Act of Darkness(71)

Of course, Gregor thought, Victoria Harte was not solidly, habitually rich. Her behavior in the matter of security systems had to be either bravado or egoism. Whatever it had been, it was turning out to be a mistake. Maybe it was because the town was full of tourists. Maybe it was because the rain had made everyone, local and tourist alike, a little crazy. Maybe it was simple bad manners. It could have been anything, but it was definitely frightening. And it was getting worse.

Earlier, when the first police car had arrived and the trouble was just starting, Victoria had come out onto the portico to stand beside Gregor and look the situation over. He had expected her to be annoyed, or angry, or fearful, or maybe even saddened because her son-in-law was dead. She had been none of these things. Standing there with her jade green caftan blowing opulently in the wind, with her hair on top of her head and her hands covered with rings, with that great ruby heart like a splash of blood high on her left shoulder, she had looked like herself playing the Queen Mother in a movie about Eleanor of Aquitaine. She had certainly looked like the Victoria Harte the magazines called The Last of the Movie Stars.

“Well,” she had told him, pointing up the drive, “there they are. Sometimes I wonder if there are people like that everywhere in the country, or if there’s just that one small crowd of them, and they happen to follow me around.”

“Do you have any men on this estate who could be used to beef up the security at the gate?” Gregor asked.

“No.”

“You ought to call some in if you know where to get them,” he said gently. “That’s a bad situation out there. It’s going to get ugly in no time at all.”

“The ugly situation is back in there.” Victoria tossed her head in the direction of the house. “All of them sitting around sniping at each other, trying to implicate each other, trying to do anything but make sense. Except for Janet, of course. Janet is a saint.”

“She does keep her head better than most of them.”

“She always has. Even when I was the one who was getting crazy and she was the one who was being a child. Don’t you think it’s strange that Dan Chester hasn’t kept his head at all?”

“I don’t know that he hasn’t.”

“I do. I’ve known him for many years, Mr. Demarkian, and I know he’s panicking. And I think it’s funny.”

“Ms. Harte, right now I don’t think anything is funny.”

Victoria pulled her caftan closer to her, holding it across her body with an arm Gregor saw was also covered with jewelry, this time an endless column of narrow bangle bracelets studded with stones. Gregor hadn’t seen them before because they were on the arm away from him and hidden by the caftan’s sleeve. He watched her look down on them and shake them, making them rattle.

“Well,” she said, “I never did think you had much of a sense of humor.”

Then she turned around, marched back through the doors, and disappeared.

Now it was twenty minutes later, and Gregor was still standing under the portico, looking down the drive and across the great front lawn to the gate. The sky had begun to clear. The faint light of the emerging sun made the hoods of the police cars parked in the drive, five in all, look shiny. Down by the road, there was a scene from a different movie: the poor people of Paris storming the Bastille. It was remarkable how many of them had managed to show up in such a short time. Another police car was parked there, blocking the entrance. The two officers who belonged in it were out on the road, trying to reason with anybody they could get to listen to them, which was probably no one at all. The crowd was getting restless. They wanted to get onto the lawn and see what was happening for themselves. Any minute now, they were going to realize that the walls that flanked the gate were useless. Even an out-of-shape middle-aged man could get up and over them.

Gregor pushed hair out of his face—the sun might be coming up, but the temperature wasn’t rising; there was a hard wind blowing and he was cold—and cursed himself for not being the kind of man who watched the evening news. He had no idea how the death of Kevin Debrett had been reported. He had no idea how much had leaked out about who was here this weekend or what was going on. All he did know was what had caused this mess they were stuck with now, and that was CB radios. Some half-wit of a dispatcher must have sent an all-too-explicit call out on the police band.

Henry Berman had gotten out of his car and started for the portico. Gregor looked first at the police chief and then back at the gate again. There were people down there, he saw, who were carrying small American flags, and others who seemed to be wearing party hats. It made him feel as cold as he’d ever felt looking into the eyes of Theodore Robert Bundy.