Baptism in Blood(50)
“I’m sure you do.”
“Do you think Ginny Marsh killed her daughter?”
“I don’t know.”
“Clayton Hall thinks she did. Damned idiot. Anybody with a brain in his head could see that Ginny Marsh never did any such thing.”
“She could be covering up for somebody who did. For her husband. Or her boyfriend.”
“Bobby Marsh was out at Henry Holborn’s place when the baby was killed. Everybody knows that. Even Clayton knows that. Do you believe in religion?”
“Believe in it?”
The woman snorted. “Well, I’m not going to ask you if you’ve accepted Christ as your personal savior, am I? I mean, do you think religion is good for people?”
“Sometimes,” Gregor replied. “I don’t think I understand what you’re getting at—”
“They think it’s all some kind of mental illness.” The woman tossed her head in the direction of Main Street. They might not be out there yet, but Gregor knew who they were supposed to be. “They think it’s all voodoo and fanaticism. You can hear it when they talk. You have to give Dr. Sandler that much. He doesn’t talk to people like that.”
“Oh,” Gregor said.
The woman got a set of keys out of the pocket of her dress. “I’m not a religious person, you know. I don’t go to church and I’m not even one hundred percent sure I believe in God and whenever Rose starts in with all that angels I business, I go right up the wall. But people have a right to have their beliefs respected. They have a right not to be laughed at by people who don’t for one minute intend to even try to understand what’s going on. That’s part of being an American.”
“Right,” Gregor said.
“You go find Clayton Hall,” the woman said. “I hope you do a little good around here instead of what all the rest of them are doing. I hope you have some consideration.”
“Right,” Gregor said again.
“And just remember this.” The woman now had a single one of her keys in her hand, as if she were about to open a door, “Ginny Marsh didn’t kill her daughter. Ginny Marsh didn’t collude in the killing of her daughter. Ginny Marsh never hurt anybody in her life and won’t hurt anybody as long as she lives. But she scares easily.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’ve got to get moving,” the woman said. “I’m supposed to open the library at nine, and I have to get all the way out to my house and back again before then. I have a very busy day.”
“I’m sure you do, Miss—”
“Ms. Brent. Ms. Naomi Brent. I run the library. I don’t have any more time for this kind of talk, Mr. Demarkian. I have to go now.”
She turned away from him then and half ran across the parking lot. Gregor watched her skirt billow out around her. She got to the small green Ford Escort and opened it up and got in. Gregor suddenly remembered that Donna Moradanyan had just bought a Ford Escort. That one was a station wagon, though. And it was blue.
What am I doing? Gregor demanded of himself.
Naomi Brent had started her engine and begun to back her car out of its space. Gregor started around the last side of Town Hall, still in search of the Bellerton Police Department.
2
ACTUALLY, THE BELLERTON POLICE Department was not hard to find, once you knew where to look. The steps were exactly where Naomi Brent had said they were going to be, carved into the flat ground on the side of the building. Gregor had the impression that it was not very usual to have basements in this part of North Carolina. In fact, from what he remembered, all the South tended to prefer slab and crawl space foundations. This foundation had been raised a good five feet above grade, however, and the administration of the town at the time it had been built had gone to what must have been a great deal of expense to do it all right. Gregor went down the concrete steps and opened the wooden door at the bottom of them. There was no musty smell of mildew and damp rushing out at him. In spite of the fact that there had been a major hurricane here only a couple of weeks ago, the basement was entirely dry and very fresh-smelling. It was also heavily air-conditioned. Gregor felt the cold hit him like a wall. He was almost sorry he hadn’t worn his sweater. He closed the outside door behind him and looked up at the wall next to it, where there was one of those plastic plug-in letter boards with departments written on it.
Tax Department, Gregor read. Water Department. Sewage Department. Police Department.
He had been hoping for directions, but he wasn’t going to get any. This was not a town that expected strangers to be wandering around in the basement of its Town Hall. Anybody who lived in Bellerton would know where he was going without having to be told.