Fighting Chance: A Gregor Demarkian Novel (Gregor Demarkian series Book 29) (27 page)

“I think that may be all he knows,” Gregor said. “Things are a little disorganized now, and it’s only the third day after. Under the circumstances—”

“She was an evil woman,” Stefan said. “Everything you heard about her said she was an evil woman.”

“Had you ever seen her before the day she died?”

“I never saw her,” Stefan said. “She was out of the courtroom before they brought me in. There was a hearing before mine, and she went away somewhere.”

“So you’d only heard she was a bad person?”

“Petrak saw her,” Stefan said. “He didn’t see her in the courtroom that day, but when he heard she was the judge I would have to see, he went to the courthouse and hung around until he saw her. They won’t let anyone into the hearings who are not part of the hearings, so he said he had to wait around a very long time and he only saw her by accident. He said he had to walk around in the corridors and then it was just an accident and he only knew who she was because another woman said her name. He said she was like that woman in Harry Potter.”

“Woman in Harry Potter?”

Stefan considered this. “Umbridge,” he said. “Dolores Umbridge. She is an evil woman in the Harry Potter movies. I know there are Harry Potter books, but my English is not good enough for them. And I don’t like to read, even in Armenian.”

If Tibor were here, he would have staged a fit at that one, but Gregor didn’t bother.

“So you’ve never seen her,” he said, “and on the day in the courtroom, you were seated at the desk for the defense?”

“I was seated at a table,” Stefan said. “It was probably the table for the defense, yes. And Mr. Donahue was there. And there were chairs behind us, there was a railing right behind us and there were chairs behind that, and Petrak and our aunt Sophie were sitting in the chairs. We were waiting for the judge and we were waiting for Father Kasparian, because he had promised to come, and to speak for me. But Mr. Donahue was not happy. He did not think there was much hope. He said that this judge sent everybody to jail and sent them to jail for a very long time. I think—”

“Yes?”

“I know it is wrong, what I did,” Stefan said. “I am not trying to say it was not wrong. They say that to you here over and over again. You cannot go home from here if you say what you did was not wrong. I am trying only to say that it was a stupid thing, not an evil thing. It was wrong but it was only stupid.”

“All right,” Gregor said. “From what I’ve heard, it was pretty damned stupid.”

“There is a boy here who has murdered his mother,” Stefan said. His eyes got that blinkless stare again, the one he’d worn when the policewoman was still here. “He is eight years old and he took a kitchen knife and stabbed her seven times in the throat. He knocked her over and he stabbed her. He talks about it all the time. He talks about the blood and he talks about how awful she was and all the things she did to him, but I do not know what is the truth and what is not the truth. When I first got here, there was a boy who screamed all the time, screamed and said bad words, but they took him away. They said they took him to a hospital.”

“You do need to get out of here,” Gregor said. “I’m sure they’re doing the best they can. I’ll go ask questions of the people in charge, if you want me to.”

“I want to go home,” Stefan said. He was over six feet tall, but he suddenly looked as small as a toddler, and as scared. “I want to go to Aunt Sophie’s or to Canada or even to Armenia. I want to go home. I did a stupid thing and it was wrong, but it was not evil. It was not evil.”

“Yes,” Gregor said. “I know that. I think most of the people involved in this know that.”

“It was not evil,” Stefan said again.

“Try to think of something else for just a minute,” Gregor said. “It may make a lot of difference to figuring out what happened that day. And if we can figure out what happened that day, maybe we can get all this straightened out.”

“Petrak said that Father Kasparian killed that judge for me,” Stefan said. “He said that Father Kasparian killed that judge because she gave long sentences and the next judge would not and it would be better for me.”

“Did you see him leave the courtroom the day the judge died?”

“Everybody left the courtroom the day the judge died,” Stefan said. “Not everybody. Everybody with me. Mr. Donahue went to see if Father Kasparian was outside, and Petrak went out to find them, and Aunt Sophie went out because they were gone so long, and then she was gone long and when she came back she said something had happened but she didn’t know what. And it was all very crazy and it took a very long time, but I couldn’t go anywhere because the police guards were always there. So I just sat at the table and waited. I stared straight ahead so nobody could say I was thinking of something.”

