DEBRA KURTZ WAS DRINKING day-old coffee in the smaller, cleaner of our two interview rooms. “The Meachams were the greatest couple in the world,” she told us tearfully.

  “Any reason you can think that anyone would want to hurt them?” I asked.

  “I’m going to the soft drink machine downstairs,” Conklin said to Kurtz. “Can I get you something else?”

  She shook her head no.

  When Conklin was gone, Kurtz leaned across the table and told me about Sandy’s drinking and that both Sandy and Steven had had casual affairs. “I don’t think that means anything, but just so you know.”

  Kurtz told me that the Meachams had two children; a boy, Scott, nineteen or so, away at college, and a girl, Rebecca, older and married, living in Philadelphia. Kurtz choked up again, as though something painful was stuck in her gut - or her conscience.

  “Is there something else you want to tell me, Debra? Something going on between you and Steven Meacham?”

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “Yes, there was.”

  Kurtz watched the door as she talked, as if she wanted to finish talking before Conklin returned. She said, “I hated myself for cheating on Sandy. It’s hard to explain, but in a way I loved her as much as I loved Steve.”

  I pushed a box of tissues over to her side of the table as Conklin came back into the interrogation room. He was holding a computer printout.

  “You have a rap sheet, Ms. Kurtz,” said Conklin, pulling out a chair. “That kinda surprised me.”

  “I was in grief,” the woman told us, her gray eyes flooding anew. “I didn’t hurt anyone but myself.”

  Conklin turned the pages toward me.

  “You were arrested for burglary.&rdqu............