Free Eleven Little Piggies by Elizabeth Gunn

I’m talking to one of the good guys. He wants me to help you as much as I can.’ He looked around him, sniffing, as if he might be inspecting the interview room for vermin. Finally he brought himself to say, ‘So please accept my apology.’
    â€˜Accepted.’ He had eased out of the coat and crookedly-placed hat and dropped them on the floor.
    No use letting the moment go to waste, I decided. ‘You ready for questions now?’
    He blinked once, swallowed and said, ‘Sure.’
    â€˜Tell me where you were Saturday morning from four a.m. till noon.’
    â€˜Dear me,’ he said. ‘You mean you don’t know yet when he died?’ Relapsing at once into lawyerly tactics, he put the onus back on the questioner. My hackles went back up.
    He was right, though – Pokey hadn’t given us an estimated time of death yet. Even when he did it would be just that, an estimate. We knew Owen had been out on the road with the dead horses in the predawn hours, but we hadn’t established yet when he was last seen alive. Possibly five or six hours had elapsed between his last live sighting and the electric moment in late morning when his body was found in the snow. And so far, it was anybody’s guess how much of that time it had lain out in freezing weather. So no, we were not even close to having a time of death.
    When I asked Ethan the question, I was ready to accept rough estimates – most people don’t remember times very precisely unless they know they’re going to be asked. But if he was going to throw up roadblocks I was going to kick them down. So now, by God, I wanted detailed information about every minute of his morning.
    â€˜Well, at four a.m.,’ he said, giving it plenty of irony, ‘I’m pretty confident I was still sleeping soundly.’
    â€˜They didn’t call you from the farm, then? About the accident on the road.’ When he stared, looking surprised, I said, ‘The horses?’
    â€˜Good heavens, no. Why would they?’
    â€˜I don’t know. You said you were very active in the organization, responsible for its recent rise in profits, so I thought they might ask your advice about the dead animals.’
    He sat back in his chair then and looked me over carefully. ‘Now that sounds somewhat . . . hostile,’ he said. ‘Have I annoyed you in some way?’ He knew he had.
    â€˜Nope. Just trying to understand how your organization works. If they didn’t call you about the horses, when did you wake up?’
    â€˜Seven minutes past five.’ I raised my eyebrows over the precision of his answer and he added: ‘Coffee’s set to start perking at five and the alarm goes off seven minutes later.’
    â€˜I see, regular habits – that makes it easier. What’s next?’
    â€˜I get a cup and bring it back to bed to drink while I glance at the paper. Then I get up and shower . . . do you really want all this?’
    â€˜Please.’
    â€˜Dress, eat a bowl of cereal, and I’m on my way to my office by a few minutes after six.’
    â€˜Even on Saturday?’
    â€˜Every day but Sunday. Yes.’
    â€˜Do lawyers usually go to work that early?’
    â€˜Some do. I’m the junior partner in my family’s law firm, so I do most of the dog work – billing and routine correspondence, case law from Lexus, other research on the Internet. Then there’s legal work for the farm. I try to get that out of the way early so it doesn’t interfere with the firm’s regular work.’
    â€˜Anybody see you leave home? Are you married?’
    â€˜Yes, I’m married and no, my wife does not wake up to watch me get dressed and wave goodbye.’ He snickered to indicate how ludicrous he found the concept of morning companionship.
    â€˜She’s a sound sleeper then?’
    â€˜I believe so but we don’t share a bedroom, if