by Jane Haddam
If she’d been thinking straight, she would have noticed that the parking lot was chock-full, which it never was in the middle of the afternoon, even when it was raining. Instead, she didn’t realize how packed the place would be until she got inside and saw that all the booths and all but two of the stools around the counter had been taken. She hesitated for a moment, wondering if she ought to leave—she’d never seen most of these people, and she knew everybody in town—and then Bonnie Cantor had waved to her from behind the counter and she began to relax a little.
“What’s going on around here?” she asked, sitting down on one of the two empty stools. “Who are all these people?”
“Reporters,” Bonnie said solemnly.
“What are they reporting?” Belinda asked.
Bonnie started setting her up for a Diet Coke. “They came in because of Chris, being dead, and it being Betsy Toliver’s house where the body was found, because Betsy Toliver is famous. Or they say she is. Did you know Betsy Toliver was famous?”
“I wouldn’t call it famous,” Belinda said stiffly. “She’s on like CNN and like that.”
“Oh. Well. No wonder I haven’t seen her. So that’s why they’re here. Except,” Bonnie lowered her voice, “something happened to Emma Kenyon. I don’t know if you’ve heard about it—”
“It was on the radio,” Belinda said, because it was true. It had come on the radio news on the oldies station while she was parked up on Grassy Plains. “She was—attacked.”
“She was stabbed,” Bonnie said, looking around quickly. “She was stabbed right in the stomach. I called Sue Cameron out at the hospital and she checked up on it for me. She’s not dead yet, though. Emma, I mean. She’s just unconscious. But Sue says she could be dead any minute now, and then there would be a double murder. Doesn’t that just shock the socks off you? I’ve lived in Hollman all my life and nothing like this has ever happened here.”
“Michael Houseman was murdered,” Belinda said. “In 1969.”
“But that was just the one, wasn’t it?” Bonnie said. “And it was some old tramp who did it, if I remember. It wasn’t like this. It didn’t have famous people in it.”
“I wouldn’t call Betsy Toliver famous,” Belinda said again. She looked down into the Diet Coke Bonnie had brought her. It had a lemon in it, just the way she always drank it.
“Listen,” Bonnie said, leaning on the counter and putting her lips up close to Belinda’s ear, so that she could whisper and maybe really not be overheard by everybody in the place. “You see the corner booth? The man in the black jacket with the red shirt under it? That guy is from the National Enquirer. No kidding. I read the Enquirer all the time and now there’s somebody from there in here and I can’t even wait on him because he’s not at the counter. LeeAnne gets all the good jobs.”
Belinda turned around to look at the corner booth. There was a man in a black sports coat with a red T-shirt under it, but he was not alone. The booth was full of men, odd-looking men. Some of them were wearing ties, and some of them were not, but all of them managed to look both expensive and seedy at the same time.
“Are they all from the National Enquirer?” Belinda asked.
Bonnie shrugged. “I’ve got no idea. They all seem to know each other, anyway. This really is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me. It’s driving me crazy.”
“Bonnie,” somebody on the other end of the counter called.
“I’ve got to go,” Bonnie said. “Most days we don’t even have a girl to wait tables in the afternoon. Just my luck we’ve got LeeAnne here today. Honestly. I never have any damn luck at all.”
Bonnie went down the counter. Belinda turned around and looked at the corner booth again. Then she looked at all the other booths, and at the tables. Everybody drinking coffee had that look about them, the one that said they did not belong in small towns. Maris had that look. Belinda swiveled the stool back so that she was facing the counter and attacked her Diet Coke again. Her hands looked old to her. The veins bulged out on them. She didn’t think there was anything like plastic surgery for the hands.
She was just starting to wonder what she was supposed to do now, when the man sitting next to her cleared his throat.
“Excuse me,” he said. “I overheard you talking to the waitress.”
“Her name is Bonnie.” Belinda wasn’t trying to be rude. She just didn’t want to talk to one of the outside people.
“Yes,” the man said. “I know. My name is Eddie Cassiter. I’m a reporter.”
