Gregor Demarkian had no idea how difficult it would be getting anything done in this kind of downpour. More than once over the course of the morning, he wondered desperately if Kyle Borden wasn't engaging in some kind of criminal stupidity. For all Gregor knew, the National Weather Service might already have declared an emergency. The whole area might already be under orders to evacuate to higher groundâalthough it would be difficult to get much higher than they were now without climbing into the trees and brush that carpeted the mountains above them. It was eerie. Nobody they saw on the street seemed to be panicking, either. The stores were all open. The lights were all on. The people drinking coffee in JayMar's were reading newspapers. The reporters were easily recognizable as people trying to use cell phones that didn't work.
Now Kyle pulled into the parking lot behind the police station and shut off the engine. “That wasn't very helpful, was it?” he said. “You got anything in those notes you took?”
Gregor flipped the pages of the notebook back and forth. “I was thinking about something. What about the others?”
“What others?”
“The other girls who were part of the group that night in 1969. So far, everybody we need to investigate seems to be part of that group. The victim was part of that group.
Mrs. Grantling and Mrs. Bligh were part of that group. What about the others?”
“Well,” Kyle said, “Maris Coleman was part of that group. She's on our list for investigation, too.”
“That makes four. There were six,” Gregor said.
“Peggy Smith and Nancy Quayde,” Kyle said. “They don't have anything to do with this, do they?”
“I don't know. Had they remained friendly with Chris Inglerod? We can't just assume that the solution here will be restricted to the people we already know were at Elizabeth Toliver's house. What about these two? Do we know where they were? Are we going to talk to them?”
“Oh,” Kyle said. The rain was drumming on the roof. He rubbed his hand against the side of his face and shook his head. “We could talk to them if you want. But it wouldn't be a very convenient time, right now.”
“Why not?”
“They work at the high school. Peggy teaches something, I don't remember what. Nancy is the principal. She'll be superintendent a couple of years from now if she has her way.”
“All right,” Gregor said. “So, what, school's in session until three o'clock? We can see them after that. But you still haven't answered my question. Were they still friendly with Chris Inglerod?”
“Nancy was,” Kyle said. “Peggyâ” He shrugged his shoulders. “Peggy married Stu Kennedy. I told you what that was like. He doesn't like her to leave the house.”
“But she must leave it, for work if nothing else.”
“Oh, he doesn't mind work,” Kyle said. He popped his door open and got out into the rain. Gregor got out, too. “He does mind socializing. Funny how things work out, don't you think? She chased his ass for years, all through kindergarten, all through grade school. She chased and he ran. When they finally started going out, we were all betting it would last a week and Stu would be off looking for his freedom. And now he won't let her out of his sight.”
“It's the way men like that work,” Gregor said. “It's an issue of control.”
“I know what it's an issue of,” Kyle said sourly.
They headed to the back door of the police station. They were both so wet, there didn't seem to be any need to run. They got into the back corridor and Gregor took his jacket off to hang on a peg. Sharon stuck her head in from the main room and said, “That
Miss
Hannaford called for Mr. Demarkian. She left a number where she could be reached. She said it wasn't urgent.”
“Ah,” Gregor said. He and Kyle came out of the corridor into the main room. There was now only a single reporter waiting on the bench in the reception area, and he seemed to be paying more attention to what was on his laptop than to what was going on with them. Kyle led the way into his own office. Gregor looked around. “Could I make a phone call somewhere? Privately?”
“Want to call Ms. Hannaford, do you?”
“No,” Gregor said. “I want to call long distance back to Philadelphia. Don't worry about it. I'll use my phone card.”
“Use the phone, for all I care,” Kyle said. “You close yourself in here. I'll go see if I can get somebody to go get coffee at Dunkin' Donuts.”
Gregor wondered where the Dunkin' Donuts wasâhe could use some Dunkin' Donutsâand then, when Kyle was gone, picked up the phone. He did use his phone card. He didn't want to get into the habit of making personal calls on police telephones. He heard the phone ring on the other end and almost held his breath. You could never tell when anybody on Cavanaugh Street would actually be in and available to answer his phone, unless you called dead in the middle of the night, and even that might not be good enough for Tibor.
