“Just following the rules, Henry, just following the rules.”
“Well, you may be following the rules, Clayton, but you know darn well you’re not going to get me prosecuted for anything on this count. You don’t want to and nobody in town wants you to.”
“Zhondra Meyer wants me to.”
“Ms. Meyer has a lot of money, but she’s still just summer people.”
“Ms. Meyer has a very fancy law firm in New York,” Clayton said patiently, “and I’ve got Gregor Demarkian to worry about, too. We at least have to look like we’re trying to play it straight.”
“But we are playing it straight, Clayton. This whole thing is ridiculous. What are you going to charge me with?”
“Trespassing.”
“There’s a public right-of-way right through the back of that property and there has been since 1866.”
”Interfering with a police investigation,” Clayton said. “Obstructing justice.”
“I didn’t obstruct justice. Not for a minute.”
“I’m going to have to charge you with something, Henry. That’s just the way things are these days. The time is long gone when we could just patch things up among ourselves.”
“Do you think that makes the world a better place, Clayton? Because I don’t.”
“What I think about it doesn’t matter a damn, Henry. The world is the way it is. There’s nothing either you or I can do about it.”
“There’s something God can do about it.”
Clayton Hall dropped his papers into a messy little pile on the desk. “Don’t preach God to me, Henry,” he said. “I’ve known you too damn long. I was there the first time you ever went wild, and I’ve got vivid memories of four or five times since then.”
“I’ve quit since then, Clayton.”
“I know, and more power to you, but I meant what I said. Don’t preach God to me. Someday I may meet an angel from Heaven with a message to me from the Almighty, and him I’ll listen to, but you I won’t, and that’s final.”
Henry got off his chair and went over to the window to look out on the window well and the feet of the people passing along this side of the building. Everything seemed so normal out there, and yet he knew it wasn’t. Everything seemed so calm, and yet it was about to explode. Clayton might not want to listen to any more talk about God, but it was God who wanted to be heard, and Henry’s job was to make Him heard.
“Clayton?” he asked. “Do you like this man, this Demarkian?”
“Yes, I do,” Clayton said. “He has a few things in common with people around here. He can look pretty slow on the surface. He isn’t slow at all.”
“No, I didn’t think he was slow. But I wonder what he’s really doing down here. Why would a famous man like that want to come to Bellerton?”
“That’s what he does, Henry. He goes places where there are murder investigators who need an expert to consult with. He’s an expert.”
“And you think he’s here because the murder of Ginny’s baby got so much publicity.”
“Because of that and because he’s a friend of David Sandler’s. You know, Henry, we’ve been over all this before. Is there some point you’re trying to make here?”
“I don’t know.”
And that was the truth, Henry thought. He really didn’t know. He was just tired and cranky and worried, and everything seemed to be going wrong. Having somebody like Gregor Demarkian around, a complete stranger who wasn’t tied to them in any way, just seemed wrong.
“Sit down again now and sign these papers,” Clayton Hall said. “Then we’ll be done and you can go.”
“All right.”
“And you tell your people that I expect each and every one of them who was involved in that nonsense yesterday to come in and see me. And tell them not to think I didn’t see them, because I did. I saw every one of them. And if you talk to Ricky Drake—”
“I’ll talk to Ricky,” Henry said. “Don’t worry about it.”
Clayton handed Henry a pen. “You attract loose cannons, Henry. Ricky Drake is one of them. Bobby Marsh is the prince lunatic of all time. You’ve got to understand that if you attract them, you have to control them.”
“I do control them. God controls them.”
“If God controls them, He’s doing a sloppy job. Get a move on with the signing, Henry. I want to go to lunch, myself.”
Usually, when Henry Holborn was in town, he had lunch at Betsey’s just like everybody else. He didn’t think he would do that, today: Loose cannons, Clayton called them. Henry knew boys like Ricky Drake and Bobby Marsh. He had been one himself. It was the other people he was worried about, the quiet ones, the ones who never made any trouble until, wham, one day they snapped, and there you were.