Somebody Else's Music(116)
“Well,” he said, “I think that’s all I really need. Thank you for being so helpful.”
Stu Kennedy laughed. “I haven’t been helpful. I’m never helpful. I make a fucking point of it. Christ, you don’t want to know about Michael. You want to know about the cunt. But she was a cunt even in high school, you know that? One of Peggy’s best friends, and the whole time we were going out, she couldn’t stand me. Couldn’t stand Peggy going out with me. Couldn’t stand to be in the same room with me. Christ, they were all cunts, though. Weren’t they, Kyle? Every last one of them.”
“Well,” Kyle said, “they weren’t very pleasant.”
“Yeah, and now Betsy Wetsy is going to marry a rock star. An old, broken-down, washed-up rock star, but a fucking rock star. That must make them just want to spit.”
“They’re taking it better than you are,” Kyle said.
“Well, if you and your Mr. Demarkian have everything you want from me, you should get the fuck out of here,” Stu said. “You don’t have a search warrant. You don’t have any right to be here. Get up and get the fuck out of here.”
“Right,” Kyle said.
Gregor stood up. “Thank you again, Mr. Kennedy,” he said, holding out his hand.
“Fuck,” Stu Kennedy said. Then he walked over to the front door and pulled it open. “Get the fuck out,” he said. “I’ve had enough.”
3
By the time they got down the front walk to the car, it was raining again, not the lunatic pelting that had been going on for most of the morning, but a deep, steady, heavy fall that was almost silent.
Gregor got into the car. Kyle got into the car and started it up.
“What was that about?” Kyle asked. “You didn’t mention Peggy. You didn’t mention what happened to her.”
“There was no need to.”
“Well there was maybe one need to. Eventually this is all going to come out in the wash. Stu is going to know where Peggy was earlier this afternoon. Either it’s going to be on the news, or the hospital is going to call, or Peggy is going to tell him. And then what? I’ve got my ass in a sling for withholding information on the medical condition of a—”
“There’s a record of all the times he’s beaten her up?”
“I don’t know about all of them. There’s probably a record a mile long about some of them, though. We’ve got them in the police department. They’ve probably got them in the emergency room over at Kennanburg. Why?”
“Because that’s all you’ll need not to get your ass in a sling. Some states have mandatory arrest laws—”
“We’ve got one here,” Kyle said. “But they don’t do any good, Mr. Demarkian. Oh, they sometimes do, when the woman really wants out and she’s got no way to get out herself, but in a case like this—” Kyle shrugged.
Gregor shook his head. “We should get going.”
“Get going where?”
“Out to that hospital. I’d like to talk to Mrs. Kennedy for a while.”
Kyle put the car in gear and began to pull away from the curb. “Do you think she’ll be in any position to talk? She looked like she was sleepwalking the last time we saw her.”
“I need to know a few things from her, especially about the death of Michael Houseman. Does Mr. Kennedy always behave like that? With the language. Or did he put it on for my benefit?”
“He always behaves like that to me,” Kyle said, “but he could be putting it on for my benefit. Why are you still so interested in the death of Michael Houseman? Did the same person who killed Michael Houseman kill Chris Inglerod Barr? And try to kill Emma?”
“Let’s say that the same person who murdered Michael Houseman was responsible for the death of Chris Inglerod Barr and the attempted murder of Emma Kenyon Bligh. And for the death of the dog, of course, although that was something in the way of an accident.”
“How do you eviscerate a large part-malamute, part-shepherd dog by accident?”
“You find it in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Marvelous. Wonderful. I can see the prep sheet I’m going to make up for the town prosecutor right this minute—”
“You know,” Gregor said, “you’ve got nothing to worry about. The fact of the matter is, this case is going to have a Gordian knot solution. Sooner or later, Emma Kenyon Bligh is going to wake up, and when she does she’s going to hand you your solution on a plate, and hand you a star witness, too, in the person of herself. And that’s going to be enough to go to trial on.”