Flowering Judas(58)

“We’ll pick the body up in the morning,” Ferris Cole said again. “And don’t let Howard worry you. Or Marianne, either. That town won’t vote money for anything. A couple of months ago, somebody figured out that the police radios didn’t work in at least half the territory, and they couldn’t get the town council to vote the money to get better ones. So then they held a referendum, and they couldn’t get the people of the town to vote the money to get better ones. Police radios. Do you believe it?”

“The whole town thinks it doesn’t have any crime when it actually does?”

“It’s mostly the Mattatuck–Harvey Taxpayers Association. Older people, most of them on Social Security, who don’t want taxes raised for any reason. They’re not the majority of the town, but they are the majority of the people who will actually go out and vote in local elections. And it’s like I said. They only think they don’t have crime. I’m willing to bet that Howard gets four or five cases a year that are at least iffy, and then there are the domestics, of which Mattatuck always has a few. You’ve got to wonder about some people.”

Gregor agreed that you had to wonder about some people. Then he said good-bye to Ferris Cole and went back to his mound of fried clams.

Somehow, it wasn’t nearly as much fun eating them as it was when he had Bennis around to complain.

3

Back in the room, Gregor lay down on the bed—well, one of the beds, the one closest to the door—and considered his options. He called the hospital again, even though he knew it was useless. He got a different nurse from the one he’d had before, but with the same attitude. He thought about calling Bennis. That was something he wanted to do before he went to sleep, but right now it just felt wrong. He rarely discussed case problems with her. She understood them when he did, but her attitude to justice tended to be as direct as anything in a Die Hard movie. If she knew who the bad guys were, she wanted to blow them away.

Actually, Gregor couldn’t imagine Bennis blowing anyone away. Giving them the kind of tongue lashing that reduced them to ribbons—yes, that he could see. Using a weapon was not really her style.

He got off the bed and went to the desk. He had left his little airplane bag there, the one Bennis packed what she called his “miscellaneous essentials” in. He rifled through it until he came up with his little L.L. Bean folding alarm clock. It was bright yellow, because Bennis thought something bright yellow would be hard for him to lose. He opened it. It was nine-twenty.

I’m losing all sense of time, he thought, and it was true. The day had started too early. He’d been moving through it too fast. He thought he’d gone down to dinner at seven, but maybe it had been earlier. He hadn’t really checked. He put the alarm clock on the beside table next to where he expected to sleep and went back to pacing. Then he went to the window and looked out on the parking lot. The lights of Mattatuck were spread out before him, and there were many more lights than you’d expect to see in a “small town.” Gregor wondered if the teachers were getting paid this year. Then he wondered if the police had working radios. Then he decided that he couldn’t do this much longer without going insane, and headed out into the hall and down one room to get Tony Bolero.

Tony Bolero had not undressed to go to bed. If he had, Gregor might have changed his mind about what he wanted to do. Tony Bolero was still in his full driver’s uniform, except for the hat. Gregor took that as an omen.

“Could you drive me somewhere?” Gregor asked. “I don’t know what the arrangement is. If it’s too late—”

“I can drive you anywhere you want,” Tony Bolero said. “Where do you want to go?”

Gregor thought that in a murder mystery, Tony Bolero would definitely turn out to be the murderer. Since he was from Philadelphia, that was not likely to be the case here.

“I want to go to a place called Feldman’s Funeral Home. Or The Feldman Funeral Home. I’m not sure how they phrase it. I was there earlier today, but not with you. It was when I was driving around with Howard Androcoelho.”

“It’s The Feldman Funeral Home,” Tony Bolero said. “I know where it is. Give me a couple of minutes and I’ll bring the car around to the lobby.”

Gregor did not ask how Tony Bolero knew where The Feldman Funeral Home was. It felt like one of those better-kept secrets. Maybe Bennis had hired this guy on purpose, because he seemed to her to be the kind of person who would fit in a murder investigation. Meaning, Gregor thought, that he seemed like the kind of person who could be a second lead on The Sopranos.