Glass Houses(88)

He got Rob Benedetti on the phone and told him to be in John Jackman’s office in an hour. He called upstairs to John Jackman’s office and told him there was going to be a meeting there, and that he should be present at it. Then he went back to matching up his chart with the basic forensics. His eyes were feeling ready to fall out of his head when Betty Gelhorn came to the door and said there were people looking for him.

“A woman and a man,” she said. “A pretty woman.”

Gregor went out into the hall, expecting to see Rob Benedetti and an assistant district attorney. He got Bennis Hannaford instead, and a tall, elegant young man he had met only once or twice before, but whom he recognized instantly.

“Mr. Mark,” he said.

Bennis was looking at the walls and the ceiling and the floor, anywhere but at him. “We couldn’t find you. I called your cell a dozen times, but you didn’t answer.”

“It didn’t ring,” Gregor said.

Bennis leaned forward and pulled the phone out of his inside jacket pocket. “It’s off,” she said, handing it to him.

“It can’t be off. I just made calls on it,” Gregor said.

“And when you finished, you turned it off,” Bennis said. “You have to—”

“Please,” Alexander Mark said. “Could we just—”

“Right,” Bennis said. “Mr. Mark has something he wants to talk to you about that concerns the case, and he thinks it’s important, and he seemed trustworthy to me. And you didn’t answer your phone. So we called around for a while and I talked to John and here we are.”

“I really didn’t mean to interrupt you at something important,” Alexander Mark said. “It’s just that I was thinking. And looking. Looking at things. And then I wondered why nobody seemed to be paying attention to this last one: Arlene Treshka. That last one. Not one of the people from last night—”

“No, that’s all right,” Gregor said. “I understand. Arlene Treshka, the woman next to whose body Henry Tyder was found. Do you know something about her?”

“I know that she was one of our clients,” Alexander said.

“Alexander works as a secretary,” Bennis supplied helpfully, “to a man named Dennis Ledeski. He’s an accountant.”

Gregor looked Alexander Mark up and down. Surely the man hadn’t been a secretary when they’d met before, and no secretary could afford the clothes he wore. Gregor didn’t know all that much about clothes, but he knew a Turnbull & Asser tie when he saw one, and he knew John Lobb shoes. He also knew what they cost.

Alexander Mark flushed. “It’s a long story,” he said. “It’s about . . . I was trying to . . . I don’t know. It’s not about the murders. It’s about something else. But then I started to think. And I realized. Nobody is paying any attention to Arlene Treshka. She died, and it’s as if she’s just one of a list, so nobody cares who she was. That isn’t normal, is it? Don’t the papers and the news programs usually go on and on about the victim and who she was and what she was like? Why hasn’t anybody said anything like that about Arlene Treshka?”

“I don’t think it was a conspiracy,” Gregor said, “I think it was just that Henry Tyder had been arrested and had apparently given some sort of confession—”

“Only apparently?” Alexander said.

“There’s some question about it,” Gregor said. “But I don’t think the lack of information was deliberate. It was just that there was other news that was much more, what’s the word?”

“Spectacular?” Alexander said. Then he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. The thing is, I have some information about Arlene Treshka. And not just about Arlene Treshka either. She was one of our clients.”

“Dennis Ledeski’s clients,” Bennis put in.

Gregor ignored her. “That is interesting,” he said, “but I don’t see that it helps us. I’m sure she had a doctor as well as an accountant. She may have had a lawyer.”

“She isn’t the only one,” Alexander Mark said. “Sarajean Petrazik was one of our clients, too. So was Elizabeth Bray. And Elyse Martineau had my job. She was the one Dennis was questioned about. But you see, you have to see, that there’s more going on here than just the obvious. I don’t know why no-body thought to ask about any of this before, but I found out in less than ten minutes on the computer. Don’t you think that’s odd, that all those women were clients of Dennis’s?”

“Yes,” Gregor said. “I do think that’s odd. Did you check the other ones? Were they clients, too?”