A Stillness in Bethlehem(44)
Whatever he did do passed muster. Sharon looked at Maria and Maria looked back, and there was a recognizable easing of tension in the room. Maria went back to getting the sweater down from the dummy, and Sharon took the seat behind the table.
“The problem is,” Maria said, “everybody already knows you’re here, and it’s such a surprise. I mean, it would have been less of a big deal if you’d registered at the Inn under your own name.”
“I didn’t register at the Inn at all,” Gregor said. “Bennis registered. Do you want some help getting that over the top?”
“I’m fine.” Maria had kicked a stepstool into place and was climbing on it. “It’s just that Peter Callisher made such a big deal about that Thanksgiving thing, with your picture all over the paper three weeks running and all these gory details he kept picking up from his friends in Boston and New York.”
“And then there were the shootings,” Sharon said.
“So when you showed up, it looked like a conspiracy.” Maria draped the sweater over her arm and headed back for the table. Gregor got out his wallet and began searching for his Visa card. Maria put the sweater down and got out a sales-slip book. “It really does look like a conspiracy,” she continued, “especially since everybody in town knows that Franklin Morrison has always been a big fan of yours—Franklin Morrison is the chief of police.”
“I know,” Gregor said. “That’s what I’m doing here. I’m going down to the police station to visit. Invited.”
Sharon cocked her head. “Are you here to investigate the shootings?”
“No.” Gregor handed over his credit card. “I’m here to give a friend of mine a vacation, and myself a vacation, and Bennis Hannaford a chance to nag. From what I’ve heard of your shootings, I tend to think the state police were right.”
“You mean that they were hunting accidents.” Sharon frowned.
Maria spread tissue paper across the top of the table. “The sweater you’re buying was made by one of the women who died,” she said. “Dinah Ketchum. She was eighty-something. Best handwork artist in all this part of Vermont. She did quilts, too.”
“She has some still on sale over at the Celebration,” Sharon said. “Last year she sold an eight-by-seven wedding quilt for fifteen hundred dollars.”
“All the people who make this sort of thing and do it right are old ladies,” Maria said. “Part of that’s the experience—the more of it you do, the better you get at it. Nobody’s going to be able to make a sweater like this one at twenty. But part of it’s the patience. Women now don’t seem to have the patience. I don’t have the patience.”
“It paid off for Dinah,” Sharon pointed out. She looked up at Gregor. “Jan-Mark Verek was absolutely obsessed with her stuff. Usually you only get really big prices during the tourist invasions—Christmas for the Celebration, July and August with people on vacations, sometimes winter if the snow’s been good and we have some overflow from the ski places. Dinah could get what she wanted any time at all. If she made it, Jan-Mark would buy it.”
“He said he painted them, but you couldn’t tell from what came out,” Maria said. “I mean, he’s very abstract and very postmodernist.”
“In fact, he’s probably crazy.” Sharon nodded. “That’s the big theory in town, you know. That Jan-Mark shot Tisha and got rid of the gun.”
“Just Tisha?” Gregor asked. “Not Dinah Ketchum?”
“People think the police were right about Dinah Ketchum,” Maria said. “She was way far out in the middle of nowhere, and Jan-Mark couldn’t have gotten to her. Besides, she wasn’t shot with the same gun.”
“She wasn’t that far out,” Sharon insisted. “Everybody here is always talking about how far away things are, but they aren’t. This isn’t Wyoming.”
“Well, Jan-Mark was standing in the living room of his own house not ten minutes after Tisha was shot, looking at her bleeding to death in the driveway and not doing a damned thing when Stu and Peter showed up. I don’t care how close Dinah was, Jan-Mark couldn’t have gotten to her and back in time.”
“You’re acting like this is Mystery Theater,” Sharon said. “Timetables and who could have been where when. Life isn’t like that. In life, things just happen. Isn’t that right, Mr. Demarkian?”
“Mmm,” Gregor Demarkian said.
The sweater was wrapped in tissue paper and deposited in a bag. The bag was blue and gold and had twined gold handles to carry it with. Gregor put his credit card back in his wallet.