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

by Jane Haddam

  “No,” he said, speaking slowly and clearly. Why you always thought people would understand you better if you spoke slowly and clearly, he didn’t know. “No, it doesn’t make as much sense. Mark Granby didn’t know Mikel Dekanian. Okay, I should say Mikel Dekanian didn’t know Mark Granby. On any level. There’s no reason to assume the two of them ever met. But Petrak and Mikel have met. They met at church if they didn’t meet anywhere else. Therefore, there is an established connection—”

  “And you do think Petrak murdered Mikel Dekanian,” Sophie said. “His own lawyer. Isn’t that nice.”

  “Miss Maldovanian,” Russ started.

  And then the miracle happened. The phone rang.

  Russ excused himself and picked up, and his assistant announced, “Gregor Demarkian is calling for you. He says it’s urgent.”

  Russ had never been so happy to hear from anyone in his life.

  FIVE

  1

  It took longer than Gregor had expected it to, and it required so much cooperation from so many people at so many levels of city and state government, Gregor began to think he was running for office.

  “The only reason you’re getting away with this,” John Jackman said, “is that I know you’re good for it. If you say you know who, what, when, where, and why, then you know who, what, when, where, and why. And if Barack Obama hadn’t already become the first black President of the United States, I still might not let you get away with it.”

  “Technically,” Gregor said, “Barack Obama is the first mixed-race President of the United States, so you could still—”

  “Get out of here,” John said. “Get out of here before I kill you myself. That’d be an interesting news cycle.”

  Gregor was not feeling flippant, even though he sounded that way some of the time. He hated these situations where, in order to get anything done, he had to sit around passively while other people helped him. He hated situations where he had to sit passively for any reason. There was, in his mind, something essentially wrong with passivity itself.

  They kept Tibor in the conference room while they made the rest of the arrangements. He was still in leg irons, and he would be in handcuffs when they took him to the courthouse once they found a judge ready to squeeze him in on an emergency basis. Gregor was glad to see that he looked despondent instead of blank. Despondent meant he had at least half a clue as to what was going on here.

  Gregor was still stunned almost beyond belief that this situation had gone so far, that Tibor made the decisions he had, that—well, there was no way to make it make sense. Before all this started, Gregor would have said that Tibor was incapable of making this kind of mistake. Tibor had grown up in a Communist dictatorship and taken Holy Orders when religion was effectively prohibitive. He’d had enough trouble in his life, and seen enough in his capacity as a priest, to be thoroughly disenchanted with human nature. He understood, better than Gregor himself, that there was never a time or place when you could trust a criminal.

  Gregor didn’t believe that criminals were born that way, but he did believe that once a person made the choice, the choice was largely irrevocable.

  George Edelson came in at last with the news Gregor had been waiting for.

  “Oldham will take it,” he said. “We’ve got half an hour to get over there. And he’s still royally pissed off, so there better not be any screwups.”

  Edelson looked meaningfully at Tibor. Tibor shrugged.

  After that there came the most frustrating part of all, because they had to give Tibor back to the jail staff. Gregor would have liked to tie Tibor up in a knot and haul him out to the courthouse himself, but he knew he was asking too many people for too many favors not to get with the program, no matter how annoying it was. If they got lucky with all this, there would come a time when he could sit with Tibor in Tibor’s own living room and have a complete and utter blowout fit.

  They took Tibor out, and Gregor and George Edelson went to find a cab. When they got into one, Gregor called Bennis.

  “I know where that is. That’s where we went yesterday. I can be there in time,” she said.

  “Not a bad idea,” Gregor said. “You can lend him moral support. In other words, you can make him feel guilty.”

  “I’ll see who else I can round up,” Bennis said. “Donna’s at some school thing and Lida’s babysitting Tommy and the baby, but I’ll bet I can get someone. A deputation from Cavanaugh Street. All wanting to beat his brains in.”

