by Jane Haddam
Gregor opened the foam container from the Ararat. It had eggs and bacon and sausages and hash browns in it. He didn’t say anything about the fact that he had spent most of the last month or so eating salads because he missed her nagging him about it.
“Is this going to be cold?” he said.
“Give it to me and I’ll heat it up in the microwave,” Bennis said. “Although what you’ve been doing with the microwave is beyond me. It looks like the Keebler elves had a food fight in there and everything burned to a crisp.”
“I wasn’t sure I was allowed to get it wet,” Gregor said.
Bennis put the foam container in the microwave and pushed a lot of buttons. She did not turn around to give him a funny look, but Gregor thought she wanted to.
“Here’s the thing,” he said. “I don’t really believe you’d believe I couldn’t get along without you, in the physical sense. That I wouldn’t know how to run the apartment or get my clothes together in the morning.”
“That’s true.”
“So I won’t try that,” Gregor said. “But I don’t want to get along without you. I never have. So there’s that.”
“I never wanted to get along without you either,” Bennis said. “I don’t know how else to explain it. I didn’t leave because of anything you did or because I was dissatisfied with you or because the relationship was going bad. I don’t blame you for Anne Marie. Anne Marie’s only real problem was Anne Marie. I was just—I really don’t know how to explain it.”
“If you don’t know how to explain it, how do you know it won’t happen again?”
“I don’t.”
“Well,” Gregor said, “that’s a problem. Because it was upsetting. And inconvenient, I assume you’re not interested in having children—”
“Gregor, for goodness sake. I’m at the tail end of the point where I’d be able to have children, and it would be one hell of a risk to take with the health of the child.”
“I know. That was what I meant. I assume you aren’t interested in having children, or we’d have had one by now. So there’s no risk you’d walk out on a child—”
“I wouldn’t anyway,” Bennis said. “I’ve got some sense of responsibility. Some people think I have a significant sense of responsibility.”
“My problem is that I want you to have a sense of responsibility to me,” Gregor said. “I do have one to you. I know I do because the first thing I thought when you left was that you were in some kind of trouble. I was scared to death.”
“I left you a note.”
“Yes, you did,” Gregor said, “but the note could have been an attempt to get me not to worry. Which would have failed, by the way. Or it could have been written under duress. Which, given your history and your really bad taste in picking up acquaintances, wasn’t out of the question either.”
“You thought I was in trouble with the Mafia?”
“Why not? You’ve gone out with rock stars with arrest records that make most of the Gotti family look like saints.”
“Used to,” Bennis said. “I haven’t ‘gone out’ with anybody at all since I started this thing with you.”
“What thing?”
“What do you mean, ‘what thing’?”
“Just that,” Gregor said. “What thing? What is this thing? What do we call it. And don’t call it a ‘relationship.’ The word makes me crazy. I’d like to know what we are to each other.”
“I did ask you to marry me,” Bennis said.
“Technically, you suggested we should get married. That’s not quite the same thing. But I’ve got you on that one because I asked you first. A couple of years ago.”
“I didn’t turn you down.”
“You didn’t accept me either,” Gregor said. “You’ve turned neurosis into an art form. I don’t understand why we can’t just come to some kind of resolution. You tell me what all this was about, and it was about something, Bennis, not hand me that nonsense about it being something you can’t put your finger on. Tell me what it was about, what sent you away for months, and why you’re sure it won’t happen again. Then we’ll get married and honeymoon somewhere where they don’t have murders.”
“You’ve got tickets to Saint Peter’s gate?”
“I was thinking something more like Maui. I can go in disguise. I’m really not kidding around, Bennis. There’s got to be some way that you can just tell me what’s wrong here. If it’s something to do with me, I’ll see if I can fix it.”
Bennis was standing in the middle of the kitchen, her hand still resting on the door of the microwave. The microwave had beeped. His food was ready. She didn’t seem to have heard it. She didn’t seem to be moving.
