When Never Comes

by Barbara Davis

woman was pulled from a man’s car in the middle of the night. Connelly shifted uneasily, his beefy shoulders bunched. “Was he—do you know if he was . . . seeing anyone?” Christine glared at him, astonished. “You’re asking if I knew my husband was having an affair? Like that’s something we’d discuss over dinner?” “I’m sorry. I thought maybe women had a sense about these things. Women’s intuition or whatever you call it.” She eyed him coldly. Connelly ran a hand through his thatch of gray hair. “Look, I’m just trying to do my job. I’ve got two years left in homicide, and I’m out. Until then, I do what they tell me. When they realized who they’d pulled out of the bay, they asked me to come down and talk to you. We’ve got a Jane Doe whose family is going to want to know why she didn’t come home tonight, and we can’t tell them until we know who she is.” Christine bristled at the inference that it was somehow her duty to help identify the half-nude woman. “I’m afraid I can’t help you, Detective. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to go home. You said there were some papers I needed to sign.” Connelly stepped away briefly, returning a moment later with the clipboard Ryan had been scribbling on. He pointed to a line at the bottom then flipped the page, pointing to two additional lines. Christine signed without reading and pushed the clipboard back into his hands. “Are we finished?”