Blood in the Water(55)

“I don’t know if we showed any of those keys to Buck,” Larry said. “We gave him the lists, of course, but I’m not sure—”

“Did you give him this particular list with these particular descriptions on it?”

“I don’t know,” Larry Farmer said. “I suppose you could ask the officers who responded to the scene, or the evidence clerk, or whoever it was, but I still don’t see why this is so important. Do you know where the key is from? Is it something to do with Waldorf Pines security or that kind of thing? I’d really like to know how all those security cameras were made to malfunction at once for two hours. I’d really like to know that.”

“I’d like to know that, too,” Gregor said, “but right now, I’ve got this key. Get it ready for me when I come in. Because from this description, I’d be willing to bet just about anything that what you’ve got there is the key to a safe-deposit box.”

“What?” Larry Farmer said.

Gregor closed his eyes and wished that Larry wouldn’t say “what” so much.





TWO

1

For most of her growing up, Eileen Platte had envied her older sister. Eileen Platte had been Eileen O’Brien then, and her older sister had been named Margaret Mary. Margaret Mary was a special name. It was the name of the nun who had seen the Virgin Mary on an altar in her convent and been given the design of the Miraculous Medal to reveal to the world. All the girls at St. Rose of Lima School loved the Miraculous Medal best, because it was the most beautiful of all the medals. There was a picture of the Blessed Virgin on the front of it with her arms outstretched. Rays of light come from her fingertips, and words came from the rays of light: O MARY, CONCEIVED WITHOUT SIN, PRAY FOR US WHO HAVE RECOURSE TO THEE. Neither Eileen nor her sister nor anybody else they knew understood what “recourse” meant, but it didn’t really matter.

Now Eileen stood in the middle of her kitchen, looking down at the long granite counter, and wondering what she had been thinking. She knew what “recourse” meant now, but it seemed to her that it was a trick, and always had been. The Virgin Mother would pray for those of the human family who had a right to ask her to pray for them. If you didn’t have a right to ask—well. You could ask away forever, and none of your prayers would be answered.

It was odd the way things had been, all these weeks since Michael had died. At first, Eileen had barely felt it. There was no body she could look at. There was no funeral. There wasn’t even a death notice in the papers. The whole thing was drifting and unreal, as if she’d dreamed it. Dream was the wrong word, but she didn’t know what else to call it. Sometimes she had nightmares that woke her up screaming. Sometimes she had the same nightmares, but all the emotion was gone. Michael was gone. A policewoman had come to the door and told her that. They had both sat down at the kitchen table. The policewoman had touched her hand, and Eileen had had to force herself not to recoil at the touch. There was something wrong with that policewoman’s hand, she was sure of it. There was flecks of black and green across the knuckles, that looked like they’d been poisoned.

After about a week, Eileen had found herself thinking of it as actual. That wasn’t quite the same thing as real, but it was close. The house was big and silent and empty. Michael was not in his bedroom snoring off a night doing God only knew what. Stephen was not storming around the house, delivering lectures about Michael’s faults and all the awful things that would happen to him if he didn’t straighten up. Stephen was not saying anything, really, and that was the strangest thing of all the things that had happened so far.

Actually, there was one thing Stephen did say, and it mattered. Eileen couldn’t make herself forget it.

“You shouldn’t be helping the police,” he said. “They’re professionals. They’ve got a job to do. You should let them do it.”

“But what if I have information,” Eileen had said. “Don’t the police always want information? Don’t you want to see the person who did this go to prison?”

“They got the person who did this,” Stephen said. “They don’t need any more help from us.”

That conversation had happened at the kitchen table, too. It seemed to Eileen that all conversations happened at the kitchen table now. Except that they weren’t really conversations, because she didn’t really take part in them. She said things. Other people said things. There was no connection. She knew what Stephen was thinking of when he gave her his orders. She’d been thinking about it herself ever since the policewoman had come to the door. She had no idea why she hadn’t told the policewoman about it then and there. Maybe it was instinct. Maybe she had just known, without having to ask, that Stephen would hate the entire idea of her telling the policewoman about what she had found in Michael’s bedroom.