by Jane Haddam
He went to the door, knocked so that she’d know he was done, and turned his back so that she could put the handcuffs on. Instead, she swung the door open all the way and stepped back.
“He’s in the conference room,” she said.
Then she turned her back to him and started walking. Arthur was nonplussed. If this had been one of those movies he liked so much, this would have been a setup. She would have tricked him into following her down a corridor unbound, and then somebody would have raised the alarm that he was about to escape. Then there would have been a hail of bullets. Then he would have been dead.
She got to the elevator and pressed the button. The doors opened immediately. It had been waiting on this floor. She stepped back and waited until Arthur got inside. Then she pressed the button for the first floor and stared at the ceiling.
Arthur looked down at the thick curve of her neck. He thought again that he could take her any time he wanted to. He could leave her disabled and bloody on the floor. He could walk right over her and out and never be heard from again, except that there were all those other people around, and some of them had guns.
The elevator door bounced open. She stepped out into yet another corridor. Arthur stepped out after her. This corridor was full of desks and people, not prisoners but officers. They looked at him with interest as he came walking out, and as soon as he passed Arthur could hear the low murmuring of whispered conversations.
The little Hispanic woman went to the third door on the left and said, “He’s in there.”
Then she waited until he opened the door and went inside.
The room he walked into was largish. There was a big conference table in the middle of it, with chairs all around. His legal aid attorney was sitting in one of them, holding tightly to a stack of folders he had pulled out of a briefcase. Arthur tried to remember the kid’s name, but he couldn’t. He looked like he might be twenty-two.
“Well,” he said, when Arthur walked in. “Sit down. Sit down. This is a development.”
Arthur sat down and folded his hands in front of him “What’s a development?”
“This is,” the lawyer said. “Didn’t they tell you? They’re dropping the charges against you for killing your wife.”
“What?”
“They’re dropping the charges against you for killing your wife,” the lawyer repeated. “And that changes everything, of course. It even changes the bail situation. They’ll never be able to hold you on remand now. They might have, of course, if they weren’t dropping one set of charges, but now with this—”
“Why?” Arthur asked carefully. “Why are they dropping the charges against me for killing my wife?”
The lawyer laid his hands flat on the conference table and sighed. “I don’t actually know,” he said, “but I’ve heard rumors. I’ve heard lots of them. We’ll know for sure when we go into court, and that’s in less than half an hour, so I want you to be ready. But the rumors are that the DNA evidence came back and the other body they found wasn’t your wife’s at all.”
Arthur considered this. “They had DNA from my wife?”
“I don’t know,” the lawyer said. “I suppose they must have. Mr. Heydreich, really, it doesn’t matter right now. We can get to all that later when we’ve got a little time. What matters now is that we go into that hearing and if they insist on charging you for the murder of Michael Platte, then we get bail for you on that. I’m pretty sure that’s more than perfectly doable. The judge is old Nancy Kildare, and she’s got no patience with prosecutors as it is. So just get yourself into some kind of a good mental zone and let’s go in there and get you out of here for good. Then you can get home and get back to some kind of real life.”
Arthur thought of saying that he would not be able to get back to any kind of real life until somebody else was caught and charged and convicted of the murder of Michael Platte, at least, but he did not say that. He only wondered where the police thought his wife was now.
2
LizaAnne Marsh had gone into a state of nearly apoplectic mourning on the day she’d heard that Michael Platte had died, but it had been a month now, and it was getting harder to keep her focus. She was still really angry about what had happened to Michael, of course, and beyond furious at all those ridiculous stories about how he was having an affair with Martha Heydreich. It was ludicrous to think that somebody like Michael would have had an affair with somebody as old and ugly and extreme as that woman, when he could have had any girl he wanted in Waldorf Pines. He could have had LizaAnne herself. She knew he was interested. If he’d lived, it would have been just a matter of time before they had something going, and it would have been something a lot more attractive than anything he could have had with that stupid shrieking cunt. People just said things like that because they liked to sound as if they knew things.
LizaAnne was in her bedroom. Stretched out across her bedspread she had two hundred and twenty little thumbnail photographs, one for each of the members of the senior class of Pineville Station Senior High School. She loved having these pictures, because they made everything so much easier. Before this year, she’d had to get along with nothing but pens and pencils and notebooks. Even the computer hadn’t been much help. Now she could actually see what she was looking at. That made all the difference.
Heather was in the bathroom, running the water in the sink far too long. Heather always ran the water in the sink far too long, and she took too long looking at herself in the vanity mirror, too. Heather didn’t have a bathroom for her own bedroom at home. Heather’s parents thought that would be “spoiling” her. As far as LizaAnne was concerned, Heather’s parents were too retarded for words.
The water turned off in the sink. The swoosh of the air dryer went on. LizaAnne actually hated the air dryer, but so many of the people who came over were impressed with it, she didn’t want to ask her father to take it out.
Heather came out into the room and brushed her hair off her face. “I don’t think you’re taking this seriously,” she said. “My mother says it’s all around the club today. It’s everywhere. They’re going to let Mr. Heydreich out of jail because they don’t think he killed his wife.”
