Page 34 of Puzzle for Two

“I need to know the truth. Are you working for Zora?”

There was no mistaking the astonishment on Flint’s face. “Huh?”

“Is that why you agreed to this job? Had you already been hired by Zora?”

Flint repeated almost wonderingly, “Already hired byZora?”

“Were you?”

“Hell, no. Are you kidding? Where in the hell did you— I don’t have to be working for someone to be concerned for their safety. Or to see what’s in front of my nose. You can believe everything Beacher told you, but take it from me, there are always a couple of different outcomes for any given set of circumstances.”

Combinatorics, that’s what Flint was talking about. The branch of mathematics concerned with problems of selection, arrangement, and operation within a finite or discrete system. Flint was perfectly right.

Zach opened his mouth, but no words came to him. A series of unwelcome and unsettling inklings flashed through his memory.

Flint’s eyes narrowed. “You think so, too.”

“No,” Zach protested. “Of course I don’t think that. But…”

“But?”

“Butsomethingweird is going on. I told you earlier I felt something was off. You said yourself you thought something was off when Alton first approached you. That’s why I wanted some backup.”

“Something’s off all right. You’re helping this creep commit murder.”

Zach’s dismay—in particular, dismay that Flint might be right—grew. “The hell! How can you be so sure that’s what’s going on? You’ve been working this case less than twenty-four hours.”

Flint slapped his forehead, which, until that moment, was a move Zach had only seen in cartoons. “Forget all thehe said, she said. Just look at the setup on paper. Who has an actual motive for murder? The wife’s the one with the real money.”

“Wealth is relative.”

“Spoken like someone who’s broke. Multimillions are not relative. The Kaschak Corporation brings in over a quarter of a billion annually—and Zora’s the sole heir to that fortune. Beacher’s company brings in not quite three million a year. And he’s still paying off her initial investment in his company. I thought you were an accountant. Do the math.”

That smarted on multiple levels. Zach said, “Money’s not the only motive in the world. People commit murder for plenty of other reasons. In fact, more murders are committed out of anger or the need to exert control or assume power over the victim than for money.”

“Says you.”

“Yes, says me. Because it’s true.”

“Not in my experience.”

“But you won’t handle anything to do with divorce or adultery or infidelity, so your experience is limited.”

Flint spluttered, “M-myexperience is limited?” But then, surprisingly, he fell silent, seeming to consider. He said grudgingly, “Okay, maybe you’ve got a point. But I don’t have to be an accountant to know there are huge financial incentives for your client getting rid of his wife. That’s not even calculating in the fact that they live onherfamily estate. And those are just thenothing-personal-honeyreasons for getting her out of the way.”

“All of that was true when they married, though. If he was just going to knock her off for the money, why would he wait so long? They’ve been married over twenty years.”

Flint said, “Because things change. Maybe they did love each other at one time. People fall out of love. Sadly. Sometimes they even end up hating each other. There’s a reason husbands and wives are always the first suspects when the other is knocked off.”

Zach was thinking about thatsadlyof Flint’s. Flint didn’t seem like the sentimental type, but yeah, it was sad that love didn’t always last forever. He was sad about how things had ended with Ben. Speaking of ending up hating each other, Ben was well on the way to hating him. Zach’s mom and pop were another case of two people who started out in love and ended up not even liking the other person. They had stayed together, though. They hadn’t hated each other. Mom’s tears had been real when Pop passed.

“I didn’t see any love lost tonight, that’s for sure,” Flint said.

“No.”

Alton wasn’t easy to read, but Zach hadn’t seen anything but guilt, discomfort, and a nervousness that bordered on actual fear. Alton had showed no real concern or sympathy for anyone but himself.

In fairness, who knew what he put up with at home? Maybe Zora made his life a living hell. Maybe he had good reason to be afraid of rather than concerned for her. Just because there were solid financial reasons (at least on paper) for wanting Zora out of the way didn’t mean Alton was actually planning to kill her.

---