Chapter 10, continued
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Melody dropped her eyes and stared at her hands. "I couldn't handle it," she answered. Don waited, knowing she would continue. "Mostly, because I know how the case looks against Kate, and I wouldn't have been able to deal with it if she had been arrested for it and it was my fault. And you're better." Now she drew her eyes back up to his face, "I know she didn't do it though, Don."
Don raised his eyebrows, "How do you know?" He asked.
"I've known Kate since high-school. She never loved anything more than those two girls. She wouldn't have harmed a hair on their heads. I know. . . I know the evidence is against her, but you have to understand, what happened with her husband was strange. Suspicious, even. But it wasn't Kate. But even if it had been, she could never have done the same to her little girls."
With each syllable, Melody seemed to become more determined to convince Don of the truth of her words. But he could only frown, it seemed a matter of character debate. "So you're saying that she may have killed her husband?"
Melody closed her eyes and sighed, the lines on her face suddenly more apparent than ever. "Honestly, I don't know what happened with James. She loved him, I know that. But they had been having some problems. I know that he even mentioned divorce once--"
"Divorce?" Don broke in, surprised.
"She didn't tell you?" Melody asked, with a bit of a cringe. "Well, it does make the whole thing worse, doesn't it?" Don couldn't answer. This was new. It was not good either.
"Did that come up in the trial?" He said, trying to think back to Kate's story himself.
"Briefly," Melody responded, "I was actually very surprised that the prosecutor didn't take hold of it more than he did. But, it was Kate who brought it up. . . no one else would have known, so I suppose when you think of it that way, it wasn't like she was hiding it. Quite the contrary. But the whole case was such a whirlwind of nonsense anyway. No one had evidence or counter-evidence for anything. That's why they couldn't convict her. That and the fact that everyone could plainly see how destroyed she was about the whole thing. And the defense brought Chay and Mara in to watch one day. They cried the whole time. It was a vicious tactic, but I think it worked wonders on the judge." She paused a moment, a look of distaste wandering across her face, as though she was being forced to swallow something she would rather spit out.
Don took the respite to ask her, "And so? That trial is over, no one can accuse her of it again, so give me a straight answer: do you think she did it?"
Again, Melody's voice shook when she responded. "I don't know Don. I don't think so. . . but Kate can be unpredictable sometimes. . ." she trailed off, biting her lip and knowing the meaning of her words.
"Then what makes you so sure she didn't do it?" he asked, searching her face for honesty.
"You would have had to see her with the girls to fully understand, I guess," Melody answered. "She loved them, Don."
"You said she loved James too," he said, keeping his voice flat.
"I know," she breathed. "I don't know what to think." Don nodded. Neither did he. He let out a sigh and shifted in his seat.
"Well," he said, "okay. I've just got a couple of easy questions for you, and then I'll get out of your way."
Melody smiled halfheartedly and told him, "go ahead."
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