“And you’re sure you didn’t see anything,” Gregor said. “You didn’t see the judge, you didn’t see anything unusual on any of the people when they came back to the courtroom.”

“They didn’t come back to the courtroom,” Stefan said. “They went away and it was a long time and then the guards came and took me back here. And I heard people talking about it in the hallways, but nobody told me right away. But Petrak told me later. He said that Father Kasparian was in the room near the body of the judge and he had blood on him everywhere, but everybody else had blood on them, too; there were a lot of people. Even Petrak had blood on him, and his teacher who had given him the ride to the court, she had it all over her. He said there was blood everywhere.”

“Did he tell you anything about a cell phone? Not his cell phone, but another one?”

Gregor saw it happen right before his eyes. The blank stare went. The head turned away.

And suddenly, Stefan Maldovanian could speak nothing but Armenian.

2

The call came just as Gregor was getting into a cab outside JDF, and since it was from George Edelson, he took it.

“I’ve just gotten word of something very peculiar,” Edelson said. “Tony Monteverdi and Ray Berle have just caught another murder case.”

“And that’s peculiar? Murder isn’t all that peculiar in Philadelphia.”

“The guy the uniforms detained turns out to be somebody you know,” Edelson said. “Kid by the name of Petrak Maldovanian. On the suspect list for the murder of Martha Handling, if there was a suspect list when the DA’s office thinks the case has been solved. Brother of the kid whose hearing was supposed to happen the day Martha Handling was killed.”

Gregor considered this. “Who was killed?”

“I don’t know,” Edelson said. “Ray called and he told me about the Maldovanian kid, but he didn’t give me a full report. We should both be glad he called. He said if you wanted to come down and talk to the kid, he and Tony’d wear it. I thought you might want to go.”

“Did Mr. Berle say if they were interested in arresting Petrak Maldovanian? Do they think he committed the murder?”

“I don’t know that either,” Edelson said. “Let me give you the address. Go check it out yourself. I’ll bet anything John didn’t think it was going to go this far when he decided to call you in and give you some rope.”

“John doesn’t think Tibor killed Martha Handling any more than I do.” Gregor fumbled around in his coat pocket and came up with a stub of a pencil and a crumpled envelope.
DON’T THROW THIS OUT!
the envelope said.
YOU CAN SAVE BIG!

“Go ahead,” Gregor said.

Instead of an address, Edelson gave a city block and directions to follow the police cars to an alley.

“I know that sounds crazy,” Edelson said. “But there’s a full-bore police investigation going on. You won’t be able to miss it.”

“I’ll be one of a hundred rubberneckers.”

“Nope on that, too,” Edelson said. “Ray’s left word with the guys at the tape to let you through. I don’t suppose there’s a possibility we have a baby serial killer on our hands.”

“There’s always a possibility,” Gregor said.

Gregor gave the driver the instructions, and the driver looked visibly annoyed. “You could’ve
walked
there,” he said. Then he took off, and Gregor tried to get himself oriented.

It turned out the driver was right. Gregor probably could have walked there. The ride was so short, it was almost embarrassing.

The destination was unmistakable. The block was packed solid with police cars, mobile crime unit vans, ambulance, medical examiner’s office cars, and God only knew what. There was crime scene tape up at their end of the block, and Gregor was sure there would be crime scene tape up at the other end. There was a uniform directing traffic.

“I don’t think you’re getting through this,” the driver said as the uniform came up to warn them off.

The uniform was another policewoman. Gregor cranked down his window and gave her his name. “I was told—”

“Detective Berle,” the woman said. “We were warned. You can come on through, but we can’t let the vehicle in. There isn’t any room.”

Gregor got out his wallet and dumped a twenty-dollar bill on the front seat next to the driver. It was twice what the meter read.

“Is the Homicide Division building somewhere around here?” he asked.

“Right around the corner,” the policewoman said. “Right on our doorstep, so to speak. Why?”

“I’m just trying to figure out where I am,” Gregor said.

Gregor made his way through the vehicles, a little surprised that none of them was a news van. He found the alley by heading for the real logjam, and just as he came up to the opening, four men came out, carrying something in an evidence bag. It was not the body. It was too small.

