A Great Day for the Deadly(72)

“So,” he said, sure he had started off that way in his unsuccessful attempt just a moment ago. “Did she tell you what Don Bollander told you?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

“It was very interesting information,” Gregor said. “And, of course, he was telling the truth. He wouldn’t have been killed if he hadn’t been telling the truth.”

Glinda jumped, shuddering under his hand. Sam held on tight. “But I thought we just agreed,” she said. “He couldn’t have been telling the truth. There wasn’t enough time.”

“He was mistaken on a couple of points,” Demarkian said, “but he was telling the truth as he knew it. I wish it wasn’t Saturday. I’d like to go over and take a look at that bank.” He considered it. “Not that it would make any difference, of course.”

Glinda took Sam’s hand off her wrist and moved in closer to him, so that she could whisper. “I read about this in People magazine,” she said. “They say he just suddenly knows everything and it just strikes him mute.”

“It probably just strikes him mute in front of People magazine,” Sam told her. “I’m struck mute in front of those people at least once a year.”

“I don’t know everything,” Gregor said suddenly. “I just know the structure of it.”

Sam watched in fascination as Demarkian pushed himself off the filing cabinet, found his coat lying across Glinda’s desk and shrugged it on. He seemed to be moving in a trance, his head shaking back and forth in rhythmic little arcs. He put Sam in mind of the old women in the village he had been born in back in Scotland, clucking their tongues and muttering “what a shame.” Demarkian got his gloves out of his coat pocket and put them on. Then he got his scarf untangled from his collar and began to wind it around his neck.

“I should have made the time to buy a hat,” he said absently.

Sam cleared his throat for the third time. “There’s something else,” he said. “Something that happened while I was waiting around at my place until it was time to come get Glinda. Josh Malley came to see me. Do you know who Josh Malley is?”

For some reason, this stopped Demarkian in his tracks. “Yes,” he said. “I know who Josh Malley is. What did he come to see you about?”

“Snakes,” Sam said triumphantly.

“I forgot about the snakes,” Glinda said. “It really was very odd. Josh had never been out to visit Sam before. Josh has snakes.”

“Black snakes,” Sam Harrigan said. “Harmless. Keeps them out there with a lot of other miserable animals in cages. What anyone sees in zoos is beyond me. Anyway, that woman bought him a goddamned collection. Had a lion out there until the town complained.

“He still has an ocelot,” Glinda said. “And the town only complained because you did.”

“I had the right idea, too,” Sam said. “Josh came out today to ask me if I’d tampered with his snake cages. Can you imagine that? His snake cages.”

“They were your snakes, weren’t they?” Demarkian asked him. “The ones that were found on Brigit Ann Reilly’s body?”

“That’s right,” Sam said, “but I didn’t keep them in cages. I had a nice warm burrow for them and they were hibernating before the thaw hit. Then the thaw did hit and they woke up and got out. It wouldn’t have been too hard for them to get out. I don’t know how they ended up here.”

“Fate,” Glinda said.

Sam squirmed. Demarkian was no longer in a hurry to get out the door, but his attention was wandering again. He was rubbing the side of his face and muttering to himself.

“What Josh was all worked up about,” Sam said, “was that one of his black snakes was missing. They were sleeping away like all good snakes in the winter and then when he went there this morning one of them was gone. I don’t know why he thought I might have it. Maybe he believes all herpetologists collect snakes.”

“You do collect snakes,” Glinda said, “Josh probably thought you wanted to eat one.”

“You don’t eat black snakes,” Sam said. “They taste terrible. If you want to eat a snake—”

“I don’t,” Glinda told him.

“Good thing, too,” Sam said. “I only eat the damned things on television. Did I tell you I have a beautiful pair of T-bone steaks sitting in the freezer at my house, all ready to be thawed out in the microwave?”

“Yes,” Glinda said, “you did.”

“Did you say you’d come home and let me cook you dinner?”