“I don’t care if he killed her,” LizaAnne said. “I don’t care who killed her. I’m only glad she’s gone. Of course, it would have been better if Michael had still been alive to enjoy being able to live a normal life without having her skulking around him all the time, but that’s the way things are. Do they still think he killed Michael?”
“I don’t know,” Heather said. “I was trying to overhear when my mother was on the phone, but you know what that’s like. She doesn’t like me listening.”
“I’ve been thinking about Kathi Colson,” LizaAnne said. “I mean, I know she was at my sweet sixteen party, but I don’t think that should be the standard. I mean, I wanted lots of people at the party, so I let in people who don’t really belong to the A group. I mean, I didn’t let in dweebs or anybody like that. I didn’t let in anybody retarded. But I think Kathi Colson belongs in the B group. Don’t you?”
Heather looked down at the tiny picture in LizaAnne’s hand, and LizaAnne found herself thinking that she had been right all along. These pictures were really wonderful. She could see the faces of everybody in the class, and once she’d seen the faces she would know who belonged where. She was so glad she’d made friends with that retarded dork on the yearbook committee. She’d never have gotten them otherwise. It didn’t matter that she’d have to invite him to a party this year. He’d figure out soon enough he wasn’t wanted, and her own popularity was unassailable. She could never be touched when it came to that.
She put the tiny picture of Kathi Colson in the pile with the B group and searched around until she found the one of Didi Webb. Didi Webb was a special case. Didi had belonged to the A group, but then things had started to happen. First Didi’s father had lost his job. Then the whole family had had to move out of Waldorf Pines, and there had even been rumors th
at the bank was about to foreclose on the house. Of course, nobody’s house was ever foreclosed on in Waldorf Pines. The club had some kind of fund that stopped that from happening, but it didn’t keep a family in the house they couldn’t pay for. It just bought the house from under them and sold it to somebody else. Didi’s family had actually packed up and moved in the middle of the night, so that nobody would see them.
At about that time, LizaAnne had moved Didi from the A group to the B group, which meant being very careful to make sure that there were no empty places at the lunch table when Didi wanted to sit down. There were musical chairs for a while, until Didi got the hint, and stopped trying. There were awkward moments in the girls’ room, too, but LizaAnne could always cover up for those by concentrating really hard on her makeup. If things had stopped there, of course, Didi would just have descended to the B group, and that would have been that.
LizaAnne put the little picture down in front of Heather and waited. Heather looked away.
“It’s not like it’s her fault,” Heather said finally. “She didn’t make her father lose his job. It was just bad luck.”
“I don’t believe in luck,” LizaAnne said. “And I don’t think anybody ever loses a job unless he’s done something wrong. I mean, think of all the things we don’t know about. Mr. Webb might be an alcoholic. Or he might gamble. And, you know, even if he did those things, not everybody who does them loses his job. And people who lose their jobs get new ones. He’s been out of a job for a year now. There has to be something wrong with him.”
“That doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with her,” Heather said.
LizaAnne brushed this away. “Of course there does,” she said. “Families count. It’s just like dogs, you know. There’s a breed, and which breed it is determines a lot of things. The Webbs are—well, there must be something wrong with them. My father says that you can fool people for a while, but in the long run it all comes out. That’s what must have happened here. Mr. Webb fooled people for a while, but now everybody knows what he is. He’s no better than a bum, really.”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s true.”
“Of course it’s true,” LizaAnne said. “And if he’s a bum, she’s a bum. But even if she wasn’t, we’d still be where we are, and that’s that she doesn’t have a car anymore. She comes to school on the bus. We’ve seen her.”
“Lots of people come to school on the bus,” Heather said.
“Of course they do,” LizaAnne said. “But they’re all in the C group or lower, and you know it. And I’m not the only one who feels that way about it, either. Didi’s been hanging around with Norma Antonelli for weeks now, and I heard Norma talking about it to Sally Carr in the girls’ room. I mean, I’m not asking for her to have some fancy car the way she used to, but practically everybody has something to drive. Even dweebs have something to drive. It’s impossible.”
“If her father is out of a job, maybe he doesn’t have enough money to get her something to drive,” Heather said. “Maybe she’d have to get a job to have something to drive.”
“Well,” LizaAnne said, “if she got a job, that would be very good. And if she got the right kind of job, she could even get back into the B group. But I think she belongs in the C group and I’m going to talk to Norma and Sally about it. If things keep going the way they’re going, she’s going to drop all the way down to D, and then nobody will talk to her. Don’t be retarded. Tell me what I’m supposed to do about Lisa Breen. She’s started dating Peter Halliday, and usually that would mean a step up, but you know Lisa. I can’t stand brainy girls, can you? I mean, who do they think they are?”
Heather went over to the window and looked out. LizaAnne stared at her back for a moment and then turned away. Heather was always a problem. She was only in the A group because she was LizaAnne’s ugly friend, and she knew it, and LizaAnne knew it, and everybody else knew it. LizaAnne had considered the possibility that it might one day be necessary to ditch her for a substitute, but she didn’t like the idea. Substitutes were actually very hard to find. You wouldn’t think so, but they were. A lot of ugly girls seemed to think it was better to be outcasts in the F group than to be some pretty girl’s ugly friend.
