Lethal Guardian by M. William Phelps

in. She was with her boss, a local big-shot real estate attorney, Haiman Long Clein, who had, three weeks prior, turned fifty-three. Beth Ann had been working for Clein for about the past year and a half. It was her first real job as a lawyer. Clein was a big man, standing six feet two inches, weighing two hundred pounds. He had a full beard and mustache, and was dressed as one might expect a lawyer to be: snazzy pants, dress shirt, jacket.
    Still, Szamocki and Graham noticed that Clein looked tired and beaten down, his shirt halfway sticking out of his pants, his face a bit jaundiced and sweaty.
    When Beth Ann stood next to her mother, it wasn’t hard to tell that if they were the same age, they could easily pass for sisters. Beth Ann’s shoulder-length red hair was radiant and silky, like satin. Besides her apple red lipstick, she wore little makeup to accentuate her pale-white skin. She appeared stoic and serious, as if the weight of the situation had just hit her. She hadn’t told anyone, but she was pregnant with Haiman Clein’s child, and she was determined to have it—whatever the cost to Clein, who was married with four children, plus an adult child from a previous marriage.
    Clein and Beth Ann walked in and sat down in the living room.
    “I’m Detective Szamocki. This is my partner, Detective Graham,” Szamocki said, extending his hand to Clein. “Have a seat.”
    As the two detectives questioned Cynthia and Dick, they occasionally asked Beth Ann and Clein if they had anything to add. Most of the discussion was geared toward Dick’s rocky relationship with Buzz and his family.
    Beth Ann and Clein watched and listened carefully to what was going on. Being lawyers, they knew the boundary lines. If any accusations had been made, the interview would be terminated immediately.
    Dick said at one point that Rebecca had made comments such as, “Daddy beats my butt,” referring to Buzz. He said they were concerned that Buzz had been abusing her. And an investigation for sexual assault had even been opened back in December 1993.
    “Do you own any firearms?” Szamocki asked at that point.
    “An old rifle and shotgun.”
    “What about a handgun?”
    “Nope.”
    “Can we have a look at the guns?”
    “Sure,” Dick said, and left to go get them.
    After a few more questions, Dick provided an alibi for March 10. Szamocki and Graham, however, were quick to note that the only person who could verify Dick’s alibi was Cynthia. Being his wife, she was immune from testifying if it ever came down to it.
    “If you think of anything else, please call us.”
    If there was one person with a motive to murder Buzz, detectives realized, it was Scott Farmer, Natalie Farmer’s husband. When interviewed at his home in Old Lyme, just west of East Lyme, late in the day on March 11, Scott said that Buzz had been calling his house between three and four times a day looking for Natalie.
    “I told her to stop talking to him…. I told her….” Farmer said. “Buzz was becoming a pain in the ass!”
    “Were you aware of an affair between them?”
    “No. I don’t think she was having an affair. But one can never be sure.”
    “Where were you Thursday night?”
    “Home, here, watching my baby by myself.”
    “All night?”
    Farmer hesitated, then ran his hand through his hair.
    “Well, I left here about seven-thirty to go over to the firehouse in town. My mother came over to baby-sit.”
    “How long were you there?”
    “Until eleven o’clock.”
    A second detective interviewed Natalie Farmer in another room while Scott was being questioned.
    Natalie admitted that she’d had a “brief sexual affair with Buzz.” They’d had sex twice, she said, but recently ended the affair to save her marriage. She remained friends with Buzz, though, she claimed, and she had spoken to him often on the phone.
    “What would he tell you?”
    “He was having problems with Rob Ferguson,” Natalie said.
    “Do you know anything about Mr.