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add.” I tried not to snap.
    “True. You came out in a dark hooded sweatshirt. Was it yours?”
    “No. It’s Ben’s. He’d left it in the living room and it was the first thing I thought to grab. My lightweight jacket was in the bedroom, and the sweatshirt was handy.” I had resolved that I would tell the truth with Fernandez, even if it didn’t make me, or Ben, look all that good. I had never found a problem yet that lying helped. Besides, as my grandmother used to say, if you always told the truth, you never had to worry about keeping your story straight.
    Fernandez seemed continually surprised by my answers. He must have expected me to defend Ben, and I had every intention of doing that when I could do so and tell the truth. “Before Monday, had you ever seen your son and Frank Collins together?”
    “Only when they were both in the apartment over the summer when Frank was working on the remodeling job. And that wasn’t very often.”
    “You’d never heard Ben have any arguments with Mr. Collins about anything?”
    “I never saw Ben talk to Frank Collins in much of any fashion, argumentative or otherwise. And I can’t imagine what they might argue about.”
    That finally got Fernandez writing in his notebook again, making me wonder what was behind that question. What had Ben told him that would be a surprise to me? I was going to have to have a chat with my son after this.
    “Ben seems like a fairly easygoing guy. And you said Monday that you don’t own a gun, correct?” Did Fernandez think he was going to sneak something by me?
    “That’s correct, Detective. I do not now, nor have I ever, owned any kind of gun besides a water pistol that Ben might have had at one time or another. I don’t believe in keeping guns in the house.”
    “Fair enough.” He wrote some more in his notebook while I sat trying not to fidget.
    “I take it that Frank was shot, as it looked like Monday, and you’re trying to figure out who owns the gun that did it.”
    “Now you know I can’t tell you anything of that sort,” Fernandez said, grumbling. That vein in his temple had begun to work overtime.
    “Hey, you’re asking me questions about my son and I’m telling you the truth. I figured I could at least chance that you’d do the same if I asked you a question.” It wasn’t likely that I’d get an answer, but I could at least try.
    Fernandez gave me a long, thoughtful look. My heart did little flip-flops in reaction. “Circumstantially there are things that could look like Ben had something to do with all this.”
    “Like Dot seeing somebody in a dark hooded sweatshirt talking to Frank that morning,” I said. “And the fact that I can’t prove that Ben wasn’t outside before I saw him.”
    Fernandez sighed. “Exactly. I hoped that Mrs. Morgan wouldn’t say something to you, but apparently that was too much to hope for.”
    “She only told me the truth. And I still don’t think the person she saw was Ben. He told me he hadn’t had any contact with Frank that morning, and I believe him. We may not have the best mother-son relationship in the world, but he normally doesn’t lie to me about anything.”
    “Even when it would cause him trouble?”
    I nodded. “Even then. He even told me when he drove Dennis’s new car without permission when he only had his permit in Missouri and Dennis was sure somebody on a parking lot made that horrible scratch in the finish. He spent most of the summer mowing lawns to pay for the bodywork, too.”
    “I can see why you have faith in him then,” Fernandez said. He didn’t appear to be teasing me, either.
    “Good. So are we free to go?”
    “For now. I can’t promise that I won’t be calling either of you back in. There’s still a lot of lab work to be done, and several more people I haven’t talked to yet that could clear some things up for me.”
    “Is Ben still a suspect?”
    Fernandez sighed again. “Ms. Harris, I can’t rule anybody out at this point,