“To Virginia Brand, now Virginia Brand Westervan,” Tim said. “She’s my sister. My fraternal twin sister, if you want to know. After that, there was Hope Matlock and poor Marty Veer. The absolutely coolest crowd at Alwych Country Day, all home from college for the summer and causing more trouble than any of us were worth. Jason Battlesea thinks Chapin was murdered over all that stuff that happened thirty years ago. Do you?”
“I don’t know,” Gregor said. “Right now I’m interested in something else. Have you ever heard of a man named Ray Guy Pearce?”
“Sure,” Tim said. “He publishes all those conspiracy books. He’s published two or three dozen about Chapin and the robberies. Just after all those things happened, I used to read those books and wonder where he was getting all his information. I even went into Queens one day and threatened to punch him out.”
“Did you?”
“No,” Tim admitted. “I was never really any good with physical violence. I just came home and fumed some more.”
“He was getting all the information from Chapin Waring,” Gregor said carefully. “He knew where she was, and he was in contact with her for all of those thirty years. Someday when I have more time, I’ll tell you all about it, if you’d like. Right now, I need to know something, and you seem to me the most likely person to have the information.”
“Sure. What do you need to know?”
“One of the things Ray Guy Pearce said to me when I talked to him earlier today was that Chapin Waring used to come into Alwych every once in a while, and that she came here because, she said, there was somebody here she wanted to talk to. And that she was making these trips fairly recently. It seems logical to me to think that the person she was meeting was either one of you four remaining from thirty years ago, or a member of her family.”
“Why wouldn’t a member of the family be the most logical choice?”
“I’ve met the only member of the family still living here,” Gregor said, “and that’s possible. There are two other sisters, but there’s no reason why Chapin Waring would have met them in Alwych. They don’t live anywhere near Alwych, and they would have been putting themselves in danger of being caught if they kept coming here. If Chapin Waring was coming to Alwych to meet someone, it would most likely have been someone who lives in Alwych and has to do nothing unnatural to be here. That includes the four of you. I’ll admit that I don’t know anything much about this Hope Matlock. I do think, though, that it’s implausible that Chapin would have been coming here to meet your sister. Your sister is a United States congresswoman. She’s much too high profile. That leaves you, Hope Matlock, and Kyle Westervan. Kyle Westervan works in the city. Chapin could have met him there more safely than she could have here. That leaves you and Hope Matlock.”
“Not bad,” Tim said. “But it could have been Evaline, you know. Marty’s sister. If there’s anybody in town who has a reason to want to talk to Chapin Waring, it’s Evaline. I don’t think she’s ever gotten over the accident. None of us have, of course, in some ways, but for Evaline it’s been very painful for a very long time. When I first heard that Chapin had been stabbed in the back, the first person who came to mind was Evaline.”
“And you weren’t meeting Chapin Waring in town on and off over the years?”
“No,” Tim said. “Not even once. I had no idea that anybody was. I’ll admit I think I’d be the last person in the world she would want to see.”
“Why?” Gregor asked. “You were her boyfriend at the time of the robberies, weren’t you? That’s in my notes, too.”
“I was her boyfriend,” Tim agreed, “in the sense that we’d been going around together all through high school and, yes, we slept together on and off when Chapin found it convenient. She didn’t always find it convenient. But being boyfriend and girlfriend at that age isn’t usually a matter of affection. I never did think Chapin liked me very much. I never very much liked her. We were the perfect match on paper—families, education, background, all of that—and a complete mismatch when it came to personality.”
“Were you surprised when you heard about the robberies?”
“Yes and no,” Tim said. “It shocked me that she’d killed someone, or participated in the killings, or whatever it was. I would never have thought Chapin capable of murder. But Chapin liked pushing the envelope. She liked causing trouble. And she loved an adrenaline rush.”