  “If you take too long, you’ll miss it,” Gregor said. “This is really going to take no time at all. We’ve set the whole damned thing up ahead of time. After we’ve got him safely out on bail, we’re going over to Martha Handling’s chambers. I don’t know if they’ll let you back there. Never mind you and the Very Old Ladies.”

  “Why are you going to Martha Handling’s chambers?”

  “Because if I’m going to have the reputation of an Armenian American Hercule Poirot, I ought to earn it,” Gregor said. “And also because I need to force a confrontation. Mainly because I need to force a confrontation. It’s going to be hard, getting this untangled.”

  “I thought you hated being called the Armenian American Hercule Poirot.”

  “I do,” Gregor said, “but it’s coming in useful at the moment, and I’m going to use it.”

  “All right,” Bennis said. “I guess that makes sense. On some level.”

  “I really know what I’m doing, Bennis.”

  “You usually do,” Bennis said.

  Gregor put his phone back in his pocket.

  “Was that your wife?” George Edelson said. “I’ve seen pictures of her. She’s a very beautiful woman.”

  “She’s also a force of nature,” Gregor said, “and when this is all over with, she’s going to have my hide.”

  “Really? Just because you solved a murder? Don’t you solve murders all the time? Or is it just because Father Kasparian is somebody she knows?”

  “It’s not solving the murder,” Gregor said. “It’s not telling her everything I was thinking about when I was solving the murder. And yes, that’s because Tibor is somebody she knows. That’s because she knows too many people involved in this to begin with.”

  They got caught in a traffic jam. There were cars stopped everywhere. There was gridlock at an intersection. There were police officers who were taking their own sweet time. Gregor kept going over and over it all in his head. He had a wish list a mile long of things he hoped would not go wrong. Tibor should get there on time. They should get there on time. Ray Berle and Tony Monteverdi should get there on time. Petrak Maldovanian and Russ Donahue should be there together and also on time.

  The problem with setting up one of these things was that there were so many moving parts, it was hard to get them all into place at once. That was something Agatha Christie and Rex Stout never thought of.

  When they got to the courtroom, Tibor was already sitting at the defense table, and Russ and Petrak and Sophie were sitting in the spectators’ seats. Russ looked better than he had since Tibor had been arrested, as if he were finally interested in something again. Petrak Maldovanian looked sullen and resentful. Sophie Maldovanian just looked confused.

  “I’ve got to go sit up with Father Kasparian,” Edelson said. “I’m the attorney of record. I hope I’m not stepping on toes, Mr. Donahue. If it makes you feel any better, he didn’t want me any more than he didn’t want you.”

  “No,” Russ said. “No, no. I’m just glad we’re finally getting him out of this.”

  George Edelson went to the front. The doors opened at the back, and Bennis came in, toting Hannah Krekorian, two of the Ohanian girls, Sheila Kashinian, and the Very Old Ladies. She pulled in behind Gregor, Russ, Petrak, and Sophie and said, “Just made it. Everybody wanted to come. I had to talk Lida out of bringing Tommy. Mrs. Vespasian is offering to help with the walking stick, but I thought that might be pushing it. She gets away with hitting people with that thing, but I bet I wouldn’t.
Are you sure you have this straightened out? And Tibor won’t go to jail?”

  “There’s the ‘accessory after the fact’ business,” Gregor said, “but we’ll deal with it when we get there.”

  “All rise,” the bailiff said from the front of the court.

  Gregor turned toward the front of the court and stood up.

  Roger Maris Oldham looked one step away from sentencing everybody in front of him to at least forty years, and Tibor Kasparian to 176. Gregor was very happy that they had set this up in advance, because if they hadn’t, he wasn’t sure Oldham would have been willing to set bail.

  Everybody else sat down. The bailiff read off a series of letters and numbers and case file names and whatever else had to go first before they could get to the serious part. Gregor didn’t listen.

  When the bailiff was done, Judge Oldham leaned across his desk and looked at Tibor. “Father Kasparian,” he said, “before we get started, I want to make a few things absolutely clear.”

