“I absolutely promise you not to hold a party to accuse each of the suspects in turn. Some of them would probably refuse to come. And I absolutely promise you that there won’t be another death, unless it’s the death of Emma Kenyon Bligh, and the last time we heard from the hospital, that was very unlikely.”
“Right,” Kyle said. He had pulled into a parking space against the building. It was a handicapped parking space, but he didn’t seem to care. “Dozens of people have linoleum cutters. You can buy them in any hardware store.”
“Of course, but why would she do that? Why not use something close to hand, like a kitchen knife?”
“Not sharp enough,” Kyle said.
“You’re giving her too much credit. She didn’t think that far ahead. And I meant it. The forensics are hard. They take meticulous collection, and meticulous lab work. Even big-city, fully professionalized police departments screw them up. Investigation is easy. It’s just a matter of thinking clearly, and remembering that somebody can be very logical without being in the least bit rational.”
“We’re back to Zen Buddhism again,” Kyle said.
Gregor laughed. He popped his door open and got out. He waited for Kyle to get out and then went up the curving concrete walk to the front door.
“With any luck,” he said, “there will be a fax waiting for me at the desk, and there will be Bennis waiting for me in the room. If we can get those two things, we can get this thing over with pretty quickly. And besides.”
“Besides what?” Kyle said.
“Besides. You keep forgetting that Emma Kenyon Bligh is going to wake up.”
2
Gregor was not sure what he was expecting when he checked in at the desk—the worst-case scenario was that Bennis had forgotten to tell anybody he might be coming, and he wouldn’t be able to get up to the room, or even in touch with her—but as it turned out he was already on record as being one of the occupants of the suite, and there was already a sheaf of messages waiting for him in the mailbox. One of them was a fax from Russ Donahue. Gregor tried to remember if he’d told Bennis to have that faxed to the hotel or to the police department, and he was fairly sure he’d asked her to have it faxed to the police department. She might have asked for it to be faxed both places just to be safe. He folded that one in squares and put it in his right hip pocket. The other message was from Jimmy Card. It included a floor number and the words “password: goldfish.”
“Whatever,” Gregor said, frowning at the note. He put that away in his right hip pocket, too. “I think I’ll go up to the suite and see if Bennis is around to talk to,” he told Kyle Borden.
“Ms. Hannaford has gone out,” the helpful young woman at the desk said cheerfully. “She left about two hours ago with—ah—with a friend.”
The young woman arched her eyebrows. Gregor frowned. “A friend? How could she have left with a friend? She doesn’t know anybody in this part of Pennsylvania that I’ve heard about.”
“She left with a woman friend,” the young woman said. Now it was her tone that was arched. Gregor was completely bewildered. “She said you’d know who it would be. Of course, under the circumstances, I couldn’t mention the name in a place where we might be overheard.”
Light dawned. It was an idiot light, but it dawned. “Ah,” Gregor said. “All right then. Maybe I’ll go upstairs and answer my mail.”
“I hope you have a pleasant stay,” the young woman said, cheerfully again.
Gregor got Kyle Borden in hand and headed for the elevators, but once inside the car he didn’t press the button for the second floor, where his own suite was, but for the fourth. Kyle frowned.
“Didn’t she say you were on the second floor?”
“Right.”
“Why are we going to the fourth?”
“Because that’s where Jimmy Card and Elizabeth Toliver are. They have the entire west wing of the fourth floor.”
“And we can just walk on there anytime we want? They don’t have any better security than that?”
The elevator car stopped on the fourth floor. Gregor and Kyle got out onto an open foyer-type arrangement. One set of signs pointed to the east wing. One set of signs pointed to the west. Gregor went toward the west wing doors and pulled them back. They were immediately blocked by a large man in a black suit. He looked like he should be doing a bit part on The Sopranos.
“I think you’re lost, sir,” he said, very politely, with no Brooklyn accent at all.
“Goldfish,” Gregor said solemnly.
“Yes, sir,” the man in black said, politely again, stepping back to let them through.