by Jane Haddam
“At the moment, as far as I know, he’d have nothing to tell them even if he wanted to. I didn’t see him in the courthouse. I don’t see how he could possibly have seen me.”
“Did you get the—the thing? The thing you were talking about?”
“No,” Mark said. “That’s the bad news. I looked for it, but I couldn’t find it.”
“You looked for it? But Mark, how could you have looked for it? Was she there, where you were looking? For God’s sake, was the body there? And that man? What did you do—?”
“I looked around while I had the chance and I got out as soon as I heard someone coming. Try to focus. Did Kaitlyn ever come home?”
“What? Oh, yes. Yes, she did. Right after you left this morning. She got herself a tattoo, can you believe that? A little rose thing, it’s not too bad, but it’s right on her ankle, and I can just see where this is going—”
“Is she still home?”
“As far as I know. I told you, I’m at work. But she was just exhausted. And she said she wasn’t going in to school. And I didn’t know what to do about that, because I had to leave to come here, so—”
“I’m not worried about her being out of school. You can write her a note. But I want her home and in and not on the rampage anytime soon. If you don’t read her the riot act, I will. She’s got to keep a low profile. A very low profile. And not just because our personal pet judge is dead.”
“Oh, Mark. But you can’t think—”
“Of course I can’t think,” Mark said. “Kaitlyn has a motive on the surface. I have a big one. It’ll come out in no time that we were fixing things for Kaitlyn—that I was using Admin Services to fix things.”
“Oh, Mark, for God’s sake. If you did something, you could tell me. I wouldn’t tell anybody and isn’t there some thing where wives can’t testify against husbands? But I need to know, Mark, please, I need to know—”
“If there’s somebody out there listening to this, you’ve just hanged me for real. Because you know and I know that nobody is going to want to see that priest convicted of anything, and a whole hell of a lot of people are going to want me dead as soon as any of this gets out. And it will get out. Because I didn’t find it. And that means somebody else will.”
Mark hung up. His coffee was sitting on the table in front of him. He took off the top and looked into what should have been plain black, but instead seemed to be something white that was congealing. He put the top back on and gave up. After he got his other phone call through, he’d go find a liquor store and set himself up for something lethal to drink.
He punched in the code for the office in New York and got himself ready to tell Carter Bandwood that the shit was about to hit the fan.
3
There was almost nothing Father Tibor Kasparian remembered about this day, except the one important thing, the thing that would change everything forever. It was lodged in his brain more firmly than any memory he had ever had. It was stronger than his memory of Anna dying.
It seemed so long ago, Anna dying. Long ago and far away. That phrase kept running through his head, “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” But he couldn’t remember who had said or written it. He wasn’t sure why it mattered anyway.
One of the reasons today’s memory was so strong was that it was, in every way, tactile. He could feel the squish of the blood and muscle under his knees as he knelt on the floor. He could feel the wet stickiness on his hands. It had surprised him to realize that he had never been that close to a violent death before. He had witnessed them, but he hadn’t touched them. The touching made all the difference.
After that, there were things he had to do, careful things that had to be done right. He hadn’t finished all of them when that woman had come in, knocking only as a formality. There was something he didn’t know and couldn’t begin to guess. Why did people knock when they weren’t going to wait for an invitation to come in? He did it himself, but he’d never understood it.
The woman had come in and then she was screaming her head off, screaming and screaming. There was something fake and forced about the screaming. She had stood there for what felt to Tibor like a long time. Then she’d started screaming. Tibor hadn’t believed it.
She screamed, and then she ran out into the hall, still screaming.
A moment later, Russ came in, staggering and breathless, and Tibor heard him make the worst sound in the history of the world.
After that, it had all been messiness and blur, and there was no point in listening to it.
There was only one thing Tibor Kasparian could do, and he set about doing it.
They would ask him questions.
He would say, “I have the right to remain silent.”
Then he would remain silent.
He did that over and over again, as if it proved something.
The only time he changed anything was when they asked him if he wanted Russ to act as his lawyer, or if he wanted another lawyer, or if he would talk to Bennis or Donna or Krekor or anybody at all.
When those things came up, he just said no.
Someone had told him what jail he was being taken to, where he was going, what would happen to him next. Everybody was very polite and very careful to let him know everything he needed to know. If this was the way police behaved in America, he didn’t know what people were complaining about.
It was odd to think that in all these years, and all the years of knowing Krekor Demarkian, he had never been on the business end of a police investigation.
The cell they put him in at first was very small and very isolated. He was the only one in it, and instead of bars, it had a thick metal door with a little window three-quarters of the way up and a little swinging slot at about waist height. The little swinging slot was where they pushed in trays with food on them. After Tibor had been in the cell for he couldn’t tell how long, they pushed in a tray with a cheese sandwich and an apple and a carton of apple juice on it. He had no idea why it was apple juice rather than a hundred other things.
