“It doesn’t matter what it is,” Molly said. “All the new board wants is to put a little thing in books saying that some people don’t accept Darwin’s theory and if you have questions you can go to the library and take out this book. That’s it. How many times did you go to the school library when you were growing up? I honestly don’t understand what all the fuss is about.”
“I don’t either,” Evan said. “And if you explained all this on the evening news, I’d bet you anything most of the American people wouldn’t understand it. It would be a different thing, you know, if they wanted to hold classes talking about God passing over the face of the waters or something, but they don’t.”
“Although Franklin Hale probably would like to,” Molly said. “But Evan is right. The way things stand, it really doesn’t make any sense. And of course this Miss Hadley was against the idea, and she joined the lawsuit. The whole thing is just ridiculous.”
Gregor’s club sandwich came. He looked at the remains of the food on Evan’s and Molly’s plates. They’d eaten lunch before he got there, which made sense, since he wasn’t meeting them for lunch. They’d both eaten club sandwiches, though. Gregor picked up one quarter of his own—like all club sandwiches, the thing was cut into four little triangles—and then put it down again. The bacon looked hard as a rock. The lettuce looked like it had been frozen and was still full of ice crystals.
“Could any of these people have committed the assault?” he asked. “Or didn’t you check that out?”
“We definitely checked it out,” Evan said. “And the answer is yes. Anybody on either side of the lawsuit could have gone up there and whacked the old lady. You’d have to ask the doctors about it to get the specifics, but as far as I can tell, she was found nearly right away.”
“If she hadn’t been, she’d have been dead,” Molly said.
“That was mostly a fluke,” Evan said. “But all the people involved were out and about at the time. They were all wandering around Main Street or back and forth to the schools complex or something. So any of them could have done it.”
“Who found Miss Hadley? Does she have servants in that house? Were there people around?”
“No servants,” Molly said, “except for a woman who comes in to clean twice a week. No, it was a woman named Catherine Marbledale who found her. She’s the principal of the high school. She’d gone up there to deliver some papers about something or the other—not the lawsuit, some stuff to do with the school. And it was a good thing. If Miss Hadley had been there for another hour or so—” Molly shrugged.
Gregor looked into his coffee and suddenly realized. He hadn’t ordered coffee. He’d ordered a mineral water.
“Huh,” he said.
“He just got it,” Molly said.
“They do that to everybody,” Evan said. “Couple of days ago, this woman who works for Fox had a complete fit in here because she kept ordering mineral water and they kept giving her coffee. We don’t think they even have mineral water. At least, we haven’t seen it.”
“It isn’t on the menu,” Molly said.
Gregor sighed. “I suppose the next thing is to talk to the doctors,” he said. “Is there a guard at the hospital, looking after this woman?”
“Not that we know of,” Evan said.
“She is a living witness,” Gregor said. “If she comes to, she might be able to finger her attacker.”
“True,” Evan said, “but if her attacker is who we think it is—”
“Meaning some local asshole just out for a grab,” Molly said.
“—he’s not going to go back after her anyway,” Evan said. “And seriously, Mr. Demarkian, we can’t see that it would be anyone else. No matter what kind of trash is being talked around here, there’s really no reason to beat the woman up just because she won’t resign and the school board wants to put some stickers in some textbooks. And that’s about all it comes down to.”
“But I was told that she had money on her.” Gregor asked. “If it was smash and grab, shouldn’t whoever smashed’ve done some grabbing?”
“Maybe this Marbledale woman came by right as the guy was going for that,” Molly said. “Maybe she scared him off. Anyway, you should try to talk to the doctors. They can give you more information than we can. With any luck the old lady will come to, and then you won’t have to do anything accept take her statement.”