“That butler didn’t do it,” Frank said. “He’s a waxwork saint.”
“—but we have to at least check it out.” Gregor was imperturbable. “If there does turn out to be some connection between these murders and The Harridan Report, if there does turn out to have been some kind of domestic terrorism involved—”
“Terrorism?” Frank looked blank. “I don’t think this has anything to do with terrorism. There aren’t any bombs involved. Nobody blew up the Liberty Bell.”
Gregor shook his head. “Terrorism isn’t always the World Trade Center or Timothy McVeigh. Terrorists commit targeted murders all the time. It’s part of the equation in the Middle East all the time. And think of the Unabomber.”
“I understand why people like that might want to kill Anthony Ross,” Frank said, “but what would be the point of killing his wife? Let’s be reasonable here.”
“I agree,” Gregor said. “We do have to be reasonable. And the first thing we have to be reasonable about is those flyers, or newsletters, or whatever we’re supposed to call them. They seem to be everywhere, and they’re all about this family. Or all the ones I’ve seen have something to do with the Rosses.”
“We have a few more down at the station that don’t,” Marty said. “We’ve collected maybe fifty different ones, all told. A lot of them are just general. There’s a big plot afoot to destroy the Constitution and bring the United States into a One World Government ruled by the UN. Bill Clinton was in on this plot. So is George W. Bush. So was Bush Senior. Kennedy was murdered in a plot run by the CIA, the Kremlin, and the Vatican. All the presidents of the United States are related to each other, and they’re really descendants of Martians, or the Devil, or something. I can never wrap my mind around that part. The world’s thirteen richest families have been the same since the something dynasty, but they change their names so people will think change is happening when it isn’t.”
“The Merovingian dynasty, from the early Middle Ages,” Frank said. He shrugged. “I had Jesuits.”
“Fine,” Gregor said. “We need to go over them, one by one. We need to find out how many of them directly mention any member of this family. We need to figure out if there’s anybody else they mention on a regular basis and what’s happened to that person or persons. We might be looking at another murder down the road. We might be looking back at a death that either wasn’t originally thought to be a murder, or that was tagged as a murder but was never solved. Then we need to find this Michael Harridan. Do we have any idea who he is?”
“We know who his organization is,” Frank said. “That’s what those FBI guys were working on. America on Alert. Steve what’s-his-name was going to their meetings. Before you nailed his ass, Walker whoever was giving us chapter and verse. Where they meet. Who goes to meetings regularly. I’ve got it written down.”
“Good,” Gregor said.
“Do you really think it’s going to turn out to be America on Alert?” Marty asked. “I mean, I suppose it could be, but it doesn’t feel right to me. Maybe I’ll feel differently when I meet them, but right now, I just can’t see how somebody who believes all that stuff”—he pointed to The Harridan Report Gregor was now holding—“I don’t see how somebody like that could be mentally integrated enough to pull off a pair of murders like these.”
“Timothy McVeigh—” Frank started.
“Yeah, yeah,” Marty said. “Timothy McVeigh. But this wasn’t Timothy McVeigh. It wasn’t the September eleventh attacks. All those people had to do is be stupid, be obvious, and be bold. This sucker took precision. What do you think, Mr. Demarkian?”
“I don’t know.” This was the truth. Gregor really didn’t know what to think at the moment, and the more he tried to work it out in his head, the more confused he got. This was not the way it was supposed to work. “I would,” he said, “be careful not to close off other options. For instance, we need to get a reading on the will, who benefits. We need to know if Tony Ross or Charlotte Ross had any life insurance policies. That’s doubtful, but not impossible, especially when it comes to Charlotte. Then we need to look into the daughters. Do we know if they were here for the party, or expected to be here?”
“No,” Frank said.
“We need to find out,” Gregor said. “And we can’t fail to remember that those girls could have gotten on this estate at any time they wanted, even on the night of the party, even without an invitation, even with the extra security all over everything. They’d have been cleared. The same is likely true of Anne Ross Wyler.”