put him straight, and all Zoe could do was followhim into a cozy room with two three-seater sofas and an armchair centeredaround a thirty-inch television screen mounted on the wall.

There was the sound of cookingcoming from the kitchen down the hall; rattling of spoons and pans, anextractor fan working hard to remove the steam from the room, somethingbubbling in a pot. A teenage boy with his father’s build looked up from ahandheld gaming console as they came into view and, at a gesture from Baker,quickly escaped into the kitchen himself.

“What’s this about?” Baker asked,gesturing for them to take a seat as he settled into his armchair. Zoereluctantly sat next to Flynn. There was something about that proximity thatreinforced the idea of them being partners, and she didn’t like that one bit.

“We’re investigating a murder,”Flynn said, perhaps more sharply than he needed to. He settled forward on hiscushion, leaning toward Baker, all acute angles and long, straight limbs.

“Oh!” Baker visibly started,moving back a little. “A… a murder? You mean at the planetarium? We were toldthere’d been an accident, but…”

“That one, and another victim, asit happens,” Flynn replied. He was looking closely at Baker’s face. Zoe thoughthe was trying to watch for some sign of guilt. “Both of whom you happen to havea personal connection with. Can you start by telling me about yesterday, fromthe afternoon onward? Where you were, what you did?”

Baker swallowed. “Right. Christ…two women? Did they both work at…?” He caught Flynn’s eye, still regarding himwith a steely gaze, and swallowed again before continuing. “Okay. Yesterday.Let me think. After lunch I was working on one of our systems—they’re highlytechnical, and they get faults fairly often, so they keep me busy. This one wasa real doozy. I was working on it for hours, almost until home time.”

“And after that?” Flynn prompted.He’d taken his notebook out, but hadn’t yet bothered to write anything in it.Another rookie move, Zoe thought. He was showing his cards. If he really wantedto trap someone into giving themselves away, he should pretend to write downall of it—even the useless stuff. As it was, he was broadcasting the fact thatthe murder had happened later in the evening, and when he made a note of theprecise time they were interested in it would show even more clearly.

“I finished work and drove home asnormal.” Baker gestured toward the kitchen after a moment. “Gavin had soccer practice,so I went and picked him up from that on the way. Then we sat down for dinner.”

“What time was that?” Flynninterjected, his pen now hovering above the page.

“About seven, I’d say,” Baker toldhim. He was visibly nervous, his eyes wide, his mouth making funny shapes asthough he had forgotten what to do with it. Zoe could see there was nothing tohim—no pretense, no guile. He was just scared about being interviewed by theFBI. She’d seen it often enough, and had learned how to tell the differenceunder Shelley’s guiding hand.

She turned away from that thoughtquickly, before it blinded her.

“And you then did what, for therest of the evening?” Flynn asked.

“Well, I stayed here,” Baker said,with wide eyes turning toward the kitchen. Zoe looked up to realize that awoman, judging by her age almost certainly his wife, was now standing in thedoorway. There was a dish towel in one of her hands, as if she was wiping themoff when she entered. “I just stayed here with my family.”

“Can anyone corroborate that?”Flynn asked.

“I was here,” the woman in thedoorway said softly. “I’m his wife. I can vouch for the fact that he was here.What’s this about, Ed?”

Flynn ignored both herconfirmation and her question. “Is there anyone outside the family who cancorroborate that you were here?”

Baker looked puzzled. He keptlooking at his wife, three times before he answered again, as if he thoughtthat she might know the correct response to give. “No, I suppose not. Theneighbors might have seen the car in the driveway, I guess.”

Flynn shook his head. “Anyone whocan prove it. All that means is you might have taken a different vehicle, orwalked.”

“I don’t understand,” Baker said. “Whydo you need to know where I was? You can’t possibly think that I—”

“Mr. Baker, we have reason to linkyou with both of the murder victims,” Flynn said firmly. “Can you or can younot prove that you were here all night?”

Baker was getting more and moreflustered, trying to find a way to answer the question that would satisfy thisstranger who had burst into his home demanding answers. He was pale in theface, shaking. “I didn’t have anything to do with it,” he insisted. “I wouldnever. I don’t have a violent bone in my body. Just ask my family—I was hereall night.”

“It’s true,” the wife insisted. “Hewouldn’t. He was here.”

“That’s not good enough,” Flynnbarked, loud enough to cut over both of their voices. The tension wasratcheting up; even Zoe could see that, feeling as she did that she was milesaway, and not sitting on the couch next to all of the action. “I need to seeproof that you were here, at home, or I will place you under arrest for murder.”

Baker’s mouth opened and closedlike a fish, Zoe counting three times before he found his voice again. He wasstarting to regain some color, a pinch of red in the bottom of the white. Thatmeant anger, she remembered, or possibly embarrassment, or even shame atgetting caught out. Her money was on the first. “Like what?” he asked at last. “Whatphysical proof could I possibly have? I… I was just here. I sat here and wewatched television together late into the night, before going to sleep.”

“How late?” Flynn demanded. All ofhis sharp angles were pointing toward Baker now, like an arrow accusing in hisdirection.

“I don’t know,” Baker said,glancing at his wife for help. “M-maybe midnight. I wasn’t watching the time.”

“Because you knew you weren’tgoing to be needed at work in the morning?”

“What? No. I only found that outthis morning. I just go to bed when I’m tired.”

“So you weren’t at all concernedabout staying up late, even though you had to be

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