By the time they got down the front walk to the car, it was raining again, not the lunatic pelting that had been going on for most of the morning, but a deep, steady, heavy fall that was almost silent.
Gregor got into the car. Kyle got into the car and started it up.
“What was that about?” Kyle asked. “You didn't mention Peggy. You didn't mention what happened to her.”
“There was no need to.”
“Well there was maybe one need to. Eventually this is all going to come out in the wash. Stu is going to know where Peggy was earlier this afternoon. Either it's going to be on the news, or the hospital is going to call, or Peggy is going to tell him. And then what? I've got my ass in a sling for withholding information on the medical condition of aâ”
“There's a record of all the times he's beaten her up?”
“I don't know about all of them. There's probably a record a mile long about some of them, though. We've got them in the police department. They've probably got them in the emergency room over at Kennanburg. Why?”
“Because that's all you'll need not to get your ass in a sling. Some states have mandatory arrest lawsâ”
“We've got one here,” Kyle said. “But they don't do any good, Mr. Demarkian. Oh, they sometimes do, when the woman really wants out and she's got no way to get out herself, but in a case like thisâ” Kyle shrugged.
Gregor shook his head. “We should get going.”
“Get going where?”
“Out to that hospital. I'd like to talk to Mrs. Kennedy for a while.”
Kyle put the car in gear and began to pull away from the curb. “Do you think she'll be in any position to talk? She looked like she was sleepwalking the last time we saw her.”
“I need to know a few things from her, especially about the death of Michael Houseman. Does Mr. Kennedy always behave like that? With the language. Or did he put it on for my benefit?”
“He always behaves like that to me,” Kyle said, “but he could be putting it on for
my
benefit. Why are you still so interested in the death of Michael Houseman? Did the same
person who killed Michael Houseman kill Chris Inglerod Barr? And try to kill Emma?”
“Let's say that the same person who murdered Michael Houseman was responsible for the death of Chris Inglerod Barr and the attempted murder of Emma Kenyon Bligh. And for the death of the dog, of course, although that was something in the way of an accident.”
“How do you eviscerate a large part-malamute, part-shepherd dog by accident?”
“You find it in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Marvelous. Wonderful. I can see the prep sheet I'm going to make up for the town prosecutor right this minuteâ”
“You know,” Gregor said, “you've got nothing to worry about. The fact of the matter is, this case is going to have a Gordian knot solution. Sooner or later, Emma Kenyon Bligh is going to wake up, and when she does she's going to hand you your solution on a plate, and hand you a star witness, too, in the person of herself. And that's going to be enough to go to trial on.”
“That's going to be enough to go to trial on for the attack against Emma,” Kyle said, “but does that mean it's going to be enough to go to trial on for the death of Chris Inglerod Barr?”
“You're going to have the linoleum cutter,” Gregor said. “That will be a start. With any luck, what I'm doing now will get you the rest of what you need. It's odd to think, though, that Chris Inglerod would be alive and Emma Kenyon Bligh wouldn't be in the hospital with a slash wound in her abdomen if Elizabeth Toliver hadn't decided to take her younger son to McDonald's.”
“What?”
“She wasn't home, you see,” Gregor said. “She was supposed to be home. She had a nice set schedule that day. She was driving her mother to one set of doctors in the morning. Then she was leaving her mother and the nurse at the ob/gyn clinic in the early afternoon so that the doctors could run some tests. While that was going on, she was
supposed to be having lunch with Maris Coleman at the Sycamore, and when that was over she was supposed to pick up her older son at the town library and her mother at the gynecologist's and go straight home. She should have been home by two o'clock. But she wasn't.”
“We know she wasn't. Emma and Belinda brought Mark home from the library and they got to the Toliver house at three and there was nobody home.”
“Exactly. Because Elizabeth Toliver and Maris Coleman had an argument at the Sycamore, and Liz took Geoff out to the Interstate to the McDonald's there, and she didn't get home until after four. And that's why the dog died. Because nobody was home.”
“You just said Mark was home.”
“I know. Essentially, nobody was home, because he went to sleep in that room in the basement. You can't hear somebody knocking on the front door from there, or on the back door, either. So, you see, she got to the house expecting to find Elizabeth Toliver, and as far as she could tell nobody was home. She probably walked around the yard a couple of times, with the linoleum cutter in her hand, and nobody to use it onâ”
“Wait. Are you saying that whoever this is was intending to kill Betsy? I mean, Liz?”