He had expected people to come and talk to him again, and to ask him questions, but they didn’t. He lay for what seemed like hours just where he was. They had taken his watch and his belt and his cell phone and his clothes. He wished someone would bring him a book, even though he was sure he wouldn’t be able to read.
He reminded himself that even though he had been in prison before, it had not been in America. It had not been a jail like this one. He had no idea what to expect.
He knew that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had the death penalty. He thought that if it came to that, he would be all right. He had never been one of those people who had doubts about his God or doubts about his fellow human beings. God would accept him for what he was, and for what he had done, and for what he hadn’t done. His fellow human beings would behave like human beings.
He ate the sandwich and the apple and drank the apple juice. He didn’t like the toilet stuck into the wall at the back of the cell. It felt insulting. He didn’t like the sandwich. There was no window except the one in the door looking out into the corridor. He had no idea what time it was or what was happening in the world outside this place.
He told himself over and over that it would work out the way it should if he would only do what he had promised himself to do.
He had drifted into an odd little daydream about his first week on Cavanaugh Street when the guard came to the door for what would turn out to be the very last time that day.
“You’re wanted downstairs,” he said, and Tibor stood up and cooperated as calmly as possible with that ridiculous ritual, where you had to put your hands through the slot so that you could be handcuffed before they opened the door to the cell.
When the door swung wide, it didn’t feel as if it were really open.
There were two guards in the corridor, not one.
They applied leg irons, as if he were a ravening beast who would jump out at them at any moment.
They went down some stairs and around some halls and down some stairs again. They came to a door that was completely blank and without any windows or slots in it at all.
One of the guards opened the door and stepped back. There was a largish conference room with a big square table and many chairs.
A man sitting in one of those chairs stood up. “Set him loose,” the man said. “And when you’ve done that, get out of here.”
“But,” one of the guards said.
“Don’t start,” the man said. “I know what the rules are. But right now, you’re going to set him loose and get out of here. I’ll buzz when you’re needed.”
“If you get a chance to buzz,” the other guard said.
The man said nothing. His face was a perfect blank. His suit was impeccable.
The guards got the work done faster than Tibor would have thought possible. In no time at all, his handcuffs and leg irons were gone, and the guards were gone, too, with the door closed behind them.
The man looked Tibor up, down, and around. Then he gestured to a chair and said, “Good afternoon, Father Kasparian. My name is George Edelson. I’m with the office of the mayor. Please sit down.”
Tibor took a chair and sat down. He didn’t like the sound of this at all.
George Edelson sat down. He had a briefcase he had left on the table. He didn’t touch it.
“I want to make this clear before we start, Father Kasparian. I am not only from the office of the mayor—I am also one of John Jackman’s personal aides. I’m breaking about five hundred regulations in order to have this meeting. I not only don’t like the situation I’m in at the moment, I positively hate it. That notwithstanding, if we were to have a meeting like the one we’re having now, this would be the place to have it. This is a secure room. One of only two in the building. I’m a lawyer. That means that when I leave this room, I’ll be able to claim attorney–client privilege and refuse to answer any questions about anything you have told me. I will be able to claim that even if you claim that I am not your lawyer, because the record will show that when I walked into this room I was your lawyer, and you had requested me to be.”
Tibor started. “But that—”
“Isn’t true?” George Edelson said. “Of course it isn’t true, but the record will be there all the same, and you can shout your head off about how you never asked for me. I’ll have a paper trail that says you did. So if you think you’re going to make another histrionic stand about your refusal of all legal help, don’t bother. You can’t win that fight, no matter what you do.”
“It is my right not to have a lawyer,” Tibor said. “I can fire you even if I never hired you.”
“That, I don’t care about. All I care about, all anybody cares about, is finding out what is going on around here. John Jackman has made it a priority. Do you understand that?”
“I don’t have to talk to you,” Tibor said. “I have the right to remain silent.”
“Would you prefer to talk to John directly? That would break another hundred and fifty regulations, but we can get it done.”
Tibor started to feel panicked and claustrophobic. He hadn’t felt claustrophobic in his cell. He felt claustrophobic here. “I don’t have to talk to you,” he said again. “I will not talk to John Jackman.”
“Would you rather talk to Gregor Demarkian? The office of the mayor has been in touch with Mr. Demarkian. He has returned to Philadelphia and is presently at his home. We could have him here in less than half an hour.”
Tibor nearly choked on that one. Krekor, for God’s sake. Krekor was the last person he wanted to see. Krekor was the last person he could talk to. If they ever got him into a room with Krekor, the whole thing would be over in a second.
George Edelson was one of those people who could go forever without talking. He sat in his seat and stared. He stared and stared. Tibor thought he was about to faint.
It would have been the perfect thing if he had been able to faint, but of course he couldn’t.
“Is this room soundproofed?” he asked.
