Page 119 of The System

“I don’t know. I do think it’s worth asking for his alibi the night of Nick May’s murder, though.”

“Hold on.” Carina moved away from the desk and held her hand to her chin in thought. “Why would Theo Samuel kill Nick May? He didn’t even know him. He hasn’t seen Marin since she aged out of the system almost twenty years ago.”

“So you say. But we don’t know that.”

“Marin would’ve told you.”

“If she’d seen him, yes. But not if he’d seen her, and she had no idea that he was there.”

“Come on. Stalking? You’re jumping to stalking?”

“I’m not jumping; I’m postulating with my lawyer girlfriend.”

“You can’t just casually use the word ‘girlfriend’ to refer to me for the first time when we’re talking about a case.”

“Carina, focus,” Kieran said with a smile.

“To focus, I need coffee,” Carina replied and left the office without another word.

Kieran wasn’t sure if she was coming back, so she waited.

“Kieran! Kitchen!”

Kieran jumped up and followed Carina to the kitchen, where she watched her sleepy girlfriend make them both coffee while she spoke.

“Okay. So, we’re just talking here, you and me.”

“Yes,” Kieran confirmed and sat in a chair at her kitchen table.

“Then, let’s assume a few things.”

“Go for it.”

“Okay. Theo knew Marin when she was, what, sixteen? Seventeen?”

“Sure.”

“Let’s assume Marin is telling the truth about him coming onto her and not taking no for an answer because I think that’s far more likely than her coming onto him. Is that anti-feminist to say that? I don’t know. Anyway,” Carina rambled and opened Kieran’s fridge as if she’d done it every day for a year and it was nothing to be this domestic. “I believe her. She pushes him away. He burns himself because he wants attention or to have her punished. She gets a record.”

“Yes,” Kieran said, content to just let Carina externally process what she’d already processed internally.

“Okay. If my chronology is right, he’s pissed because he didn’t get the girl he wanted, but there’s this other girl who is interested, and he starts dating her.”

“Maybe even to make Marin jealous,” Kieran added.

“Maybe,” Carina said. “But are we saying he killed that poor girl or that she was killed randomly but not by Marin?”

“Let’s assume there are no coincidences here,” Kieran replied. “Either because something happened, and he killed her, or he killed her on purpose to screw Marin over.”

“If he’d done that, though, he would’ve done more to get her arrested for it.”

“True,” Kieran said. “So, he didn’t do it?”

“No, he did. Let’s say that he did for now.” Carina poured half-and-half into both cups and placed it back in the fridge. “Let’s say it was a rage thing, though. The girl said or did something to piss him off, and–”

“Okay, but we couldn’t prove any of that.”

“We wouldn’t need to in order to just question him or bring it to Kevin to have him question Theo. Let’s say she said something to him.”

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