Deadly Beloved(94)

“Julianne Corbett wasn’t lying when she said Patsy MacLaren died in India,” Gregor said.

“Crap,” John Jackman said.

“I really do need pictures,” Gregor said. He went back out into the living room. The orderlies had the stretcher assembled on the floor—or was it disassembled? or unfolded?—and they were levering Liza Verity’s body onto it. It seemed to Gregor like a very small body, but he might have been wrong. He had never met the woman. He should have met her. He went into the kitchen. Liza Verity didn’t seem to have been very committed to cooking.

“Well,” John Jackman said, following him. “Tell me this. Am I supposed to feel guilty? Is there something I should have figured out sooner? Could we have kept this murder from happening?”

Gregor shook his head. “I couldn’t have. It didn’t click for me until after I got here, and by the time I got here—hell, John. Practically the first thing that happened to me downstairs was that I watched the elevator blow up.”

“Right,” John Jackman said.

Gregor nodded. “On second thought, I don’t think that was an accident. I think she dropped that second pipe bomb into the elevator shaft on purpose. I think that was how she ensured that she was going to have time to get away.”

“Who?” Phil Borley looked bewildered.

“Patsy MacLaren,” Gregor said.

“Oh, don’t start that again,” John Jackman said.

“Why didn’t she just go out and get another gun?” Dr. Halloran asked. “From everything I’ve heard about what happened to the husband, she was good with guns. A gun would at least be quicker and easier and less messy than this kind of thing.”

“She doesn’t have access to a gun,” Gregor said. “It’s like I said before, if she’d realized she was going to end up killing anyone besides her husband, she would have kept the gun she had. My guess is that she acquired it a few years ago. Knowing that something like this was going to come up eventually. Planning it out.”

“For years,” John Jackman said.

“That’s right,” Gregor told him. “She’s good at that. Planning for years, I mean. It’s what she’s always done best. It’s just unfortunate for her that in this sort of thing, you can’t really plan.”

John Jackman was looking mutinous. “Are we still talking about Patsy MacLaren here?” he demanded. “The woman Julianne Corbett was not lying about when she said she was dead? That one?”

“Yes.”

“So what is she? A ghost? Does her spirit return to wreak revenge on the living? Was it an astral projection who was married to Stephen Willis? What the hell is going on here?”

“Patsy MacLaren,” Gregor Demarkian said carefully, “is a perfectly ordinary middle-aged woman who would appear absolutely no different from any other perfectly ordinary middle-aged woman if you had ever met her, which you have, once or twice, although you didn’t know it.”

“I’ve met Patsy MacLaren,” John Jackman said. “Right. When was this? Before she murdered her husband?”

“No. Since.”

“Right. During this investigation.”

“That’s it, yes.”

“So I didn’t know I was meeting Patsy MacLaren.”

Gregor Demarkian shook his head. “John, John,” he said. “Really. You’re doing just what I did up until a couple of hours ago. You’re making it much too complicated.”

“I’m going to complicate your head,” John Jackman exploded. “You can’t do this to me. Goddammit, Gregor. This is a murder investigation. We have three people dead.”

“I know you do,” Gregor said. “Get me pictures.”

“Of what?”

“Of Patsy MacLaren. Get me the Vassar College yearbook for the year they all graduated. MacLaren. Verity. Parrish. Corbett—and two others. There were two others. Remember what Julianne Corbett told us. There were six people who used to hang out together in a group. Those are the ones I want to see.”

John Jackman looked like he was going to explode again, but Gregor decided not to hang around for it. He went down to the stairwell. The big fireman was still there, but he was no longer interested in Gregor. Other firemen were there too, carting things back and forth, checking the walls and carpets. Gregor realized that he had no idea what firemen did besides put out fires, although in big city fire departments they had to do a lot more than that. At the very least, they had to inspect things.

Gregor went down the stairs, looked into the third floor hall onto emptiness, went down more stairs. In the second floor hall he saw a girl of ten or twelve sitting on the carpet in front of an open apartment door. She had a pile of magazines next to her and a pair of scissors. When she saw Gregor she held up one of the magazines and smiled.