The phone rang. Once. Twice. Three times. Six times. Eight. Gregor checked his watch. It was after Tibor's usual lunch time.
When it's rung twenty-two times, I'll hang up
, he promised himself. Then the phone was lifted on the other end, and he heard a rough gravelly voice say, “
Hehn
.”
“Tibor?”
“Oh, Krekor, excuse me. I forget my manners. In American, you don't answer the phone by saying â
hehn
.' Of course, to say âhehn' is to be more polite than the Greeks are. They answer the phone by screaming and they scream â
embross!
' It means â
talk!
' It's very intimidating.”
Gregor assumed that Tibor was talking about the modern Greeks, not the ancient ones, a good bet since the ancient Greeks hadn't had phones. He had been talking to Tibor for less than thirty seconds, and already he was off track.
“Listen,” he said. “Bennis is here. Did you know that?”
“I knew she was going up to you, yes, Krekor, she told us all about it. At length. Also, Donna helped her to pack something, I don't know what, Lida and Hannah put it together. They say there is never any decent food in these small towns.”
“I wouldn't know,” Gregor said. “I've barely had time to eat.”
“If they'd heard that, they would have packed twice as much,” Tibor said. “So, you are all right? Bennis is all right? We listened last night to the story about the murder. It was on the eleven o'clock news.”
“As far as I can tell, it was on the eleven o'clock news in Timbuktu,” Gregor said. “Okay, can you do me a favor? I need to get in touch with Russ Donahue. I would have called Donna, but she's got class this time of day, hasn't she?”
“She has class, yes, until four-thirty. Why didn't you call Russ at his office?”
“I didn't have the number. You can give him my number, if you want, except that I'm not entirely sure where I'm going to be. I need to get hold of something, called a Regional Crime Report. I'm not sure if they had them for the year I'm looking for.”
“What year is that?”
“1969. In 1969, I was with the Bureau. I wasn't even in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. But if there isn't actually a Regional Crime Report, there might be something
similar, some reporting mechanism that came before it, I don't know. Russ would know, though, or if he didn't he'd know how to find out. What I need to do is to get in touch with him and tell him exactly what I'm looking for. Except that I can't get in touch with anybody, because cell phones don't work up here. So.”
“So,” Tibor said. “I will get in touch with Russ, and tell him what you want. A Regional Crime Report.”
“For this county, wherever I am,” Gregor said. “Hollman, Pennsylvania. He'll have to look it up. I'm sorry. I didn't think to get the information.”
“It's not to worry about. We'll think of something.”
“Now, write this down.” Gregor did not doubt that Tibor would write it down, but he did doubt that Tibor would ever again be able to find the piece of paper he'd written it down on. “I need a complete crime survey report for the months of June, July, August, and September 1969. Wait. Make it May and October, too. If Russ asks what I'm looking for, tell him you don't know, because I don't know.”
“You don't know what you're looking for?”
“Not specifically, no,” Gregor said. “I justâit's a matter of proportion, that's all. There has to be something else. Something else then and something else now.”
“Krekor? What are you talking about?”
“Never mind. It might make you feel better to know that I know who killed Michael Houseman.”
“This is the person who died yesterday at Elizabeth Toliver's house?” Tibor said.
“No, this is the person who died in a park up here in 1969.”
“But, that is good, isn't it? Isn't it usually that if you find the person who has committed the one murder you find the person who has committed them all? You told me yourselfâ”
“Yes,” Gregor said. “I know. And you're right. I just can't make some things fit together, and the times are all off, and the opportunities are all skewed, and there are five million reporters up here gumming up the works and they
give me a headache. And Bennis is here, and you know what that means.”
“Well, yes, Krekor, I do know, but most often I am discreet enough not to mention it.”
Gregor laughed. “Listen, get Russ, tell him what I need, ask him if he'd mind being sure to be in his house and at his phone at, say, around ten tonight. That way I can call him directly and we can talk. How is everything on Cavanaugh Street? How is the woman with the harpsichord?”
