“So,” David was saying, “I think you ought to come, because you ought to meet her, at least once. I mean, that’s why I got you down here. Because I was worried it was going to be a witch hunt. Because I was worried they were going to send Ginny all the way to the gas chamber without knowing whether or not she did it.”
“I don’t think they have the gas chamber in this state,” Gregor said. “I think they execute by legal injection.”
“Whatever. You don’t have to stay forever. Just come and watch her blow out the candles or whatever she’s going to do—”
“Like a birthday party?”
“Well, it is like a birthday, isn’t it? Her new birth out of jail. It was Rose who set it up, and Naomi from the library. It’s going to be a nice little party. And besides, like I said, you should see her at least once before you go.”
“You don’t give Clayton Hall enough credit. He may sound like a rube to you, but he knows what he’s doing.”
“I never said he didn’t know what he was doing. Come.”
“I have a train to catch. I’m tired and I want some serious Armenian food. I want to go home.”
“You can do it before you go to catch your train. Come.”
“There’s somebody at your front door, David. You ought to go answer it.”
There was somebody at the front door, too. The doorbell was ringing. Gregor could see the tall man on the front step from the guest room window—Henry Holborn, he thought, the reverend who had made all that fuss up at the camp. Gregor had talked to Holborn once or twice during his stay in Bellerton. The talks had not been long and they had not been very deep. Gregor’s impressions had been favorable, but not for any particular reason: Henry Holborn had seemed to him like a decent man, in spite of all the fire and brimstone and ingrained fear of the devil. David opened the front door and stood back to let Henry Holborn in. Gregor folded a cotton knit polo shirt he hadn’t worn once and put it next to his favorite gray wool sweater. He had worn his gray wool sweater so many times, it was unraveling from the hem and the sleeves and coming apart everyplace else.
“He’s over in the guest room, packing,” he heard David Sandler say. “You come along this way and I’ll get you a cup of coffee.”
“I don’t need a cup of coffee, David,” Henry Holborn said. “I just want to talk to Mr. Demarkian.”
Gregor put a little snow globe with a model of the state capitol in it into the suitcase. He had nothing more to pack. David Sandler and Henry Holborn were coming across the hardwood floor of the living room together, clattering. Gregor took his best tweed sport jacket from where it was lying across the desk and put it on.
“There he is,” David said, coming through the guest room door. “All finished packing and everything. I’ve been trying to talk him into coming to Ginny’s coming-out party.”
“Everybody in town is going to be at that party, almost,” Henry Holborn said politely. “So are those reporters that are still in town, even if there aren’t too many of them anymore. You might have a good time, Mr. Demarkian. You’d certainly be welcome.”
“Besides,” David said. “He saved Ginny’s life, and he’s never even met her.”
Henry Holborn came into the guest room and looked around. “Well,” he said. “I can see you’re busy. I’m very sorry to bother you. And I know this is just silly as anything—”
“That’s all right,” Gregor said. “If there’s something I can do for you?”
Henry Holborn was looking at the big abstract painting on the wall. “It’s just that it doesn’t matter anymore. Now that what’s happened with Stephen has happened, I mean. It’s just—”
“What?”
“Well, when I first heard about Zhondra Meyer committing suicide, I knew she hadn’t, you see. I knew she hadn’t. But then, everything happened with Stephen, you see, and…” Henry Holborn shrugged.
Gregor was intrigued. “How did you know Zhondra Meyer didn’t commit suicide? Were you there?”
“No, no,” Henry Holborn said. “She was with me. The night before she died, I mean. She came to see me.”
“About what?”
“About buying me out.”
“Buying you out?” David Sandler said. “Jesus Christ, Henry.”
There was a flicker of annoyance about the profanity in Henry Holborn’s face, but just a flicker, nothing more. Henry Holborn believed the things he believed, but he also lived in the world he lived in, and he was used to it.