“Pardon?”
“My wife’s body. I have to have a funeral. Wait, can you have a funeral without a body?”
“You can, but the body helps,” Goldman said, regretting the phrasing. “Did you know what she wanted? Burial or cremation?”
“Definitely not cremation,” Owen said.
Then he realized it was Luna who couldn’t get past the part where your body is put in a fifteen-hundred-degree oven. Logically, she understood that she would no longer be a sentient being, but the idea just got to her.
“Actually, I don’t know,” Owen said. “Maybe it’s in her will somewhere. When can I—when will she…”
“The coroner isn’t done with the autopsy. Give it a few days. By the weekend maybe.”
Owen nodded, already overwhelmed by the prospect of making arrangements. This was the sort of thing Irene would have done. The longer they were married, the less capable he became with administrative tasks.
“If you don’t mind, I need to go over your timeline once again,” said Goldman.
“It’s the same as what I told your partner. And it was recorded, right?” Owen said.
Owen didn’t want to tell the cops two different stories, but he wasn’t sure that his current memory would jibe with his first interview.
“Yes,” Goldman said. “But we have a confirmed time of death now, so I need to go over it again.”
“Oh,” Owen said. “When did she die?”
“Monday morning. She stopped by Luna’s before she went for a run.”
“Right,” Owen said.
“Luna was the last person to see her alive and the first person to see her dead,” Goldman said.
“Aside from the killer,” Owen said.
Goldman was hoping to get a reaction out of Owen, but he couldn’t read the guy. All Owen could think about was the drinks he and Luna had shared while his wife’s body was growing cold.
“Something come to mind?” the detective asked.
“Nothing important. I was thinking that the whole time I was texting her, she was already dead.”
Owen heard a familiar buzz and tapped his pocket, thinking it was his phone. Then he remembered that he’d given it to someone in a uniform. Goldman checked his own mobile device and thumbed a quick text. Owen was late to meet Amy. She’d be texting the phone that was in police custody. She’d be angry. Fuck, he thought.
“I told your partner I was seeing someone,” Owen said.
“Yes,” Noah said.
“Um…I was going to meet her this morning…now. And I didn’t text her that I wasn’t coming so, um, she’s going to be calling my phone, which you guys have. She’s waiting for me, and she doesn’t like to be ignored.”
“Does anyone?” Goldman said.
“Guess not,” Owen said.
“I’ll ask my partner to get in touch.”
* * *
—
An hour later, Owen and Goldman had reviewed Owen’s whereabouts for the forty-eight hours bookending Irene’s murder, and Owen couldn’t ignore the fact that he was clearly a suspect. Perhaps their only suspect. He could have stopped the interview anytime. He could have, and probably should have, asked for a lawyer, but he felt an oppressive inertia that inhibited any sensible proactive decisions.
“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.