Wanting Sheila Dead(87)

“I don’t know that, either,” Billie said.

“I think we have to find out,” Gregor said. “Because Sophie Mgrdchian was not a rich woman. She wasn’t poor, and she wasn’t destitute, but she wasn’t rich. And if she has no insurance, not even Medicare, and she’s getting all those pills over the counter, then—I don’t know what then. But if she had enough and she didn’t seem to be skimping, then it’s imperative that you find some way to hold Karen Mgrdchian as long as possible. I’ve got to find a cab.”

“We’ve got another day,” Billie said. “You’d have to come up with something a lot more concrete for us to be able to hold her after that.”

“Yes,” Gregor said. “I know. I’ve got to get a cab. I’ll call you again when I get home and when I’ve had some sleep. You need to check with the police in wherever it is that Marco and Karen Mgrdchian lived. And you need to do this all fast. And I’m being no help at all.”

Billie was making fluttery little protests about how much help he was being when Gregor hung up, and then a cab appeared in the street, miraculously free.





2


By the time Gregor got out to Bryn Mawr, it was raining again, and he was cold. It was not the weather that was cold. Even with the rain that had gone on all week, the temperatures had been suspiciously warm. Television weathermen talked on and on about the risk of infectious disease from “near subtropical conditions.” Gregor doubted that this was anything like near subtropical conditions—in fact, considering that he was just back from Jamaica, he could practically guarantee it—but he couldn’t complain about freezing to death, which was the problem he often had in Philadelphia. No, his cold was something else. His cold was lack of sleep. He got that way sometimes at night these days. It was how he knew he should have gone to bed half an hour earlier.

The gates were not closed at Engine House this morning, and there were no police cars in the drive. Gregor asked the cabbie to go right up to the front door steps, and then proceeded to pay him the kind of money he would ordinarily have spent on a small kitchen appliance. The intelligent thing to do would have been to know in advance that he wanted to come out here, and either call for a cab appointment ahead of time with one of the companies that offered fixed rates, or gotten somebody from Cavanaugh Street to drive him. Bennis wouldn’t come out to Engine House, so that probably would have left Donna Moradanyan Donahue, who was usually busy. Still, he could have asked.

He got out of the cab and looked up at the house. He really couldn’t expect the cab to wait. He had no idea how long he would be. He walked up the steps to the front door and knocked. Nothing happened, although he could hear people from just on the other side of the door. He tried the knob and it turned. He pushed in the door and looked in on the foyer.

The foyer was packed with people, and there were people on the stairs and in the living room as well. The yellow crime-scene tape was still up across the study door, and there was a policewoman there now when there had been a policeman before. That meant that the police were either not finished with the room, or that Len Borstoi wanted to come back to it. Gregor understand that last thing. He’d always liked coming back to crime scenes himself. It was the kind of thing a federal officer almost never got the chance at.

Nobody was paying any attention to him. He walked in and among the girls as they milled around, and among the other people, too, people he hadn’t seen the last time he was here. There were dozens of young men moving equipment around. Gregor had no idea what most of the equipment was for. There were young women with clipboards, all of them looking anxious and rushed.

Gregor stopped right outside the living room doorway and looked in. One of the contestants was sitting on a wingback chair, talking to a woman sitting on a couch. They were both in front of a fireplace and the fireplace was lit. Off to the side, Sheila Dunham was standing, leaning against a long table that was backed up in front of another one of the couches. It was a massive and old-fashioned living room, full of overstuffed furniture and knickknacks of every possible variety. Had there really been an era when women of “taste” had wanted to own a dozen porcelain angels?

The girl in the wingback chair looked like she was going to cry. Gregor ran the names he remembered through his head and came up with one: Mary-Louise Verdt. Somebody came up behind him and leaned in close.

“They keep changing where they sit,” the voice said. “First they have the interviewee in the chair, and then they have the interviewer in the chair. I think it’s just to make us feel as uncomfortable as possible.”