Behind his glasses, his eyes widen in shock. “Are you telling me you think he wasmurdered?”
“Yes. I think someone shot him and staged it to look like a suicide.”
“My god.”
“But please don’t relay any of this to Vic. There’s no official cause of death yet, but Vic believes it was suicide and he doesn’t understand why I can’t accept that and move on.”
He nods. “You have my word. But who could have possibly done it?”
“I’ve had no luck coming up with an answer to that. As you know, everyone liked Jamie.”
“But you’re assuming there was some kind of conflict that night?”
“What do you mean?” I say, confused by the question.
“That something happened between Jamie and another guest, and then the person decided to kill him?”
“No, I don’t think there was any incident at the party—no one reported seeing something like that, and I doubt it would have gone unnoticed. My gut tells me a guest came there planning to murder him. And though they would have done their best to act normal, they might have looked awkward around him or weirdly distant. That’s why I asked if anything felt off to you.”
Dan frowns. “I’m not discounting your theory—in fact I’ve had a tough time accepting that Jamie pulled the trigger. But if someone came planning to kill him, how would they know he’d be one of the last to leave, and that there wouldn’t be other people getting into their cars at the same time?”
“Well, Jamie had gotten to be a pretty good pal of Vic’s, so he was bound to stay toward the end.”
He presses a hand against his jaw, obviously thinking this over. “Okay. But if the killer was another guest, where was their vehicle? Vic and I didn’t see a car drive off when we ran outside.”
“The killer would have left early, driven his or her car a short distance away, and then hiked back on foot,” I say, articulating what I’d assumed was the MO if Liam had been the murderer.
“But if you’replanninga murder, why make it so complicated? It seems like there would have been a simpler way and a better time to do it.”
“So you think I have it all wrong?” I blurt out, with more than a twinge of frustration.
“No, I don’t mean that. I’m saying the killer might have gone to the party without planning to do it.”
It takes me a few seconds to get his point. “You mean it was a spur-of-the-moment thing?”
“Right. The killer would have known he was taking a chance butwas too upset that night to care—or he felt his back was up against the wall and he had to act immediately.”
I bite my lip and glance up at the string of lights above us. Dan’s words are like the kind of wake-up call I try to give clients sometimes, challenging them to step back and see a situation from a different angle.
“Maybe the conflict that night was subtle, not some kind of big showdown,” Dan adds. “And that’s why no one noticed. It might have been just a brief exchange of words, but one that convinced the other person that Jamie was a real threat. Could he have been making a play for someone’s partner that night?”
I scoff at the question. “That really doesn’t seem like Jamie’s style.”
“You’d know better than I would.” Dan glances at his watch. “I’d love to talk this out some more, but I’d better get back. Ava’s making dinner.”
“Of course.”
He fishes a wallet from his back pocket and tugs out a business card. “I’m headed home tomorrow, but if I can help in any way, let me know,” he says, handing it to me. “And again, I won’t say anything to Vic.”
“Thank you, Dan. And thanks for stopping to talk. You—you put some things in focus for me.”
He takes off down the sidewalk, eventually jogging across the street to a parked car. Though I’d planned to have only one glass of wine, I order a second, feeling even more unsettled than when I arrived an hour ago. Dan’s suggestion moves back and forth across my brain, like a tiger pacing in a cage.
I certainly hadn’t ruled out a last-minute scenario, but mainly I’ve imagined something orchestrated, the killer arriving that night with well-laid plans to end Jamie’s life.
Maybe the opposite is indeed true, that the murderwasentirely unpremeditated. But what could have triggered it? Whenever I spotted Jamie, he was chatting casually with people, and I certainly didn’t see him flirting with someone else’s wife or girlfriend.
Of course, I only had eyes and ears on him periodically that night, and there were plenty of moments for the kind of brief exchange Dan alluded to.
