Somebody Else's Music(105)

“It’s the American dream.”

“Exactly. And it’s full of it. When the small-town loser comes back a success, everybody hates him, or is indifferent. But mostly there’s the hate. And if you’re not prepared for that, you’re likely to get thrown very badly. I don’t think Liz Toliver was prepared for that. I don’t think she was expecting a hero’s welcome, mind you. She’s not that naive. But I don’t think she was expecting the animus.”

“Why not?” Kyle said. “It’s the way they always did treat her, before. The woman is completely phobic about snakes, and they knew that. And they nailed her up in that damned outhouse with nearly two dozen of them. I’d say that’s enough animus for anybody to notice.”

“True. I just don’t think she was expecting it to have lasted. To tell you the truth, if I’d been in her position, I wouldn’t have expected it either. It’s not really very sane, is it?”

“Do you have what you came for?” Kyle asked. “It gives me the creeps, being in here like this. We could get nailed.”

“We could not get nailed. I have a key. I have the right of access. And, yes, I have what I came for. No tools. Not only that, no sign that there ever were tools. No drills. No saws. No linoleum cutters. No pegs in the wall. No toolboxes.”

“I told you so.”

“I know. I had to see for myself.” Gregor looked around. “It looks like it was used as a sewing room once. Now it’s a storeroom. That’s sensible enough. Here’s another question. Is there some reason why the fever about Liz Toliver is so much higher in Maris Coleman and Belinda Hart Grantling than in the rest of them I’ve met so far?”

“Well,” Kyle said, “they were the ones who pulled the most crap on Betsy in high school. And before high school. Betsy’s problems didn’t start in high school.”

“Yes,” Gregor said, “I know. It’s odd the way people are, don’t you think? There’s so much emotion expended over things that don’t matter. Most people who are murdered are murdered over trivialities. Over emotions. Over slights and disrespect and arguments and dozens of other things that make no sense. Harris and Klebold murdered fifteen people over things that shouldn’t matter to anybody, except that we make them matter. You’d think we’d learn.”

“You’re not making sense again,” Kyle said.

Gregor sighed. He supposed he wasn’t making sense, although he was making perfect sense to himself. He headed for the door again. “We’d better get out of here,” he said. “I’d better pick up some clothes upstairs. I should go out to the Radisson to see Bennis. Do you think you could call me there and let me know about Emma Kenyon Bligh’s medical condition? Or I could call you.”

Kyle said something about how Gregor should call him, and they both went far too quickly up the stairs. The house felt deserted, even though they were in it.





TWO





1


There came a point when Liz Toliver couldn’t sit still any longer. She had never been very good at sitting still—that, and not talent or drive or an unhappy childhood, was what she thought really explained her success—and she found sitting still under pressure virtually impossible. She had been pacing up and down the long corridor of the hotel floor they had rented all morning. She’d put down a half-dozen half-empty cups of tea and forgotten where they’d gone. She was scared to death that she was about to commit one of the great sins in her ethical lexicon and leave a mess for the maids. It didn’t matter. The world felt like a claustrophobic place, all the more because she now knew that events were going on without her. She kept getting an image of Emma Kenyon with a knife stuck out of her belly, a knife that didn’t go all the way through because, in Liz’s fantasy, Emma was as enormous as a circus freak. She turned on a television in one of the rooms and sat down to watch CNN. There was nothing on it of any interest. She surfed through the channels until she found some local news, and there was nothing on that, either. She had forgotten what it was like to live in a place where people did not expect fresh, up-to-the-minute, breaking news about their area twenty-four seven. Her muscles ached. She wished she were herself only five years ago, when nobody would have cared if she walked stark naked down Fifth Avenue at high noon. Most of all, she wished she understood herself. She ought to feel vindicated. She ought to feel that she’d scored some big triumph. That was how Maris expected her to feel. Instead, whenever she could get her mind off herself, the whole thing made her tired. How could anyone—anyone—spend their entire lives in a town like Hollman?