Hearts of Sand(84)

They got to the Alwych Police Department, but literally at a crawl. When they got there, Gregor found most of the police force that wasn’t out dealing with the streets lined up in formation to march, too. At the head of that contingent was Jason Battlesea.

“For God’s sake,” Battlesea said after Juan Valdez got the car into an uninhabited part of the parking lot and Gregor got out. “What do you think you’re doing? We’re supposed to march in an hour and we’re supposed to be lined up to march in half an hour. You can’t tell me that this is something that couldn’t have waited until after noon.”

“Are Mike Held and Jack Mann marching?”

“They’re right over there. Are you saying you want them, too? Want them for what?”

“To look at something,” Gregor said.

“It’s the God damned Fourth of July.”

Gregor took his attaché and laptop and marched himself into police headquarters. He did not bother to go looking for the interrogation room they had used before or for Jason Battlesea’s office. He put his things down on one of the countertops and began to plug things in. He not only had the laptop up and working, but the three files he wanted them to see already running before they came in.

They landed at his side like a comedy group from a 1930s movie. They were all flustered, and Jason Battlesea was angry.

“This had better be important,” he said. “This had better be the God damned Second Coming, because we are all due somewhere or the other practically immediately.”

Gregor pointed to the screen of his laptop. “Look at that,” he said. “Those are three of the security tape sequences from the robberies. The thin figure is Chapin Waring. The lumpy figure is Martin Veer.”

“We already knew that,” Jason Battlesea said.

“Why is the lumpy figure lumpy?” Gregor asked.

“To make a disguise,” Jason Battlesea said. “What the hell. We already knew that, too. They knew that back when the robberies happened.”

“But there are lots of ways to make a disguise,” Gregor said. “Why use that one? Why make Martin Veer look lumpy?”

“Because that was what they thought of?” Jason Battlesea asked. “Because they had some padding handy and they could use it? Who the hell knows? Who the hell knows why Chapin Waring and Martin Veer did anything? They were crazy as loons, if you ask me, and from what you’ve told me about what Chapin Waring was doing for the thirty years since, I’d say she got crazier as time went on.”

“It doesn’t remind you of anything?” Gregor asked, pointing at the lumpy figure on all three parts of the screen. The figure skittered and lumbered and almost lost its balance. It righted itself, and then the loop brought it back to the beginning. It skittered again.

“For God’s sake,” Jack Mann said. “We really do have to go.”

“If there’s something here that’s urgent,” Jason Battlesea said, “then get it out and we’ll do something about it. If there’s going to be another murder—”

“No,” Gregor said, “I think I can guarantee that there isn’t going to be another murder.”

“Then there’s no point in going into this now,” Jason Battlesea said. “So if you would excuse us—”

“It doesn’t matter to you that that film provides the last link that explains the reason for two murders and tells you who committed them?”

“It will still explain it after noon,” Jason Battlesea said. “We’re going to go now. I’ll just point out that we were right after all. The murder of Chapin Waring was committed because of something having to do with those robberies.”

“Oh,” Gregor said. “In a way.”





FOUR

1

Caroline Waring Holder had gotten the first of the telephone calls about the death of Kyle Westervan barely an hour after the police arrived to take possession of the crime scene, and she’d gotten telephone call after telephone call after that. It was well into the small hours of the night before she decided that she had to do something or go crazy. What she’d done was to go from place to place, turning off all possible connections to the outside world. She turned off the ringers on all the landline extensions. She turned off the cell phones. She shut down the computers. She didn’t want to hear from anybody about anything.

Caroline had always liked Kyle Westervan. He was old enough to be entirely off her radar when she was a child, but she had run into him since, and he was one of the better ones. Since coming back to Alwych, Caroline had always tended to judge people by the way they approached the Waring case. Most people didn’t bring it up at all. They gave her long, “significant” looks when they talked to her, and waited too long before answering her questions or responding to her comments to see if she would do something “inappropriate.” The idea seemed to be that she must be traumatized by All That, and as a traumatized person she would have to show signs of wear and tear.