Wanting Sheila Dead(40)

Sheila came up right in front of Coraline, and Coraline stopped breathing. She looked good. She was sure she did. She had double-checked her hair and her makeup. She had been careful about her clothes. She did not look overdone. She did not look sloppy.

Sheila seemed rooted to the spot. Coraline felt her looking up and down, up and down. Maybe she wouldn’t like the shoes. Coraline was wearing cork-soled sandals. You saw celebrities wearing cork-soled sandals all the time.

Then Sheila put her hand up, grabbed the neck of Coraline’s T-shirt, and ripped, just the way she had ripped at Grace this morning. The effect was worse. The shirt came away in so many pieces, Coraline had nothing to hold up against herself.

“The only logos we wear on this show,” Sheila Dunham said, “are mine.”





SIX



1


Policewomen were never called “matrons” anymore, as far as Gregor Demarkian knew, but it was a matron who greeted him in the lobby of St. Mary’s Hospital when he came in to meet the doctor who was treating the mysterious Lily. Except, Gregor thought, that Lily wasn’t really mysterious. She was just sad, and the things about her that did not fit the sadness—the fact that she was meticulously clean—did not add up to enough to make even a lame episode of American Justice. Gregor thought most episodes of American Justice were lame. He’d been interviewed on the show several times—and on Cold Case Files and Forensic Files and Snapped as well—but when he sat down and viewed the show as it was finally put together, it seemed to him that the writers and producers were working too hard to make it like a golden-age mystery. Of course, he hadn’t known that at the time. It was only recently, when he’d started reading Agatha Christie, that his mind had made the connection.

The woman waiting for him was middle aged, a little thick around the middle, and wearing one of those old-fashioned uniforms with a jacket and a skirt. He supposed there was no reason why she shouldn’t be. There were probably plenty of variations on the standard uniform available to women on the force. It was just that he hadn’t seen a policewoman in a skirt in decades.

She stood up when he came through the sliding glass doors and held out her hand. “Mr. Demarkian,” she said. “I was hoping I’d recognize you. The mayor said I would, but I’m not really that good at recognizing people. I’m Billie Ormonds.”

Gregor shook her hand. “I’m Gregor Demarkian. You threw me off a little. I didn’t know that policewomen still wore skirts.”

Billie Ormonds looked down at her knees. “Most of us don’t. Slacks are just easier to manage. But some of the clerical workers do. And people like me, who end up dealing with the public. Do you mind being thought of as the public?”

“As far as I know, nobody’s hired me,” Gregor said. “Have you seen the woman who was in the house, the woman who calls herself Lily?”

“I’m attached to the investigation. Yes, I’ve seen her. She’s in the hospital wing of the jail at the moment, although I don’t know how long we’re going to be able to keep her there. Or anywhere. We don’t have any evidence that she’s done anything wrong.”

“I was thinking that myself.”

Billie sighed. “It’s an odd thing. There’s this other woman, the one upstairs here—”

“Sophie Mgrdchian.”

“Ah,” Billie said. “That’s how you pronounce that. Yes. There’s Mrs. Mgrdchian, who is obviously in some distress. But as far as we know, she’s in her eighties. Distress happens at that age. And there’s nothing to say that this Lily woman wasn’t invited into that house. It’s a mess, really. If Lily was aware enough to have a lawyer, she’d certainly be out of jail already. The best we’ve been able to think of up to now, is to ask a judge to hand her over for a full-op four-day psych observation. I’m pretty sure we can get that done, in spite of the fact that the Legal Aid attorneys are going to land on us at any minute. But that’s going to be four days, and after that—” Billie shrugged.

“So how’s Sophie Mgrdchian?”

“Ah,” Billie said again. “That’s the other problem.”

“Is she worse than she was yesterday?”

“Not that I know of,” Billie said. “Neither better nor worse, last time I checked. But the doctor. The reason I wanted you out here is that I thought you’d like to talk to the doctor face to face. The doctor is a little nervous. That’s about the best way I can put it.”

Gregor thought that almost anybody working in a hospital would have to be a little nervous. There was sickness everywhere. There was death everywhere. There was a lot of expensive equipment that could go wrong at any second, along with the hundred and one other things that could go wrong.