Andy looked at me as if I’d lost my mind and said, “Me, Jack? No. Her? She loved me. There was no reason to do that. We were both in love, totally in love. I never thought I could feel the way I felt about Shelby. We were trying to have a baby.”

I took a controlled breath, then I pushed on. “Has anyone threatened your life, or Shelby’s?”

“C’mon, I’m basically a glorified bean counter, Jack. And who’d want to kill Shelby? She’s a sweetie. Everyone loved her…”

Apparently not.

I had to ask him. “You have to tell me the truth, Andy. Did you have anything to do with this?”

In about five seconds, Andy’s expression went from grief to shock to fury.

“You’re asking me that? You know how much I loved her. I’m telling you now and I never want to have to say it again. I didn’t kill her, Jack. And I don’t know who did. I can’t imagine this happening. I can’t, Jack.”

Night was falling. I reached up and turned on a light. Andy was looking at me as though I’d punched him in the face.

Christ, I was his best friend.

“I believe you,” I said. “The cops are going to grill you, though. Do you understand? The husband is always suspect number one.”

He nodded his head and started crying again.

I got up and went into the foyer. I called Chief of Police Michael Fescoe at his home. Fescoe and I had become friends in the past couple of years. He was depressed due to his crap job, but he was a good man, and I trusted him.

I gave Fescoe the rundown, told him that Andy and I had been childhood friends and frat brothers at Brown and that I could vouch for his character a hundred percent.

I stayed with Andy as the cops and the CSU arrived. I heard him tell a detective that Shelby didn’t have an enemy in the world.

And yet, whoever killed her had made a point.

This was not only an execution.

It was personal.