“Are you going to feed me?” Gregor asked.
Bennis looked at him. “I had a breast cancer scare,” she said.
“What?”
“I had a breast cancer scare,” she said. “I found a lump in my breast, and I didn’t say anything because those can be lots of things, and they’re not necessarily cancer. So I had a biopsy, and the biopsy was inconclusive. So the doctor thought the best idea was for me to have it out. And it wasn’t anything, Gregor. It wasn’t. It wasn’t even a cyst. But I know how you feel about women and cancer. And I didn’t want to—. I don’t know. I was afraid you’d hate it. Hate me for it. Something. I was afraid we’d never be the same with each other again.”
2
By the time Gregor got to Rob Benedetti’s office, he felt a little as if he had been blown to South America in a hurricane. Everything looked the same, but nothing was. Bennis had it wrong on at least two counts. He didn’t hate her, and he didn’t hate the idea of seeing her. There was just a part of him that didn’t believe that there were such things as cancer “scares.” There was cancer, but that was something else again.
He had none of the computer printout information that had been on his kitchen table when he woke up this morning. He did have the chart he had made in the evidence room the day before, with a couple of notes. He looked around and saw that it promised to be a better day than the one before, if only because it wasn’t raining.
It was, however, getting colder. This had been the worst winter for getting colder.
He went up in the elevator and down the hall without bothering to go through the rigamarole required by security. Security knew him by now. He got to Rob’s office and was waved through by a young woman he had never seen before. If he didn’t know it was impossible, he’d think Rob went through secretaries the way a man with a cold went through Kleenex.
Rob and three men he didn’t recognize were standing around Rob’s desk, looking at what seemed to be even more printouts.
“Oh, thank God,” Rob said. “These two are Kevin O’Shea and Ed Fabereaux. They’re taking over from Marty and Cord.”
“Hi,” the tall one said.
“Hi,” the other one said.
Gregor wondered which was which and let it go.
“We’ve been over and over these things,” Rob said. “We’ve looked for everything you told us to. We got Betty and Martha to run more computer searches. What’s all this supposed to be in aid of?”
“Sometimes it helps to know where the similarities are,” Gregor said, “and the connections. For instance, Arlene Treshka, Sarajean Petrazik, and Elizabeth Bray were all clients of Dennis Ledeskis. And Elyse Martineau was his secretary.”
“Assistant,” the tall one said. Then he blushed. “We don’t call them secretaries any more; we call them assistants. They prefer it. Or they get upset.”
“Thing is, nobody intelligent wants to be a secretary since women’s lib,” the other one said. “So we changed the name.”
Gregor decided that the two of them weren’t fighting, which automatically made them better than Marty and Cord, but beyond that he wasn’t willing to go.
“There’s something else they were,” Gregor said patiently. “They were all residents of apartments in buildings owned by Green Point.”
“Oh, so were a
couple of the others,” Rob said. “I mean, I didn’t check that, you didn’t say anything, but I know because I know the buildings. Rondelle Johnson was one. So was Debbie Morelli. So was Faith Anne Fugate. So was this one, now that I think of it.”
“This one?” Gregor said.
“The woman from the house on Curzon Street where we found all the bodies,” the tall one said.
“Skeletons,” the other one corrected.
“There was one body,” the tall one said.
Gregor cleared his throat. “One body and the skeletons of several more,” he said. “Where did the skeletons come from?”
“Oh, they were there,” Rob said. “You were right about that. Back in the Depression there was a church behind that house, and it had a graveyard. As far as we could find out, they just razed the church and built right over the graveyard. I think they were supposed to move things, but it was a different era. People cut corners.”
“Which leaves the body,” Gregor said. “I take it you’ve found out who and when.”
“Who and approximately when,” Rob said, “and that gives us a very interesting piece of information. The who is a woman named Beatrice Morgander. She rented an apartment in the house for three years, and then things seemed to have gone to hell. She had a nephewT who wras a drug addict. He’d show up every once in a while and beat her up until he could get her money. He’d make a lot of noise and break things. The other residents would complain.”