A moment later, Ray Berle emerged from the melee. He looked tense as hell. “Come on back,” he said. “The kid says you can identify the body. He says he can identify the body. We want a second opinion.”

“It’s somebody I know?”

“Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?” Ray said. “Maybe it’s somebody you know, and maybe what we’ve got here is a psychopath. And don’t ask what this has to do with the thing with the priest, because we don’t know it has anything to do with it. It’s just that we took one look at this guy’s name, and it’s not a hard name to remember. Also, what’s the odds the kid stumbles on two bodies in one week?”

The alley was narrow and there were too many people in it. Gregor followed Ray Berle as best he could until they came to a short line of doors and even more people, bunched up together and looking like they were doing nothing. A stretcher and a body bag lay on the ground a little to the side of the center door.

Just then, Gregor saw Petrak Maldovanian. He was sitting off to the side, just outside the door. He looked as dejected, and as oddly small, as his brother had looked in juvenile detention.

It was astonishing how small trouble could make someone look, when it really got hold of him. Petrak, like his brother, had to be taller than six-three.

Petrak stood up as soon as he saw Gregor. “Mr. Demarkian,” he said. “Mr. Demarkian. I didn’t do anything. I just found him, he was in the door, and it was where I was told to go, and then I called them. I called the police. I wouldn’t have called the police if I’d killed him, and why would I kill him? What did he have to do with me?”

Tony Monteverdi emerged from the building. “Don’t ask me what’s going on here,” he said. “Right now, I just don’t know. The kid here says the body belongs to a man named Mikel Dekanian.”

“What?” Gregor said.

“He says he knows him from church,” Tony said. “He says you know him from church. Am I hearing this right?”

“Holy Trinity Armenian Christian Church,” Gregor said. “Yes, that would be right. If the body is Mikel Dekanian, that would be right. There aren’t that many Armenian churches in the city. A lot of us go there.” Gregor paused for a moment. “It’s Father Tibor Kasparian’s church. He’s the priest there.”

“Jesus Christ,” Tony said. “Yes, of course, why wouldn’t it be? Will you come in here and see if you can confirm identification of the body?”

Gregor went into the cramped dark space that must be used as a service area. There were mops and brooms leaning against the wall. There were buckets in a stack near a utilitarian back staircase. Mikel Dekanian’s head had been bashed in at the back, so that there was a crater the size of a boulder just at the curve coming down from the crown. Tony touched the corpse’s shoulder and moved it just a bit, so that the head fell back and the face was clearly visible. It was Mikel Dekanian’s face.

Gregor nodded.

“Well, that’s one less mystery we’ve got to solve,” Tony said. “Do you have any idea at all what this guy was doing in this neighborhood? The kid says he lives, the guy lives, over near Cavanaugh Street, and that isn’t anywhere near here. Does he work near here? Does he have relatives?”

Gregor shook his head. “He works for a guy named Howard Kashinian. I don’t know what he does. Kashinian is a wheeler-dealer sort of person. He’s got interests in some city construction. It might be that.”

“Would any of that be in this neighborhood?”

“I don’t think so,” Gregor said. “I don’t know, really. I don’t pay that much attention to Howard.”

“The kid’s got quite a story,” Tony said. “Sounds like James Bond.”

“Do you think he killed Dekanian?”

“We don’t know,” Tony said. “But if he did, he did it yesterday and then came back to call us. The body’s been cold for at least eighteen hours.”

“Eighteen hours,” Gregor said.

“Is that significant to you?” Tony asked.

“Remember our meeting yesterday?” Gregor said. “I saw him when I was coming out of that. He was in a big hurry. He said he had an appointment. He said he’d been to the Hall of Records.”

“Was he headed this way?” Tony asked.

Gregor nodded. “I think he was.”

“You’d better go talk to the kid. He said he wanted to talk to you. He said we could listen in. We’re going to.”

3

Petrak Maldovanian was sitting just where he had been when Gregor first saw him. He still looked very dejected and very small. When he noticed Gregor standing over him, he said, “Everything Stefan has said is true. They tell you they want you to tell the truth. Then when you tell the truth, they don’t believe you.”