George Edelson looked surprised. “What do you mean by soundproofed? I can tell you with assurance that it is not in any way bugged.”
“I didn’t ask about bugged,” Tibor said. “Could somebody standing outside the door listen to us?”
“Well, Father, I suppose he could. As far as I know, this room is not constructed to eliminate all levels of sound. But there is really nothing like that for you to worry about. It’s a very thick door. There are bookshelves filled with books on both the walls this room shares with other rooms. The best anybody could hear from inside this place is incohate noises.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Tibor said. “If you don’t go away and leave me alone right this minute, I will start screaming at the top of my lungs until somebody hears the noises and has to come investigate. Someone will come to investigate. They will have to.”
George Edelson looked impressed. “You’re out of your mind,” he said. “You’re stark, raving bugshit. Don’t you know that people are only trying to help you? Don’t you realize that as things look at this moment, you’ve got a one-way ticket to the electric chair?”
Tibor folded his arms across his chest.
“I have the right to remain silent,” he said.
And he didn’t say anything else.
FOUR
1
Terry Carpenter’s business card was lying in the middle of Gregor’s place at the breakfast table when he finally got down to breakfast that morning. For a few minutes, he couldn’t remember what it was.
* * *
TERRENCE CARPENTER
Interagency Task Force on Mortgage Institutions and Practices
* * *
Gregor picked the thing up and put it down again and picked it up again. It was one of those government agency names that seemed to have been invented by gerbils.
It was early enough for them to go to the Ararat, but Bennis obviously wasn’t intending to go. There were place mats set out on the kitchen table and place settings as well, the heavy pewter ones that Bennis used for “everyday.” It was one of the things about Bennis that Gregor couldn’t help but wonder at. His family’s idea of “everyday” had been a cheap set of tin, and even his late wife’s had run to nothing fancier than stainless steel. This was the kind of thing people did when they’d grown up to be debutantes on the Philadelphia Main Line.
Gregor sat down and put Terry Carpenter’s card away from him, toward the middle of the table. There was orange juice already out in a tall crystal glass. There was coffee percolating in the machine on the counter. There were napkins folded under the forks. Bennis had once explained to him that it was never right or proper to put napkins in napkin rings. Gregor couldn’t remember why.
Bennis came in dressed in jeans and an enormous cotton sweater that must have been one of the ones she’d bought him.
“I thought we’d avoid going out in public as long as we could,” she said, taking their coffee cups to the coffee machine to fill them. “I looked outside when I got up, and there doesn’t seem to be much of anything out there, but it’s hard to tell.”
“We can’t hide in the house indefinitely,” Gregor said.
Bennis brought the coffee over and went to the stove for whatever else she had made, which seemed to be some kind of omelet. Gregor told himself he was cautiously optimistic. You could never quite tell with Bennis and food.
Bennis sat down across from him. “I wasn’t thinking that you’d hide out indefinitely,” she said. “Or that any of us would. I was thinking that it might be a good idea to get some things settled before you have
to talk to reporters. And I don’t see how you’re not going to have to talk to reporters. It would have been bad enough if it was just that some friend of yours committed a murder, or was arrested for committing a murder—”
She stopped, embarrassed.
“I’m sorry,” she said after a moment. “There’s the major part of my brain that says Tibor could not possibly have done a thing like this, and then there’s that little part that can’t get off that damned video.”
“Don’t worry about it too much,” Gregor said. “You’re not going to be the only one.”
“I know I’m not,” Bennis said, “but that isn’t saying much, is it? If his best friends can’t see past the video, what’s going to happen with everybody else? I’ve been staying away from the news channels as much as I can, but other people are going to be watching them. Everybody in the country is going to be watching them. And I don’t see what we can do about it.”
“We can find out what really happened,” Gregor said.
“What if what really happened was that Tibor bludgeoned this woman to death?”
“Then we’ll deal with that when we get there.”
“Do you think we’re going to get there?”
“No,” Gregor said. “I told you that forty times yesterday, Bennis. I’m dead certain that whatever happened in that room, Tibor didn’t bludgeon Martha Handling to death. And don’t go on about how I can’t say why I’m so certain of that, and how it’s probably my intuition and nothing else. It’s not my intuition. I’ve noticed something very wrong. And you can’t see the body in the video.”
Bennis cut her omelet into very small, very precisely square pieces.
“That fell out of your jacket pocket when I hung it up this morning,” she said, pointing at Terry Carpenter’s card in the middle of the table. “Is that who you went to see yesterday after you testified? Is that the person who’s going to help Mikel Dekanian save his house?”
“That’s who I went to see yesterday,” Gregor said. “I don’t know how much help he’s going to be. It seems the bottom line is that the entire mortgage situation is a mess beyond all understanding and nobody actually knows what’s going on. I was in the middle of tearing him a new one when your phone call came through. I was just thinking we were going to have to try another tack.”