“I know.”
Eddie Cassiter cleared his throat again. “I heard her talking to you and it sounded like you were a friend of that woman who got attacked this afternoon,” he said. “That’s true, isn’t it?”
“Of course I was. We were friends all the way from kindergarten.”
“Did you know the one who got killed, too? This Christine Barr?”
“Chris Inglerod,” Belinda said. “Nobody thought of her as Barr.”
“So you knew her a long time?”
“I knew her since I was six years old. Just like Emma. We all knew each other. We were all friends forever. Why is that hard to understand?”
“It’s not hard to understand. I’m just trying to figure out what goes on here. I’m not from here. Were you a friend of Liz Toliver’s, too?”
“Nobody was a friend of Betsy Toliver’s. Nobody was. We couldn’t stand her. And that’s her name. Betsy. Not Liz. Betsy.”
“Betsy,” Eddie Cassiter said pleasantly. “Yes, I’ve heard that. And she had a god-awful nickname when she was growing up.”
“Only because she deserved it,” Belinda said righteously. “It’s not true the way they put it in the papers. It’s not true that we persecuted her. She’s a terrible person, and she always was, and she’s ugly, too. She deserved it.”
“I understand that completely,” Eddie Cassiter said. “Why don’t you let me buy you another Coke?”
THREE
1
It took nearly three hours to find out just how badly hurt Emma Kenyon Bligh really was, and during those three hours Gregor felt as if he and Kyle Borden had been frozen solid in the middle of the road. Every investigation has its periods of stasis. They were warned about that at Quantico when Gregor was in training, and years later, he had given the same warning to the new agents who joined the Behavioral Sciences Unit. Sometimes nothing happens, and sometimes there is nothing you can do about it. If you try, you risk making a mess of the entire case.
Still, he also couldn’t imagine sitting still for too much longer, especially with Kyle Borden lecturing him at every opportunity about how traumatic violent crime was in “small communities.” He tried calling Cavanaugh Street again. He had no luck. Tibor’s phone was on the answering machine, and it wasn’t just to screen calls. Donna’s phone was also on the answering machine. He tried calling the Radisson and Bennis, but there was no answer there, either. God only knew where she was. He looked around Kyle Borden’s office, at the clutter on the desk, at the picture magazines in a pile in the corner (People, Us, Celebrity), at the photographs tacked to the walls.
Gregor got up and left the little office. The big open area outside was empty of everybody but Kyle and Sharon Morobito.
Gregor cleared his throat. “I was thinking that we ought to go out and make another call. There’s somebody I’d like to talk to.”
“There’s a lot of people I’d like to talk to,” Kyle said, “starting with Peggy. We’ll get to it this afternoon. Who is it you want to talk to?”
“The husband,” Gregor said. “Not Chris Inglerod’s husband. Peggy’s husband. What did you call him? Steve—”
“Stu Kennedy. You can’t interview Stu Kennedy.”
“Why not?”
“Because if you do, he’ll end up beating the flaming shit out of Peggy and you’ll have another murder on your hands.”
“There isn’t going to be any way you can prevent this man from knowing that his wife is at l
east peripherally involved in the attack against Emma Kenyon Bligh,” Gregor said reasonably. “She’s in the hospital now. She’ll be released this afternoon. It’s going to be on the news. It’s going to be in the newspapers. People are going to talk. And even if nobody talks to Mr. Kennedy himself, we are all going to have to talk to Mrs. Kennedy. At the very least she’s a material witness.”
“He’s too blasted to see straight most of the time,” Kyle said. “He could miss the whole thing. If we don’t tell him about it—”
“If he was really that blasted all the time, he’d be dead,” Gregor said. “So I must assume he’s like most alcoholics, even in the late stages, and has periods of lucidity. And I don’t even need him to be that lucid. I just need him to confirm a few things for me. You did say he was in the park the night Michael Houseman died?”
“A lot of people were in the park the night Michael Houseman died.”
