The Accomplice(41)

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Margot entered the station the next morning a walking hangover cliché—coffee in hand, sunglasses indoors, cautious gait.

“You’re the worst partner I’ve ever had,” she said.

“Please take off your sunglasses,” Noah said.

Margot tossed the glasses onto her desk. “Happy?” she said, revealing bloodshot eyes.

“You only had three pints, right?”

“Give it ten years,” she said. “You’ll see.”

Noah’s hair was a bit damp, and Margot noted the faint scent of baby shampoo.

“Did you go to the gym this morning?” she said.

Noah had and still arrived an hour before Margot.

“Course not,” Noah said.

Noah had already skimmed through a third of Owen’s emails, along with a printout of his search history for the past three months.

“What are you working on?” Margot asked.

“Mann’s emails and search history,” Noah said.

“Anything of interest?” Margot said.

Noah wasn’t sure how to answer. He hadn’t reviewed enough of the material to provide an educated opinion. Margot understood his reluctance, but she wanted his gut.

“Tell me,” she said.

“We’re not going to find a smoking gun here.”

“Because he was smart and didn’t leave evidence?”

“If he was deliberately keeping his computer clean, I don’t think there would be so many emails between him and his girlfriend. Also, if I thought someone was going to be searching my computer in the near future, I’d at least clear out the porn-site search history.”

“You’re no fun.”

“Hypothetically,” Noah added.

“Tell me the truth. How much porn would I find on your laptop?”

Noah shook his head. “No. Not talking about that.”

“I can’t decide if you’re genuinely square or a closet perv.”

“Which would you prefer?”

“I really don’t know,” Margot said, then, recognizing the imprudence of their conversation, “I shouldn’t talk to you like that. I apologize.”

“Apology accepted,” Noah said.

“Because if a male superior inquired about his female partner’s porn-viewing habits, that would be…highly inappropriate. If you want to report me, I’ll understand.”

Burns’s mobile rang. She answered.

“Detective Burns,” she said into the phone. “Okay. Thank you. When? Right. Goodbye.”

Margot ended the call and turned to Noah. “They released the body last night. To Mather and Sons. There’s no service planned,” she said.

“Nothing?” Noah said.

“No.”

“Where is she being buried?”

“Cremated,” Margot said.

Noah seemed confused, then troubled. “Owen said in our interview that Irene didn’t want to be cremated, and then he cremates her?”

“Doesn’t mean anything,” Margot said.

“Doesn’t it?”

“What does that get him?” Margot said.

“I don’t know,” Goldman said. “But you can’t exhume ashes.”





March 2004


At three forty-five on a Friday afternoon, Casey showed up at Luna’s dorm room with a six-pack of beer. Luna was about to crack open a can when Casey told her to wait fifteen minutes, explaining that it was a bit early. Luna questioned her logic, prompting Casey to ask what logic had to do with any of it. By the time Luna had teased out Casey’s full (and utterly arbitrary, in Luna’s view) position on the matter—one shouldn’t consume alcoholic beverages between the hours of twelve and four p.m.—the fifteen minutes were up. Over the next two hours, Luna and Casey polished off three beers apiece and started on a bottle of bourbon that Luna had stashed in her closet. A conversation about recent movies morphed into a game where one person would describe the plot of a film and the other would try to guess the title.

“A small country goes bankrupt and is in debt to a wealthy woman who installs the next president,” Casey said. “Meanwhile, spies from neighboring countries are trying to stage a coup.”

“The Manchurian Candidate,” Luna said.

Casey appeared stunned for a brief moment and then exploded into laughter. “No,” she said. “Oh my god, that was amazing.”

“What was it?” Luna asked.

“Duck Soup.”

When Mason, Ted, and Owen joined them at around six, the two were plastered. Casey was still laughing so hard about Duck Soup that she couldn’t manage to articulate what was so funny. Mason asked Luna if Casey was stoned, Luna said no, and Casey left the room to pull herself together.

Luna tried to explain Casey’s condition, but since she didn’t fully understand it herself, all she could say was “I think I need to see Duck Soup.” At eight, after four solid hours of drinking and an unknown quantity of weed, Luna kicked everyone out of her room and fell asleep with her clothes on.

A few hours later, she was awakened by an annoying dinging sound that seemed to repeat every few seconds. Luna stumbled out of bed and hunted for the noise. She spotted Owen’s phone on the floor, just under her bed. She thought about calling his dorm to let him know where he’d left it, but she figured Owen already knew and would probably come around sometime the next morning. Luna checked Owen’s text messages, in case he was using someone else’s phone to locate his mobile. That’s when she saw Scarlet’s texts.