Henry Berman was still out under the portico. He turned to Carl Bettinger and said, “You ought to take a little advice. You ought to make yourself invisible. You ought to disappear. Because if you don’t, I’m going to make you disappear myself.”
[2]
Of course, Carl Bettinger didn’t disappear. Gregor didn’t expect him to. He was behaving much too much like a man who wanted to, but couldn’t. The uniformed patrolman wouldn’t have let him, anyway. If this was a murder, there was no way of knowing where Bettinger had been when it happened or what connection he might have to the fact that it had happened. Gregor watched him out of the corner of his eye, and saw that Bettinger first followed him inside, and then tried to melt into the small clutch of people waiting in the living room space. It didn’t quite work. As far as Gregor could tell, of the people inside, only Dan Chester knew who Bettinger was. The rest of them didn’t even want to. Gregor thought they thought Bettinger was a spy.
Out on the drive, the vans were arriving, clattering and screeching, their drivers playing games with their brakes because it was safe here, on private property, where no one would see them. Berman shot a look in the direction of the noise and then turned his attention to the crowd in the living room space. Most of them, Gregor thought, he recognized: Victoria Harte, Stephen Fox, Patchen Rawls, even Janet Harte Fox. On some of them, Berman drew a blank. Neither Dan Chester nor Clare Markey meant anything to him. It was Bennis who caused him the most confusion. He thought she was familiar, but she wasn’t. He thought he ought to know who she was, but he didn’t. He stared in her direction for a full minute and then started to shake his head.
Bennis blushed. “Excuse me. Have we met? I’m Bennis Day Hannaford.”
Gregor winced. Bennis only used her full name like that—Bennis Day Hannaford—when she was either very nervous or very angry, and she wasn’t angry. While he had been outside, she had gone through another sea change. Her sea changes were beginning to make him crazy. Upstairs, she had been bouncing off what had happened to her family, reliving the things she was most afraid to face. Now she was jumpy and afraid in an entirely different way, and Gregor didn’t like it. If she’d been anyone but Bennis, he’d have thought she looked—guilty.
If Berman noticed any of this, he gave no indication. At the sound of Bennis’s name his face lit up, and he began nodding his head instead of shaking it. “That’s right,” he said. “I thought you looked familiar. Swords and sorceries.”
“Exactly,” Bennis said.
“There was a story about you in Parade magazine one Sunday. Had your picture on the cover. You don’t photograph so well.”
“No,” Bennis said. “I never did.”
“I photograph like an orangutan,” Dan Chester said. “What does that have to do with anything anyway? Who are you people?”
Henry Berman turned his attention from Bennis and focused on Dan Chester instead. Gregor noted with satisfaction that Chester did not seem to be pleased.
“I,” Henry Berman said, “am chief of police of Oyster Bay, Long Island. In case it’s slipped your mind, Oyster Bay, Long Island, is where you happen to be. Who are you?”
“Dan Chester,” Dan Chester said.
“We didn’t set the fireworks off on purpose,” Janet Harte Fox said, her hand reaching automatically to the pins in her hair. “They were contracted for. And then with everything that was going on I just forgot all about them you see and—”
“Stop,” Henry Berman said. “Who are you?”
“Janet Harte Fox. Mrs. Stephen Fox.”
“Fine. I know all about the fireworks, Mrs. Fox. They were arranged by the towns. They’ve been giving my people headaches for a month and now they’re giving them migraines. Which one of you people called me?”
“I did,” Bennis said.
“Fine,” Berman said again. “You called because Mr. Demarkian here asked you to?”
“That’s right,” Bennis said.
“I don’t see why he should have done that,” Patchen Rawls said. “I don’t see why we need a policeman here. He said there wasn’t anything like blood up there to make you think—”
“Shut up,” Victoria Harte said.
“We’ll find out what’s up there in a minute or two,” Berman said. He stared at the heart-shaped ruby on Victoria’s chest. Then he turned back to Bennis. “Were you the one who discovered the body?”
“No,” Bennis said. “Gregor did.”
“But you were with him?”