“And so far, we’ve only talked to members of the witch’s coven,” Gregor said. “Except I shouldn’t say that, because it’s an insult to witches. Let’s go see Stuart Kennedy.”
2
Gregor had expected to find that the Kennedy house was much like the one belonging to Michael Houseman’s mother, and in some ways it was. For one thing, it was in town and not out in one of the subdivisions in Plumtrees or Stony Hill. For another, it was definitely small, a square little old-fashioned Cape without any of the extensions or dormers Capes often accumulated over the years. The lack made it somewhat at odds with its neighbors, all of which showed signs of having been worked on at least by their owners, and in one case—the house with the addition with two-story-tall Gothic windows—by a professional construction company. What really set the Kennedy house apart from its neighbors was more subtle, though. It was in the fact that its paint was peeling just a little. You could see it most plainly on the wide front porch. Other things were wrong, too, things you wouldn’t necessarily notice right away, but that stayed with you as an undertone: the mailbox nailed to the wall next to the front door was knocked off true; the rain gutters that ran along the front of the house were rusty around the edges; the railings on the porch were peeling wood along ridges that defined their decorative bevel. All in all, it was the kind of house that turns up haunted in one of the better horror movies.
Kyle Borden parked the police car right out front, at the curb, even though there was a driveway at the side of the house, leading to the back. The driveway, like the lawn, was well cared for. Either the Kennedys cared more for their lawn than their house, or one of them had had the sense to hire a yard service. The house’s front windows were washed, but blank. The house looked deserted.
“Well,” Kyle said, “you really want to do this.”
“I’ve talked to nearly everybody else who was in the park that night,” Gregor said, “except for Mrs. Kennedy herself, and she’s unavailable.”
“Stu’s probably unavailable, too,” Kyle said. “I don’t know how to break this to you, Mr. Demarkian, but Stu Kennedy is an alcoholic. And a drug addict. With a wife who makes very decent money, or at least what amounts to very decent money around here. He spends ninety percent of his time out of it, and the other ten percent you don’t want to know him. And this will get Peggy in trouble. I can guarantee it.”
“I’ve dealt with drunks and drug addicts before,” Gregor said. “Let’s go.”
“Besides,” Kyle said, not budging, “it’s not like we’re really all that concerned with Michael Houseman’s death anymore. I know you are, you’ve got a job to do, but right here with the Hollman Police we’re interested in who killed Chris Inglerod Barr and who nearly killed Emma Kenyon Bligh. So unless you can tell me that Stu is connected to one of those, I’ve got to say that I don’t see the point—”
“Your problem is with the word ‘connected,’” Gregor said. “Your thinking is too limited. Everybody who was in the park that night is connected to the death of Michael Houseman and the death of Chris Inglerod and the attack on Emma Kenyon Bligh and, of course, the death of Mrs. Toliver’s dog. ‘Connected’ doesn’t mean anything. God is ‘connected’ to all those things.”
Kyle sat still for a long time, blinking. “To hell with it,” he said. “I have no idea what you’re up to, but I’m going to get the hospital to keep Peggy in a bed for at least a week.”
“Her HMO probably won’t have it.”
Kyle got out of the car and looked around. “What is it about the dog?” he asked to the air. “I keep forgetting about the dog. I hate what happened to the dog.”
Gregor got out, too, and they walked up the narrow concrete walk together. The walk was cracked.
Kyle rang the front bell, and waited. He rang it again. And again.
“Probably passed out cold,” he told Gregor. “Or he’s not and he’s just not going to open up. What are you going to do about that? We don’t have a search warrant.”
Gregor tried the front doorknob. It was locked. “Lean on the bell some more,” he said.
Kyle let out a raspberry, but he leaned on the bell. Gregor could hear the grating buzz from where he stood. Kyle let go of the button and pounded on the door once or twice. “Stu,” he shouted. “Stu, for God’s sake, open up. I’ve got to talk to you.”
“Get the fuck out of here,” somebody said from the other side of the door. It was an odd voice, Gregor thought, high and petulant and childish.
Kyle sighed. “Listen, Stu, open up. I mean it. I’ve got to talk to you.”
