Quoth the Raven(74)

Since Gregor didn’t say anything, Markham got his hat off the table, jammed it onto his head, and began gathering his papers into one final pile. Gregor doubted he would ever look at them again, or, if he did, that he would ever find anything he wanted in them. Markham stuffed the papers into the inside pocket of his jacket—they didn’t exactly fit—and stretched.

“If you’re not going to be sensible and come along with me,” the sheriff said, “I’m going to go by myself. You’re sure you want to spend your time hacking around on this wild-goose chase of yours?”

“It’s not a wild-goose chase,” Gregor said.

Markham tipped his hat, spun around, and marched away toward the cafeteria’s doors.





2


FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, GREGOR Demarkian headed for the cafeteria doors himself. He should have left immediately after Markham, and he knew it, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to. Maybe it was that his head was still caught up in motives, and especially Ken Crockett’s motive. He kept feeling there was something missing in the picture he had gotten of the man, and it irked him. Maybe it was just that so many students stopped beside his table once he was alone, mostly to ask about the lecture he’d be giving that night and to probe into his credentials. It surprised him a little, how rigid these young people were about background and training. It was as if they didn’t believe anyone could know anything about everything if they hadn’t learned it in school.

It was after ten when he finally got up and got moving. The cafeteria was in the middle of its switch from breakfast to lunch. Students dressed in white coats like medical students were bringing large trays of sandwiches into the main cafeteria room from the back and laying them out where the Swedish meatballs and roast beef au jus had been the day before. The sandwiches were hermetically sealed in plastic and looked terrible. Gregor thought the cheese ones looked made out of cellulose and possibly more lethal than lye. As he was passing down the line, he heard one of the working students refer to the sandwiches labeled “meatball” as “mystery meat,” and he didn’t blame her.

He walked through the foyer, out the doors, down the front steps, and came to rest at the edge of the quad. It was a late Thursday morning and presumably a time when the campus was occupied with lectures and seminars, but he didn’t think any of that was actually getting done. The quad was jammed with students and pounding with music. The crowd extended, unbroken like a sea, all the way past the Minuteman statue and out the other side, presumably into Minuteman Field. Gregor couldn’t see that far because his vision was blocked by both buildings and people. No matter how tall he was—and he was tall—there always seemed to be someone taller in his line of sight. He walked down to the path and pushed his way gently through clutches of giggling boys and girls. They had never seemed physically bigger to him. They had also never seemed so childish.

He was winding his way in and out of people, in and out of groups so firmly packed they would have been harder to break up than a hydrogen atom, when he felt a tug on his sleeve and turned to see an immensely tall boy in a Dracula suit leaning over him. The makeup the boy was wearing was too realistic to be comfortable. The fangs that grew out from under his upper lip and down across his mouth and chin seemed to be tipped with real blood. Gregor wanted to tell him to get the hell out of here until he’d washed his face. Then the boy leaned forward, smiled a little, and said, “Mr. Demarkian?” in a voice so tentative, it could have come from a six year old, and Gregor found himself sighing once again.

“Yes,” he said, “I’m Gregor Demarkian. If you want to know what my talk is going to be about, you’re going to have to come to it.”

The boy looked confused. “Your talk,” he said. “I’m coming to your talk. We all are.”

“I hope you don’t mean the whole college,” Gregor told him. “From what I’ve seen so far, there isn’t anyplace the whole college would fit.”

“I mean all of us—us,” the boy said, and shrugged. He obviously thought us—us ought to explain it all, which it didn’t. He turned away and looked off into the crowd for a moment and then turned back, an hiatus he seemed to need just to get the subject changed. “Listen,” he said. “I’m Freddie? Freddie Murchison?”

“Yes?” Gregor said.

“I’m a friend of Jack Carroll’s. We haven’t met, but I brought some things up to Father Tibor’s room for you yesterday afternoon. Me and Max. Picnic baskets.”