Feast of Murder(48)

Charlie rocked back and forth on his heels, feeling more nervous than he had even a few hours ago, when the numbers had been whizzing around his head and he’d been afraid that one of them would find him out. He didn’t know anything about numbers, but he didn’t want them to know he didn’t know anything about numbers. But as for this—

Charlie Shay was what he thought of as an ordinarily superstitious man. He checked his horoscope in the Daily News and was careful not to walk under ladders. He didn’t believe in ghosts and goblins and predestination by sidewalk crack. And yet …

If you ask a murder expert along for the ride … you’re likely to land yourself with a murder for your expert to be expert about.

It was the sort of silly thing Calvin said when he got his temper up, the sort of thing that Charlie never paid much attention to, and it was, of course, ridiculous.

What bothered Charlie Shay was the fact that he couldn’t shake the feeling it was true.





Seven


1


JON BAIRD HAD ASKED Gregor Demarkian aboard the Pilgrimage Green in order to investigate the press leaks that had plagued Baird Financial for most of the last two years—at least, that was what Jon Baird had told Gregor Demarkian, and Gregor Demarkian had accepted, during their one long luncheon meeting in New York. In some measure, Gregor had actually believed this story. He had known a great many rich men in his time, and most of them had been in the grip of what he privately thought of as “affluent paranoia.” Affluent paranoia came in numerous forms, often familial. Rich men always seemed to suspect either that they were about to be murdered (by their wives and children, by their business partners or their business enemies or the latest auditor sent out by the IRS) or that they were the targets of elaborate plots to embarrass them. All in all, they feared embarrassment more than death. Certainly all this nonsense about leaks fit right into Gregor’s theory. He had tried to tell Jon Baird what any good policeman would have told him about leaks, and Jon Baird had refused to listen. Jon Baird hadn’t wanted to make a series of differing, clandestine, and wholly false statements to a series of different and individually accosted employees. He hadn’t wanted to tap the phones at the World Trade Center offices of Baird Financial. He hadn’t wanted a grey-faced private investigator from one of Manhattan’s more discreet firms going through the office mail. He hadn’t wanted anything, in fact, that might get him what he did want, and from this Gregor concluded that either one of two things must be true. Either Jon Baird had a true case of affluent paranoia, pitched so high by now that it gave him a thrill he didn’t want to give up. Or Jon Baird was lying about both the leaks and the reason he had invited Gregor Demarkian on this trip, and Gregor Demarkian would have to wait and see.

As it turned out, Gregor Demarkian spent most of that first day on the Pilgrimage Green waiting and seeing—except that he didn’t see much and waiting was almost intolerable. His run in with Fritzie Baird was interesting, but not diverting. She was obviously a severely disturbed woman. There was no way to know what he could and could not take at face value of what she had presented to him. He wanted to say “nothing,” but he knew that was unlikely. Even certifiable schizophrenics weren’t that seamlessly wrapped into fantasy. It was Fritzie’s interpretations he really had to distrust—what Jon felt, what Jon thought, what Jon wanted—and they were too textbook to hold his attention for long. After all, he was the man who had hunted down the Stick Pin Killer, via telephone and computer printout. A standard case of delusional projection hardly fazed him.

The only other diverting thing that happened during his day was a chance meeting with Calvin Baird, who had come barreling out of Jon Baird’s cabin while Gregor was on his way up to the main deck, caused a collision that knocked Gregor’s head into a beam and his back into a ladderlike grid of supports near one of the doors. Then he had scowled his very best Calvin scowl and declared it was all Gregor’s fault.

“I know what you’re really doing here,” he said, trying to brush Gregor aside. “You’re getting in the way and gumming up the works and making it impossible for anyone to get anything done.”

Gregor tried to move aside so that Calvin could pass, and so that Calvin would stop reflexively hitting at his shoulder with the back of his hand. He couldn’t do it, because the passage was too narrow. The best he could manage was to move a little closer to the stairs, where there would be slightly more open space and a chance to maneuver.

“I’m glad that you know what I’m doing here,” he’d said pleasantly. “I’ve been a little confused about it myself.”