Cheating at Solitaire(38)

Kendra turned around to see what Marcey was looking at, and made a face. “It’s by Piero della Francesca,” she said. “It’s called The Flagellation. I never liked it much. Bondage and discipline were never my thing.”

Marcey looked back at the picture again. She was fairly sure that it wasn’t about bondage and discipline, but she didn’t know what it was about, and it made her sick to look at it.

“You just can’t not say anything,” she said. “You just can’t.”

Kendra Rhode looked into the fireplace and smiled.





Chapter Four


1

It was possible to get from Philadelphia to Boston by Amtrak, going through New York. It was possible to get from Boston to Cape Cod by car, which was helpfully supplied by the Massachusetts State Police, complete with flashing lights and wailing siren.

“The governor is very concerned that you get all the help you need while you concern yourself in this matter,” the officer who had been sent to drive them told Gregor as he first got into the car—and Gregor was careful not to ask who’d taught him to use exactly that phraseology, or why anybody would think it would be a help to sit in the back of a police car behind the metal mesh caging meant to keep violent prisoners from strangling their captors. It didn’t matter. Gregor had sat in the backs of police cars often in his career. He understood that most policemen didn’t understand how disorienting they were.

It was when they got to the Cape that Gregor began to feel unhappy, and then he wondered how he couldn’t have guessed. He’d been to Margaret’s Harbor before. He’d been on detail for presidential visits back when he was first in the FBI and the president in the White House had liked to spend his vacations here. Margaret’s Harbor was one of those places, like Mackinac Island in Michigan and Fishers Island in Long Island Sound, where rich people went to pretend they were roughing it, or at least getting back to simplicity. Comfort, convenience, and common sense were dispensable when you had enough money to do what you wanted.

“You’d have thought they’d have put in a bridge by now,” Gregor said as the police car eased up to the curb near a large wharf with a solid-looking ferryboat docked at the end of it. Gregor got out and looked around. “At least I don’t see any icebergs,” he said.

“Well, now,” Stewart said. “You can see for yourself. All that bloody stupid nonsense about the Russians. They just wanted a warm-water port, that’s all. There was never any reason for you people to go off half cocked and practically start World War III over that.”

“You people?”

“Americans.”

“Do you talk like this in Margaret’s Harbor?” Gregor asked. “Do they try to lynch you?”

“I talk like this on CNN,” Stewart said. “And they’re fine with it. Of course, I’ve got a lot of other things to say about America, and a lot of them are complimentary. So that helps. But not about American actresses. With the exception of Meryl Streep. She’s a fine actress, and very professional. There’s Clara. I’ve got a lot to say about Clara, too. I like her.”

Gregor looked up and saw that there was a very small woman waiting for them on the deck of the ferry. He hadn’t noticed her before because she was, really, very small, and it was easy to lose her among the ropes and life preservers. He followed Stewart onto the wharf itself and tried to make out something about the woman that wasn’t related to size. There wasn’t anything. She was bundled into a gigantic quilted down coat that went down past the boat’s side, so that she looked like an ice blue Popsicle with red sprinkles unaccountably scattered near the front of it.

Stewart jumped from the wharf into the boat. He would. He always liked to show off just how vigorous he was at whatever age he was claiming these days. Gregor got into the boat the civilized way. The woman in the down coat hurried toward them, visibly shivering.

“It’s impossible out here,” she said, bringing out a gloved hand for Gregor to shake. The gloves were good leather, and the impression of red sprinkles turned out to be wisps of her hair, which was very red indeed. It was red of a shade nobody on earth had ever had naturally, and it was a good ten years too young for her face.

“I’m Clara Walsh,” she said, putting her hand back into her pocket. “I’m glad to meet you, Mr. Demarkian. Mr. Gordon has been talking about you endlessly ever since we first met, but of course I knew you by reputation before that. Couldn’t we all get inside and out of this wind? It’s six degrees today. It’s in the minus numbers with the wind chill.”