Fountain of Death(18)

“The day after tomorrow. Bennis is going to California just after the New Year. Krekor, you should take a real vacation instead of doing the kind of thing you’re doing.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever had a real vacation.”

“I don’t think you have, either. It’s not healthy for you, Krekor. Now you’re calling me at seven forty-five in the morning from a motel in Connecticut and your voice sounds tense.”

“My voice is tense. I’m tense. I had a terrible day yesterday.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Gregor said, “I don’t think Tony Bandero really wants any help with this investigation. I think what he wants is a body he can throw at the press. That’s what he did yesterday. Throw me at the press.”

Gregor explained the day before: the ride from the station, the conversation about Tim Bradbury, the cursory look around the backyard at Fountain of Youth, the falling balcony rail.

“Every time I tried to make him get really specific about times and dates and places and names and forensics reports, he got distracted,” Gregor said. “And the way he handled the balcony rail incident—” Gregor traced gestures of exasperation in the air, that Tibor couldn’t see.

“I thought you said he called the uniformed police in after the balcony rail incident,” Tibor said. “Isn’t that what he should have done?”

“It wasn’t a bad idea,” Gregor conceded, “but it also wasn’t really necessary. And he wouldn’t listen to reason. When we talked to WTNH last night, he made it sound like step two in a very sinister underground plot. It was right out of something by Sax Rohmer.”

“Sax Rohmer,” Tibor said. “I know. Fu Manchu. The Yellow Peril.”

“Well, no Yellow Peril this time, Tibor. Just peril in general. The Forces of Evil out there. Generic.”

“This was inaccurate, Krekor?”

Gregor shrugged, which Tibor also could not see. “In the long run, it may be accurate. You’re the one who’s always telling me you believe in the existence of the devil. In the short run, the whole thing is incredibly, almost deliberately, idiotic. The balcony rail incident isn’t all that difficult to figure out, at least on a surface level. I knew how and I knew why within ten minutes of examining the debris. All I didn’t know was who and the why of why.”

“The why of why. That’s wonderful, Krekor.”

“I think it’s the central point,” Gregor said. “But the point I kept trying to make to Tony Bandero, and the one he wouldn’t listen to, is that nobody got hurt and nobody got killed and nobody was supposed to. There might have been a corpse in the backyard at the beginning of December, that might mean that there’s a killer in the vicinity who might be willing to kill again, but that business with the rail was definitely not attempted murder.”

“Maybe it plays better in the newspapers if people think it was,” Tibor said. “Maybe your Tony Bandero is just trying to get a little extra time or money from his superiors. Maybe it has nothing to do with you.”

“If it had nothing to do with me, Tibor, either I wouldn’t be here or he would be listening to me.”

There were more muffled crashes and muttered exclamations on the Philadelphia end of the line. Gregor imagined Tibor in a falling rain of cookbooks, their pages opened to glossy photographs of crown roast of lamb with pearl onions and strawberry mousse surprise.

“Tibor?”

“Do you want to come home, Krekor? Is that what this is about? Do you want to wash your hands of this murder and come back to Philadelphia?”

Gregor leaned over and got his copy of Poisons and Toxicity from the other bed. Held in one hand like this, it threatened to break his wrist. He put it down in his lap.

“I think,” he said, “that what I want to do for the moment is an end run around Tony Bandero. I want to cut him out of the loop. I want to investigate on my own.”

“Is that possible?”

“It might be to an extent. For a while. Eventually, I’d be stopped cold, of course.”

“You don’t sound like you’re in the mood to worry about eventually, Krekor.”

“No, Gregor said. “I’m not.”

“Then I think you should do it,” Tibor told him. “You should make your end run. I know that normally you consider it unethical to work against the will of the local police—”

“Also just plain stupid,” Gregor pointed out.

“True,” Tibor said, “it’s probably also just plain stupid. But in this case it sounds to me that the local police brought you in under false pretenses and are now attempting to prevent you from doing the job you agreed to do. And a boy is dead. Or a young man who was not much more than a boy. It doesn’t sound to me as if the police are solving that case.”