28 Hearts of Sand (18 page)

The accomplice could have been Martin Veer. In fact, faced with this same evidence, if he’d have been on the case at the time, that’s the way he would have bet. There was still something about it he didn’t like.

He went back to the picture book and paged through slowly, looking at photographs so wildly divergent, they might have had nothing to do with one another. Some of those photographs were of the principals as small children. In those, Martin Veer was freckled and awkward. There was another set that consisted of baby pictures. Gregor looked through the Bureau file and found that the agents had picked up on this the first time Ray Guy Pearce published them, and had discovered that these same photographs were genuine.

After that, the file contained a lot of references to Ray Guy Pearce and his publishing company, but in the end they had come to nothing. It was obvious somebody was feeding him material, but nobody had ever discovered who that was. The last note suggested that Ray Guy Pearce might be getting fed by more than one person, especially if he was paying them.

He paged through more photographs, one coming after the other with only the slightest nod to organization.

He put the book away and thought for a moment.

The day after tomorrow was the Fourth of July. If he was going to get something done, he would have to do it fast.

There were at least two things that would make sense if only you worked them right.

The first of those things he would have to deal with tomorrow.

FOUR

1

Evaline Veer hadn’t been able to sleep all night. She’d finally given up trying at half past four, and at quarter to six she’d started into the center of town again. The walk was eerily quiet, as if lots of people were taking the day off before the Fourth.

Evaline was just coming around the corner at the depot when she saw a very tall, massively built man get out of the backseat of a car and come around to the depot’s front door. She hesitated. There was no mistaking who the man was, even though she had never met him. In the natural order of things, she would be introduced to him by Jason Battlesea, or one of the detectives. She was a little miffed that Jason hadn’t brought him over yesterday.

There was a lot to do yesterday,
she told herself as Demarkian walked through the station’s doors. Evaline went in after him. She looked for him at the single open ticket window, but he wasn’t there. She spotted him at the newsstand. He was taking an absolute armload of books and putting them on the counter.

Evaline thought it over for a split second, and then walked right over to him. The books he’d laid on the counter were all books about Chapin Waring.

She leaned close to him without touching and said, “Mr. Demarkian? We should be introduced. I’m Evaline Veer.”

Gregor Demarkian looked up from his apparent attempt to buy one copy of every title of what the newsstand had of those books.

“Evaline Veer,” he said.

“I’m the mayor,” Evaline said helpfully. “I just thought I’d come over and introduce myself.”

“It’s very good to meet you,” Demarkian said. “Give me a second here.”

Evaline watched as he turned away from her and took out his wallet to pay for the books. The man behind the counter found a big bag and piled them all inside.

“Boy,” the man said. “You must be taking the train to Hawaii.”

Evaline waited until Gregor Demarkian turned back to her and tried a smile.

“Is that what you came in here for?” she asked. “I was worried you were taking the train back to Philadelphia. I know we must seem completely clueless out here. Jason indicated that you might be a little—annoyed.”

“Not annoyed, exactly,” Gregor said. “A little exasperated might be more like it.”

“Because of the forensics, and all that kind of thing?” Evaline asked. “I do know that the state crime lab has lost its accreditation. Connecticut prides itself on being very sophisticated, but the truth is we’re mostly suburbs with a few small urban spots that are going completely to hell. It’s not New York out here, even if most of the people in town work in New York.”

Gregor Demarkian tilted his head, as if he were trying to think something through. Then he straightened it again and said, “I don’t mind the weakness of the forensics, or even the lack of acquaintance with serious crime. It’s my job to help people out with just those things. No, what was getting me a little exasperated was the lack of interest in the crime at hand. All anybody seems to want to talk to me about is the crime that happened thirty years ago.”

“Ah,” Evaline said.

“It does look like a very interesting crime,” Gregor said, “but contrary to what everybody seems to think, solving it will not necessarily solve this one.”

“I didn’t think it had to be solved,” Evaline said. “Everybody already knows who committed those bank robberies. Martin Veer was my brother, do you know that?”

