Flowering Judas (24 page)

Kenny didn't know what he thought. He decided it would be a good idea to shut up.

Gregor Demarkian's suit looked dusty and worse. There was brown dirt on the knees. There was a little tear in the jacket. He put his hand out and Kenny took it, although Kenny never felt entirely comfortable when he had to shake somebody's hand.

”I met your mother,” Gregor Demarkian said. “I'm probably going to go see if she'll talk to me again this afternoon.”

“She's loaded for bear,” Kenny said. “She thinks Howard Androcoelho stole Chester's body because he was afraid of a new autopsy that would show he was really murdered.”

“Well,” Gregor Demarkian said. “That's not necessarily a crazy way to think. I'd say that thought could have occurred to anybody.”

Kenny looked away. Traffic on the road and at the entrance had begun to slow down. People were staring at them.

“Listen,” Kenny said, turning back to Gregor Demarkian. “I know, you know, that the body is gone and that that's weird. But you don't get it. It's not that my mother thinks that guy stole the body so nobody could prove a murder happened
now,
it's like she thinks the body could prove that a murder happened
then
. Am I making any sense here? It's like she's lost the time frame. The body turns up now and it's like she's been vindicated for twelve years of thinking that Chester was dead all along. But Chester couldn't have been dead all along. Do you see?”

“I do see,” Gregor Demarkian said. “How old were you when your brother disappeared?”

“I was ten,” Kenny said. “And before you ask, I do remember it. I remember it perfectly. And I remember Chester, too. My mom talks like he was some saint who would never do anything like just take off on his own or do something criminal or something, but that wasn't true. He was—well. He was weird.”

“Weird?”

Kenny shrugged. “He gave me my first marijuana joint.” He flushed. “Not that I smoke anymore, you know, I mean—”

“It's all right,” Gregor Demarkian said. “I'm a police consultant, not the police.”

“Right,” Kenny said. “Anyway, you know what I mean. He had an earring. A great big one that he wore in his right ear. And he had a tattoo. And he did other drugs besides marijuana. And—”

“Yes?”

Kenny shook his head. “I don't know,” he said. “I was only ten. But I think there was something going on with my parents, and not just Darvelle. I remember when Chester moved out, it was before he met Darvelle, I'm almost sure of it. Anyway, there were screaming fights, fights like you wouldn't believe. Fights with my parents and fights with my brother Mark. The first thing I noticed when Chester left was how quiet it got.”

“Do you remember what the fights were about?”

“Money,” Kenny said. “And responsibility. Well, at my house, my mother is always talking about responsibility. But this wasn't like those. This was real crazy stuff. And then Chester left, you know, and got the trailer. And then he went missing. Wherever he went.”

“Do you know where he might have gone?” Demarkian asked.

Kenny brightened up. “Not exactly,” he said, “but I just remembered. I know where he always said he'd go if he could ever get good and away from here.”

“Where was that?”

“Caspar, Wyoming. He had pictures of it, posters of it, up in his room. And he took the posters to the trailer when he moved there. He had them up on a wall there, and more on the refrigerator. Maybe they're still there, if you look.”

3

Darvelle Haymes thought she'd done the right thing by talking to Gregor Demarkian, but it was the kind of “done the right thing” that made her nervous and upset, and it didn't help that every single one of her buyers this morning had wanted to talk about nothing else.

“I don't want you to think it's in any way your fault,” Mrs. Castleton had said, over the phone, while she was canceling her appointment for the afternoon. “Of course, you had nothing to do with it. It's just that you have to be so careful these days, when you're looking for a place to raise your children. It isn't like it used to be. We didn't have all these sexual predators hanging around when I was growing up.”

Darvelle had wanted to scream at that point. Sexual predators? Who was talking about sexual predators? Chester Morton had never been anything like a sexual predator. He hadn't even liked sex all that much. Or did this woman mean that she thought that sexual predators went around stealing bodies from funeral homes?

