Hearts of Sand(74)

They all sat around and looked at each other. A figure from a chair in the corner that Gregor had not noticed before suddenly stirred, and stood up. It was Angela Harkin, in full uniform.

“Maybe it would be a good idea if I went out front and checked on what’s going on,” she said. “I’ve got a uniform, I’ve got a badge, I could probably calm things down.”

“Oh, what a wonderful idea,” Marcie said. She gave Jason Battlesea a look. “You can’t really be thinking of holding these two girls here all night. One of them’s pregnant and the other needs to get home sooner rather than later. She can’t be out all night.”

“I want to go up to the parking lot,” Gregor said. “And we ought to have tech people up there. If he was pushed over the wall, there will be evidence to find.”

“Of course,” Jason Battlesea said. “Of course. Let me go out and check with Held and Mann—”

He rushed out of the room, as if he’d been dying to escape the entire time he was in it.

Gregor and Tim Brand both watched him go.

Then Tim turned to Gregor and said, “Why don’t I go up the stairs to the other parking lot with you? I’ve got something I want to talk to you about.”

3

Outside felt like barely controlled chaos. Jason Battlesea had given orders for officers to search the hospital’s overflow parking lot. The crime scene tape had been pulled off the cement stairs. Men were going rapidly up and down.

Gregor surveyed the scene and turned to Tim. “Well?” he said.

Tim nodded. “You’re going to want to talk to Virginia,” he said. “And she’s not going to want to talk to you, but she’s not stupid. She’s going to see the advantage in it. I think I can arrange it.”

“When?”

“Now,” Tim Brand said.

Gregor was surprised. “It’s after ten o’clock,” he said. “In fact, it’s nearly eleven. Does your sister take meetings this late?”

“I’m pretty sure she’ll take this one,” Tim said. “The primary consideration here is discretion. Her best bet is to talk to you when nobody knows she’s talked to you.”

Gregor looked at the stairs. They were empty. Tim started off and Gregor followed him.

He got to the top and stepped off into the large, dark parking lot. There were many more people up here than Gregor had expected from what he had been able to see from below. There were the tech people Jason Battlesea had sent up, but there were also spectators, drawn by the police lights and the clutch of law enforcement officers.

Gregor shook his head. “There is going to be nothing discreet about this,” he said.

“You need to go into the hospital and through the emergency room to the emergency room entrance,” Tim said. “I’ll arrange to have you picked up by somebody who nobody will be looking at, and I’ll arrange to have Virginia let you in when you get to her place. But it’s got to be right now.”

“Yes,” Gregor said.

Tim Brand walked off to a completely empty part of the overflow lot and took out his cell phone.

Gregor watched a state police van pull up with its sirens blaring and its lights whirling. These would be the state forsenics experts.

The tech crew worked as if they knew what they were doing, and Gregor was grateful for that. He moved in a little closer and saw one of the Alwych uniforms tell a statie that he was not to be stopped. He got close to the wall and looked over. There were still a lot of people down there, measuring, testing, talking too loudly.

The back door of the clinic opened and two men came out carrying a gurney. It was obviously time for the body to be gone.

Gregor saw Tim Brand walking back across the parking lot and started in his direction. Tim stopped not halfway to him and beckoned him to come on.

Gregor came. When he got to Tim, they were mostly in the dark, and mostly out of earshot of everybody else, official and unofficial.

“Here’s what you’re going to do,” Tim said. “You’re going to walk around to the front of the hospital. There’s no other way for you to get in. If you try the back door, about a hundred alarms are going to go off. You’re going to go in through the hospital’s ordinary front door, and then you’re going to go down the wide corridor to your left. At the end of that corridor there will be another door, actually a set of swinging doors. That’s the side entrance to the emergency room. You’re going to go through there, and your ride will be waiting for you in the waiting room.”

“My ride?” Gregor asked.

“Her name is Hope Matlock,” Tim said. “Hope is probably on your list of people to talk to. She was part of Chapin’s group, and she was in the car on the night of the accident. Maybe you could kill two birds with one stone.”