Deadly Beloved(37)

“All that fuss could have been about violence against women,” Mia said. “I mean, for once the media could have been taking violence against women seriously.”

“When Sid Vicious killed his girlfriend, it was a footnote on the eleven o’clock news,” Sharon said firmly.

Over on the television screen there was a shot of a still photograph of a woman in middle age. There were lines on the sides of her face and bags under her eyes. Her hair was salt-and-pepper gray. Liza drank more coffee and wished she weren’t so tired. The face on the screen looked strangely familiar.

“Here we go again,” Sharon was saying. “The mysterious Mrs. Willis and her awful moneyed murder. Have you ever seen anybody with so little style in your life? If I had money like that, I’d look great.”

“Maybe she didn’t want to look great,” Mia said.

Liza walked closer to the screen and squinted at the picture.

“Oh,” she said.

“What is it?” Sharon said.

“Police today are desperately searching for clues that will explain the bizarre behavior, and present whereabouts, of Patricia MacLaren Willis,” the announcer said.

Liza took a step back. “Who?” she said.

“They called her Patsy,” Mia said. “It was in the Inquirer this morning.”

“But that’s impossible,” Liza said.

“Did you know her?” Sharon said.

“I keep forgetting that Liza went to Vassar,” Mia said. “She must know dozens of people like that.”

The coffee in the cup was all gone. The picture on the screen had changed to one of a talking head with a microphone. The talking head was standing in front of a big Tudor house with what seemed to be hundreds of police cars parked in the driveway. Liza rubbed her eyes.

“Police are now saying that we may never know the complete story of why Patricia MacLaren Willis did what she did yesterday,” the talking head said, “because as the hours go by, there is less and less hope that when she is found, if she is found, she will be found alive.”

“Alive,” Liza Verity repeated. And then she shook her head very hard, as if that would clear it. “For Christ’s sake.”





3.


Out in Fox Run Hill, Sarah Lockwood was also saying “for Christ’s sake,” over and over and over again, under her breath. She was standing at the window at the second floor landing of her French Provincial house, looking out on Patsy Willis’s Tudor. She had been standing there for nearly half an hour, while police cars came and went and police detectives spread out across the lawn and half a dozen women from the neighborhood found excuses to do their jogging right in front of the Willises’ front door. Sarah didn’t think she’d ever been this nervous in her life.

“You can’t stay up there all day,” Kevin called out to her every once in a while. “You’re not going to find anything out mooning over a lot of parked police cars.”

Now a new police car was pulling up, a different police car, from Philadelphia instead of from the local force. Sarah watched as a tall black man in a good black suit got out—an astonishing sight, since there were never any black people in Fox Run Hill, unless they were in uniform—and was followed by an even taller white man, older and thicker and running to fat. It took a minute for Sarah to place him. Then she raced from the window, leaned over the stairrail, and called down the well: “Kevin, come quick. Look who’s here.”

“I’m not going to come quick up those stairs,” Kevin replied, “unless you’re announcing the Second Coming.”

“It’s Gregor Demarkian,” Sarah said. “Come quickly.”

There was a short silence from the lower floor. Then Kevin said “Jesus,” and Sarah heard his heavy footsteps beginning to run up the stairs.

“Look,” she said when Kevin arrived on the landing. “There he is. Do you think the local police have hired him?”

“I don’t think it’s possible to hire him. I don’t think he works for money.”

“Somebody must have brought him in though,” Sarah said. “It stands to reason. He doesn’t just show up on his own.”

“Maybe it’s something we ought to worry about,” Kevin said. “Under the circumstances. Considering what we’re up to.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it. He isn’t going to be interested in us. It’s Patsy and Stephen he’s going to be worried about.”

“Murder investigations are funny things,” Kevin said carefully. “They can—spread out.”

“I know that.”