Skeleton Key(51)

That stopped them, too. Why wouldn’t he want to get a private detective’s license?

He went up to Stacey Spratz’s front door, found the bell, and rang. You did not go from being a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation—from being the founder and head of the FBI’s behavioral sciences unit—to being a private detective. It was like starting out as Picasso and then going to work painting Mickey Mouse on clock faces.

Stacey Spratz opened the door and looked out. His face was tense. When he saw Gregor, he relaxed.

“Oh, it’s you. I keep expecting to be invaded. They have been invaded, out in Washington Depot. Cam Borderman called and told me they’ve set up a press room right there on the premises. It was either that or have reporters crawling all over the building at all hours of the day and night. And they still find the idiots all over the place.”

Stacey was headed toward the back of the house down a long narrow hall that went through the middle. The place was just as cramped as Gregor had expected it to be, with the added discomfort of having very low ceilings. Old, Gregor thought automatically. Probably as old as the churches. He had to duck to go through doorways.

Stacey Spratz did not have to duck. He was very short, for a man, and on top of that he was used to the house. He led Gregor into the kitchen and then motioned him to sit down at a round kitchen table. The table was covered with papers and file folders and Post-it notes stuck all over everything.

“Let me get you a cup of coffee,” Stacey said. “Then I’ll tell you where we’re at. I talked to my captain this morning. You’re officially on as a consultant as of this morning at eight o’clock. We had to get five people out of bed to authorize it, but nobody wants a mess on this one. Washington and Watertown are formally giving up jurisdiction to the state police—we don’t know where she was killed yet anyway. It could even have been Morris. Morris will give up jurisdiction, too. I think we’ve got everything settled that has to be settled.”

“I think so, too.”

“The thing is,” Stacey put a mug of coffee in front of Gregor, in spite of the fact that Gregor hadn’t actually said he wanted any. “I mean. Well… I tried to head them off. But they want to have a press conference. A big press conference. With the governor.”

Gregor thought this over. “Isn’t the governor in Hartford?”

“Yeah, but he’s from Middlebury. That’s right next to Watertown. Anyway, he’ll come out here. That’s not the thing. The thing is, this is going to be one hell of a press conference. We’ve got people out here from the networks. From CNN. I don’t know if you mind that kind of thing or not, but it scares the hell out of me.”

“It’s probably inevitable,” Gregor pointed out. He tried the coffee. It was as bad as Father Tibor’s. It might be worse. He put the mug down.

Stacey Spratz rubbed his hand across the side of his face. In spite of the youngness of it, Gregor could see where the lines would be, when they came. Stacey had the sort of pale skin light blonds often do in their teens and twenties. It went quickly to hell as they aged. Gregor’s guess was that Stacey Spratz was not very bright. His virtues ran to loyalty and honesty and the desperate need to do good in a world he found inherently confusing. It was not a personality type Gregor would have chosen if he were doing the hiring for his own police force. Maybe it was just what was needed in the way of a resident trooper.

“Mr. Demarkian?” Stacey said.

“Sorry,” Gregor said. “I was thinking about what you do. About what it consists of, being a resident trooper.”

“Mostly it consists of getting Mark Wethersfield off the road when he’s been drinking. And checking out break-ins. Which always turn out not to be break-ins. Not a lot goes on out here, Mr. Demarkian. We did have a murder out in Morris, back in ninety-one or ninety-two. At Four Corners. At the gas station there. This kid went in and shot his girlfriend and then he shot himself. Ex-girlfriend. She wanted to break up. They were both seventeen.”

“We get that kind of thing in Philadelphia, too.”

“I know. And they get it in Waterbury, too. The point is that we don’t get much else. And we’re all very—conscious, I guess the word is—we all know that we’re in way over our heads. That this thing is beyond us. If you know what I mean.”

“I know the feeling of being in over my head,” Gregor said.

“I’m supposed to lay all this out for you and then take you out to Washington Depot for the press conference. If that’s okay with you.”