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“WHAT ARE YOU TALKING about Dana darling?” Uncle Max said in the study of his home.
Aunt Mary was sitting by the fireplace relaxing. Her eyes were now closed. Earlier, Aunt Mary told Dana that she’d lost her spare pair of reading glasses and she thought it could be at the nursing home where she stayed while her son was in jail. Dana said she’d go and retrieve it after talking with her uncle.
Uncle Max insisted on speaking in the study with Dana, despite Dana wanting to go into another room as not to wake or upset Aunt Mary.
“Well, Uncle Max. I really want to help you solve this riddle. I mean this murder. We need to find out who really poisoned your late wife, but you need to tell me everything you know.” Dana didn’t want to get Bea involved so she kept her name out of the conversation.
“And what makes you think I haven’t told you everything, Dana? What have you heard?”
“Well, for one thing, I heard you had a confrontation with Karla—an argument not long before her death.”
Uncle Max’s face froze.
Then a shadow of regret and sorrow slid across it.
“Uncle Max, is everything all right? I’m so sorry to bring this up. But if you don’t talk about it now, you might have to talk about it in front of grand jury.”
He took a deep sigh. “Dana...I can’t talk right now. There isn’t anything to say.”
“Oh, Uncle Max. I’m so disappointed.”
“Dana, I did not kill my wife. Neither of them. That I swear to you. But...”
“Is there a secret that...”
“What?”
“A secret.”
“Dana. There’s no secret. Yes, Karla mentioned that she knew a secret but she didn’t say what it was.”
Dana didn’t want to bring up her lovers, thinking it would be much too painful right now. After all, he was still mourning her loss and she didn’t want to entertain rumors without having hard facts of that first. But it wasn’t looking good right now. Her job in finding the real killer was going to be far more complicated than she had ever imagined.