We never saw Connie’s reaction to Fredo’s disappearance in II. But she refers to him, resignedly, in III, after Michael tells her he’s made confession: “Michael, you know, sometimes I think of poor Fredo, drowned. It was God's will. It was a terrible accident. But it's finished.” Some on this board believe that Connie knew Michael had Fredo whacked, but that scene showed she accepted it. Given her hysterical, accusatory reaction to Carlo’s murder, the question is why she would she accept Fredo’s murder?

One possibility is that she may have felt that she was partly to blame for Fredo’s death, and in order to bury that guilt, she convinced herself that Fredo drowned:

The horror that Connie felt over her husband’s murder was compounded by Michael’s having stood godfather to their son on the same day Carlo was whacked. And Connie had asked that Michael be the baby’s godfather. Carlo was a dead man in any event, but she recognized that Michael “stood godfather to our child just to throw us off the track. The coldhearted bastard” [novel]. In II, Connie knew that Fredo had betrayed Michael, but in that memorable boathouse scene, she got on her knees (nice touch!) and begged Michael to forgive Fredo. Fredo, too, was a dead man. But what if Connie believed that her entreaties had once again had put someone she loved in Michael’s deadly trap? And what if she believed that the deliberately deceitful and coldhearted way they were killed was aimed at her--the product of Michael’s resentment of her (perhaps because he held her responsible for unwittingly setting up Sonny’s murder)?

The burden of guilt Connie would have to bear would crush her. So, I’m guessing, Connie simply blotted it out by convincing herself that Fredo really did drown. And, after Michael told her he made confession, she knew he’d asked forgiveness for whatever happened. Rather than rekindle her guilt trip, she came to closure. What do you think?