“It didn’t look like the kind of building,” Gregor said, “where that sort of thing is unknown. In fact, in that neighborhood, I’d expect there was quite a lot of trouble with drug addiction and casual violence.”
“Oh, there is,” Rob said. “But according to Kathleen Conge, the supervisor—”
“I met her,” Gregor said.
“Yes,” Rob said, “well.”
“We met with her,” the tall one said. “She thinks the perpetrator is one of the tenants, Bennie Durban. And he’s missing.”
“Alleged perpetrator,” the other one said.
Gregor rubbed his forehead. “She told me about Bennie Durban that night when I wasn’t wasting my time fighting with Marty Gayle. But about Beatrice Morgander.”
“Yes,” Rob said. “Well, here it is. There was the nephew, but Beatrice her-self was something of a pain in the ass. She picked fights with other tenants. She left her garbage in the halls. She paid rent when she felt like it. Kathleen Conge did what she could to get her to fly right; but when it didn’t work, she called the office and complained.”
“Why didn’t she just evict her?”
“The city has laws on who you can evict and why,” Rob said. “They’re not as bad as New York’s, and they don’t mean landlords have to keep impossible tenants, but the bigger landlords want to be careful because once they get hit they could find their entire operation under the microscope. And, quite frankly, most of them couldn’t survive it. Anyway, before she evicted anybody, Kathleen Conge had to inform the front office and explain her reasons and get an okay.”
“And did she?” Gregor asked.
“Yes,” Rob said. “She did. I called the office and asked. I—”
“Who did you ask?” Gregor asked.
“Oh,” Rob said. “I don’t remember. Somebody called the legal compliance officer? He’s got a title like that. Anyway, Kathleen Conge called, laid out her case, asked for the okay to evict, and got it. But she didn’t evict because Beat-rice Morgander was gone. By the time Kathleen Conge got to her door to tell her to go, there was no sign of her. She’d left her clothes and most of her other stuff in the apartment and just disappeared.”
“And we have to presume she was dead,” Gregor said.
“Oh, definitely,” Rob said. “The times fit with what the medical examiner is telling us. Just about a year ago in late February. But here’s the thing. That lets Henry Tyder out completely, at least on this one.”
“Does it,” Gregor said.
“Yes, it does,” Rob said. “And I’ve double-checked this. During the week Beatrice Morgander disappeared, and the medical examiner thinks she probably died, Henry Tyder was in a sanatorium in Bedford Hills drying out for the three thousandth time. His sisters put him there after we released him, after we’d picked him up for the murder of Conchita Estevez.”
“Excellent,” Gregor said.
“I don’t think this is excellent,” the tall one said. “This is a mess. All these women murdered, and the prime suspect turns out to have a perfect alibi.”
“Maybe he snuck out,” the other one said. “A sanatorium isn’t maximum security.”
Gregor was tired of standing up. He gestured to the chair behind Rob’s desk, got the nod, and sat down. Then he pulled the piece of paper with the chart on it out of his pocket and put it down on his desk.
“Here it is,” he said. “Here’s what you actually have: Sarajean Petrazik, Conchita Estevez, Beatrice Morgander, Rondelle Johnson, Faith Anne Fugate, Elizabeth Bray, and Arlene Treshka.”
“About half the women,” Rob said. “A little more.”
“The women actually murdered by your serial killer,” Gregor said. “Elyse Martineau was murdered by Dennis Ledeski. Debbie Morelli is a possible for the serial killer list, but I doubt it. The timing isn’t right.”
“What’s timing got to do with it?” the tall one asked.
“Serial killers tend to strike in patterns,” Gregor said. “The almost universal pattern is for the murders to be widely spaced in the beginning, then to come at closer and closer intervals over time. That’s not always true, but I’ve never known a case where a serial killer sped up and then slowed down again unless there was an external reason for the slowdown—he ended up in prison for something else, for instance, or he had to go to the hospital—and there’s nothing like that here. So we’ll keep her off.”
