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It took the police only two hours to show up at her front door.
She opened it to find them standing on her porch. She recognized the officer on the right. He was Chip Buker of the giant Buker family who took up the last three pews on the right-hand side of the sanctuary. She hadn’t seen him in church for a while, but she remembered he used to come occasionally. His blue uniform had made him stand out from the crowd.
He wasn’t in uniform now. Both officers wore suits, making them even more intimidating.
“Are you Mrs. Provost?” Chip asked. The recognition was not mutual.
She nodded.
“I’m Detective Buker, and this is my partner, Detective Slaughter. We’re with the Maine State Police. We need to ask you a few questions. May we come in?”
Why was she so nervous? She hadn’t done anything wrong. She stepped back to let them in, nodding. “It didn’t take you long to find me.” A nervous trill of a laugh escaped her, and her cheeks got hot. “How did you find me?”
Without looking at her, Chip said, “You were on camera, ma’am. And someone recognized you.”
Shoot. The fame of being a principal’s wife. She motioned toward the living room as she shut the door behind them. “Please, make yourself comfortable.” When she entered her living room behind them, she saw that there was no place for them to sit. Toys and electronics occupied every cushion in the room. She swept an arm down the couch, knocking all the mothering paraphernalia to the floor at one end. Then she motioned to the couch again. Detective Slaughter looked reluctant, as if she feared getting attacked by a soggy Cheerio—which was a possibility—but she did sit down, and Chip followed her lead.
Slaughter, Sandra mused. What an apt name for a police officer. If Sandra were a cop, she’d want to be called Detective Slaughter.
“You made an anonymous phone call,” Chip said.
Was that a question?
Chip waited for Sandra to say something, and when she didn’t, he asked, “Why did you choose to be anonymous?”
Why had she chosen to be anonymous? There were a million reasons. There was no good reason at all. “I was scared,” she said quickly.
“What were you scared of?” Slaughter asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. A man was murdered. Maybe I’m scared of the murderer.” She hadn’t meant to sound so snarky, but neither officer reacted, so maybe snark came with the territory for them.
“What made you think the poison was in the water bottle?” Chip asked.
“Was it?”
“No way to know. We don’t have the water bottle.”
She gasped. “And no one grabbed it as evidence?”
Chip glared at her. “Please answer the question.”
She didn’t want to. She was having too much fun. “But you haven’t found another source for the poison, have you? So I’m probably right?”
“Ma’am, please.”
Oh, fine. You’re no fun. “I’m a soccer ref.” She sat up straighter as she said this. It wasn’t entirely true, not yet. She hadn’t even taken the test yet, but it felt good to say it. Still, she told herself she had to concentrate on being more truthful. Either that or give up her new secret sleuthing career. So far, her amateur methodology led to far too much misrepresentation. “I was just thinking, at my last game ... the schools always give us water bottles. It would be really easy to put poison in one of them.”
Chip stared at her, looking contemplative. “Did you know the deceased?”
“I met him thirty seconds before he died.”
Chip nodded as if he knew that. “And how long have you been a soccer ref?”
“I just started this season.” No need to tell him she had only started a week ago.
“And do you have any idea who might have been angry enough with the deceased to kill him?”
Sandra shook her head, but as she did so, a face appeared in her mind. “I don’t know if he would have been angry with him, because I don’t know him, but have you looked at the man who was reffing with him that day? That guy would have had easy access to the water bottle.”
“We can surmise who had access to the water bottle,” Slaughter said, and Sandra didn’t like her tone. “We’re asking if you knew anyone who was angry with Mr. Fenton.”
“You didn’t even know the poison was in the water bottle, but now, a week after the fact, you’re going to figure out who had access to it? Oh, please. And I just told you. I didn’t know Mr. Fenton. So how could I know who was angry with him?”
Slaughter gave Chip an exasperated look. “I think we’re done here.”
Chip held up a hand to stall her. “You said that you met him thirty seconds before he died,” Chip said. “Does that mean he spoke to you?”
Sandra stared at him, wondering if she should share what Frank had said. Of course she should, right? These were the police. She should tell them everything. Yet, she was feeling kind of selfish. She wanted to figure this thing out herself. And if Frank had been doing something illicit, she was reluctant to get him into trouble. Though she hardly knew the man, somehow she’d grown rather attached to him.
Chip mistook her hesitation for confusion. “You said you met him. It just seems a weird phrase if all you did was watch him die.”
Sandra felt a gentle nudge from inside her, telling her to be truthful. So, even though she didn’t want to, she came clean. “He said to me that I had to stop White.”
So much for poker faces. “And you didn’t tell anyone this?” Slaughter cried.
“You’re the first one to ask.”
The detectives exchanged an embarrassed look.
“What do you think he meant by that?” Chip asked.
Sandra shook her head slowly. “I really don’t know for sure, but the referee in charge of this district is named Mike White.”