The Heirloom Murders - Kathleen Ernst [14]
“What? No!” The other man looked shocked. “Our marriage was perfect.” He rubbed his eyes with his fingertips. “I knew the moment I saw Bonnie that she was the one for me.”
“What did your wife do?”
Sabatola blinked. “Do?”
“Did she have a job? Do volunteer work? Have a hobby?”
“Bonnie chose not to work, after we married.” He leaned over, arms on his knees, too restless to sit still. “She sometimes did charity work. She loved to cook, and to garden.”
Roelke thought of the huge garden he’d glimpsed at the Burke house. It wasn’t surprising to think that Bonnie had a green thumb. “Did your wife keep a diary?”
Sabatola shook his head. “I went through her things after I got home last night. I didn’t find a diary, or a letter, or anything else to explain what she did.”
Roelke flipped open his little notebook so he could jot down key points. “Your wife shot herself with a 9 millimeter Smith and Wesson, Model 39. The gun was yours?”
“Yes. We only had it for self-protection. I never dreamed Bonnie …” He swallowed visibly.
“I understand you were golfing?”
“Yes.” Simon Sabatola stood abruptly and walked to a bar that stood near the back corner of the room. He used tongs to put a few ice cubes in a glass, then added a splash of whiskey. “I beg your pardon,” he said, as he seated himself again. “I’m not an alcoholic. But a little Glenlivet does help.”
“No need to apologize, Mr. Sabatola.”
Sabatola sipped before resuming the conversation. “Anyway, I was in Lake Geneva, playing a round with a man I hope to do business with. A parts manufacturer.”
“You work for a company called AgriFutures?”
“I do.” Sabatola nodded. “My stepfather started the company forty years ago, in Elkhorn. After he passed away we probably should have moved the company to Chicago. But my wife’s family was in Eagle … well, you know that, of course. She didn’t want to leave Wisconsin.”
“So you put family first.”
“It’s always a balance,” Sabatola said. “I’m going to be named CEO of AgriFutures soon. Bonnie and I had always dreamed of that. Now … it hardly seems to matter.” He took another drink of whiskey—more of a gulp, this time. When he put the glass down on a marble coaster, his gaze lingered on the wedding portrait. Fresh tears glistened in his eyes.
Roelke closed his notebook, and decided to edge into deeper waters. “Mr. Sabatola, I’m sorry to say that I’ve seen other cases like this. I hope you don’t blame yourself. Sometimes women have everything they could ever want, and still …” He let the sentence trail away.
“Bonnie did have everything.” Sabatola tossed back another gulp of whiskey. “Everything any woman could dream of.”
Roelke shook his head sadly. “Thank you, Mr. Sabatola. I’ll be in touch if I need to speak with you again.”
“I’ll be back in the office tomorrow. I couldn’t face it today, but … I find that rattling around this house is even worse.” Sabatola looked around the living room—stylish, cold, empty. “I don’t know what I’m going to do without her. I just can’t imagine coming home from work and her not being here.”
Both men stood. “I’ll call my secretary to show you out,” Sabatola said. When he left the room he took his whiskey with him.
Roelke waited for the promised escort, not realizing until Edwin Guest appeared that he’d already met Sabatola’s secretary. “Thank you,” Roelke said when they reached the door. Guest nodded.
Once outside, the door firmly closed behind him, Roelke sucked in a deep breath and blew it out again. He knew better than to admit it to Libby or Chloe, but male secretaries—or nurses, or flight attendants—made him uncomfortable. He wasn’t proud of that, but there it was.
He could almost hear Chloe calling him a Neanderthal. That pushed his thoughts to the last time he’d seen her. For a moment he’d forgotten about Alpine Boy. For a moment, it had been just him and Chloe, picking things up right where they’d left off before her stupid Swiss ex had popped up.
You need to be thinking about Simon Sabatola, not Chloe, Roelke chided himself. He drove a mile