Baptism in Blood(118)

The bulb in the porch light spilled light down the steps and onto the walk. Gregor could see through the tall front windows into the living room, which was empty. There was a fire in the fireplace and a portrait of Einstein over the mantel. Gregor, Clayton Hall, and Minna Dorfman had dis­cussed it among themselves back at the police depart­ment—talking to Jackson and the men Minna had brought with her, too—and decided that descending on Stephen Harrow like an army wasn’t going to do anybody any good. The idea was not to frighten him. The idea was to give him a chance to be listened to.

Gregor climbed the porch steps and knocked on the front door. Nothing happened. He looked around for a doorbell and couldn’t find one. He knocked again. This time he heard noise from inside the house, as if someone were stumbling against the furniture, walking too fast. A moment later, he looked through the front windows and saw a dark-haired woman hurrying down the strip of hard­wood floor next to the broad green carpet that the living sofa sat on. An instant later, she was opening the door and peering out to see his face.

“Yes?” she said, hesitant.

Clayton Hall stepped forward. “It’s me, Lisa. This is Gregor Demarkian, you’ve read about him. And this lady here is Minna Dorfman from the county prosecutor’s of­fice.”

“The county prosecutor’s office?”

“We’re investigating a murder,” Clayton Hall said firmly. “We’ve got a few things we’d like to talk to Ste­phen about. Could we come in?”

Gregor thought Lisa Harrow was going to turn them down, or tell them her husband was not here. He could see her closing the door in their faces right now. Then there was more sound from the back of the house, and over her shoulder Gregor saw Stephen Harrow come in.

“Lisa?” he said. “What’s going on here?”

“It’s Clayton,” Lisa said. “He’s got some people with him.” Gregor didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone so nervous in all his life.

Unlike his wife, Stephen Harrow didn’t seem nervous. If there was an opposite of nervousness, he was it. He drew Lisa gently away from the door and motioned them all to come inside.

“Come in, come in,” he said cheerfully. “Clayton. It’s been a long time since we’ve sat down for a talk. And Mr. Demarkian. I’ve read about you, of course, millions of times, and we talked up at the camp a couple of days ago. But I’m afraid I don’t know—”

“Minna Dorfman,” Minna Dorfman said. “I’m from the county prosecutor’s office.”

“I don’t understand why we need someone from the county prosecutor’s office,” Lisa said.

Stephen ushered them all into the living room proper, shooing them ahead of him like geese to the couch. He went back into the foyer and shut the front door, hard, so that the sound of the latch catching echoed through the house. Then he came back to the living room and sat down in one of the two big chairs that flanked the fire.

“I don’t understand why we need someone from the county prosecutor’s office,” Lisa said again. She wasn’t sitting down at all, but pacing back and forth in front of the fire. She looked ready to jump out of her skin.

Stephen leaned forward and caught her by the arm. “Sit down,” he said, guiding her to the other chair flanking the fire. “Relax. We’re all going to have a little talk.”

“About what?” Lisa demanded. “You’ve been talking all night and I haven’t understood a word of it.”

“I’ve been telling her about how I killed Zhondra Meyer,” Stephen said pleasantly. “That’s what you all came here for, isn’t it? To find out how I killed Zhondra Meyer?”

“I think we’d like to hear about Carol Littleton as well,” Gregor said. “We understand why you killed Zhon­dra Meyer. With Carol Littleton, it isn’t so clear.”

“Jesus,” Clayton Hall murmured.

Minna Dorfman wasn’t saying a word.

Lisa Harrow looked ready to cry. “He’s been talking like this all night,” she said. “I don’t understand it. He couldn’t have killed anybody.”

“But I did,” Stephen said, and that’s when Gregor realized that the man’s eyes were shining. There was a light in them, literally; Gregor thought he must have taken some kind of speed, like diet pills.

“I did kill them,” Stephen said again. “I killed them both. I wanted them dead. In the beginning I thought it was all hogwash, you know, all that stuff Henry Holborn talks about all the time. The Devil. But the Devil is here. The Devil lives inside my head.”