Living Witness(118)

“Why should we search the house? She was dead on the doorstep, for God’s sake, and the door was locked.”

“Which only means that somebody locked it,” Gregor said. “And there are windows somebody could have gotten through. And then there’s that wooded area in the back, the one where your officers heard not one but three gunshots coming from.”

“They were imagining things,” Dale Vardan said. “For Christ’s sake, Demarkian, look at the lay of the land here. They got around the back of the house and there wasn’t anybody there, and if there had been they would have seen him.”

“I agree,” Gregor said, “but that doesn’t mean that nobody was ever there. If you people are going to help out here, you should start by searching that wooded area with a microscope. And you should do it now, because whoever killed Shelley Niederman is going to be back, as soon as he thinks he can get away with it.”

“So, you know it’s a man, do you? Yeah, I’d take it for a man, too. Women don’t beat people to death with baseball bats.”

Gregor wished everybody would stop assuming that all the murders had been committed with baseball bats. “I was using the word ‘he’ as a generic. I see no reason why a woman couldn’t have committed these crimes. The important question now is why. And the first necessity is to find whatever was left in that wood, before anybody can come and take it away.”

“What makes you think you’re going to find anything in that wood?” Dale Vardan demanded. “There was nobody there. They would have seen him. I mean, for Christ’s sake, they’re screw-ups, but they’re not brain dead.”

“They heard three shots, and shots do not fire themselves,” Gregor said. “If you won’t get a team of men on it, I’ll call the Governor and throw a right royal fit until you do. And don’t think I can’t do it. The other thing that needs to happen is that this house needs to be searched, top to bottom, again. Right now. That means all the upstairs rooms, all the upstairs closets, and the attic.”

“You’re out of your mind,” Dale Vardan said. “What the Hell do you think is going on here? You know what this is? This is another hillbilly country feud, that’s what this is. You get to the bottom of it, you’re going to find a couple of good ole boys and some liquor and lots of sex all over the place.”

“Annie-Vic Hadley wasn’t a good ole boy, and she wasn’t a hillbilly. Judy Cornish and Shelley Niederman weren’t hillbillies, either. I’ve never seen a case that had less to do with hillbillies than this one.”

“Bullshit,” Dale Vardan said. “What’s this whole thing about? Bible-thumping idiots, that’s what, all worked up because somebody told them they were descended from monkeys. Well, look at them. They look like they were descended from monkeys. They look like they’re still monkeys.”

“That’s the thing,” Gregor said. “You see all these papers? I looked through them this morning, and then I had Miss Hadley’s grandniece look through them again this afternoon, just in case I missed something. You know what’s not here? There’s not a single thing, not one, having anything to do with Creationism and evolution, or even with the lawsuit.”

“Well, Hell,” Dale Vardan said. “Our guy took ’em, that’s why. There’s something in those papers about him and he doesn’t want us to see.”

“Took them when?”

“Took them yesterday,” Dale Vardan said. “When he murdered the other woman. He had plenty of time.”

“Then why did he murder Shelley Niederman?”

“Because he’s not murdering them for the papers,” Dale Vardan said. “He’s murdering them because they’re Satan-worshiping secular humanists who want to bring that stuff about monkeys into the Snow Hill public schools. Hillbillies, Mr. Demarkian. I told you. They’re walking advertisements for mercy killing, only it would be a mercy to the rest of us if they’d just all end up dead.”





3




It was nearly five o’clock by the time Gregor got back to town, and by then he knew he would be spending another night with Gary Albright.

“It’s really not a problem,” Bennis told him when he called. “If anything, it’s probably a good thing you’re out of the way. You’d only get caught up in this fight about the church. Go solve a murder and come back when it’s over.”

Gregor didn’t even want to think about what it meant that that argument was still going on. “Did you talk to Sister Beata?” he asked. “Did you find out anything about Catholics and evolution?”