Skeleton Key(100)

“It makes sense to me. Just a minute.”

Gregor crossed the barn and stood in front of the door. It was still open—the forensics people would be careful not to change anything they didn’t have to change in the barn, just in case—and he could see that Tom Royce had been exactly right. There was literally a wall of trees out there, although there was probably a way through them if you worked at it. Gregor could see no signs that anybody had worked at it.

He went back to the bay where the body was. Tom Royce was down on his haunches again, putting something into a plastic bag with tweezers.

“I’m going to go see about Annabel Crawford,” Gregor said.

“Good luck,” Tom Royce said.

Gregor almost pointed out that their luck was already bad. If it hadn’t been, Margaret Anson would be more than a body lying on the floor of her own garage.





2


The back hall of Margaret Anson’s house was just as dark as Gregor had remembered it, and the ceilings in the rooms were just as low. It struck him again how odd it was, that someone with Margaret Anson’s money would have wanted to live cramped up like this. A sense of history was all very well and good, but this was taking it much too far. Even the colonial settlers would have jumped at the chance to live in a redwood modern, after having to live for any amount of time in something like this.

Mark Cashman led him through the house, although this time he didn’t need leading. As they walked, Gregor could hear the muffled sounds of crying. Mark Cashman could hear them, too. He nodded in the direction of the living room and said. “She’s been like that since we showed up. At least. In fact, she’s a little better now. For a while there, she was completely hysterical.”

“How old is she?”

“Eighteen.”

“Eighteen and brought up in a nice family in a nice world. I don’t think hysterical is out of line under the circumstances.”

“I don’t, either. But it has meant that she hasn’t been easy to deal with.”

They got to the living room and Mark Cashman stepped back to let Gregor enter first. Gregor went through the door and found a small blonde woman sitting on the long main couch, one fist pressed to her lips and her eyes red. Even with the mess her face was in, though, it was easy to see that she was a very pretty young woman, all porcelain skin and big china blue eyes. She had on the flowered skirt and crewneck cotton sweater that Gregor had come to think of as a Litchfield County uniform.

She looked up when he came in. As soon as she saw him, she straightened up and put her hands in her hair. Her hair was a mess. The attention she gave to it didn’t help.

“Oh,” she said. “Oh, it’s Mr. Demarkian, isn’t it? I saw your picture in the newspaper. And on television. A couple of nights ago. Maybe yesterday.”

It would almost have to have been yesterday. Gregor sat down in the high-backed wing chair to the side of the couch and leaned in her direction.

“Would you mind answering a few questions for me?” he asked. “It wouldn’t be like answering regular police questions. It wouldn’t be on the record for anybody but me.”

“I didn’t even mind answering police questions,” Annabel said. “Although I suppose I shouldn’t have. I should have called my father and gotten him to get me a lawyer. But it wouldn’t have worked, you know, because he’s never at home. My father. My father is never at home. And my mother is hopeless.”

“Yes,” Gregor said. “Can you tell me what you were doing here? Were you a friend of the family? Did you come out to visit Margaret?”

“What? Oh, not exactly. I mean, I did come out to visit Margaret, yes, but not to just visit. And I was Kayla’s friend, her best friend, I guess. We were in boarding school together.” Annabel flushed. “We got expelled together, too. And I guess it was my fault.”

“So you came out to pay your condolences to Margaret Anson.”

“No,” Annabel said. “No, I didn’t. She wouldn’t have wanted to hear them. She wouldn’t have let me into the house.”

“Then why did you come out?”

“I did call before I came. I wasn’t going to. I was at the club, you see, and the whole thing was bothering me. So I got in the car and started out here, but then I changed my mind and I drove around a little. And then I stopped at Popeye’s in Morris and used the phone and called Margaret. And she told me to come right out.”

“Very good. This was when?”

“Right before I came out.”

“I meant what time,” Gregor said. “Can you remember the time?”