“Do you find that possibility out of the question?”
Gregor didn’t answer her. He didn’t find it out of the question, but he wasn’t fond of it as an explanation, either. Anyone who thought it through for two minutes could come up with a timetable, and it went like this: first Stephen Whistler Fox had announced the Act in Aid of Exceptional Children; then the attacks had started; then the seminar, supposedly concerning the act, had started; then Kevin Debrett had died. Gregor was sure the act had to be tied up in all this somewhere, but Victoria had just said Patchen Rawls wasn’t interested in it. Gregor agreed with her. From their brief conversation of the night before, Gregor had his doubts that Patchen was interested in much of anything corporeal.
His own coffee was drained to a stain at the bottom of his cup, so he got up and got some more. The coffee was as hot as it had been before. He thought idly that the urn must be electrically heated, run on batteries so cleverly concealed he couldn’t guess where they might be.
“Tell me something,” he said, sitting down again. “Do you know anything about Clare Markey?”
“Clare Markey? Why would I?”
“She’s a guest in your house.”
“She’s Dan Chester’s guest. She happens to be in my house.”
“All right. But she’s in an odd position here, as far as I can tell. She and Dr. Debrett were the two most concerned with the act the senator is sponsoring, the two who could be described as being here because of the act. But Dr. Debrett was a long-time friend of the family. Clare Markey is a stranger.”
“Are you including Patchen Rawls among the friends of the family?”
“Her interests here are personal, Ms. Harte, yes. Clare Markey’s interests, at least on the surface, are totally professional.”
Victoria Harte waved a languid hand in the air. “I’m sure they are,” she said. “I can’t imagine that woman has much of a personal life. Of course, in my day women didn’t run off to become political lobbyists, but careers are careers. I know how you get to the top very fast and very young. I did it myself. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear she got her sexual kicks here and there, but I would be surprised if she had any kind of committed relationship. She wouldn’t have time.”
“To your knowledge she’s never been close to any of the people here? Dr. Debrett? Dan Chester?”
Victoria’s smile this time was swift, sharp, and vicious. “She hasn’t even been close to my son-in-law, and that couldn’t be said for half a dozen women in Washington.”
“What about the act? Was she in involved with it in any way? Did she help write it? Did she think it up?”
“Dan Chester thought it up, Mr. Demarkian. Dan thinks everything up. And no, I don’t think Clare Markey had anything to do with it. If she had, it wouldn’t have been written the way it was. Not that that’s carved in stone at this point, you understand.”
“How was the act written?”
“If you mean what’s in it, at the moment a lot of stuff about competency exams for the teachers of the mentally retarded, and payment schedules that give more money to doctors than to day-care workers, and that kind of thing. It’s really a clinic bill, a bill for specialists. Clare Markey works for a union of day-care workers and teachers who specialize in taking care of retarded children. They don’t like this bill at all, the way it is.”
“Do many retarded children need that sort of thing? Specialists and clinics?”
“That, Mr. Demarkian, is beside the point.”
Gregor had been afraid of that. “I take it Dr. Debrett did like this bill, the way it was written.”
“Oh, yes,” Victoria agreed. “I’m sure he liked it very much. I’m sure he was consulted. He was consulted about everything else. He and Dan and Stephen have always been very close.”
“What about you and your daughter? Were you consulted?”
“No.” Victoria had been holding her coffee cup in her hand. Now she put it down in its saucer with a thump. “The first we heard of that bill was the night before it was announced in the press. I said announced in and not announced to because that’s the way they did it to us. First they told the Washington Post what they were going to do. Then Stephen came home and had a little talk with Janet. He knew how she’d feel. He knew I’d be furious.”
“Why?”
“Because we both hate hypocrites, Mr. Demarkian, and a hypocrite is exactly what Stephen’s being with this act. Good Lord, he cares less about retarded children than Patchen Rawls. He doesn’t even think they’re human.”