  “Excuse me, Your Honor,” George Edelson said, standing up again. “I am appearing for Father Kasparian.”

  “So I’ve heard,” Oldham said. “Am I to understand that you have Father Kasparian’s permission to appear for him?”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” George Edelson said.

  “Father Kasparian?” Judge Oldham said.

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Tibor said. Tibor seemed to be contemplating standing up. He didn’t.

  “Very good,” Judge Oldham said. “But now let me get these things very clear. I have been told that this is an emergency, and that everything needs to be done in haste in order to prevent an injustice and possible harm to innocent persons. I am willing to bend the usual formality of the procedure under those conditions. I am aware that under certain conditions such things are necessary. I am told that bail has been arranged and will be made available at the end of this hearing so that there may be no delay. And all of this, as I said, is acceptable to me. What is not acceptable to me is another performance like the one you put on the last time I saw you, Father Kasparian. I expect you to plead to these charges, Father Kasparian. A real plea. Not nonsense. Is Father Kasparian ready to plead?”

  “Yes, Your Honor,” George Edelson said.

  “And how does Father Kasparian plead?”

  “Not guilty, Your Honor,” George Edelson said.

  Judge Oldham turned to look at Tibor again. “Is that acceptable to you, Father Kasparian? Do you in fact want to plead not guilty? I’m not going to wake up tomorrow morning and read in the paper that you were coerced into pleading and you don’t want to plead anything and you’re back to standing on your right to remain silent?”

  “No,” Tibor said, looking thoroughly miserable.

  The judge sat back. “Good,” he said. “Because if your answers had been different in any respect, Father Kasparian, I would have taken a great deal of pleasure in locking you up for contempt of court. I have never—and I mean never—had to deal with such idiocy in all my life, and I have presided at the trials of some truly magnificent idiots. Bail is set at fifty thousand dollars. Go get that straightened out and get out of here. This is a gift, and as far as I’m concerned, you don’t deserve it.”

  “Well,” Bennis said.

  “Let’s just hope this one isn’t the judge when the accessory thing comes up,” Gregor said.

  There was a lot of shuffling around, and Bennis went up to the defense table. “I’m glad you’re not asserting your right to remain silent anymore,” she said. “It had us all worried.”

  Tibor sighed. “There is no point in asserting my right to remain silent,” he said. “Krekor is here, and he will not shut up.”

  2

  After that, everything was done with what people kept saying was “extreme dispatch,” but what felt to Gregor Demarkian like “forever.” Tibor and George Edelson disappeared for a while, and when they were gone, Ray Berle and Tony Monteverdi showed up, looking harassed.

  “You know the only reason you’re doing this is because you’ve got the reputation of getting everything right,” Tony Monteverdi said. “You’d better get everything right.”

  “I don’t understand why I have to be here,” Petrak Maldovanian said. “This is some kind of parlor trick. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “For God’s sake,” Russ Donahue said. “Just for once, help yourself out. Just for once.”

  “We’ve still got a dead guy we need to ask you some questions about,” Ray Berle said. “We could go do that instead of this.”

  “Ah,” Tony Monteverdi said. “We checked. You were right. Mark Granby left his office for lunch and never came back. We’ve got a watch on the airport.”

  “I told you,” Gregor said. “You’ve got to get the feds to cooperate and put a watch on all the airports. If I were in his place, I’d go by car somewhere well away from Philadelphia and catch a plane there. And I’d go by myself. He’s got family, but I don’t think he’ll try to take them with him at this point. The trick is to actually get out.”

  “They don’t usually get out,” Ray Berle said.

  Tibor and George Edelson came back into the courtroom, and Gregor felt as if something could finally get done. Gregor was also gratified to see that Tibor was wearing neither handcuffs nor leg irons. He did look perfectly miserable.