“I did know that,” Gregor said.

“From the FBI?” Evaline said. “I suppose they thought it was some kind of conflict of interest.”

“Something like that.”

“Well,” Evaline said, “I don’t see it. I was very young when those robberies happened. I wasn’t even out of grade school. And they don’t stick in my mind at all. Every time somebody says something about the crime that happened thirty years ago, I have to stop myself. Because we’re never thinking about the same crime.”

“There was another crime that happened thirty years ago?” Gregor asked.

Evaline shrugged. “Not in that sense, no,” she said. “But what sticks out in my mind after all this time is the accident. Maybe if Marty had lived, and there’d have been a massive manhunt like there was for Chapin—except if he’d lived, they might never have caught Chapin or Marty either. The only way anybody put two and two together was because somebody saw Chapin on television at Marty’s funeral.”

“They would have caught them eventually,” Gregor said. “Once those two people were killed, there would have been a lot of scrutiny and enhanced security. If they had done any more robberies, they would have ended up getting caught.”

“Oh, I suppose I know that,” Evaline said. “I knew my brother fairly well, and when I heard about everything, it sounded plausible enough. I could see him doing those things. Things got out of hand and they did things they didn’t expect to do. But Martin really wanted to be part of Chapin Waring’s crowd. And of course, it was very important to Hope.”

“Hope,” Gregor Demarkian said. It was not a question.

Evaline plunged ahead as if it had been. “Hope Matlock,” she said. “She was Marty’s girlfriend at the time. She’s still in town, you know. I talked to her only yesterday. She’s from an impossibly old New England family. They’ve been here—and I do mean here, in town or right around it—since somewhere in the 1690s. Hope still lives in the family place. It was built before the Revolutionary War. But there isn’t any money. Hope’s mother had to tie herself in knots just to send her to Alwych Country Day. I don’t know how they managed Vassar. Hope wanted to be part of Chapin Waring’s crowd, too. I used to think Chapin kept her around for a pet.”

“That’s a little harsh.”

Evaline shrugged. “It’s like I said. When I think of the crime that happened thirty years ago, the crime I think about is the accident. The six of them all piled into that car, and all at least partially drunk. Marty driving. And then there was the weirdness of it. The police came and talked to my parents after the funeral. They said the car had just veered off the road and into that tree as if Marty had been aiming at it. They didn’t think he had, you know. They didn’t think he’d done it on purpose or was trying to commit suicide or anything. He was just young and drunk and stupid. But still.”

“I can see that,” Gregor said.

“And then he was the only one who was really hurt,” Evaline went on. “All the rest of them walked away from it with minor injuries at most. Oh, I think Kyle Westervan broke his wrist. He was the third person in the front seat. You couldn’t even do that anymore. You can’t get three people in a front seat.”

“But they’d all been drinking,” Gregor said.

“Oh, yes,” Evaline said. “They found absolute buckets of stuff at the accident site. Bottles of scotch. Bottles of, of all things, rye whiskey. I tell myself that if Marty had lived, maybe he and Chapin would have been caught, and then he would have gone to jail and his life would have been ruined anyway. But I’d still rather have him alive to visit in jail than dead. And that probably makes me a fool.”

“I don’t think so,” Gregor said.

Evaline looked down at the very full bag Gregor Demarkian was carrying.

“I don’t think you’re going to get very far with those,” she said. “There’s some idiot in New York that’s been putting them out for years. The FBI itself investigated him. He seems to just make the stuff up. I can find you some more accurate accounts, if you want them. There was a time when I bought every account I could find.”

“Maybe I’ll take you up on it after the Fourth.”

“Well,” she said. “I think I’d better get to my office. I couldn’t sleep last night, and now of course I’m a mess.”

“I used to pull all-nighters on the job,” Gregor said. “But it was a long time ago.”

“And now you’re busy,” Evaline said, “and I’ve kept you. Have a good day, Mr. Demarkian. We’ll probably see each other later.”

“I’m sure we will.”