“If Dennis Ledeski really did kill Elyse Martineau,” Rob said, “then did what’s his name, the guy we pulled in for Debbie Morelli—”
“Kill her?” Gregor said. “That would be Alexander Mark, the one who was working as Dennis Ledeski’s assistant in order to nail him. No. I think I can say confidently that Alexander might have murdered Ledeski if push came to shove, but he wouldn’t have murdered a middle-aged woman he barely knew. Part of your problem is the records. Marty and Cord were called in every time there was a suspicion that a case belonged to the Plate Glass Killer, and they don’t seem ever to have said no. The bigger the case, the more glory they stood to get from it, assuming they could ever get their partner to resign or die. You’re going to have to have somebody go through all these cases, one by one, and figure out just why each one was assigned to the Plate Glass Killer. Some of them are going to be so cold by now, I don’t know if you’ll ever straighten them out.”
“Okay,” Rob said. “I see that. But you don’t get it yet. Henry Tyder could not have killed Beatrice Morgander. We’re not talking about psychology either. He couldn’t have done it; he was locked up at the time. Henry Tyder isn’t the Plate Glass Killer.”
“You never thought he was,” Gregor said.
“No, I didn’t,” Rob said. “But that was before all this, and he bolted; and his sister seems to be missing in action with him. And if that isn’t indicative of guilt, I don’t know—”
The office door opened and the young woman from the anteroom stuck her head in.
“Mr. Benedetti?” she said. “There’s a call for Detectives O’Shea and Fabereaux. It’s something about a break-in.”
3
It was not that Gregor Demarkian was lost in Philadelphia. He had grown up in Philadelphia, and he’d been living here, since his formal retirement from the FBI, for nearly a decade. It was just that he had a terrible sense of direction, and that he tended not to remember places he was not going to on a regular basis. He would visit a part of the city that was new to him, it would become part of a case, and he would visit it over and over again. He would become familiar with it. Then the case
would be over; he wouldn’t have to go back there again for months; he would forget all about it. When the time came to find it again, he would be lost.
In this case he was dealing with parts of the city he had never seen at all, not even in the days before he had been an adult and on his way out of here. He wasn’t even sure if all these sections had existed when he was growing up. There was the problem caused by the fifties, when the city almost seemed to collapse and so many people moved out to the suburbs. It seemed as if “city planners” had spent a decade putting up concrete overpasses and burying neighborhoods under them. Then there was the problem of the nineties, when immigration had stopped meaning Italians and Greeks and started meaning an entire collection of refugees from places he’d never heard about in school: Vietnamese, Thais, Cambodians, Albanians. If Gregor Demarkian had tried to put all these people into order, he’d have ended up with a hash.
“I don’t get it,” Rob said, as they waited for his assistant to bring in a city map. “I thought you said that that call was important. If it’s important, why aren’t Kevin and Ed here going out to talk to this guy?”
“They will go out and talk to this guy,” Gregor said. “I’ll go with them. But I want to see the map first. The map is important.”
“Gregor, for God’s sake,” Rob said. “I told you. Henry Tyder cannot be guilty of these murders. At least, he can’t be guilty of the ones on that list because he can’t have killed Beatrice Morgander. What do you think you’re trying to do?”
“Settle something in my mind,” Gregor said.
There was a knock on the door, and Rob’s assistant came in carrying a map. “This is the biggest one I could find,” she said. “I had to go down to the corner to get it. If you want to go over to Police Headquarters, they’ve got a wall map there that’s bigger, but for something you can put out on the desk, this is it.”
“Thank you,” Gregor said, taking the map. “This will do fine.”
He spread the map out on the desk and looked at it. “The trick,” he said, “is to be able to see the pattern whole. Did you bring those pins?”
