Hearts of Sand(46)

“Is it?” Hope said.

“Not the real morgue,” Evaline said. “We’ve got a state facility for that. It’s just the place we put bodies while we’re waiting for a transfer. That’s a terrible thing to think of, isn’t it? A transfer. Like you’re hauling meat. Marty was transferred to the funeral home that used to be next to the Congregational Church. I don’t even remember what it was called anymore.”

“They took all of us to the hospital that night,” Hope said. “Chapin was in the backseat and she was barely even scratched. I remember Tim getting out from the back and walking around the car. Just walking around it and around it. And the car was all crumpled up. They made a big deal in the papers about how Marty had been drinking that night, but I didn’t think it made any difference. We were always drinking in those days. Nobody thought anything of it. It wasn’t like now.”

“No,” Evaline agreed. “It wasn’t like now.”

“Sometimes I look back on it and I realize that they must have been acting crazy because of the two people who were killed,” Hope said. “Chapin and Marty, I mean. They were high as kites and we hadn’t taken anything. We’d just had a few drinks, these pink cocktail things Chapin liked to make. But at the time, it just seemed like Chapin being Chapin.”

“I know what you mean,” Evaline said.

“I’m not surprised someone stabbed her in the back,” Hope said. “She was always stabbing everybody else in the back.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say anything like that too loudly around here at the moment,” Evaline said. “That Mr. Demarkian is here now. You could turn yourself into a prime suspect.”

Hope was definitely feeling better now. Her lungs were full of air. Her muscles were willing to move on their own.

She got up off the bench very carefully, holding on to the armrest with one hand and praying to God she wouldn’t tip the thing over. She had her other arm still clutching her pocketbook to her chest.

“There you go,” Evaline said cheerfully. “Let’s walk home, then. Maybe we can walk over to my house and get my car.”





THREE

1

Gregor had his dinner out on the terrace. He brought his laptop and his phone and all the papers he had brought with him and spread himself out across two chairs, a chaise, and the round metal table.

He’d been staring at the black blank space that was the Waring house for half an hour before he decided that he was being an idiot. He picked up the phone and called Bennis. He listened to the ring and ring that went on long enough to make him wonder if she’d left her phone someplace, and then she picked up.

“I was wondering when you were going to call,” she said.

“I’ve been calling,” Gregor said. “I’ve been calling every chance I’ve gotten. I wish you were here.”

“I thought you didn’t like me interfering in your professional life.”

“I didn’t say I wanted you to interfere. I just said I wished you were here. And I do. And it’s only partly because I miss you.”

“Are all the people awful?” Bennis asked. “I thought about it after you went up there, and it occurred to me that you were probably headed for Connecticut’s version of the Main Line. And all the people would be awful.”

“The people are strange enough,” Gregor said, “but that’s not the big issue. The big issue is that I have nobody to talk to.”

“I thought they always hired you drivers and you talked to them,” Bennis said.

“I do sometimes,” Gregor agreed, “but in this case, my driver does not seem to speak any English. His name is Juan Valdez—”

“Wait? Like the coffee guy? From the commercials?”

“I knew the name was familiar,” Gregor said. “Well, that’s his name. I don’t know if he’s legal or illegal. I don’t know if he understands a word I say. He sits in the front of the car and gives me a lot of rapid-fire Spanish and I have no idea what it means, and then he drives me around. He must understand something, because we always get where we’re going. But he’s symptomatic of this whole thing, if you ask me.”

“Symptomatic how?”

“Well,” Gregor said, “let’s just say that I’ve felt as if everybody I’ve met came from central casting. Juan Valdez seems less like a person than the worst kind of stereotype. It’s been like that with a lot of these people. I met a woman named Caroline Waring Holder—”

“Is that the youngest sister?” Bennis asked. “I’ve heard about her. She’s gotten all social consciency or something and sends her kids to the local public school.”