“No fucking cop is getting into this house without a search warrant,” the voice said.
“I don’t need a search warrant,” Kyle said. “I’m not searching for anything. I don’t care if you have a goddamned mountain of cocaine sitting in the middle of your living-room floor. Snort the whole damned thing for all I care. It’s not what I’m looking for. Open up or I’ll find some excuse to arrest you and put you in jail. Then you’ll have to listen to me.”
“Who is it you’ve got with you?”
“Oh, that’s Gregor Demarkian. He’s—”
“I know who he is.”
Gregor heard the bolt lock turn in the door, the same snap and slide that bolt locks made everywhere. The door swung open and he got his first look at Stu Kennedy. The first thing that struck him was how small the man was, not only thin—all coke heads are thin—but short, shorter than Kyle, almost as short as Jimmy Card. The next thing that struck him was that the man smelled. He’d been in the clothes he was wearing for days, and he hadn’t been in the shower anytime lately. His hair hung in greasy clumped strands around his face. It was too long, and it looked as if it had been cut by an amateur the last few times. His face had a streak of dirt running down one jaw. His hands had dirt caked under the fingernails.
“Jesus Christ,” Kyle said. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing the fuck’s wrong with me,” Stu said. “Who do you think you are, coming here in the middle of the afternoon knocking on the door and throwing bullshit at me about how you got to tell me something? You don’t have to tell me anything. You’re just a piece of motherfucking slime—”
“This is Mr. Demarkian,” Kyle said dryly. “He’s a famous detective from Philadelphia. He used to be head of some hotshot division at the FBI—”
“I know who the fuck he is. Just because you want to lick his boots don’t mean I do. Christ, Kyle, you’re such a wet wuss bag.”
Stu Kennedy stepped back a little, and Kyle edged past him, sucking his stomach in so that he didn’t have to touch Stu’s clothes. Gregor slid past him, too, but with less fastidiousness. He got into the living room and looked around. The room was both clean and tidy, but everything in it was worn, and it was very dark. Part of that was due to the fact that the drapes were closed, but part of it was due to the fact that all the furniture was dark, too, black or navy-blue, just like the carpet. The walls were white, but they looked as if they hadn’t been painted in a long time. Beyond the living room was a smaller room that looked to b
e the dining room. It was dark, too.
“See?” Stu said. “No mountain of cocaine on the living-room floor. What the fuck kind of idiot do you think I am?”
“What is it with you, anyway?” Kyle said. “You got out of school, you can’t watch your language anymore? I can’t believe Peggy puts up with this.”
“Peggy puts the fuck up with what I tell her to put the fuck up with,” Stu said. “Now will you tell me what the fuck you want and get the fuck out of my house?”
Kyle sighed. Gregor sat down on the couch. “Mr. Kennedy,” Gregor said, “what we really want to do is to ask you something about the night on which a boy named Michael Houseman died. According to Mr. Borden here—”
“Who the fuck cares about Michael Houseman and how he died?” Stu said. “That was years ago. You couldn’t arrest anybody for that. You couldn’t prove anything about who did it. That’s not the fuck what you want. You want to know if I murdered that tight-twatted cunt. Well, I didn’t. I wouldn’t bother. Why would I bother? You think just because—just because …” Stu seemed to lose his train of thought. He went over to the little fireplace and got something off the mantel. Gregor finally figured out that it was a pack of cigarettes. “I can still smoke in my own fucking house,” he said. “You can’t stop me. It’s still legal. Fucking nanny state.”
Gregor cleared his throat. “Let me assure you,” he said, “you’re not in any way under suspicion for the death of Chris Inglerod Barr, at least not from me. I’ll stipulate, if you like, that I’m quite certain you did not commit that murder or even aid in its commission in any way.”
“You talk like a fucking textbook,” Stu said.
“He’s an educated man, Stu,” Kyle said. “That’s more than I can say for you or me. He’s got master’s degrees. Do you have to sound like some backwoods yahoo on a bad day?”
