“Mr. Demarkian,” he said, holding out his hand to Gregor and ignoring Stacey Spratz completely. “It’s such an honor and relief to have you here. Truly. I’ve read about every one of your cases. And this must be Officer—”
“Spratz,” Stacey said.
“How good of you to come.” Thomas Mortimer was staring over the top of Stacey’s head. Then he turned back to Gregor.
“Come this way now, come this way,” he said, leading them off down a hall to the side. “You’ll see what the problem is immediately. We would have seen it ourselves except that the lawyers had the records all day Saturday and most of Sunday. They only got them back to us at nine o’clock last night.”
“Lawyers?”
“Kayla Anson’s lawyers. They came on Saturday morning and took the records of Kayla Anson’s account here. If I’d been on duty I never would have allowed it. The account is really our responsibility. But Mrs. Grandmere was here instead, and she was quite at a loss for what to do, so she let them into the system. The computer system. We’ve been fully modernized here for at least the last three years.”
“Ah,” Gregor said.
Thomas Mortimer stopped before a heavy wooden door. It had a brass plate on it that said OFFICE OF THE MANAGER. He opened it and shooed them inside, to a big room with its own fireplace and what was almost a wall of windows looking out on the golf course. Gregor stepped inside and saw that there were two women there, a dark one sitting calmly in a big wing chair and a blonde who was pacing back and forth in front of the bookcases at the far end of the room. Gregor didn’t think he had ever seen anybody so tense in all his life.
“Well,” Thomas Mortimer said. “This is Mrs. Grand-mere.” He nodded toward the dark-haired woman. “And this is Mrs. Martindale.” He nodded toward the blonde.
“Ms.,” the blonde woman said, but it was automatic. Gregor didn’t think she even realized that she had spoken.
“Well,” Thomas Mortimer said. “To explain. Mrs. Grandmere—”
“Yes,” Mrs. Grandmere said. “Well. I would never have noticed it myself. It’s not the kind of thing you do notice. But the lawyers saw it right away. Could you tell me what time Kayla Anson died?”
“I don’t think we could tell you that,” Stacey Spratz said. “I don’t think we know exactly yet. We don’t have the full medical examiner’s report.”
“But it was earlier on in the evening. Before, say, eleven o’clock?”
“She was found just around twelve,” Gregor said, “and she’d been dead then for some time. I don’t know if it’s impossible that she was alive at eleven o’clock.”
“How about at eleven twenty-two?” Mrs. Grandmere said. “Could she have been alive and here at eleven twenty-two?”
“She wasn’t here at eleven twenty-two,” Ms. Martindale said suddenly. “I would have seen her. I brought Mallory in for a drink at about eleven.”
“I keep telling Sally that Kayla may have been here but out of sight,” Mrs. Grandmere said. “This is a large place. And very—convoluted, so to speak.”
“Well,” Gregor said, “for what it’s worth, I don’t think she could have been here, alive and well, at eleven twentytwo. Not unless I’ve got my geography all mixed up again—and even then, it would be pushing it. How far are you from Margaret Anson’s house?”
“About six miles by the roads,” Thomas Mortimer said. “Less than a ten-minute drive.”
“I still don’t think it would have been possible,” Gregor said.
Mrs. Grandmere shifted in the wing chair. “I don’t think it’s possible, either, and neither did the lawyers. That’s why they asked me about it. Because it really is right there, plain as day, as soon as you know to look for it.”
“What is?”
It was Sally Martindale who spoke up. “A withdrawal from her account From Kayla Anson’s account. She kept a cash account here at the club.”
“A large withdrawal?” Gregor asked.
“Two hundred dollars,” Sally said.
“Was that a large amount of money for her to take out? Did she usually take out less?” Gregor asked.
Sally Martindale shrugged. “I could look it up for you. It sounds like a normal amount. People take that sort of money all the time, and more, really, when they play golf or they’ve got a bet in a football pool.”
“I don’t think the problem is the amount of money,” Mrs. Grandmere said. “It’s who took the money. It couldn’t have been Kayla Anson. She wasn’t here at the time. She might not even have been alive.”