“In public?”
“In his homilies, usually. He was very good at it. After a while you could tell what he was talking about, but you couldn’t figure out who had done it.”
This, Gregor thought, was the worst thing he’d heard about Andy Walsh yet—the worst in terms of an estimation of the man’s intelligence, at any rate. It was a foolproof formula for getting yourself in trouble and not a bad way to get yourself killed. Peg Monaghan had to be very naive not to realize it.
He was about to tell her this, or some polite version of it, when he heard a commotion at the back of the church. He turned to look down the center aisle just as a pair of men came in through the double doors from the foyer. They were both very large and very rumpled. They both had thick dark hair that formed heavy fringes around tiny bald spots at the tops of their heads. They were so much alike, it was impossible to tell them apart, except for the fact that one of them was grinning and the other furious.
Peg had turned around to look, too. It was difficult for her. The bulge kept getting in the way. “It’s them again,” she said. “Except they seem to have switched roles for the moment.”
“Who’s them?” Gregor thought he already knew.
“Maveronski and Smith,” Peg said, confirming it. “The detectives. Last time it was Maveronski who looked happy and Smith who looked ready to kill somebody.”
“Last time meaning after Cheryl Cass was found dead?”
“Mmm hmm.”
“It’s amazing you can tell them apart. They look like twins.”
“They don’t so much when you get close. Maveronski has real cheekbones under all that fat. Smith is your garden variety pudding WASP.”
The two men started to come up the center aisle, and Gregor and Peg sat back to watch them pass. Feet thundered on the aisle carpet. A buzzing started among the congregation that was clearly the first frantic wave of hysterical speculation. All chance of avoiding an outbreak of anger or panic in the crowd was now passed. If they had been agents under Gregor’s supervision, he would have canned them both.
They came up the aisle looking to the left and right, scanning the faces of the congregation. Smith was on their side. He came past them, took in Peg’s belly, and shook his head. On the other side of the aisle, Maveronski had his eyes trained on the WLTL cameraman who had moved up against the side wall to get a better shot at the pacing Cardinal. It was the Cardinal they seemed to be heading for, rather than the body or their colleagues on the altar platform. The Cardinal was the most easily identifiable target.
They were halfway between Gregor and Peg’s pew and the altar rail when Smith put his hand on Maveronski’s arm and stopped them both. They leaned together and talked, probably in whispers, certainly in tones too low for anyone else to hear. Smith gestured and nodded emphatically. Maveronski shook his head and stuck out his lower lip. Smith let go of his partner’s arm, turned around, and went walking back again toward the rear of the church.
When he reached Gregor’s pew, he stopped. His smile had disappeared while he studied Gregor’s face. Now it came back again.
“Gregor Demarkian,” he said, holding out his arms like a stereotypical peasant in a bad movie greeting a long-lost brother. “I did recognize you. You’re just the man I want to see.”
Gregor managed a smile of his own, while looking behind Smith at the newly emergent Maveronski. Maveronski looked even less happy than he had when he first came in.
Smith turned to him. “See?” he said. “It is Gregor Demarkian. I told you it was.”
“I don’t care if he’s the goddamned president of the goddamned United States,” Maveronski said.
Then he turned, marched to the front of the church, and genuflected in front of the altar.
[2]
Peg Morrissey Monaghan had been right. It was possible to tell Smith and Maveronski apart up close, and not only because Maveronski had cheekbones. On the simplest level, there was their coloring. Aside from the dark hair, the two men had no physical tones in common. Maveronski’s face was ruddy, with a tracing of broken blood vessels across his nose. Smith’s was dead pale and entirely unmarked. It showed neither acne scars nor violence met in the course of duty. Beyond that, there was the matter of psychological tone. Maveronski was a pessimist—and would be, Gregor thought, even when he was winning.
Gregor was sitting on a chair on the altar platform. It was the chair Andy Walsh had sat in while the Old Testament was being read and it was raised just enough off the raised platform to feel like a throne. For a man who did not like to be conspicuous, it was an uncomfortable position, when he had a chance to think of it. He didn’t have a chance to think of it much. Smith had plunked him down here as soon as he’d retrieved him from the pew, and then Smith had started talking. That had been fifteen minutes ago. He had been talking without stop ever since. John Reginald Smith had had a great deal to say.