“Of course. Didn't you know that? The thing is, it's very difficult to kill somebody in Liz Toliver's position with a knife or a razor. It's not impossible, but it's difficult, because those people usually have other people around them. It's much easier, if you want to murder a celebrity, to use a gun, because you don't have to worry about getting physically close. Either our murderer didn't have access to a gun or she didn't know how to use one and was afraid to try.”
“Right,” Kyle said. “Who the hell doesn't have access to a gun in a place like this? There are guns all the hell over the place. Half the town hunts.”
“All right,” Gregor said. “I'll give you three people who
didn't have access to guns. One, Peggy Smith. There are no guns in that house. I'll guarantee it.”
“Why? How could you know that?”
“Because you haven't said a single word about his shooting her, and if he'd had a gun he'd have shot her at least once by now. I don't care about background checks or laws that say you can't own a gun if you've ever been charged with domestic violence, people like Stu Kennedy have guns if they want them, and if they have them they use them.”
“Hell,” Kyle said. “He did shoot her. Or tried, anyway. He missed by a mile. About eight months ago. I went through the house and picked up a pistol and two rifles and read him the riot act.”
“And he listened to you?”
“I'd like to think so,” Kyle said, “but I have a feeling it was more a matter of finances. Stu spends a lot of money on chemicals. There doesn't tend to be a lot left over to buy guns and ammunition with. The guns I confiscated had all belonged to his father.”
“Fine,” Gregor said. “Now I'll give you another one. Belinda Hart Grantling. Or are you going to tell me that she keeps a pistol in her bedside drawer?”
“No. No, as far as I know, she's never had a gun in her life. Her family never had them either. There are families around here that hunt, and there are families around here that shoot at gun ranges, and there are families around here that are just plain whacko, but the Harts never were any of those things.”
“Two down and one to go. Maris Coleman.”
“Oh,” Kyle said. “Funny, isn't it? I don't usually think of her as a suspect. I mean, it's not like she's here anymore. She's just sort of all over the place. Visiting. Like the tooth fairy.”
“She also is extremely unlikely to have a gun,” Gregor said. “I suppose it's possible, and I could always check the New York gun registry, but the fact is that I've been watching her for days. I've seen her do all kinds of things, I've
seen her empty her handbag on a table, and there's been no sign of a gun, no sign of ammunition, and no talk from anybody around herâLiz Toliver, for instanceâto indicate that Maris ever even had a gun in the city. Of course, if I had to pick one person who might decide to stab instead of to shoot even if she had a gun, Ms. Coleman would be that person. The one thing she's very, very good about is knowing what she's capable of when she's drunk, and she's nearly always drunk.”
“I wouldn't call it drunk,” Kyle said. “I'd call it not exactly sober.”
“Call it what you will. That linoleum cutter was most likely the best weapon available, better than a knife, for instance, because it's sharper.”
“Do you know where the linoleum cutter came from?” Kyle asked.
“I'm about ninety-nine percent sure. We'll have to check. It won't matter, though, the fingerprints will be clear enough and a good lab analysis ought to get a lot more.”
“Do you intend to tell me where it came from?” Kyle asked. “Are you going to let me in on this? And if you think you know where it came from, why haven't we gone there and checked it out?”
“For the same reason you didn't search Mr. Kennedy's house back there. Because we didn't have a warrant. Eventually, you're going to have to get a number of warrants and search a number of placesâif I were you, I'd search that house, too, on general principlesâbut at the moment it would just waste a lot of time, and there's no hurry. It doesn't matter where it came from much now that we have it. The trick is to get all our ducks in place so that nobody can claim we've got a case shot full of holes. I'm mixing metaphors. Bennis would kill me.”
“Look,” Kyle Borden said, “do you know who killed Chris Inglerod and attacked Emma Kenyon Bligh?”
“Yes.”
“And it was the same person in both cases?”
“Oh, yes.”
“And the same person killed Michael Houseman?”
“No,” Gregor said, “but the same person was responsible for all three deaths. That's not quite the same thing.”
“It'll be enough if I've got the person locked up for the death of Chris Inglerod. Was the death of Chris Inglerod a mistake, too? Is this womanâand I assume you're talking about a womanâ”
“Right.”
“Was this woman going around slashing people just because she wanted to slash Betsy and Betsy was never available? Because I'm going to have a hard time selling that to the town prosecutor, and he'd never be able to sell it to a jury.”
“Don't worry about it,” Gregor said. “It's nothing that odd. Just let's go see Peggy Smith Kennedy, and then let's hunt down Maris Coleman and insist she sit still for a talk for once. And when we do find her, let's make sure she can't go anywhere.”