At least Mrs. Castleton didn't know that Darvelle was in some way “involved” in the situation. A lot of the others did know. Darvelle was sure that some of them had chosen her because of it. That was something she had Charlene Morton to thank for. Darvelle would never have done that interview with
Disappeared
if she'd realized they were going to make her sound like Lizzie Borden reincarnated.

Of course, when all this started, she hadn't even known who Lizzie Borden was. She learned that from one of her buyers who liked to gossip.

The buyer who liked to gossip was not Mrs. Lord, but Mrs. Lord was the buyer for the late morning, and Darvelle was stuck with her.

“It must be so painful for you,” Mrs. Lord kept saying, as they drove from one house to the other across the length of Sherwood Forest. “I mean, he was a young man you knew, wasn't he, and you had a relationship with him? And you were only eighteen. That might have been your very first love.”

“I don't think it was that serious,” Darvelle said. “And it was a long time ago.”

“Of course it was, dear. But time doesn't really mean much when you're in the grip of strong emotion. And then to have him disappear like that, and everybody thinking he was dead.”

“Actually,” Darvelle said. “I never did think he was dead.”

“And then to have it on all those television shows,” Mrs. Lord said. “I feel sorry for you. I really do. It must have been horrible, to have that brought back to you over and over and over again, when you probably just wanted to forget about it. And those billboards. Mrs. Morton must be such a
dedicated
mother. But I know how she feels. I'd do the same if something ever happened to one of my little children.”

Mrs. Lord's little children were twenty-four and twenty-six, with wives and children of their own. They lived on the West Coast. When Mrs. Lord wasn't obsessing about Chester Morton, she was telling Darvelle all about the wonderful things her grandchildren did and where they were all going to go to college when they got big enough.

Darvelle pulled into the driveway of the last house they were scheduled to see. It was a Tudor split-level, and it was blessedly empty. It was also directly across the street from the Morton's house. Darvelle had debated with herself long and hard about showing it today at all.

She cut the engine and put her car keys in her purse. “Well,” she said. “Here we are. This is absolutely the best section of Mattatuck. And this is a beautiful house. It was custom built. It has all hardwood floors. It's got a brand new kitchen and brand new baths, everything updated within the last year. It's the best buy on the market, if you ask me.”

Mrs. Lord beamed. “And now,” she said. “Now with all of this. He comes back, but he comes back only so that somebody can murder him. And steal his body. It must be terrible for you, dear. It must break your heart.”

“Actually,” Darvelle said again, “at the moment, the word is that it's more likely that he committed suicide than that he was murdered.”

“Is it?” Mrs. Lord said. “But they don't bring that Mr. Demarkian in to investigate suicides, I don't think. I hear he's very expensive, and very picky about the jobs he takes. It has to be something really mysterious and complicated before he gets interested. Oh, I've heard a lot about him. And of course, I've seen him on television. It's really exciting to have him here, I must say. Have you met him? I'll admit I've sometimes wanted to just find a way to run across him in the street, you know, just so I could say hello.”

“I think,” Darvelle said slowly, “that it was because of Mrs. Morton that they brought Gregor Demarkian in. The police think Chester committed suicide, but Mrs. Morton doesn't, and they wanted an independent evaluation. Just so nobody could say they hadn't done everything they could.”

“Well, then,” Mrs. Lord said, “there's the matter of the disappearing body. Bodies don't disappear on their own. I tell you, when I heard that on the morning news, I nearly passed right out. I nearly did. Can you imagine something like that in Mattatuck? Really. And I was thinking. It had to be at least two people involved, don't you think? I mean, a single person couldn't carry a dead weight like that out of the basement of Feldman's without being seen by somebody. I'm surprised the two of them weren't seen by somebody. Feldman's is a busy place. Oh, no, dear. I'm sure there's nothing like suicide involved in this thing. I'm sure it was murder, and the police know it. You just have to ask yourself who you know who's likely to do a thing like that.”

