He read the story three times. It was like reading gibberish.
He looked at the board again. His Acela Express was still slated to be on time. He had half an hour to kill. He tried phoning Bennis.
Bennis didn’t pick up.
He texted her: PICK UP. In capitals. It needed capitals.
He tried phoning her again. This time she picked up.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I had the phone off. I’m very, very sorry. I should have realized you were going to call. But you don’t understand how crazy it’s already been, and it hasn’t been more than a couple of hours. I can’t understand—”
“Stop there. A couple of hours.”
“Just after eleven thirty or eleven forty-five, I think,” Bennis said. “The police were called just after eleven forty-five, and they were all there—Tibor and Russ and Petrak Maldovanian because his brother was arrested for shoplifting or something—”
“Bennis.”
“It doesn’t make any sense. The news says they found him in this judge’s office and he had the murder weapon in his hand and there was blood everywhere. And there was this woman there, not the judge. I’m not sure who she was, but she started screaming her head off and Russ was in the corridor because he was looking for the judge, and I don’t know. Gregor, I wasn’t there.”
Gregor tried to think of what could calm her down, but he had never had to calm Bennis down. “All right,” he said. “You weren’t there. But Russ was there. That’s right, isn’t it? You said Russ was there. Is Russ with you now? Can you put him on the phone?”
There was a long, strained silence. “He isn’t here,” Bennis said finally. “He’s still at the jail, where they took Tibor, and—”
“And he’s working on it,” Gregor said. “That’s what I’d expect. There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s going to have to be a bail hearing. And whatever went on, Tibor shouldn’t be talking to anybody without a lawyer present.”
“I don’t think that’s anything you have to worry about.” Bennis sounded as if she were strangling. “He’s— Tibor isn’t talking. To anybody. According to Russ, all he’ll say is ‘I have the right to remain silent.’ That’s it.”
“But that’s good.” Gregor was trying his best to sound reassuring. “That’s just what he ought to say. Don’t start acting like a ninny and thinking he ought to be talking his head off so that he doesn’t seem to be guilty, because—”
“No, you don’t understand,” Bennis said. “That’s all he would say. Not just to the police, but to anyone. It’s all he would say to Russ.”
“What?”
“And Russ says he presented himself as Tibor’s attorney and Tibor said Russ wasn’t his attorney and then the police pretty well threw him out of the station, and now he doesn’t know what to do and I don’t either. I mean, if Tibor wants another lawyer, I can pay for one. There’s enough money, but Russ says they wouldn’t let me in to see him anyway and it doesn’t sound like he’s made a phone call to another lawyer and does this make any sense to you? Isn’t Russ his lawyer? I mean, isn’t Russ his lawyer to the extent that he ever has a lawyer?”
“I never really thought of it,” Gregor said. “I never expected anything to come up.”
“Tibor can’t have killed anyone,” Bennis said. “He wouldn’t kill anyone. You know that.”
“I do know that.”
“I know you can’t work miracles, but Tibor will talk to you. Maybe you can get him to tell you what happened. Maybe you can get him to stop being an idiot and listen to Russ or somebody, get him to let me pay for another lawyer if he wants to, something, because the way things are now—”
“They’re calling my train.”
“Good,” Bennis said. “Go.”
“I’m moving as fast as I can,” Gregor said.
That was true, but it wasn’t much help to anybody.
2
The Acela Express was an hour and a half late getting into Thirtieth Street Station, and by then Bennis had texted him four times with a link. The problem with riding on a train was that service went in and out with no rhyme or reason Gregor could tell.
It didn’t help that the few seconds of film he was able to see as the connection went in and out was all disturbing.
He was sure it could not be accurate. It seemed to show Tibor kneeling on the floor in a large room, next to a large desk, holding an outsized gavel in his hands. That was all right. It was much like the still picture Gregor had already had a chance to see. Then the film would move a little and it would look as if Tibor was raising the gavel in the air, far over his head. Then the gavel would start to come down, and Gregor would lose service again.