“He had to be reasonably sure, yes,” Gregor said. “Still, there isn’t enough time for her to have taken the gun, cleaned it, and then put it in the couch, and why would she want to put it in the couch anyway? She’d only be implicating herself.”
“Maybe she thought she would be implicating Marcey instead,” Bram suggested. “Marcey was there that day too.”
“I know,” Gregor said. “And I know everybody assumes that Arrow Normand is too stupid to walk and talk at the same time, but that’s a little far-fetched. I’d say that she just got a break. If that’s the gun that was used in the murder, and it’s been cleaned, then that fact and the fact that it would have to have been put in the couch well after Arrow Normand was on it pretty much get Arrow Normand off the hook here. It does make it a little more difficult for me. I could have sworn, looking at this material, that there was only one possible solution to any of this, but—”
“Wait,” Bram Winder said. “You think you know who committed this murder? Already?”
“I think there’s only one person where the psychology will fit,” Gregor said. “Although I’ll admit that I’m guessing, since I haven’t really talked to much of anybody yet. If I was constructing this as the plot of a novel, or a television show, or a film—”
“But this isn’t a novel or a television show or a film,” Bram Winder protested. “God, I hate this. The world isn’t a movie. No matter what anybody thinks. In real life, in real crimes, things don’t turn out the way they do on CSI: Miami. Never mind the fact that real-life forensics are not nearly that good. In real life, crimes are messy, and they don’t make much sense.”
“I’m not saying this crime makes sense,” Gregor said. “I’m saying that murders usually have motives. And in this case, there’s only one person for whom there is a motive that makes any sense at all. Even though, as I said, I’m guessing, because I haven’t talked to much of anybody yet. And then there is the problem that although my guess can certainly have committed the murder of Mark Anderman, there are a few other things connected to this case that—well….”
“That what?” Bram Winder said. “That he couldn’t have done? Or she? What other things are connected to this case anyway? I can’t believe you’re doing this. I think you’re crazy. You’re going to get us all killed.”
The room was suddenly filled with the opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Gregor got the cell phone Bennis had given him out of his pocket and checked the caller ID. It was Bennis, not Tibor, which probably meant that the call was more than side issues, and he ought to take it. Of course, it could be about the wedding, and then he would have wasted his time.
“Could you give me a second?” he said. “I’ve got to take this call.”
“I think you’re crazy,” Bram Winder said. “I think you’re so crazy, you’re going to be the worst idea Clara ever had, and I’m going to go down with her.”
Then he stalked out of the men’s sitting room with all the dignity of the hero of an Oscar Wilde farce.
2
Gregor Demarkian didn’t really need to take this call right this minute. In fact, in spite of the excuses he made in his own head, he was fairly sure that this could be nothing but Bennis hyperventilating about the wedding again, or, worse, Donna on Bennis’s phone, demanding answers to questions he didn’t begin to understand. Did he want silk or organdy for the bows on the pews at church? Did he prefer gold charms with Jordan almonds for reception favors, or something more modern, but bulkier? He was sure grooms did not have to make these decisions in most weddings. He knew he had never had to make them for his wedding to Elizabeth. Of course, Elizabeth’s mother had been alive, and very active, when that had happened. Maybe Bennis’s problem was that she didn’t have her mother to arrange her wedding.
On the other hand, Bennis’s mother had been a Day, a real daughter of the old Main Line, and having that woman arrange his wedding would probably have been even worse than having Donna arrange it. And he would have liked the people less.
He fiddled with the buttons he got wrong half the time and said, “Hello,” as he put the phone to his ear, hoping. It worked. Bennis’s voice came bouncing at him, a little hiccoughy the way voices on cell phones got.
“You’re supposed to say ‘Demarkian here,’ or something like that,” she said. “Not just ‘Hello.’ ”