Darvelle didn't have to ask herself who was likely to do a thing like that. She could think of a dozen people she'd be perfectly willing to murder herself, starting with Mrs. Lord. She sat behind the wheel and counted to ten in her head. She wished the muscles in her arms and back didn't feel as if they had all the plasticity of petrified wood. Then she popped the driver's side door and got out onto the driveway.

“It's an excellent value in a house,” she said firmly. “And they aren't building split-levels anymore, so this is a very rare chance to get something in a style I know you like. And unlike most split-levels, this is especially large, over three thousand square feet, so you'll have more than enough room for anything you want to do. And it's designed for entertaining, with an L-shaped living-dining room space that allows a free flow of traffic for really large groups of people. Think of your annual Christmas party, the one you were telling me about—”

Mrs. Lord stepped out of the car and looked around, but Darvelle didn't see her. She was looking at the end of the driveway. That was Charlene Morton standing there. Yes, of course, Charlene lived across the street, but Darvelle hadn't expected her to actually show up. Or even to know that Darvelle was there.

On the other hand, she should have expected it. Charlene always knew where she was and what she was doing. It had been that way for twelve years. Charlene had known the house Darvelle was buying before she bought it. Charlene had known every car Darvelle bought before she bought it. Darvelle sometimes thought Charlene lived inside her head.

Mrs. Lord looked at the end of the driveway and brightened up. “Oh, that's Mrs. Morton, isn't it? Does she live around here? I mean, I knew she lived in Mattatuck, of course, that's been on the news, but I never realized she was right in the neighborhood. Oh, the poor thing! Look how distraught she is!”

Distraught my ass,
Darvelle thought. She slammed the car door shut and turned her back on Charlene, as if Charlene weren't really there, as if she was one of those hallucinations from the
Beautiful Mind
movie.

“The foyer,” she said firmly, “is really entirely unlike anything else I've shown you so far. It's one of those custom touches I was talking about. It's got a cathedral effect, and skylights. You feel like you're walking into a palace instead of a split-level.”

“I'm not going to let you get away with it,” Charlene said.

Charlene wasn't shouting, but it sounded like a shout. Maybe the street was unusually quite. It was a very quiet day. There was no traffic. Of course, there wouldn't be a lot of traffic on a residential street in Sherwood Forest. She started up the cobblestone walk to the front door.

“Look at this walk,” she told Mrs. Lord, just as if Mrs. Lord was following her. “I really like the cobblestone effect, don't you? A lot of care and planning was put into this house.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Lord said, “aren't you going to—”

“I'm not going to let you get away with it,” Charlene said again. “Do you think you can just walk off and pretend you don't hear me? You hear me. I don't know what you did with my son's body, but I'm going to find out. I'm going to find out how you murdered him, too. Don't think you're going to get away with it.”

Darvelle could feel the strength of whatever it was that maintained her self control snapping inside her, like ropes tying down a beast whose wildness was beyond their capacity. Her brain felt as if it were pulsing inside her skull, hard enough to crack the bone. She wheeled around and looked Charlene in the face. Then she marched to the end of the drive and forced Charlene into the street.

“For God's sake!” she said. She was screeching. She could hear herself. “For God's sake, Charlene, I didn't murder him. Nobody murdered him. He ran away from here to get away from you and he stayed away for twelve years. And when he came back, when he got home, well, then what, Charlene? Then he killed himself rather than get stuck with you again. And I don't blame him. I don't blame him. If you were my mother, I'd have murdered myself at birth.”

 

THREE

1

The most important thing to understand, in situations like this, was why it was that the people who had hired you didn't want you to do the job they had supposedly hired you to do. Gregor Demarkian knew, from experience, that there was more than one possible answer to this. There was even more than one possible answer when the local police called in the FBI. If anything, being a consultant had reduced the amount of friction between himself and local law enforcement agencies. A local law enforcement agency could be pressured by public opinion or the state government to ask in Feds it wanted no part of, but it didn't usually ask in a consultant unless it had come to its own decision to do it. Of course, it didn't always come to its own decision willingly.