. The lab was trying to recover anything off it they could, but so far had no luck.

"More questions, and more dead ends, eh partner?" Smith asked.

"Sadly, yeah you are right. Ok let's regroup in the morning, and pick up with the questioning of some of these people. Someone has to know SOMETHING," Dunleavey replied.

Dunleavey went home and had a normal evening with her family.

*******

Smith went home, but had anything but a normal evening. He got in the house, and his wife was in the kitchen cooking something. It smelled wonderful, and he told her as much.

"Thanks honey! I'm making us some salmon with a lemon butter glaze. It smells delicious, right?" she asked.

He hugged her from behind, "Yes it does, almost as mouthwatering as you."

He still had a nagging thought about her behavior lately, but chalked it up to his nerves. He took a shower and came into the dining room just as dinner was being taken out of the oven. They sat and ate, and enjoyed a little meaningless banter about the day's events.

Near the end of the meal, he decided it was time to talk with her about starting their family again.

"Honey, can we talk for a minute?" he asked gently.

The change in the look on her face was brief, but he still caught it. "Sure honey, about what," she replied.

"Us," He stated simply. After a short pause, "I know we agreed to wait a bit to start our family, but I am really ready to start being a dad."

"Well, we did want to get ourselves a little better established, financially. I think we can safely say we aren't as broke as we used to be, right?" she asked in response.

"Exactly. Baby, I love you so much, and can't wait for us to be parents."

They shared a loving look into each other's eyes, and without any spoken words it was decided.

"I can toss out the birth control tonight, and we can start practicing!" she exclaimed.

"I love the sound of that," he replied with a devilish grin.

And practice they did. They retired to the bedroom, without really cleaning up after dinner. Somewhere along the conversation, he had completely forgotten about his worries about her working later.

*******

The next morning, they made calls to the people they wanted to come in for additional questioning. The only one that balked was Marie Williams. She said she was already worried about her husband finding out about the affair, and thought that additional questioning would only make him that much more suspicious. After threats of them escorting her down, she agreed to come.

In each of their interrogation rooms, they had Marie Williams and her lawyer, Tom and Beth Wilson, and Selena Marsh. They had separated Tom and Beth into separate rooms, so four rooms in total were occupied. Everything would be witnessed by their captain as well as video recorded.

In the first room was Selena Marsh. They entered the room and got right into the questioning.

"Miss Marsh, you said you watched a movie on the night that Jim was murdered. Do you remember what it was?" asked Smith. He wanted to start off with an easy one, and let her fumble up on her own.

"Hmm, I think it was that movie about the bridesmaid that has all the dresses, from like thirty weddings she has stood up in. I can't recall the name at this second. Why does that matter?"

"We are just working on some additional verification for that weekend. We did verify that you ordered the on-demand movie," answered Dunleavey.

Smith turned on the TV that was in the room, it was a still frame shot of the video taken from the hotel. In the frame was the brown haired suspect, turning from the room to head down the stairs.

"You know we have you on video, right? Why would you go there to murder a man you said you loved?" Smith asked, going on the offensive.

"That is NOT me! I sat and watched that movie, and even had a bucket of ice cream with it. How can you possibly think that I would want to kill Jim?" she started sobbing a little at this.

"Oh come on Selena, you found out he was sleeping with other women, and you decided to get revenge. RIGHT?"

She was still sobbing, "NO! I loved Jim. I would never want to hurt him, and I never knew about him with other women until you said so." She broke down, put her head in her arms on the table, and bawled.

Dunleavey stepped up, "Selena, you have to understand this looks really bad. We just want the truth, OK?" She put an arm around the sobbing woman, for comfort.

After a minute, and a few sniffles, she sat back up. "You have to believe me. I didn't do anything to him. If I had known, I might have been mad at him, but I really thought he loved me too. We got along so well together, I was really hoping we could get more serious. Now he's DEAD!"

At this she broke down again and put her head down. Dunleavey tried to comfort her some more, and then the two officers both got up, and walked out of the room.

"I'm inclined to believe her. She sounds sincere, and of all the people here, she seems the most broken up about his death," Smith said.

"Agreed. She might have motive, because of his philandering, but otherwise doesn't seem the killing type," Dunleavey said. "Let's go on to the next one then?"

Smith waved one of the officers nearby over. "After she has calmed down a bit, get this woman to sign her statement, and let her go home. Get her a ride if she is too distraught, ok?"

The officer nodded, and went into the room. They went into the next interrogation room, which Tom and Beth Wilson were sitting in. They were talking quietly to each other, and looked up when the door opened.

"Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, thank you for coming in. We had some additional questions we needed answered, to try to solve this murder," Smith opened with. He was the 'good cop' this time, trading roles as they often did.

"No problem officer, we just want to help," Beth replied.

"So the night of the murder, we got some video footage of the person that we THINK did it, and are now trying to match it to someone. Let me show you," he said, as Dunleavey turned on the TV.

The same image of the person, turning to go down the stairs of the hotel, came on the screen. Beth and Tom looked at it closely. After a minute they both looked back to Smith, expecting more questions.

"Do either of you know who that is?" he asked.

"No, can't say that I do. You honey?" replied Tom.

"No, that doesn't look like anyone I know," she agreed. "Of course, it's really hard to make out anything other than the long hair, and long black coat. Who is that?"

"Oh, cut the crap. We know you know who it is!" Dunleavey pounced in. "You both are trying to play us for a bunch of fools. Why are you lying?" she demanded.

This shook them up. "I promise you, I am not lying," Beth replied, shakily. Tom just nodded along with his wife.

"OK, play dumb. We will see when this all goes to court, and you guys get sent to prison for life!" she yelled.

