Gregor glanced up at the large round clock that was the only decoration on the wall behind the receptionist’s desk. “We’re going to be late,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve got the press release. And a full ME’s report. My office is this way.”
Jackman’s office was down a hall, then down another hall, and in a corner. Gregor was sure it was not as large or as well appointed as the corner office given to the commissioner himself, but he knew Jackman well enough to know that the man could wait. There was a man sitting on a chair near a low round coffee table, watching a television set that had been wheeled in from somewhere else. When Gregor and Jackman came in, the man looked up, looked back at the set, then stood.
“How’s it going?” Jackman asked.
“All hell’s breaking loose.” The man was white, and not quite young, in spite of the fact that his pasty face was still pocked with acne. He turned to Gregor Demarkian and held out his hand. “Garry Mansfield,” he said.
“Garry’s a homicide detective,” Jackman said drily.
Garry had his eyes trained on the television set again. “This is not going to be good,” he said. “People have been way too bored in this city for way too long.”
Jackman waved Gregor in the direction of the chair on the other side of the coffee table and pulled his own chair out from behind his desk to sit down. Gregor was watching the set carefully, but the scene was too confused to evaluate. Obviously, the press-release part of the program was over, because now the reporters were asking questions. They all seemed to be talking into air instead of microphones. Gregor would hear half a question, and then the voice would disappear.
“Maybe we’d better turn this off,” Jackman said after a while. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. Were there any surprises?”
“You mean with the press release?” Garry shook his head. “He read it verbatim. And he’s trying not to speculate. But you know how it is. Everybody will be speculating in a minute or two. The evening news shows are going to be ridiculous.”
“Are you the detective in charge of this case?” Gregor asked.
It was the kind of thing Jackman should have told him in the elevator, or when they first came into the room. Instead, they seemed to have been talking in code. But Garry Mansfield was nodding.
“It depends on which case you’re talking about,” he said. “I’m in charge of the Marty and Bernadette Kelly case. The Scott Boardman case belongs to Lou Emiliani.”
Gregor raised his eyebrows. “There’s the first thing. I knew this mess was going to be full of inaccuracies. The Cardinal gave me to understand that there weren’t two cases, but only one connected one.”
“There probably will be in a day or two,” Garry Mansfield said. “But Boardman died first, at least as far as we knew—”
“We’ll get to the times later,” Jackman said. “That’s driving everybody up the wall.”
“Yeah, well, whatever,” Garry said. “Boardman was the first case. He died over at that church, St. Stephen’s, in some office they have over there. You’d have to ask Lou. But nobody thought much of anything about it. I mean, the man practically breathed coke, morning, noon, and night. Somebody like that has a few convulsions and dies, you figure it’s cocaine poisoning. You don’t get all worked up about it.”
“When I talked to the cardinal, he said that there had been an exception made to allow the family to prepare the body for burial before the final autopsy reports were in.”
“Ask Lou,” Garry said again. “From what I understand, it was more complicated than that. Anyway, Boardman came first that we knew about, and that got assigned a detective, and then Marty did his little jig in St. Anselm’s, and I got assigned to it, so it’s still two separate cases. But it won’t be for long. You read the press release?”
“No,” Gregor said.
“I’ll give you a copy. It’s very cagey. The Boardman thing is just a line on page three, but it’s not like nobody’s going to notice.”
“I’m surprised there’s anything about the Boardman ‘thing’ at all,” Gregor said. “And, for that matter, I’m surprised about the press release. Why take so much trouble to attract publicity? Doesn’t the medical examiner’s office usually play it more closely than that?”
Jackman stood up. “He’s covering his ass, that’s what the problem is,” he said, starting to pace. “He screwed up on the Boardman thing, and now he’s covering his ass. Don’t get me started, Gregor, I’m serious.”