Cheating at Solitaire(50)

What got Gregor thinking about time was the fact that he himself was distracted. Since he had nothing in particular to do, he looked around at the ferry and the dock and the little newsstand that was just a few feet onshore near the place where passengers would have to embark. The newsstand was empty and closed up, but it was not out of date. Gregor wasn’t sure why he had thought it would be. What struck him was the string of tabloid newspapers hanging from the top of what would be the open stall frame once the metal security door was pulled up. The tabloids were behind a protective length of dirty plastic that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned or replaced in a long time. Almost all the tabloids had pictures of Arrow Normand on them, which is what he would have expected. What he did not expect was the picture of himself, above the title in the National Enquirer, next to the headline, in bold and in italics: “Police Bring In Superdetective!”

Well, Gregor thought. Being a superdetective was better than being the Armenian American Hercule Poirot. On some fundamental level, it was a lot less silly. He left Clara Walsh and her assistant and Stewart Gordon talking among themselves and went over to look at the paper more closely. The date was only the day before yesterday, and he was sure he remembered that the Enquirer came out once a week. He looked down the line at the other papers. All of them were current, or close to. He saw pictures of Arrow Normand drunk, Arrow Normand fat, Arrow Normand being brought into a police station between two large men. He tried to make out who the men were, not their individual identities but their institutional affiliations, and could not. Were these state police, or local police, or no police at all? Nobody had told him how Arrow Normand was arrested, or where.

Gregor turned back to see that Clara Walsh and the assistant and Stewart Gordon weren’t getting very far with whatever it was they were trying to do, if they even knew what that was, and he walked back to them.

“Do you mind if I ask you people a question?” he said.

Stewart Gordon straightened up. It was hard to think of Stewart being anything else but up, but he must have been. “I’ve got to go,” he said. “I promised Anna I’d stop in. I’ll come to the press conference.”

“You’re having a press conference,” Clara Walsh said.

Gregor let this go by. He had expected a press conference. There usually was one when he was brought in, because part of the point of bringing him in was usually to let the public know that “something” was being done in a difficult circumstance. He turned back toward the newsstand and gestured in that direction.

“They’ve got a copy of the Enquirer over there, with my picture on it,” he said.

Stewart Gordon snorted. “Bet it wasn’t a big picture, not yet. You’ll just have to get used to it. You’re part of the story now.”

“I don’t mind being part of the story,” Gregor said patiently. “The point is that I haven’t been part of the story for very long, but the Enquirer on that newsstand has a picture of me on it. I would have thought that that stand would be closed in the offseason, but I take it it isn’t. But it’s not open now either.”

“That’s because this isn’t a regular run of the ferry,” the assistant said. He was a tall, cadaverously thin young man with hair so thick it looked heavier than his frame should be able to carry. “Sorry,” he said. “Bram Winder. I’m Clara’s deputy. We’re the whole office for the island. The stand isn’t open now because the ferry isn’t scheduled to go through, but he opens up for regular trips. I don’t know if he finds it worthwhile, and he has to freeze to death—there’s nothing for heat in that thing but a battery-powered space heater—but he does it.”

“It’s because he’s really local,” Clara Walsh said. “A lot of the people who own businesses in town are summer people. But this is Harry Carter’s place. He runs this thing and he does some fishing and he works as a handyman in town when there’s nothing else to do.”

“And he cuts cordwood,” Bram Winder said. “A lot of people on the island cut cordwood, although I don’t know who they sell it to. Well, to the Point, this year. Kendra Rhode has been burning cordwood up there like—I don’t know like what.”

“I’ve got to be out of here,” Stewart Gordon said. “Gregor, I really will be back for the press conference, but I’ve got to go. I’ll see everybody later.”

“We could give you a ride in,” Bram Winder said. “We are going to the beach.”