Owen turned to Griff, eyes narrowed. “Why are you being such a dick?” Owen said.
“Sorry. I don’t want to start anything,” Griff said.
“I can’t believe you’re still pissed about that,” said Owen.
Luna’s eyes toggled between the brothers.
“Still,” Griff said. “You accused our mother of murder.”
“I thought maybe she did it. And I told you that in confidence,” Owen said.
Luna saw a vein pulsing on Griff’s forehead. He got to his feet. So did Owen.
“You know, Owen, it’s deeply concerning how lightly you take the killing of another human.”
Owen grabbed his coat and checked the pockets for his keys. “I’m going,” Owen said.
Luna was drunk enough by then that she wasn’t sure she was hearing things correctly. “What is going on with you two?” she said.
“He thinks I killed Scarlet,” Owen said. “Right, Griff?”
“No, he doesn’t,” Luna said, turning her attention to Griff.
Griff exhaled and stared at his feet.
“Go on. Tell her what you really think,” Owen said.
Griff leveled his gaze on Owen. “I think maybe you killed both of them.”
Owen walked out as soon as Griff accused him of more than one murder. Another time, another year, Luna might have chased after Owen. Not that night. For one thing, she was too destabilized by the trajectory of the conversation to manage an exit. Then, when Griff suggested Owen might be a killer, she wanted to know how he came to that conclusion. Griff began cleaning up, bussing plates as if the goal was to split them in two. Luna sat in the living room, drinking more wine, trying to decide which questions to ask and in what order.
Her wine depleted, she entered the kitchen.
“You were angry,” Luna said. “You don’t think that.”
“Yes,” Griff said. No hesitation. “I think it’s very possible.”
Luna wasn’t buying it. Griff rinsed and dried his hands and turned to Luna. He could tell he was losing her. After all her years of friendship with Owen, all that loyalty, Griff didn’t expect to get through to her. At least not right away.
“I get that you don’t want to believe it,” Griff said. “But I know I’m not crazy.”
“You don’t draw that conclusion randomly. Tell me how you got there,” Luna said.
Griff poured more wine, against his better judgment. He already felt a headache coming on. “That summer when Owen came back from England,” Griff said, “I asked him about returning to Markham. He was angry at me for suggesting it. He said something about how no one cared what actually happened that night. Then he briefly mentioned Scarlet, how she was dressed the night she died. He knew what shoes she was wearing,” Griff said.
When Luna didn’t respond to that comment, Griff asked, “Did she have only one pair of shoes?”
“Maybe that detail was in an article somewhere,” Luna said.
“No,” Griff said. “It wasn’t. It wasn’t in any article anywhere. I read every last one. He knew she was in a party dress.”
“She always wore miniskirts or dresses,” Luna said.
“On a late-night hike? Why would you assume that? The answer is, you don’t make that assumption. You know it because you saw it. He was there.”
“Griff, I had his phone. I was communicating with her and even I didn’t know where she went. The text was misspelled and basically gibberish.”
“He had a phone in his dorm room, in the hall. There were other ways they could have communicated. How did he know what she was wearing if he didn’t see her?”
“How do you know what he said was right?” Luna asked.
“Because I got the police report.”
“When?”
“After he slipped up,” Griff said. “When I asked him about it, how he knew what she was wearing, it got weird. He looked angry. Like I’d caught him in a lie. That’s when I started to think he did it.”
Irene, 2014
Chantal Boucher eventually came to realize that she’d married a lout. A money-grubbing, medium-talent lothario. But while Leo had been a truly terrible husband, he was an adequate deathbed companion. Near death, Chantal’s sentimentality won out over spite. She simply couldn’t bring herself to leave her husband penniless, though she’d witnessed the way Leo tore through his—and her—income. By all objective standards, Whitman had done well for himself as a young artist. If he’d had any discipline, he would have been comfortable for the rest of his life. Chantal did what she thought was best. She left some funds designated for her husband, making her daughter trustee, unwittingly forcing a lifelong relationship that neither daughter nor husband would have desired.