Because he had actually murdered his wife and Puller’s mother?

 

It was pretty much unthinkable.

 

And yet Puller had seen enough in his career at CID to know that people were

capable of just about anything.

 

He thought back to his early years with his parents. They had argued, but not to

an excessive degree. The old man was harder on his sons than on his wife.

 

And Jacqueline Puller, known to all as Jackie, did not possess a submissive

personality. If anything she was more than a match for her husband. The old man

would be away and then he’d come home and try to change the rules of their lives

that Jackie Puller had carefully constructed. As the boss of men rushing into

combat, Puller Sr. evidently thought he was qualified and entitled to run

everything.

 

His wife had not been in agreement on that point.

 

So there had been arguments, words spoken in anger. But didn’t most if not all

marriages have that?

 

Puller didn’t know for sure, never having been married. But he had conducted

many investigations involving married couples. And he glumly recalled that more

than a few involved one spouse murdering the other.