“Okay,” said the detective. “So then you went to your studio at St. Michael’s College. You taught a class, answered emails, painted, did whatever. Then, at five p.m., you met Ms. Grey at the Halfway House and you stayed for a few hours. You were home by eight p.m. In bed by eleven, and your wife was not home. You assumed she was at a motel freezing you out, since she hadn’t replied to any of your calls or texts. You slept through the night, and Ms. Grey came by your place Tuesday morning at approximately eight-thirty with the tragic news.”
Owen felt the heavy-saliva warning a brief few seconds before he doubled over and emptied his guts into the trash bin. Goldman had experienced a sympathetic vomiting reflex once decades ago, and that was enough. He got the hell out of the room. A few minutes later, after Owen’s stomach had quit turning inside out, Goldman returned with a can of Coke in hand.
Owen put the trash bin by the door and sat back down. “Sorry,” he said.
“No problem. Sure you want to go on?” said Goldman, sliding the soda across the table.
“Yeah. Thanks,” said Owen, cracking the lid.
The purging, followed by the sweet carbonation, made Owen feel almost human again. Goldman put the trash can in the hallway.
“When was the last time you and your wife had sex?”
Owen, briefly, considered the question. Then he became distracted by the idea of his vomit sitting in a police-station hallway.
“A week? No. I don’t—maybe two, I think,” Owen said.
“Two weeks? Are you sure it wasn’t more recent?”
“No. It was definitely more than a week. Why are you asking?” Owen said.
Owen was getting annoyed. The question felt invasive, like it had been asked just to fuck with him.
“Standard question,” Goldman said.
* * *
—
When Goldman was finished with Mann, he found his partner at her desk, cross-checking calls from the past three months on Irene’s cellphone.
“Got anything?” Goldman asked.
“Ms. Boucher was overpaying for her phone plan, that’s for sure. There are about four numbers in regular circulation. But compared to your average middle-aged woman—no, compared to any phone I’ve ever looked at—the call history is remarkably light. There is something, though,” Margot said, drawing a page from the stack of phone bills and pointing to a highlighted number.
“Irene called this 215 number thirty times in the last three months. It’s to a prepaid phone. And she’s had more communication with that number than her husband’s. And no texts. Weird, right?”
“I take it you tried the number?” Goldman said.
“Straight to an automated voicemail,” Burns said.
Goldman examined the call list before and after Irene’s murder. The number in question phoned Irene twelve hours after she passed. But there was no call in the twenty-four hours preceding her death.
Reading his mind, Burns said, “There’s no unusual call pattern with the mystery number around the murder. You get anything new from Mann?”
“Yes,” said Goldman. “Didn’t the ME tell you he found seminal fluid?”
Margot nodded. “He did.”
“Wasn’t the husband’s,” Goldman said.
December 2003
The next morning, Luna smelled coffee brewing and heard what sounded like idle chatter in the kitchen, but she wasn’t sure who was making the chatter. She opened the French doors and stepped outside, feeling a blast of cold air off the shimmering lake. The rusty rowboat was tied to the dock. She would have done just about anything for a cup of coffee—other than venture into the kitchen to be caught alone with Vera and Tom.
Luna heard leaves rustling in the woods and spotted Griff running back to the house. He waved and slowed down, approaching. She thought about running back inside to spare them the discomfort of talking about last night. But that would look weird. She made a split-second decision to pretend nothing had happened.
“Hey,” Griff said, catching his breath.
“Hey,” Luna said. That single syllable sounded less casual than she’d planned.
“You okay?” Griff said.
“Yeah. You okay?” she said.
Griff stood in front of her and tilted his head to the side, like a confused child. “So, that’s how you want to play it?”
“I don’t know,” Luna said. “What would you prefer?”
“I don’t like pretending,” he said. “It’s a version of lying.”