Larry looked out and around at the Pineville Station Police Department building.
“It’s the Waldorf Pines people,” he said. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s just the way things are in places like Philadelphia. You’ve got the Main Line and all of that. It just never was the way things were out here, and I don’t like it. I just wish they’d all pack up and go away somewhere and leave the rest of us alone.”
2
The Pineville Station Police Department was like a thousand others across the United States, small, neat, and built to be “modern” in 1958. There was a long, blond wood counter where members of the public were supposed to present themselves to do their business. There were a few desks behind that counter, most of them unoccupied at this time of day. There were two small offices to the back, one of which Gregor assumed must belong to Larry Farmer. A young woman sat at a desk just behind the counter and did things on the computer. A tall man stood aimlessly next to her, talking without raising his voice and looking as if he had nowhere to go. The tall man was the most formally dressed person in the place.
“Oh, good,” Larry said. “Just who we need. That’s Buck Monaghan. Buck! Buck! I brought back Gregor Demarkian. I told you I would.”
The tall man straightened up and held out his hand to Gregor. “I hope he didn’t kidnap you,” he said. “The situation is pretty dire, but I don’t think we’re at the point where we have to start committing felonies just yet.”
“We’re not the ones committing felonies,” Larry Farmer said. “I wish you’d stop saying things like that. I know you think it’s funny, but it just gets everybody all confused, and then they’re mad at me again. Of course I didn’t kidnap him. I explained the situation, and then he agreed to come. I don’t know what it’s going to cost, but it’s better to have him here than not. You said that yourself just this morning when I asked you about it.”
Buck Monaghan seemed to sigh and stare up at the ceiling, but the movements were so slight, Gregor wasn’t sure he hadn’t imagined them. When Gregor took another look, the impression was gone.
Buck Monaghan leaned over the counter and picked up a manila folder. “It’s very definitely a very good thing that we have Mr. Demarkian here, and I never meant to suggest otherwise. I’ll admit I was a little surprised at how fast you got it done. Has he filled you in on anything at all, Mr. Demarkian? Or has he just been panicking?”
“I think I’m more or less filled in,” Gregor said. “Two bodies, one too damaged to identify immediately. DNA came back without providing positive identification of any person but ruling out the person who had been supposed to be the victim—”
“Well,” Buck said, “yes, but not because we’ve got Martha Heydreich’s DNA, either. I sometimes find it more than a little disappointing that the world does not work the way it does on television. If this had been CSI, Martha’s DNA would have been in half a dozen databases and the only reason it wouldn’t have been would be because otherwise the show wouldn’t last long enough. I used to think it would be interesting to get a case like this, a case that wasn’t completely cut and dried. I spent a lot of my time doing plea deals with idiots who think it’s just common sense to rob convenience stores being tended by some kid you’ve known since high school and then expecting he won’t recognize you in a ski mask. The ordinary run of criminal leaves a lot to be desired.”
“It’s not the criminal I’m worried about,” Larry Farmer said.
The young woman at the computer looked up. She gave Gregor Demarkian a long stare and said, “It’s Waldorf Pines. It’s always Waldorf Pines. When anything goes really wrong in this town, you can bet your wallet it’s going to have something to do with Waldorf Pines.”
Gregor shook his head. “Just a few minutes ago, Mr. Farmer here was telling me that the people who live in Waldorf Pines weren’t all that wealthy or all that influential. Car dealerships, I think he said. But if they’re not all that wealthy and they’re not all that influential, how can they cause you all this trouble?”
Buck Monaghan and Larry Farmer and the young woman all looked at each other.
It was Buck Monaghan who finally spoke. “It’s not the people who live in Waldorf Pines who are the problem,” he said.
The young woman snorted. “They’re a problem, all right. If I get my hands on that little bitch, I’ll—”
“That wasn’t the kind of problem I was talking about,” Buck Monaghan said.