“Grace. She is very nice, Krekor, what would you expect ? She has played the harpsichord for me and for old George Tekemanian yesterday evening. It is a very beautiful instrument.”
“Good. If she plays it too loudly, I can always go and sleep on Bennis's couch.”
“It's been a very long time since you slept on Bennis's couch, Krekor. What do you take us for? Lida has been sayingâ”
“Never mind what Lida has been saying,” Gregor said. “I'll talk to her when I get back. I'll talk to you later. Remember. Ask Russ to be at his phone at ten. By then, I should know where I'm spending the next few nights. Did I tell you we'd all been driven out of the Toliver house by reporters?”
“It was on the noon news, Krekor.”
“Right.”
Gregor put down the phone and stood up. Kyle Borden was sitting next to the counter, talking on the phone there. When Gregor came in, he looked up and waved.
“That's Nancy Quayde over at the high school,” he said, pointing to the receiver. “She sounds really upset. She says we can come right out and talk to her if we want to.”
“Good,” Gregor said, coming over. “What about the other one? Peggy Smith?”
“Peggy Kennedy these days. No such luck. She's not at work today.” Kyle covered the receiver. “From what I'm gathering here, Nancy thinks Peggy got beat up last night. Peggy called in sick.”
“Does that mean she'll be home?”
“Well, yeah,” Kyle said. “But I told you. I don't like the idea of going over there when Stu is home and he's always home, because heâ”
“We'll talk about it later,” Gregor said.
Kyle went back to the phone. “It's okay,” he said. “We'll be right over. You sound like hell ⦠yeah, yeah ⦠I know ⦠I know ⦠I've told him. We'll be over right away. Hold on tight.” He put the receiver back in the cradle.
“So,” Kyle said, “you ready to go?”
The Hollman public schoolsâor a lot of themâwere on the top of a hill in the Plumtrees section of town, cordoned off from the rest of the world by a low brick wall and a fancy stone gate with the words “Hollman Educational Park” embedded in one side of it. Above him, in the rain, the “educational park” rose up in a scattershot pattern of low brick buildings. The buildings all had metal letters on them that looked like brass, like the gate. The first one they came to said “Frank A. Berry Elementary School.” Hollman High School was three buildings up.
“What do you think?” Kyle asked.
“I think it looks like a women's prison,” Gregor said.
Kyle laughed. “They built it our senior year. We didn't actually get to go here. The town was really excited about this. Our leap into the twentieth century.”
“This is the twenty-first.”
“That was back in 1969. We don't get around to things real fast up here. We'll probably hit the twenty-first century in about 2088.” He pulled the car up to the curb in front of the largest building in the “park.”
“You want to make a run for the door?” Kyle said.
Gregor did want to make a run for the door. It was quite closeâKyle had parked right outside, in the fire lane. Gregor stepped out into the wet and bolted for the enormous
plate-glass front of the lobby. Kyle was right behind him.
“You wonder what they're thinking when they build places like this,” Kyle said. “It's like living in a fishbowl. Literally. All glass.” He grabbed the possibly brass metal handle of the glass door and pulled it open for Gregor to go through. “Principal's office to your right. There's a sign.”
There was a sign. Gregor headed through it and found himself in a room very much like the room at the police station, a big space with a counter running across the end of it nearest the door, leaving a small area for people to wait until they could be spoken to. Unlike the area at the police station, though, this one contained more than a single receptionist. There had to be half a dozen secretaries, all working away at computers. Kyle came in and said, “Yo, Lisa. Where is she?”
A dark young woman rose from a desk at the back and came up to the counter. “Hello, Kyle. You must be Mr. Demarkian. She's in her office. You don't want to know.”
“We have an appointment,” Kyle said.
“I know you do. She told me. But it's like I said, you don't want to know. She's been absolutely nuts all day, and I don't mean her usual nuts. She's been berserk. I've never seen anything like it.”
“Perhaps she's upset about the death of, ah ⦔ Gregor drew a blank. He kept thinking of the dead woman as “Chris.” He always seemed to think of all the women in Hollman by their first names, even if he hadn't met them.
