The Accomplice(78)

Noah scribbled a single bullet point under Amy’s name.

         Not an astronaut.





“Moving on,” Noah said. “The murder had to be premeditated. It was too clean.”

“Maybe,” Margot said. “Or it was a random shooting.”

“For the hell of it, are there any astronauts in the mix? And does your astronaut theory apply only to women?”

“No,” Margot said. “But there is a higher probability of astronauts in female killers than male killers.”

“How about Dr. Burroughs?” Goldman asked.

“Burroughs is definitely an astronaut. He’s the type of person who would think he could get away with the perfect crime.”

Noah wrote ASTRONAUT under Dr. Burroughs’s name.

“His motive is weak,” Noah said.

“Correction. The motive we’ve so far managed to conceive of is weak,” Margot said.

Noah wrote JEALOUSY under Owen’s name. “Owen finds out about the affair and kills his wife out of jealous rage. Why doesn’t he kill Sam?”

“I don’t know. Because Irene betrayed him.”

“It could be a jealousy-greed combo,” Goldman said.

Margot took another pen and scribbled Luna’s name in her messy script. The L looked almost like an h. She remembered why she wanted Goldman to do the writing.

“Maybe Luna found out about the affair and killed Irene?” Margot said.

Goldman wrote JEALOUSY under Luna’s name.

“So, Luna brings in the husband’s burner and toothbrush to deflect blame?” Goldman said.

The partners were exchanging hypotheticals but not buying any of it.

“Maybe,” Burns said, unconvinced.

She paced over to the window and squinted at the blazing landscape. The kaleidoscope of colors would fade in just a few weeks.

“She’s not an astronaut,” Goldman said.

“Definitely not. Is there anyone else in Irene’s orbit that we need to look at?” Burns asked.

“Her neighbor, Maya Wilton,” Goldman said, writing her name on the side of the board. “I interviewed her briefly when we were canvassing the neighborhood. She claimed that she and Irene were good friends. Neither Owen nor Luna mentioned her at all. She seemed overly interested. After I gave her my card, she gave me her card. She said I should call if we needed any help.”

“You should definitely call,” Burns said. “Let’s take a step back and look at motive from a wider view. Why do people kill?” she asked. “They kill as a misguided expression of love.”

“They kill for greed,” Noah added. “They kill because they lose control. They kill for jealousy and hate. But who hated Irene? No one, based on our interviews. Everyone loved her.”

“Whitman didn’t. He seemed to resent her, in a way. I’m not sure what it was, but something wasn’t right with them,” Margot said.

Goldman wrote Whitman’s name on the board. “He hated that she got all Chantal’s money,” he said.

“Right. Maybe all those cash withdrawals were going to Whitman.”

“How hard would it be to get his bank records?”

“We’d need more evidence. We can certainly bring him in and ask him about it,” Burns said.

“Why would she give him the money? That’s the question,” Goldman asked. “She had already written him a check for fifteen thousand earlier this year.”

“But why switch to cash? Was she trying to avoid the gift tax or hiding the gift?”

“What are you thinking? Blackmail?”

Burns worked through the possibility. “Whitman blackmails Irene about her affair with Sam. Then Irene finds out about Amy and Owen and decides it doesn’t matter. She stops paying Leo off. Leo gets angry. Is that motive?”

“I don’t know,” Goldman said. “I’m not following the logic. If it’s just revenge, it’s a big risk to take. And he has the hand tremor, so he’d probably have to hire someone. It doesn’t make sense.”

Burns closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “It doesn’t. But murder isn’t rational,” she said. “I still want to dig deeper with Whitman.”

Noah erased everything Margot had written in her messy scrawl and rewrote it in neat block letters. He took a step back, checking his work. Margot watched, amused by Noah’s desire to tidy up a board that they would be erasing by the end of the day.

“You’re almost an astronaut,” Burns said.

“Almost?” Noah said, trying to decide whether he was insulted by the qualifier.

“Cops can’t be astronauts. Too low on the food chain,” she said.





March 2005


When Owen was in London, time moved faster than normal. It felt like being on one of those walking belts in an airport. He didn’t look at it as regular life—more like an above-average vacation with mediocre food. But food wasn’t that important to Owen. He did enjoy the pubs and pints, and he knew what grub to steer clear of. Anything kidney. Why am I the only person who smells the urine? Once settled, he began to write long letters to Luna, reciprocating her ambitious correspondences. Receiving something in the mail was such a thrill, he finally understood why Luna continued to use that form of communication. Owen didn’t have as much patience for words, so he would often interrupt his letters with casual drawings that better illustrated the story. One was a two-paneled cartoon rendering of Owen catching a bus. In the first image, he shoves his way through the front door; in the second, after being scolded by a flatmate, he notices the queue and waits patiently in line for his turn with the other passengers.