  “We got nailed by a guy from the prosecutor’s office,” George Edelson said. “He did not look pleased. My guess is that the blowback from all this is not going to be fun.”

  “We’ll worry about the blowback when we get there,” Gregor said. “Let’s just make sure. We’re all ready? We should be there within half an hour, just to keep the security people from losing it. They’re probably losing it already. Everybody set? Russ? You’ve got your car?”

  “I’ve got my car.”

  “Good. Then we don’t have to wait around for you to get a taxi. Let’s go.”

  “Can we go?” Bennis asked.

  “I take it you’re going to need a taxi,” Gregor said. “Get there if you can get there. As far as I can tell, anyone can come in who wants to come in, so why not.”

  “Excellent,” Bennis said.

  “I don’t understand what’s going on,” Hannah Krekorian said.

  “I’ll explain it on the way over,” Bennis promised her.

  Mrs. Vespasian let out with a stream of Armenian, and the other Very Old Ladies started chattering too. Gregor was glad they were going to be following Bennis and not him.

  Gregor watched Tibor watch them all go.

  Then the priest turned to Gregor and said, “You’re wrong, Krekor. You are very wrong. About all of this.”

  “No,” Gregor said. “I’m not. And I’m going to prove it to you.”

  3

  They could have gone into the juvenile court in a lot of different ways, but Gregor wanted to go in through the front door, and that was what George Edelson did. They were stopped at the security checkpoint and wanded and sent through the metal detector. Gregor opened his briefcase and let the guard look through it for contraband or weapons. Then they all waited while Ray Berle and Tony Monteverdi came in from the back.

  The courthouse was not busy. It was close to the end of the day. Hearings were winding down. Judges were going home. Even so, there were more than a few people milling around, and if a hearing was going on in Martha Handling’s old courtroom, there would soon be more.

  “All right,” Gregor said, moving to the head of the corridor that led to the restrooms and, from there, to the rest of the building. “This corridor leads to the restrooms, as you can see. Then it continues to the corridors we’re interested in. There are two things you need to remember. The first one is the security checkpoint we just came through. Nobody is getting into the building through that door without being checked over. Which means that nobody is getting in through that door without a weapon.”

  “I stand corrected,” Gregor said. “Police officers can get through that door with weapons. What about cell ph
ones?”

  “We keep all our communications devices, yeah,” Tony Monteverdi said. “It’s a safety precaution. In case something happens.”

  “Also, I’m not sure it matters about the weapons,” Ray said. “She wasn’t killed by a weapon brought in from the outside. She was killed with one of her own gavels.”

  “I agree,” Gregor said. “But maybe not in the way you think I should. Just note. First, you can’t get a weapon or a cell phone in through this door if you’re coming in, but there would be no problem with getting either through this door if you were going out. This may seem like a minor issue, but it isn’t.”

  “It explains how somebody took away that other cell phone,” Tony said. “But we know that.”

  “The other issue are the security cameras,” Gregor said. “Did they get fixed, by the way? Did somebody come in here and clean them off.”

  “The city is getting around to it,” Tony Monteverdi said dryly.

  “Wonderful,” Gregor said. “Then I can stay in the present tense. The security cameras along this corridor were all working properly, right down to the one just in front of the restrooms. But the one after that, and all the security cameras leading down to Martha Handling’s chambers, and all the ones in the two corridors leading from Martha Handling’s chambers to the back door where the judge’s parking lot is, and the one at the back door that is supposed to catch whoever’s coming in or going out of the building that way, all those have had their lenses spray-painted with black paint. That means that anybody could walk past the restrooms into the corridors beyond without being spotted, and anyone could walk in through the back door and to the judges’ chambers without being spotted. So far, so good?”

  “You gave us this speech before,” Ray Berle said.

  “I gave it to you, I didn’t give it to everybody,” Gregor said. “I didn’t give it to Father Tibor here, for instance. I just want to make sure we’re all clear.”

  “For God’s sake, Krekor,” Tibor said. “We’re all clear.”