Spenser followed her to the back of the house where the kitchen was located. A dark-haired woman stood at the large center island dressed in black slacks and a white, long-sleeved shirt. She was taking a kettle off the stove and looked up when they walked in. Harper offered Spenser a gracious smile.
“May I offer you a cup of tea?” she asked.
“No, I’m fine. But thank you.”
The dark-haired woman poured out a cup of tea then set the kettle back down and looked at Spenser curiously. Harper seemed to notice.
“Carmela, would you mind going and doing the shopping early today?” she asked.
“Of course, Mrs. Harper.”
Harper took Carmela’s spot on the other side of the island and waited until she heard the front door close as her housekeeper left before turning back to Spenser.
“So, what is this about, Sheriff?” she asked lightly.
“I understand you trained with Seth Hamill.”
“That’s right,” she said, her voice tinged with a bit of sadness. “His passing is just so tragic. He was a very passionate and talented man.”
“About that, may I speak plainly, Mrs. Harper?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Good. Because you were sleeping with him.”
Her expression of outrage was so phony, it was painful to witness. Harper’s mouth fell open, and she put her hand to her chest, as if the suggestion that she’d been unfaithful to her husband was giving her palpitations. It was all Spenser could do to keep from rolling her eyes.
“Sheriff, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she gasped.
“With all due respect, Mrs. Harper, save it. Your affair with Hamill is indisputable fact at this point, so your outrage is unnecessary.”
“I’m a happily married woman.”
“Look, I’m not here to judge you. The state of your marriage is not my concern and I couldn’t be less interested in it. I’m trying to solve a murder—”
“He was murdered? I thought Seth had a heart attack?”
“That’s not the case.”
“Are you sure?”
“We’re certain.”
“My God,” she whispered.
“Mrs. Harper, I need you to focus,” Spenser said. “And more importantly, I need you to answer my questions and be honest with me.”
“I’m being honest with you, Sheriff,” she said, though her voice lacked conviction.
Spenser walked in, wanting to be a little more delicate about the matter. She didn’t want to be abrupt or make the woman feel like she was dropping the hammer on her. But she was married to her lie, probably for good reason, and the only way to get her to move off that spot was to give her a shock to the system.
“Mrs. Harper, did you know that Seth Hamill had been filming your… encounters?”
The woman’s eyes bulged and her face blanched and for the first time since she’d started her string of lies and denials, she seemed to be rendered speechless. Harper quickly gathered herself and picked up her teacup. Seeing how badly her hand was trembling, though, she set it back down and started to wring her hands together instead.
“Come again?” she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper. “Did you say Seth was making recordings? Of us? Together?”
“How do you think I know that you were having an affair with him?”
Her face paled even further, which made the red in her cheeks glow even brighter. Harper’s eyes shimmered as they flooded with tears and the trembling in her hands grew even more pronounced. She sniffed loudly and ran a hand through her hair. She turned to Spenser with a strange, sorrowful expression on her face.
“Sheriff, you have to understand—”
“Mrs. Harper, as I said, I’m not concerned with the affair itself. It’s not my place to judge you,” Spenser cut her off. “What you need to tell me is whether you knew he was making these recordings or not.”
“No, of course not. I had no idea.”
“Did your husband find out about the affair?”
She shook her head. “No. Seth and I were discreet.”
That seemed to be a common theme among Hamill’s paramours. He was good at keeping the affairs he was having a secret, which was a benefit to the women he was sleeping with, but perhaps more for himself. Spenser doubted most of these women would have slept with him had they known they were simply one link in a much longer chain. But then, perhaps some of them wouldn’t have cared.
“Did you and Seth argue?”
She looked perplexed by the question. “Argue? What would we have argued about?”
“I have no idea. Perhaps one of you wanted more than the other was willing to give?”
