A Stillness in Bethlehem(30)

Gregor wanted to go back to the hotel and sleep, but he figured he could fight that out with the two of them later. Now he stood up, stretched a little and said, “I’ll be right back. You two have a good time.”

“Us two can use your input,” Bennis said pointedly. “It might be nice if we knew what you wanted to do.”

“Surprise me.”

“Fine,” Bennis said. “I think the Druids used to celebrate the winter solstice by getting dead drunk and dancing naked around a bonfire. Maybe we’ll do that.”

“We will do no such thing,” Tibor said. “Bennis, you must not say such things. Not unless you mean them.”

“You mean you wouldn’t mind if I meant them?”

“Krekor—”

“I’ll be right back,” Gregor said again.

Bennis started to say something else, but Gregor slipped past her. With anybody else, he would have been worried that she would sit staring after him, thereby discovering that he was not on his way to the place he had implied he was on his way to. With Bennis, he didn’t worry at all. He knew she would throw herself right back into the job of planning every minute of Tibor’s day as soon as he was out of voice range.

Gregor rounded the artificial island created by the potted evergreens and came to a stop in front of the small table where his waitress was still sitting with her friend. They both looked up at him at the same time and paused politely in their talking. Gregor hesitated. When he’d been an agent for the Bureau, he’d had a set of credentials that provided him with a reason to question total strangers. Since his retirement, his involvement in various criminal cases had usually been accompanied by authorization of one kind or another from the local authorities. Now he not only didn’t have credentials or authorizations, he didn’t even have a crime. He had no idea why he wanted to ask the questions he wanted to ask. He simply felt a compelling need to ask them.

His waitress—Faith, if he remembered correctly—started to rise from her seat.

“Could I get you something?” she asked him. “Was there something you forgot to order?”

“No, no,” Gregor said. “Sit down. I’m just—ah—yes. So. I’m just being nosy.”

“Of course you are,” the other waitress said. “I told you, Faith. He looks just like his picture in the paper.”

“It was a week ago when I saw his picture in the paper. I didn’t really look at it. Crime isn’t my thing.”

“It isn’t my thing either, but I looked at the picture.” The other waitress gave Gregor a big smile. “You are Gregor Demarkian, aren’t you? The one in the paper?”

“Yes,” Gregor said. “Yes, I am.”

“Are you investigating a crime?” Faith asked. “That seems like such an odd thing to say about this place. Investigating a crime. There isn’t any crime here.”

“There were those hunting accidents,” the other waitress said.

Faith crinkled her nose. “It’s not the same thing. You know what I mean. There isn’t any crime.”

“I’m not investigating a crime anyway,” Gregor told them. “I’m just being impossibly nosy.”

“And you came all the way up to Bethlehem, Vermont, to do it?” Faith looked skeptical.

“I came all the way up to Bethlehem, Vermont, to see the Nativity Celebration,” Gregor said. “I really am just being nosy. About some people I saw having an argument down on Main Street near the newspaper building. I’ve got no good reason for wanting the information at all.”

“You mean you want to gossip,” Faith said, laughing. “Sure. Go ahead. We gossip all the time. Ginny was born here, but I came out just for the year—”

“We’re both taking a year off from Middlebury College,” Ginny said.

“—and we spend most of our time talking about the people, because I can’t stand not being filled in. What do you want to know?”

Gregor glanced back at his own table, but there was nothing to worry about. Bennis and Tibor were still bent over the brochure, and Bennis had started to write on paper napkins. Once Bennis started writing on paper napkins, she was occupied until someone came along to distract her. Gregor turned back to Faith and Ginny and described the scene on Main Street in as much detail as possible, including his impressions of both women and his instinctive distrust of the man.

“Well,” Faith said when he had finished. “Your friend was right. The small blonde woman is Candy George. She is playing Mary this year.”

“The taller one is Cara Hutchinson,” Ginny said. “She was two years behind me in high school—in fact both of them were—but Cara is a big deal. Vice president of her class. Honor student. On the debate team. Candy is—”