Skeleton Key(110)

“It opens onto a lot of vegetation,” Mark Cashman said. “That wouldn’t have been easy.”

“It wouldn’t have been hard, either,” Gregor said. “I’ve been meaning to ask you or Stacey to send somebody out there to look around. I don’t think anybody will find anything, except maybe the grass being tamped down in a couple of places, but I’ll bet you anything that you can get to another road that way, someplace to park a car—”

“There is another road,” Mark Cashman said. “Jewelry Lane. It’s dirt and there’s nothing on it close to One-oh-nine, but it’s there.”

“A perfect place to park a car,” Gregor pointed out, “if you’re trying to get into that barn without being seen by the reporters in the street. Of course, with Margaret Anson the murderer wouldn’t have had to go to that much trouble. He would only have had to come the back way himself. And Margaret was no Zara Anne Moss. She would have known that our murderer was probably dangerous.”

“And she would have turned her back on this person anyway?” Stacey asked.

“Well, she did,” Gregor said. “Arrogance, maybe. Or possibly the mistaken impression that murder is hard to commit. It would be for most people, of course. It isn’t for some people. Anyway, that’s the way I think it all lays out. It’s too bad I can’t prove any of it.”

“You don’t have to prove it all,” Mark Cashman said. “You don’t really have to prove any of it in the sense of any of the particulars. We just need to find something that will connect this person to Kayla Anson and to Kayla Anson’s death. That could be—anything.”

“I know,” Gregor said.

“If you told us who it was, we might be able to do it,” Stacey said. “Once you have an idea of who the perpetrator is, it’s a lot easier—”

“I know,” Gregor said again. He thought for a moment and pulled his notebook closer to him. Then he ripped out a blank page and wrote down a name.

“Do me a couple of favors,” he said, pushing the page into the middle of the table. “Check this person’s bank accounts. And check the car ownership records. Find out if this person owns an unusual and easily recognizable car.”

Stacey Spratz picked up the paper and stared at it. “Jesus Christ” he said.

Mark Cashman sighed. “I already know about the car. It’s a Ferrari Testarosa. Four hundred thousand dollars’ worth of vehicle and bright red. And I didn’t even think of it”

Gregor Demarkian took a long drink of his café mocha, thinking at once that it was too sweet for coffee and that he would really like to go somewhere and lie down.





3


Gregor also wanted to go someplace and talk to Bennis, and so he had Stacey drive him out to the inn. It wasn’t the most convenient of arrangements—Stacey was going to have to come out and pick him up again in a couple of hours—but Gregor was beyond caring about convenience. He couldn’t remember being this tired since he got back from North Carolina, and yet this case was far less awful than that one had been. At least here, he was dealing with adults, instead of an infant. At least here, he knew what was going on.

He picked up his keys at the desk and went upstairs. He let himself into the suite and looked around. He could tell as soon as he stepped into the little living room that something was different, but he couldn’t tell what. He went into the bedroom and paused. Then he went into the bathroom and saw the note.

Had to go back to Philadelphia. Love you, Bennis.

Gregor pulled it off the bathroom mirror and stared at it. Then he went back into the bedroom and looked into the closet. It was empty of all of Bennis’s clothes. Bennis’s one small suitcase was gone from the bench at the end of the bed. Bennis’s mess was gone from the single bedroom chair. That was why the suite had seemed different. Bennis’s clutter was missing. The place was neat.

Gregor sat down on the edge of the bed and tried to think. The worst-case scenario was that he had done something terribly wrong and didn’t even know it. Bennis was angry with him. Bennis was furious with him. Bennis was never going to speak to him again. The second worst-case scenario was that something had happened to someone on Cavanaugh Street, and Bennis had gone back to help out. Maybe they had been trying to get him all day, and he had been unreachable because he had been in police cruisers and country clubs. Maybe something had happened to Tibor. Maybe something had happened to old George Tekemanian, who was well into his eighties now and no longer in good health.

Gregor picked up the phone and dialed Tibor’s number. The phone rang and rang. Tibor might be out, but he also might be deep in a book. Gregor had once sat in his living room and watched him not hear the phone ringing for twelve full rings, because he was reading his way through The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule.