Living Witness(40)

“Really,” Gregor said desperately, “you have this all wrong. You’re not thinking about it clearly. If freedom of religion is going to mean anything—”

He cringed as soon as he said it. That was the tack he had tried before, the one that had not worked. Then, at the same moment, he saw it: a big white pickup truck, the kind almost nobody had in the city. It looked oddly outsized next to all the regular cars. Gregor was sure it was the salvation he was looking for.

“I think that’s my ride,” he said, waving at the truck even though he didn’t know for sure who was inside it.

Leda wasn’t listening. “I think the old ways of religion were bad for everybody,” she was saying. “They were all about keeping people out, and what happened? We all hated each other. We all treated each other as if we were aliens. It can’t be like that anymore, Gregor, and I won’t put up with it in my own neighborhood.”

The white pickup truck stopped in the street. It didn’t bother to even try for a place at the curb. There wasn’t enough room, anyway. The driver’s-side door popped open and Gary Albright popped out.

“Mr. Demarkian?” he said.

“I’ve got to go,” Gregor said, grabbing for his briefcase. For a split second he thought he’d lost it. He couldn’t remember putting it on the ground. He got a firm grip on it and mouthed a kiss in Leda’s direction. He hated that whole custom, whether the kiss actually landed on a cheek or not. “I’ve got to go,” he said again.

Then he rushed off to the passenger side of Gary Albright’s truck. He didn’t like climbing into trucks any more than he liked kissing cheeks, but at least this promised relief from the endless machinations of the women of Cavanaugh Street.

“I’ll be home tonight,” he said, because he felt he had to say something. “Tell Bennis I got off all right.”

Leda Arkmanian made a face. “Don’t you worry,” she said. “We’ll fix this. Hannah and Sheila and I have a plan.”





2




As it turned out, riding in a pickup truck was almost more uncomfortable than getting into one. Gregor didn’t understand the fascination the damned things had for so many people. It wasn’t that he was from the wrong generation. It was men his age who bought these things when they didn’t have to—doctors and lawyers who wanted to seem like—what?—in their spare time. Maybe he just had the wrong history. He’d grown up poor. His experience with rural life had been almost entirely negative until he was well into his twenties, and even then it was more negative than not. God only knew that special agents of the FBI hated the very idea of being assigned to some country backwater, and not because it was bad for the career. There were nuts in them thar hills, and the nuts were armed.

Gary Albright was armed, but that was only to be expected. Gary Albright was a police officer. He had taken himself off this particular case, but Gregor had no reason to believe that he’d stepped down in total. There would be other cases to handle while the problem of Ann-Victoria Hadley went on.

The scenery going past their windows was still unmistakably, uncompromisingly Philadelphia. Gregor took a little comfort in that.

Gary Albright was staring straight ahead. “Mr. Jackman said you were getting married,” he said finally. “Sometime soon. Congratulations.”

“Thank you.” Gregor couldn’t think of anything else to say.

There was a long silence. Gregor had the uneasy feeling that there would be many long silences with Gary Albright. He didn’t seem like a man who would talk just to talk.

“Mr. Jackman said you were widowed,” Gary Albright said finally. “I was sorry to hear it. That’s a hard thing.”

“Yes,” Gregor said. The statement was true enough. “It was a hard thing. But it’s been many years now.”

“Miss Hadley isn’t widowed,” Gary Albright said. “She isn’t divorced, either. She’s never been married.”

“And you think that had something to do with her being attacked?”

“No,” Gary Albright said. He was still staring straight ahead. He was the calmest man Gregor had ever seen who wasn’t a serial killer, and Gregor had to remind himself that he had no way of knowing for sure that Gary Albright wasn’t a serial killer.

“It’s just that I don’t understand it,” Gary said finally. “Not being married, I mean. Life is a lonely place. I’d think everybody would get married, if they could. Even homosexual people want to get married. But Miss Hadley could have. From what I’ve heard, she could have a couple of times over. She was in the Navy, did you know that?”