“She isn't upset,” Lisa said as she opened the counter to let them through. “She's furious. She's having one of those full-scale attack things where she thinks she can storm the walls of Troy and bring it down single-handedly. Just a second and let me knock.”
Lisa knocked on a door at the very back of the big room. There was a sound from inside, and she opened the door and stuck her head in. “Kyle is here. With Mr. Demarkian.” There was another sound from inside the inner office, and
Lisa stepped back to let them in. “I'll get coffee,” she said, disappearing behind them.
Gregor let himself get ushered into an office that was small by federal standards, but probably huge by the standards of a small-town school system.
The woman behind the desk rose to greet them. She was a thin, driven-looking woman with hair much too black for her face, or for nature, but other than that she looked like hundreds of “professional” women in small towns across the country: a tailored blazer and equally tailored blouse topped a wide, floral-print skirt that fell low on her leg. She could have been on the cover of the latest Talbot's catalogue.
“Well,” she said as they came in. “Kyle. Introduce me.”
“Right,” Kyle said. “Nancy Quayde, this is Gregor Demarkian. Gregor Demarkian, this is Nancy Quayde.”
“Dr. Quayde,” Nancy said.
“Dr. Quayde,” Gregor repeated politely.
“I just don't see what the point is of going through all the trouble to get yourself a Ph.D. if you're going to be ashamed of it,” she said. “Oh, never mind. Sit down. I'm not having a good day. Do you know there isn't any way to sue somebody for telling lies about you to the newspapers ? I've been on the phone to my attorneys for half the day.”
“Who's telling lies about you to the newspapers?” Kyle asked.
“Never you mind. The parent of a student. God, I hate parents. I really do. They are
such
self-righteous sons of bitches. And don't look at me like that. I don't talk that way in front of the students. Although I should. God only knows
they
talk that way, and to my face, too. They don't give a damn. And then there's Peggy. Whatever the hell am I supposed to do about Peggy?”
“I heard she was out sick,” Kyle said mildly.
“Out
sick
?” Nancy Quayde nearly exploded. “You know as well as I do what she's out for, Kyle. Stu bashed her face in again last night and now she's got a shiner the size
of a dinner plate and she's afraid to be seen with it. That's the third time this term. If she didn't have tenure, she'd be out on her ass. If he ever shows up here looking for her, she
will
be out on her ass. God, that whole situation drives me insane. Why doesn't she leave him? Why doesn't she turn him the hell in? Christ, given the amount of cocaine that man snorts, she ought to be able to put him away for thirty years. If she'd turned him in thirty years ago, she'd be much better off.”
“Thirty years ago?” Gregor asked.
“Thirty years ago,” Nancy said. Then she laughed. “God, don't you know? Stu sold marijuana to the entire senior class. Well, not all of it, just the âcool' people and the hoods. Peggy thought he was going through a phase. But you could see it even then. You could tell he was going to end up an addict. It was written all over him.”
“Well, not so I could read it,” Kyle said. “Maybe we ought to go a little easy on just who Stu was selling marijuana to senior year.”
“You mean because it included you?” Nancy said.
“Never mind. It included me, too. It was a novelty, at the time. Now we practically execute people for smoking a couple of joints. We're all so afraid they'll end up like Stu. Christ. So what do you want to know? I was here yesterday. I didn't have anything to do with what happened to Chris.”
“Right,” Kyle said. “Mostly, I think what we want to know is what has been going on with Chris for the past few days. We could ask Dan, but he's been in Hawaii, and besidesâ”
“Besides, he probably wouldn't know,” Nancy said. “That was a marriage of convenience. Or mutual assistance. I don't know. Anyway, what's been going on with Chris is what's been going on with the rest of us. Betsy Wetsy triumphantly returns. Chris was organizing a cocktail party for her.”
“Are you serious?” Kyle said. “That's crazy. Whatever made Chris think she'd come?”