LizaAnne picked up Lisa Breen’s picture and frowned. Lisa wasn’t bad looking, and she had wonderful clothes, but there was the brains thing. Lisa was in all the honors classes, and in AP everything, and people said she was applying to Harvard. Nobody with any sense applied to someplace like Harvard.
Heather came back from the window and sat on the bed. “It’s true,” she said. “I just saw him.”
“Saw who?”
“I just saw Mr. Heydreich. He’s back. He just came out onto his deck. He was wearing a suit. You know, a regular suit. Not an orange suit for jail.”
LizaAnne put down the picture of Lisa Breen. “Well,” she said. “I guess that’s interesting. Although I don’t like it, and my dad doesn’t, either. It’s not nice to live in a place with a murderer.”
“But maybe he isn’t a murderer,” Heather said. “They let him go.”
“They arrested him in the first place, didn’t they? They must have had a reason. The police don’t just go running around arresting people for no reason. He must have done something.”
“Do you think so?”
“Of course I think so,” LizaAnne said. “Everybody thinks so. Besides, somebody has to have killed Michael. Everybody goes on and on about Martha Heydreich, but it was Michael’s body they found in the pool all bloody. Who do you think did that?”
“I don’t know,” Heather said.
“I do,” LizaAnne said. “There were two murders, not one. People don’t just go around murdering people like that. Especially not people in a place like Waldorf Pines. There can’t be two murderers running around. Whoever killed the one had to kill the other.”
“Maybe.”
“Absolutely. And you know what?” LizaAnne said. “I’ll bet that if I had to, I could prove it. Forget about it, won’t you? He probably has some fancy lawyer that found a technicality to get him out of jail. It happens all the time. That’s what my dad says. Just wait. He’ll be back in jail in no time. What do you think I should do about Lisa Breen?”
“What?” Heather said.
LizaAnne rolled her eyes. Heather was so retarded. Really. LizaAnne took the picture of Lisa Breen and dropped it into the C group.
“I don’t care who she’s going out with,” LizaAnne said, “she’s just retarded.”
FOUR
1
When Gregor Demarkian had first started to do the work he did now, he had not given much thought to the people he would do it for. Even the word “client” had been foreign to him. He had worked for twenty years as a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation did not have clients, and did not think well of most of the people who did. Lawyers had clients, and lawyers were always trying to get the perpetrators off, or to pretend that the perpetrators were crazy, or just filing motions because otherwise they’d get bored. Even federal prosecutors were lawyers. Their job seemed to be to tell everybody else that the case was hopeless, and that there would need to be at least another hundred man hours of scut work before they could even think of getting anything done.
Of course, when Gregor had joined the Bureau, all special agents had been required to be either lawyers or accountants, so many of the agents Gregor had known had been lawyers, too, but that somehow hadn’t seemed to count. Gregor himself had been trained as an accountant and had become a CPA before first arriving at Quantico. Once he was in training and part of the organization, nobody had ever mentioned that again.
Part of the reason Gregor had never thought about clients was the timing. He had come back to Cavanaugh Street after Elizabeth died, just after. He’d bought his apartment in a kind of daze, not really knowing where or who he wanted to be. As long as Elizabeth had still been alive and there had still been something to
do he had been “all right” in the sense of “pretty nearly functional.” It wasn’t until it had been all over for months that he’d realized that “pretty nearly functional” had been a euphemism for “just like a zombie.” Still, as long as he had doctors to talk to and a hospital to visit and medical bills to negotiate, he’d been able to get along day by day, doing the things people did, lying down in a bed he could never remember sleeping in, putting away food he could never remember eating.
At the end, he hadn’t even been living in the apartment he had shared with Elizabeth all those years. He’d put that up for sale and moved into something efficient and modern closer to the hospital, and he’d gone on leave so that he didn’t show up at the office every morning just to spend all day listening for the phone. It had been a long, bad stretch that last year. When it was over, he had not really had any idea of what he wanted to do next. He hadn’t even had any idea that there was a “next,” and coming home to Cavanaugh Street—coming home—had just seemed like something natural that might one day make sense.
Working as a consultant to police departments with difficult-to-solve murder cases had not seemed like something natural or something that might make sense, but that was because he had not thought of it at all. His very first case had been an accident and not one he’d gotten paid for. His next had been set up by friends who thought he needed something to do with his time. Then the cases had come on down the line and people had started sending him money, and it was only when old George Tekemanian’s grandson Martin had gone out on his own as an accountant that Gregor had been forced to think about making the whole situation regular. Now he had a “billing department” of sorts, and a standard hourly fee that seemed to have been concocted out of thin air. He had somebody to send people to when they asked him what he charged. He still had no handle at all on clients, or where they came from, or what they really wanted out of him. It was easy to say that what they wanted was their cases solved, but it was never that simple. If all you wanted was your case solved, you could hire somebody a lot cheaper who wouldn’t suck up all the publicity as soon as he arrived in town.