They stood there, stock-still, looking at each other. Finally Gregor Demarkian nodded to her one last time and turned away, heading out of the station.

Evaline watched him go through the station doors. It was not just her tiredness talking. He really was a massive man.

2

Cordelia was the first one on the phone this morning. Caroline Waring Holder heard the sound of the Chopin funeral march before she saw the picture of Maleficent flash up on the caller ID.

Caroline considered just not picking up. She considered it just long enough to realize that Cordelia would just call back later, and not much later, complaining that Caroline was ignoring her.

“Yes,” Caroline said into the cell phone. She knew she sounded snappish. She didn’t care. “I’ve just dropped off the kids, Cordelia, and I’m in the car and this red light isn’t going to last forever. We can talk later.”

“We need to talk now,” Cordelia said. “I thought they’d bring in this Gregor Demarkian and it might calm things down some, but that’s not what’s happening. They had a whole segment on the thing out here just last night, and not just about the murder. They’re bringing it all up again.”

“Of course they’re bringing it all up again,” Caroline said.

“They said there was a break-in yesterday at the house.”

“It wasn’t exactly a break-in,” Caroline said. The light turned green. She inched forward in the traffic.

“They said it was a break-in on the news,” Cordelia said. “I would have called you last night, but then I remembered you go to bed practically before sundown and I wanted to be considerate.”

“It wasn’t a break-in,” Caroline said, thinking that Cordelia had never been considerate a day in her life. “The alarm went off. When everybody got out there, the front door was open. That was it. Nothing had been taken that I could see, and the house hadn’t been broken into—”

“What?”

“According to the police, the house hadn’t been broken into,” Caroline said. “Nobody forced a lock. Either somebody got in there with a key, or the police didn’t lock up the last time they were there.”

“But that’s terrible,” Cordelia said. “How many people can possibly have keys to that house? And isn’t that a creepy idea, the cleaning lady or whoever it was going to look around when you’re not there? When was the last time we changed those locks?”

“I changed them the day after Chapin’s body was found,” Caroline said, “and you should remember it. You were on the phone with me most of the day. And yes, they’re being changed again as we speak. I’m on my way to meet the locksmith right now.”

“Still, you have to wonder,” Cordelia said. “Why would anybody want to do something like that? Going into the house and—what? Just walking around? What could they possibly have expected to find?”

“Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” Caroline said.

Cordelia snorted. “There’s no money in that house, and you know it. I don’t even believe there ever was that much money. It was just a lot of hype they put out to make people take it more seriously. You know what it’s like when rich people are involved. It’s always our fault.”

“They didn’t have to hype anything to make people take it seriously,” Caroline said. “Two people died. And Chapin shot at least one of them. It’s on tape.”

“That’s what the real problem is with this country,” Cordelia said. “Half the population lives on jealousy and spite. And then, of course, when something like this comes along, they blow it all out of proportion.”

“Two people died,” Caroline said. “I don’t think anything is out of proportion.”

“It would be better if you went and lived in that house yourself,” Cordelia said. “God only knows it’s a better house than the one you’re living in, and the children would be right there on the beach. And then we wouldn’t have these problems with people breaking in.”

“I have a perfectly adequate house, and what we ought to have done, years ago, is sell the one on Beach Drive.”

“You never understand these things. You really don’t. I suppose I ought to let you get on with getting the locks changed. Maybe we should hire a security guard until this thing blows over. If the police can’t have somebody there even when the place is a crime scene—”

“Hire a security guard, then,” Caroline said.

“Oh,” Cordelia said. “I meant you should. You should hire a security guard.”

“Yes, I know that’s what you meant,” Caroline said.

She snapped the phone closed. She tried to concentrate on her driving. She stopped at another traffic light and saw Gregor Demarkian in the backseat of a car. He didn’t notice her, and she didn’t make herself known.

One block up, the car with Demarkian in it went on and Caroline turned left, going the short way out to the start of Beach Drive. The houses got bigger and bigger. The haze in the air that was high humidity and evaporated seawater got heavier.