Wanting Sheila Dead(93)

“The bullet holes,” Borstoi said.

“They’ve got to be somewhere,” Gregor said. “They didn’t hit anybody. They didn’t ricochet. And don’t ask me how I know. I know a ricochet. Did they go into the furniture?”

Len Borstoi was still staring at him. Gregor thought that this was the worst part about his incredible tiredness. The very air around his head felt as if it had texture. Everything pulsed a little. Everything glowed.

“I know you think I shouldn’t be here,” Gregor said, “but I am here, and I think I know a couple of things. It couldn’t hurt to listen to me, and if you want to, I’ll absolutely promise to act as if I had nothing to do with it. Hell, I always prefer to act as if I had nothing to do with it.”

“The press likes to write as if you had everything to do with it,” Borstoi said. “The Armenian-American Hercule Poirot. The master detective showing all us poor dumb slobs how it’s done.”

“I’d be willing to bet just about anything,” Gregor said, “that the gun lying on the carpet in there is the gun that fired the shots at the Milky Way Ballroom. You may not want to talk to me, but the Merion police are apparently not so close with information. The gun the girl was holding at the Milky Way Ballroom wasn’t the gun that fired the shots there. It wasn’t even loaded with live ammunition. When the Merion police got the bullets out of the wall, they were bullets from a different gun. Then, when you got the bullets from yesterday’s murder to the lab, they turned out to be bullets from the same gun. And now, I’m pretty sure that the gun lying in there is the gun in question. In fact, it has to be. Nothing else makes any sense.”

Len Borstoi was looking at the ceiling over both their heads. “How did you know about the bullets from yesterday?” he asked.

Gregor shook his head. “I’ve got people in and around the city of Philadelphia who tell me things like that,” he said. “I’ve got some kind of minder over in the Philadelphia Mayor’s Office who’s got even more people to tell him things like that. The bullets that hit the wall at the Milky Way Ballroom and the bullets that killed that girl yesterday were from the same gun, and, like I said, that gun in there is probably the gun in question. I’m not trying to get publicity at your expense. I’m really not. I’m just bumping up against—things.”

Borstoi was still not looking at him. Gregor thought he might be looking through the door of the study. It was hard to tell.

“Did these people hire you?” he asked, waving his hand around to indicate the present company.

“No,” Gregor said. “They did ask me to look into things, but I didn’t make them any promises, and I didn’t agree to be hired. I don’t usually work for private individuals. I consult for police departments. That way I’m not stepping on people’s toes and I can’t be charged with hindering a police investigation.”

Borstoi looked back at the door to the living room. “All right,” he said. “Consider yourself attached to this investigation. I’ll get you paperwork later. My bosses all think you walk on water, in case you’re interested.”

“I don’t walk on water,” Gregor said. “I’m just less distracted than most police officers. I only work on one case at a time.”

Borstoi looked at Gregor for the first time. “Come with me,” he said.

And suddenly, Gregor had a second wind. Or a fourth one. He had no idea how long he’d been this tired. The two uniformed policemen were rounding up members of the cast and crew of America’s Next Superstar. The policewoman was sticking to her post.

Gregor followed Len Borstoi through the living room door. The gun was still lying on the floor. The crime-scene people would pick that up and bag it later. Gregor looked around. There were no signs of bullets in the plaster wall around the fireplace. There were no signs of bullet holes in the couch. Borstoi pointed at the floor, and Gregor saw them—just two, right there, dug into the hardwood.

“She had to be aiming down,” Gregor said.

“She?”

“Sheila Dunham had a point,” Gregor said. “Everybody around her was female. There was the crew, but—”

“You don’t think it’s possible for the crew to have wanted to kill Sheila Dunham?” Borstoi asked. “From what I hear, everybody on the planet wants to kill Sheila Dunham.”

“Maybe,” Gregor said, “but the crew wasn’t here yesterday when that girl was found dead. At all. They were at some restaurant in downtown Bryn Mawr. I suppose one of them could have remained behind, but my guess is that he’d have been noticed. If you’ve listened to the girls, you know that one of them was left behind, but she supposedly went upstairs where she couldn’t hear anything. So she could have committed the murder, or one of the girls in the cast could have committed the murder at the last minute, by running in when they were about to take off—”