Hearts of Sand(76)

“Just a minute,” Gregor said. “When you say you were there, where were you?”

“Oh,” Virginia said. “I was at the hospital. I’m doing nearly wall-to-wall campaign events these days. About five o’clock I gave a talk to the staff at the hospital about the importance of ensuring universal health insurance.”

“Is that what you talked to your brother about?”

“No,” Virginia said. “Did he tell you that’s what we talked about?”

“He said you talked about politics, and morality.”

Virginia smiled. “That’s about right. He thinks morality resides in denying women their full humanity, and I think he’s wrong.”

“And that’s what you talked about? Denying women their full humanity?”

“Something like that,” Virginia said. “He’d put it differently.”

“Do you know when you got there?”

“No,” Virginia said. “Not exactly. I finished the talk, and then I was on my way out and Evaline was there.”

“Evaline Veer? The mayor.”

“She’s the mayor now, yes,” Virginia said. “She was there, and she was agitated, so I stopped to talk. And then the talk sort of went on for a while, so I told my people to go on to dinner, and they did. They know when I want to be left alone.”

“What did Miss Veer want to talk about?”

“She wanted to talk about Chapin being murdered. You coming. The publicity. Evaline’s always been the jumpy sort, but this thing has hit her hard. She’s called me at least five times in Washington, as if I could do something about it.”

“So you talked to Miss Veer,” Gregor said. “Then what?”

“Then nothing, really. I got her calmed down, more or less, and then I started to walk over to the restaurant where my people were having dinner. Except I didn’t really feel like going. And I knew the stairs were there and Tim’s place was there. So I called my assistant, told her what I was going to do, and went down to see Tim. It worked out better than I expected. He was right there. Sitting on the wall.”

“And Kyle Westervan was not there? Lying in the shrubbery right against the wall?”

“Is that where he was found? Right next to the retaining wall?” Virginia almost laughed. “Mr. Demarkian, Tim was sitting on the wall. He’d have seen a body. I’d have seen a body. It’s not like there’s much there to hide something in, even something small.”

Gregor Demarkian nodded. Virginia could not decide if she liked him or not.

“Tell me something,” he said. “Can you think of any reason why somebody would kill Kyle Westervan?”

“Not a one,” Virginia said. “But I haven’t seen him all that often in recent years. He has a whole life I know nothing about.”

“What about a reason connected to the events of thirty years ago?”

“The robberies? Mr. Demarkian, I can’t even think of a good reason connected to those that would make anybody want to kill Chapin Waring. I know that’s the most fashionable theory at the moment, but all of that happened thirty years ago. I don’t know if I would have known Chapin if I’d run into her on the street. And it wasn’t like she took off and left an accomplice behind. Marty was her accomplice, and he was already dead. There was nobody left holding the bag.”

“Did you know anything about the robberies when they were occurring?”

“No,” Virginia said. “And neither did Kyle. The two of us were completely out of it. Tim was dating Chapin, and Hope was dating Marty—so they at least had some connection to the crimes, even if it was secondhand. But Kyle and I had no connection at all.”

“Do you think your brother knew about the robberies while they were going on?”

“He’s always said he didn’t,” Virginia said. “And I believe him. Hope always said she didn’t, too. I never knew her as well as I knew the rest of them, but I’ve got no reason to think she was lying, either. This was Chapin Waring’s baby. Except for roping Marty in and taking him for a ride, she never breathed a word of it to the rest of us.”

“She never asked you to participate?”

“No,” Virginia said. “I think she knew better. She knew I wouldn’t go along with it.”

“And she didn’t ask any of the others?”

“It’s as I’ve said,” Virginia said. “They always said not, and I’ve got no reason not to believe them. It’s not like this wasn’t all checked out at the time. They questioned all of us, endlessly, for months. They got search warrants and searched our houses. It was a very bad and frightening time, made worse by the fact that it all took place right after the accident, and Marty was dead and Kyle had fractures and I don’t know what else. It’s incredible that Marty was the only one who died. And it was years before I could get into a car without panicking. I stopped driving for half a decade. But neither the police nor the FBI ever found anything to connect any of the rest of us to those robberies, and I still think that was because there was nothing to find.”