“Well, that's the point, isn't it?” Nancy said. “That's
why Chris went out there yesterday, to try to talk to Betsy face-to-face. She was the best one to send, really. I don't have the patience, and the rest of themâ” Nancy shrugged.
“When you say she was the best one to send,” Gregor said, “do you mean this was something you all cooked up together? It was a group project?”
“Well, sort of,” Nancy said. “It wasâwell, she was going to be here. And she's famous. And a lot of people, the superintendent of schools, the head librarian, thought it would be a good thing to have her speak, you know, to classes and to the Friends of the Library and like that. And we thoughtâChris and I thoughtâthat we ought to do something to calm everything down.”
“Calm what down?” Kyle said. “It's been over thirty years.”
“It may have been over thirty years,” Nancy said, “but it's not like she disappeared and was never heard from in all that time. She's been in our faces now for a decade at least. And it ⦠rankles ⦠some people.”
“Some people such as whom?” Gregor said.
“Mostly,” Nancy said, “there's Belinda, who's just livid. I think Belinda's entire worldview came apart at the seams when Betsy got famous. And there's Maris Coleman, of course, but she doesn't really live here anymore. I don't know if she counts.”
“So,” Kyle said. “What was it exactly that you and Chris thought you were going to do?”
“Chris was going to throw her a party,” Nancy said, “and I was going to take her out to dinnerânot by herself but with all of us, or nearly all of us. Stu being what he is, Peggy can't usually make it. Anyway, all of us except Peggy and Belinda were going to do something and see if we couldn't sort of just bury the hatchet, so to speak. So Chris drove out there to talk to her. She was trying to make an effort.”
“How did she know Betsy would be home?” Kyle asked. “Did she call ahead?”
“She tried to call ahead,” Nancy said sourly, “but you
just couldn't get through on that phone. It was hooked up to an answering machine. Chris left a few messages, but she could never get Betsy to call her back.”
“I'll bet,” Kyle said.
“You don't need to be such a snot about it, Kyle. You're the one who said it had been over thirty years. It
had
been over thirty years. You'd think some people would grow up. Especially famous people. Somebody as successful as Betsy Wetsy shouldn't still be obsessing about high school.”
“Right,” Kyle said.
“You said she drove over there on her own,” Gregor said. “Do you know what time that was? Did you go with her?”
“I didn't go with her, no,” Nancy said. “I'm almost never out of here before five, even though the school day ends at quarter to three. She intended to go out there at around three-thirty or four, but I don't know if she went then or earlier or later, at least not for sure. I do know she was intending to go alone.”
“This Miss Smith,” Gregor said.
“Mrs. Kennedy,” Nancy corrected.
“Was she out sick that day, too?” Gregor asked.
Nancy shook her head. “She was right here, all day. Trust me, if she ever pulls one of these two days in a row, Hollman will hear about it. No, Peggy was in as usual, yesterday. I picked her up and drove her in. But I forgot to pick her up this morning.”
“How could you forget?” Kyle asked.
“I met Emma in JayMar's and she made me furious,” Nancy said. “So I came in early to do some work. If Peggy had called to say she was stranded, I would have gone back out to get her.”
“Back to Chris,” Kyle said. “She was supposed to go out to Betsy's house between three-thirty and four. As far as you know, she did it.”
“As far as I know, yes.”
“You were here. Peggy was hereâ”
“Well, not at three-thirty, she wasn't. Shelley Brancowski
gave her a ride home at three. Shelley does that when I have to work late. Peggy only stays late when she's got French Club, and they only meet twice a week.”
“Right,” Kyle said again.
“Christ,” Nancy said again. “Do you really think any of us would kill Chris off? Whatever for? I mean, I know she was a pain and a snot and all the rest of it, but there's just no reason for any of us to have done it. And you can't really think Betsy did it, no matter what Belinda says. Why would she kill Chris? If she was going to kill any of us, it would be Belinda. And I say if she hasn't killed Maris yet, she's not capable of killing anybody.”
The door opened and the young woman named Lisa poked her head in. “I'm sorry to bother you,” she said, “but somebody from the police department is on the phone for Kyle.”