Deadly Beloved(87)

Jackman blew an exasperated raspberry into his ear. “Well what? We’re checking on it. We’ve been checking on it since yesterday. I can’t find that trustee. He’s off in the Bahamas or someplace. Not that I think that’s going to matter. I don’t think he ever met her.”

“Did you talk to New Delhi?” Gregor asked. “Was Patsy MacLaren reported dead there in 1969? Did you talk to the U.S. State Department?”

“We’re working on it, Gregor. For Christ’s sake. We’re not the FBI. We’re working on it. Don’t you have anything to do?”

“I got a message on my machine. From a Liza Verity. Does that name ring a bell with you?”

“No.”

“She was one of the people on the invitations list for the Karla Parrish reception. She never showed up.”

“Lucky her.”

“She left a message on my machine, as I said. It’s a little garbled. She seems to want to talk to me.”

“So talk to her.”

“I thought you might want to come,” Gregor said. “She was at Vassar with Julianne Corbett and Karla Parrish. And, I suppose, with Patsy MacLaren.”

“Hundreds of people were at college with Corbett and Parrish and MacLaren. It’s probably nothing.”

“Didn’t they teach you always to check everything out?”

“Sure. They also taught me to have priorities. I’ve got a woman who put three bullets into at least one person and apparently blew up a whole bunch of others into varying states of distress and who now seems not to have existed for over twenty-five years. I’ve got as much to worry about as I want to.”

“Meaning, I take it, that you don’t want to come with me.”

“If you mean to see Liza Verity,” John Jackman said, “then no. Not today. I’ve got to straighten this other mess out today. Or at least make some headway with it.”

“Will you mind if I go out there alone?”

“No, of course not. You’re authorized. You’re an official consultant. The woman called you. She could have called us, but she didn’t. She called you. Go to it. Maybe you’ll even find out something interesting.”

“Thanks,” Gregor said dryly.

“Give me a break, Gregor. I’m trying to find a dead woman here this morning. I’m up to my ass in communications in Sanskrit. Or something. I’ll see you later, all right?”

Gregor hung up. He went back to his kitchen table and picked at the pastry he had left there on a plate before he’d gone back to the bedroom for his notes. Bennis was supposed to be sleeping late. In spite of the things she liked to say about how tough and unstoppable she was, she had to be exhausted by the traumas of the last few days. Tibor would be up to his neck in church business. There was a wedding coming up. There were also all the usual day-to-day things that had to be done in an Armenian church, especially now that there were so many immigrant Armenians in the neighborhood. Donna would be with her mother, going over wedding arrangements or making sure her dress fit. Either that, or she would be bothering Bennis with one more round of hand-wringing about the Peter situation. Gregor was fairly sure that Donna would not be telling her mother about the reemergence of Peter, because if Donna did that, her mother was likely to walk all the way to Boston just to kill the man. Obviously, there was nothing for Gregor to do on Cavanaugh Street, and there wouldn’t be for most of the day.

Gregor went back to the bedroom, got into a good pair of light pants and a cotton shirt and a jacket. He had spent all his life wearing suits and he wasn’t about to stop now. Then he made sure he had his wallet and that his wallet had money in it. Then he went out his front door and carefully locked it behind him. Nobody else on Cavanaugh Street locked their doors, but Gregor had been with law enforcement agencies for too much of his life to feel safe about doing that.

Gregor went down a flight, stopped at Bennis’s door, and listened. No sound at all was coming from in there, not even the rhythmic ritual cursing of Bennis at work at her computer. He went down another flight of stairs and knocked on the door of the first floor apartment. Like many of the people Gregor had known over the age of eighty, old George Tekemanian never seemed to do any sleeping at all.

Old George called “come in” from someplace inside his apartment. Gregor opened the door—unlocked again; always unlocked—and stuck his head in. Old George was sitting in his wing chair in front of a television set the size of an old CinemaScope screen, watching Blazing Saddles.

“I’m going downtown,” Gregor said. “You want something from the great world of Philadelphia boutiques?”