And One to Die On(23)

Bennis got the car parked to her satisfaction, pulled her keys out of the ignition, and sighed.

“I hate leaving it out here in the open like this. I mean, there must be joyriders even in a place like Hunter’s Pier, Maine.”

Gregor looked around. “There doesn’t look like there’s much of anybody in Hunter’s Pier, Maine.”

“Don’t be snide, Gregor. People around here probably just have the sense not to build their houses too close to the ocean. Can you imagine what it’s like in the middle of a storm?”

“I don’t want to imagine it.”

Bennis got out of the car. “I’m going to talk to the attendant and see if I can’t make some kind of reasonable arrangement for the protection of this car. Why don’t you go over to the boardwalk and talk to the lady. She has to be one of us.”

Gregor thought she was too, but he was curious. “Why would you say that?”

Bennis looked disgusted. “Well, Gregor, I wouldn’t expect it’s customary for your ordinary inhabitant of Hunter’s Pier, Maine, to go running around town in a real Chanel suit. Will you get out of the car now and go make sense?”

Gregor got out of the car. He was wearing a suit, as always, although today, in deference to the weather and the venue, he had a sober navy blue sweater on under his jacket instead of a vest. He walked across the asphalt of the parking lot and stepped over the low concrete curb to the boardwalk. The trim, compact woman was watching him.

“Excuse me,” she said, in a pleasant, no-nonsense voice, as he began to walk toward her. “Are you Mr. Fenster or Mr. Pratt?”

“Neither,” Gregor said, catching up to her. “I’m Gregor Demarkian. I’m here with Bennis Hannaford.”

The trim, compact woman looked over Gregor’s shoulder, not at Bennis herself, but at Bennis’s car. “Oh, yes,” she said. “Miss Hannaford. Mr. Marsh’s relation.”

“Vaguely.”

“I’m Lydia Acken,” the trim, compact woman said, holding out her hand for him to take. “I’m very glad to meet you. I was—intrigued—when I saw your name on the final guest list.”

“There’s nothing to be intrigued about,” Gregor said firmly. “Miss Hannaford is a friend of mine. She seemed to think this situation was one that might call for moral support.”

Lydia Acken laughed. It sounded like water from a spring, clear and soft. “It probably will. I should have thought of that myself. But still, Mr. Demarkian. It is intriguing. A famous detective and investigator of murders, coming to a house of someone once accused of murder.”

“When Cavender Marsh was accused of murder, I was five years old. Quite frankly, I don’t care what he did when I was five years old. I don’t care if he butchered an entire village on the Côte d’Azur. It’s none of my business.”

“I, too, was five years old when Cavender Marsh was accused of murder,” Lydia Acken said. “We must have been born in the same year. But I grew up hearing about the case, you see. My mother was a rabid fan of Lilith Brayne’s back in the ’20s, and she went on and on and on about the death and the people involved in it. She was a very isolated woman. I suppose she didn’t have much else to do.”

Gregor saw Bennis coming out of the parking attendant’s shack. She was hiking along with her shoulder bag balanced against her back and a glum look on her face. Gregor didn’t think she’d gotten the answers she wanted out of the parking lot attendant. She stepped over the curb and came walking toward them on the boardwalk. The rubber soles of her shoes made her the only one of the three who looked really steady on her feet on the wet wood.

“Look up the road.” Bennis pointed into the air behind Lydia Acken’s left shoulder. “Look at what’s coming.”

Both Gregor and Lydia turned to see what Bennis was pointing at. At first, all Gregor saw was a blur of motion on the road. Then the blur came into focus and he realized what it was: a white-and-gold Cadillac stretch limousine, one of the custom-made extra-long ones, with whitewall tires and shiny wheel spokes plated in chrome.

“Oh, my,” Lydia Acken murmured.

At just that moment another car pulled into the parking lot, a small white Toyota Corolla with rental stickers across the back bumper. The Toyota wedged itself into one of the spaces facing the sea and came to a stop. A tall young man, very slight and very flexible, unfolded himself from behind the wheel. The young man was very Asian- and very American-looking at the same time. He also looked very hip. His straight black hair was parted at the side and seemed to sweep around his head when he moved. His tight black jeans and black leather jacket had come right out of a SoHo specialty store. New York, Gregor thought automatically, and tucked the information away in the back of his brain.