Living Witness(151)

He wasn’t making any sense, and he knew it. He was tired, and he wanted to get this done in time to catch Dale Vardan unawares. Or something. That was a wish for annihilation, too. Even so, he had a life waiting for him. He had Bennis, and the wedding coming up, and Tibor and Donna and a dozen other people he hadn’t spoken to in days. He had a world where he felt comfortable.

Now he looked up and down Main Street from his vantage point at the police department’s front door and felt suddenly wonderful that he did not live in a place of this kind. The diner was still closed. The mobile news vans looked deserted. Even Nick Frapp’s church complex seemed to be devoid of people for once. In a day or two things would be back to normal here, but Gregor did not think they would be any better. The problem here was the people themselves, and he didn’t think that would change no matter how long Nick worked at changing it. People had to want to change, and even then they usually didn’t.

He crossed the street and went up the block a little to the offices of Wackford Squeers, the faux old-fashioned sign hanging in the air next to the door. Gregor could see through the front window to the empty receptionist’s desk. He wondered why the secretary had quit and where she had gone when she left. He walked up to the front door and opened it. It wasn’t locked. Secretary or no secretary, Henry Wackford was open for business. Gregor supposed he would have to be. Appointments don’t cancel themselves just because secretaries quit.

Henry Wackford’s office door was closed, but Gregor could hear him in there, walking around, talking to someone, or maybe just to himself. There was nobody waiting in the outer room. Gregory looked at the pictures on the walls. They were bland pictures, reception area pictures, nothing that would offend anyone anywhere: There was a scene of horses in a field. There as a landscape of an old mill over a river. Gregor thought he had seen these same pictures in hundreds of places. He thought he might be wrong.

He listened to the talking coming from Henry Wackford’s office and decided there was only one voice. There was no client in there. Henry Wackford was talking to himself.

Gregor went up to the door and knocked. The talking stopped, abruptly. The door was opened. Henry Wackford looked disheveled and sweaty. It made him seem older.

“Mr. Demarkian,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

Gregor walked past him into the office. The pictures on the walls here were no less vapid than the ones in the reception area. Here, though, there were the diplomas, the degrees, the awards, and there were quite a few of each. There was a time when Henry Wackford must have looked like the next big thing.

“There was a lot of promise here, in the beginning, wasn’t there?” Gregor asked.

“I don’t have the faintest idea of what you’re talking about,” Henry Wackford said. “Christine’s gone and I’m up to my neck, so if there’s something you need—”

“A confession would be nice,” Gregor said. “Gary and his boys ought to be here in a minute or two, and a confession isn’t strictly necessary, since I know who and how and why pretty thoroughly at this point, but a confession would be nice. It saves time.”

“A confession to what?” Henry demanded. “To murdering a couple of women I barely know?”

“Oh, it’s a lot worse than not knowing them,” Gregor said. “You murdered Shelley Niederman for no good reason at all. It was Judy Cornish who was the accountant before she decided to have children and stop out to raise them. Shelley Niederman was a dance major in college. She wouldn’t have known a disclosure statement from a restaurant menu even if Judy tried to tell her about it. You went to all that trouble. You killed a woman you had no need to want dead. And you hanged yourself when you did it.”

“I’ll repeat,” Henry Wackford said. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Of course you do,” Gregor said. “You know what your big mistake was? You put Catherine Marbledale’s name on that disclosure form. I suppose you thought it was clever. After all, Miss Marbledale and her sister had just come in to a nice pile of money that nobody knew about, but you did. I wonder how you did.”

“I know no such thing,” Henry Wackford said. “Catherine Marbledale came into money? When? How?”

“About seven years go, I think,” Gregor said. “But you did know this, Mr. Wackford. You had to. It was the only reason to put that woman’s name on that disclosure form instead of making one up out of thin air. The social security numbers didn’t matter. You could have made those up, too. But just so that you know I know, Catherine Marbledale and her sister Margaret won the jackpot in the New Hampshire state lottery. It was a small jackpot, but it was big enough. And New Hampshire is one of only three states in the country that allows winners to remain anonymous, so there was no publicity. But you knew. I don’t know how you knew, but you did, and we can find out how later. We can find out anything if we know what we’re looking for.”