“You’ve looked into her husband, of course,” I say, and only then do his eyes rise back up to mine, “and his ex-wife.”

“What makes you say that?” he asks. Either he’s a good liar or he seriously hasn’t considered that Jeffrey Baines killed his wife. I don’t know which I find more disconcerting.

“It just seems like that’s a good place to start. Domestic violence is a major cause of death for women these days, isn’t it, Officer?” I ask.

“More than half of women murdered die at the hands of a romantic partner, yes,” he confirms. “If that’s what you’re asking.”

“It is,” I say. “Isn’t that a good-enough reason to question her husband?”

“Mr. Baines has an alibi. He was out of the country, as you know, at the time of the murder. There’s proof of that, Dr. Foust. Video surveillance of Mr. Baines in Tokyo. His name on the airplane’s manifest the following day. Hotel records.”

“There are other ways,” I say, but he doesn’t take the bait. He says instead that in cases of domestic violence, quite often men fight with their fists while women are the first to reach for a weapon.

When I say nothing, he tells me, “Don’t you know, Doctor? Women aren’t always the victim. They can be the perpetrator as well. Though men are often stigmatized as wife beaters, it works both ways. In fact, new studies suggest that women initiate more than half the violence in volatile relationships. And jealousy is the cause of most homicides in the United States.”

I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean.

“Anyway,” he says, “I didn’t come to talk about Jeffrey Baines, or his marriage. I came to talk about you, Dr. Foust.”

But I don’t want to talk about myself.

“Mr. Baines was married before,” I say, and he looks skeptically at me and tells me he knows. “Have you considered she might have done this? Jeffrey’s ex?”

“I have an idea,” he says. “How about if I ask the questions for a change, Dr. Foust, and you answer?”

“I’ve already answered your question,” I remind him. And besides, I, too, like Jeffrey, had an alibi at the time of Morgan’s death. I was at home with Will.

Officer Berg rises from the end of the exam table. “You were with a patient when I arrived this morning. I had a few minutes to visit with Emma at the front desk,” he tells me. “Emma used to go to school with my youngest. We go quite a bit back,” and he explains in his usual blathering way how Emma and his daughter, Amy, were friends for many years and that he and his wife were in turn friends with Emma’s mother and father.

He gets to the point. “I spoke to Emma while you were finishing up with your patient. I wanted to be sure I’d dotted my i’s and crossed my t’s, and it just so happened that I hadn’t. Because when I was speaking to Emma I saw for myself the same thing you just showed me. And I asked Emma about it, Dr. Foust. Just to be sure. Because we all make mistakes, don’t we?”

I tell him, “I don’t know what you mean.”

But I feel my body tense up regardless. My boldness start to wane.

“I wanted to be sure that the schedule hadn’t been changed. So I asked Emma about it. It was a long shot, of course, expecting her to remember anything that happened a week or two ago. Except that she did, because that day was unique. Emma’s daughter had gotten sick at school and needed to be picked up. Stomach flu,” he says. “She’d thrown up at recess. Emma is a single mother, you know; she needed to go. Except that what Emma remembers from that day is it was bedlam here at the clinic. A backlog of patients waiting to be seen. She couldn’t leave.”

I rise to my feet. “This essentially describes every day here, Officer. We see nearly everyone who lives here on the island. Not to mention that cold and flu season is in full swing. I don’t know why this would be unique.”

“Because that day, Dr. Foust,” he says, “even though your name was on the schedule, you weren’t here the whole day. There’s this gap in the middle where neither Joyce nor Emma can account for your whereabouts. What Emma remembers is you stepping out for lunch just after noon, and arriving back somewhere in the vicinity of three p.m.”

It comes as a swift punch to my gut. “That’s a lie,” I say, words curt. Because that didn’t happen. I swell with anger. Certainly Emma has mixed up her dates. Perhaps it was Thursday, November thirtieth, that her daughter was sick, a day that Dr. Sanders was scheduled to work and not me.

But before I can suggest this to the officer, he says, “Three patients were rescheduled. Four chose to wait. And Emma’s daughter? She sat on a chair in the nurse’s office until the end of the school day. Because Emma was here, making excuses for your absence.”

“That’s not what happened,” I tell him.

“You have proof to the contrary?” Officer Berg asks, which of course I don’t. Nothing concrete.

“You could call the school,” I manage to think up just then. “Check with the school nurse to see which day Emma’s daughter was sick. Because I’d bet my life on it, Officer. It wasn’t December first.”

The look he gives me is leery. He says nothing.

“I’m a good doctor” is all I can think in that moment to say. “I’ve saved many lives, Officer. More than you know,” and I think of all those people who would no longer be alive if it wasn’t for me. Those with gunshot wounds to vital organs, in diabetic comas and respiratory distress. I say it again. “I’m a good doctor.”

“Your work ethic isn’t what concerns me, Doctor,” he says. “What I’m trying to get at is that on the afternoon of the first, between the hours of twelve and three, your whereabouts are unaccounted for. You have no alibi. Now, I’m not saying you had anything to do with Morgan’s murder or that you are somehow an unfit physician. What I’m saying is that there seems to be some ill will between you and Mrs. Baines, some sort of hostility that needs explaining, as do your lies. It’s the cover-up, Dr. Foust, that’s often worse than the crime. So why don’t you just tell me. Just go on and tell me what happened that afternoon between you and Mrs. Baines,” he says.