"Beth...Tom...we just want the truth. Do you guys know who would want to kill him? You lived in the same complex, and you both said that you knew him at least a little. Help me out, so we don't have to assume it was one of you," Smith calmly stated.

Tom was a bit pale, but his wife picked up the slack. "Officer, I can assure you it wasn't us. He used to have a LOT of women come in and out of his place. We did go to a few more parties than we told you before, but that doesn't make us KILLERS!" She was working up some volume of her own at this point. "He was a noisy neighbor, but we just figured he would eventually move, or the landlords would make him move out."

"Did he ever come on to you, Mrs. Wilson? Did you ever have sex with him?" Dunleavey launched into her again.

"NO!" cried the besieged woman. "He made me want to puke. I would NEVER have done anything with him."

"Ok, I think you have attacked us long enough," interrupted Tom, apparently getting his voice back. "If you have any more questions for us, we would like an attorney present. This is getting ridiculous, and quite offensive."

That was their cue. "OK, sir, you can go for now. We will be in touch," Smith calmly stated.

They left that room, and waved over another officer. They gave him instructions to let the Wilson family go, and to escort them out.

The two looked at each other. "Sheesh, they didn't seem very guilty to you, did they?" asked Dunleavey.

"No...not at all. We will need to keep an eye on those two, and dig to see if there is more dirt to uncover," Smith agreed.

They went into the final interrogation room, where Marie Williams sat, along with a very sharply dressed lawyer. They looked up as the two officers entered the room.

"Mrs. Williams. Thank you for coming down to help us out. I really hope this doesn't cause any problems for you at home." Dunleavey started this one off, again going with the softer tone.

"No problem, officers. I brought my lawyer, Mr. Thompson, just as a precaution. I know I didn't do anything wrong, so this should be done quickly," she responded.

"So last time we talked, you said that you had only slept with Mr. Harding the one time, and that you told him that it wouldn't happen again. Is that correct?"

"Yes. He contacted me again last week, to try to meet him again, but I told him no."

"Was this before or after you went and saw him at the agency?" Smith started his attack.

"Before. I had to go to the agency for insurance reasons only. I wasn't there to meet with him."

"Did he try anything with you while you were in his office?"

"No, he didn't."

"OK, did you threaten him with a sexual harassment suit? Were you trying to get him to do something again?" asked an angered Smith.

"Excuse me, watch your tone," interjected the lawyer. "Marie, you don't have to answer that."

The officers could see her visibly get red in the face, but she said nothing. Smith went on.

"Alright, how about this. How long were you involved with him before the supposed one-time of sex with him?"

"He had been talking to me for a few weeks, I guess. He kept calling me, telling me I had some other thing that needed to be signed at his office. The last time, was when he took me to lunch. That was the day that I made a huge mistake, and slept...no...had sex with him. What we did was nothing like making love with my husband." She put her head down at this, looking defeated.

Smith stood back for a minute, and let his partner take over. "Marie, we just want to know more about this guy. We can't ask him, so we have to ask the people that knew him. Did he ever tell you about any of the other women that he knew?" Dunleavey asked.

"No, but I did see him looking at other women that day we were out for lunch. I should have seen through his crap, but at the time, I was pissed at my husband, and Jim was so smooth. After it was over, I felt cheap, and used. That was when I left, and told him to leave me alone. I saw him that time in his office, and that was the last time I saw him. I swear."

"OK. Did he threaten to tell your husband about the affair?"

"No, but I asked him not to."

"Are you guys going to arrest her for anything? If not, my client has nothing further to say," the lawyer said.

"No, she isn't under arrest. She can go, but she better not leave town," Smith said.

*******

The two left the room, and went back to their desks.

"What a day, huh?" asked Smith.

"Yup. Ok partner, I am heading out for the day. See you tomorrow." With that she got up to leave.

Smith dialed his house, but no one picked up. He was a little concerned, so he called his wife's cell phone. After a few rings, it went to voice mail.

"Problems, Dan?" she asked him.

"Yeah, no one seems to be home, and my wife didn't answer her cell."

"Want me to go with, just in case?"

"Sure. I'm ready to head home anyhow, too."

He drove home, with his partner following him in her car. The drive was pretty quick, but he was still very worried with what he might find. His wife working late so much was really starting to bother him.

As they pulled up, the lights in the house were off, and her car wasn't in the driveway. He parked in the driveway, and his partner parked at the street. They both went to the door, and he got out his keys to unlock it.

He looked at his partner, and then opened the door. He got inside, and sat listening for a second. There was no noise, so he flipped on the living room lights. There was a huge "SURPRISE!" yelled, and nearly twenty people all jumped out from their hiding places.

He was completely shocked. He looked at his partner, and she just laughed her ass off at his discomfort. His wife ran up and hugged him, and said, "Happy birthday, honey!"

He had completely forgotten that it was his birthday. There was a banner hanging in the kitchen, and it looked like all of their combined friends were in attendance. His partner's husband and son were also among the crowd.

"Carly, you set me up!" he said, pointing at her.

"Got you buddy!" she laughed. "Your wife has been planning this for a while, so go easy on her."

After the initial shock wore off, everyone had a great time. There was cake and ice cream, mixed drinks for the adults, and juice for the kids. After the party wound down, and everyone went home, Dan grabbed his wife and threw her over his shoulder with a grunt.

"Put me down, you Neanderthal!" she wailed, half laughing.

"I'm gonna punish you, you naughty girl!" he laughed with her.

He carried her back into their bedroom, and indeed he did punish her, and she loved every minute of it.

*******

Finally Monday just had to roll around. No one wanted it to, but nature has a way of waving the middle finger at you, and makes you deal with Monday, anyhow. As someone once said, "Someone has a case of the Monday's." Pretty sure that was a movie line. That and two squirrels that used to be married...