In the Wind

 

Detectives Laea Lisbon and Jeremy Fox were questioning a woman called Samantha Leitch whose husband had been murdered the previous night. Samantha was confused and agitated; she didn’t accept that her husband was dead and insisted that he was at work. Jeremy wished to continue the questioning, but Laea called him to a corner and suggested that Samantha may be experiencing a mental breakdown. They decided to call their friend Rita Melda, who was a psychiatrist.

When Rita arrived, the widow looked even more troubled. She said her husband wouldn’t like so many people hanging around the house when he wasn’t there—that he would get angry at her. Rita said she was her husband’s friend, and that he knew she was there. Laea and Jeremy played along with Rita’s story and admitted that there had been a misunderstanding about her husband. They left, leaving Rita to handle the questioning her way. Samantha then asked to be excused for a minute so that she may call her husband to make sure Rita wasn’t lying. She seemed to dial a number and talk on the phone; it looked as if she genuinely believed she was talking to her husband. Samantha agreed to continue the conversation with Rita after hanging up the phone.

Hearing what Samantha had to say, Rita gathered that her husband was manipulative and abusive. Samantha had gotten used to the abuse and genuinely believed that she was responsible for the way her late husband treated her. Laea and Jeremy talked to Samantha’s mother the next day. She said she had tried on countless occasions to get Samantha out of that marriage, but she was too frightened and dependent on the man. She had called the police on him once, but Samantha had denied the allegations. Samantha’s mother brought Samantha to her house that day.

Samantha’s late husband, Liam Black, had been a stern District Judge who never showed a shred of leniency to anyone. Very few people liked him. His colleagues told the detectives that he had received many threatening letters during the past month. After questioning over a dozen suspects, a hospital attendant named Frank Pasquel finally confessed to the crime. However, he said he killed Liam for someone else.

Frank had met Samantha two months ago at the hospital; she had been badly wounded at the time, and it seemed to have been obviously the result of physical abuse. She had confided in Frank about the beatings and they had kept contact from that day on. One day, however, Frank had decided to take matters into his own hands. He and Samantha had planned Liam’s murder. On the night of the homicide, she had let Frank into the house while Liam was sleeping, and Frank had stabbed him with a knife.

Laea and Jeremy arrived at Samantha’s mother’s house fifteen minutes later, only to find out that Samantha had disappeared. Her mother said that she found her bed empty that morning. The detectives checked all airports, as well as bus and train stations, but their efforts were futile. Samantha was in the wind.