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really began to unfold when investigators started talking to people who worked with Ann and Eric. It was not necessarily what these interviewees said; it was more often what they did not say that aroused suspicions. A single thread leading from Ann to her husband’s death began to form. It took many twists and turns along the way; so many, Morgan probably would have turned around in the very beginning if he’d known what was coming down the road.
    Morgan specifically remembers one interview with a coworker of Ann’s at Glaxo Wellcome named Liping Wang (no relation to Dr. Wang). Wang shared a cubicle with Ann and was also friends with Eric. She had once worked in Eric’s lab at UNC Hospitals, and subsequently, Eric had recommended her for a job with Ann’s pharmaceutical company.
    “That first interview with [Liping Wang] was kind of strange,” Morgan says, a chuckle punctuating the end of his sentence. “Number one, it was one of the few interviews I had ever done with my shoes off.”
    Morgan remembers how he and Detective Don Terry arrived at Wang’s home one evening and saw shoes lined up by the door. Morgan assumed the lush, clean, white carpet in the hallway was the reason for the shoeless protocol and directed Terry to follow his lead and remove his shoes as well. Morgan felt slightly silly sitting at Wang’s dining-room table in his three-piece suit, his fedora, and his socks. But as an investigator, he’d always had a “when in Rome” attitude. It was critical in order to gain someone’s trust and confidence. You had to earn it. You had to prove you could adapt to their rules when you were on their turf.
    Wang served the detectives green tea in dainty china cups. Again, this was no coffee-and-donuts meeting in a Crown Victoria like most cops were used to, but they accepted Wang’s hospitality graciously. Morgan admits he actually kind of enjoyed the tea. Yet, given the nature of the investigation— poisoning —Terry was not thrilled at the idea of drinking unknown tea offered by a stranger.
    Like any experienced investigator, Morgan asked the same questions over and over again, hoping to get to the truth of how Wang perceived Ann’s relationship with her husband. But over and over again, he says Wang gave them the same story, using slightly different words. She gushed about what a good marriage Ann and Eric had, about how they were perfectly suited for each other. Morgan feels that it may have been a story Wang had been telling herself repeatedly because the alternative was too difficult to comprehend.
    “ ‘What a happy couple they were!’ ” Morgan says, mimicking Wang’s tone with fake exuberance. “Before it was over with, I said, ‘Something is not right here.’ ”

SIDELINED
    Morgan always trusted his gut, and his gut was telling him there was a lot more to this story than anyone truly understood, including him. But again, it was not his case. It was Jeff Fluck’s case. Morgan’s access to information was limited to what he heard around the watercooler and to specific assignments Fluck asked him to undertake. To put it bluntly, he had no control over the direction of the investigation in the beginning. Even though he was involved in the interview process, he was still a bit player. He ached to get off the bench and into the game.
    To keep his growing curiosity at bay, Morgan sought information from people in the know, the people closest to the case. He hung out in the break room, near the coffeemaker, in the hallway, anywhere he could catch a detective who was working more directly on the case. He picked their brains, asked for their hypotheses, and drew conclusions of his own that he kept to himself.
    He started to see a pattern of growing frustration among the investigators who were working diligently on the case. They shared with him their concerns that Ann Miller seemed untouchable despite their best efforts to see her. She seemed to create nothing but obstacles for detectives at