There was a low concrete restraining wall at the edge of the short driveway leading to the loading door. Lotte sat down on it, got out her cigarette case, and lit up.
“So,” she said. “Tell me. What did your friend mean by legit?”
“He meant big-time legit,” Lotte said. “This Gregor Demarkian was an FBI agent. He did work on kidnappings for years, and he was good at it so he got assigned to Washington and the sensitive political work, problems with Senators and Congressmen and that kind of thing. Anyway, one day around, I don’t remember, 1977 or 1978, he started helping some people in Oregon and Washington with these murder investigations they had, string of young girls, looked like it was the same person. The FBI isn’t supposed to handle murder cases except in national parks or on Indian reservations, because murder isn’t a federal offense, but they got around it that time because there were two states involved, Demarkian supposedly told the director at the time that he was investigating a man who was carrying on an interstate commerce in murder. If you see what I mean.”
“Very clever,” Lotte said.
“Yeah, Lotte. I know. He is very clever. He tracked this guy for Oregon and Washington and a couple of other states, and because of the help he gave them the guy finally got caught, and that was Ted Bundy.”
“Ah,” Lotte Goldman said, sitting up a little straighter and nodding. “Mr. Bundy. I’ve heard of Mr. Bundy.”
“Everybody’s heard of Mr. Bundy,” DeAnna said drily. “He’s the most famous serial killer since Jack the Ripper. Anyway, that’s how Demarkian got what he wanted. Bundy escaped from jail—a couple of times—ending up rampaging across the Florida countryside, Demarkian gave the police down there some help and they ended up convicting Bundy—and then Demarkian went to the powers-that-were and told them that if the FBI had had the procedures in place to deal with someone like Bundy, someone like Bundy would never have been able to do the kind of damage he did.”
Lotte thought about this. “As a thesis, it’s dubious.”
“Of course it’s dubious,” DeAnna agreed, “but it’s like I said. Demarkian got what he wanted. Which was a special department of the Federal Bureau of Investigation that does nothing but track serial murderers.”
“He founded this department?”
“You got it.”
“And he headed it?”
“For ten years,” DeAnna said. “He was good at it, too. He was involved in all kinds of famous cases. He got his picture on the cover of Time magazine. He was a real big noise.”
“Why did he stop?”
“His wife got some really nasty form of cancer and he took a leave to look after her,” DeAnna said. “Then when she died, I guess he just didn’t have the heart for it. My guy at CBS said that people were saying at the time that Demarkian looked depressed enough to be suicidal. They were really worried.”
Depressed enough to be suicidal when his wife died—that spoke well for him. Lotte was amused at herself. Here DeAnna was, rattling off a string of credentials and professional accomplishments, and the first thing she says to make Lotte feel she will be able to trust this man is that he was depressed enough to be suicidal when his wife died.
“I’m getting to be an old Jewish person,” she told DeAnna. “I ought to be a grandmother, the way I think sometimes these days. What about the things we have read about? The murder in Vermont? The one this past May at the convent—”
“I’m getting to that,” DeAnna said. “Them, I guess. He does a lot of that sort of thing.”
“He’s a private detective?”
“Nope. Doesn’t have a license and tells anyone who asks that he doesn’t intend to get one.”
“Then how can he take on these investigations?”
“By the simple expedient of not charging for them. Not that money doesn’t change hands, mind you. There’s a rumor going around that right after Demarkian cleared up a murder at the chancery up in Colchester a couple of Easters ago, John Cardinal O’Bannion directed some Catholic charitable funding organization he’s head of to donate twenty-five thousand dollars to some cause Demarkian’s pet priest is involved with—”
Lotte nodded. “That would be Father Tibor Kasparian. David’s friend. Did you check into these private investigations, or whatever you’re supposed to call them? You’re sure he really did the investigating?”
“Oh, yeah. He’s got letters of thanks from police departments all over the place, including one from the police department in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, which I was actually able to check out. I talked to the guy he worked with on the Hannaford case. The guy couldn’t have been more impressed.”