Read Online 27 Blood in the Water by Jane Haddam - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jane Haddam
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swim in the winter and at night.
Arthur turned and looked into the water, and for just a moment he did not know what he was seeing. There was somebody in the water, yes, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was the water itself. It was the wrong color, the wrong shade, something. There was something in there, something dark against the palish clearish blue, but—
But it didn’t matter, because that was when the building went up in flames.
PART I
ONE
1
It was six o’clock on the morning of Monday, the fifth of November, and it was cold. It was so cold that Gregor Demarkian found himself staring down at the jacket his wife had laid out for him across the back of the living room couch and wondering if she’d gone insane. Insanity was never to be completely ruled out when it came to Bennis Hannaford Demarkian, but the forms that insanity took were not usually thin cotton jackets presented for wearing in the freeze that heralded the run-up to winter. Bennis was much more likely to do things that would not be considered illegal only because she was a very good friend of the mayor.
Gregor picked the jacket up and put it down again. It was the jacket Bennis had bought him a couple of years ago, when she had gone on one of her periodic campaigns to “update” him.
“Somehow or the other, you just don’t seem to get the spirit of the times,” she’d said.
He’d been at a loss to know what she was talking about. Maybe he was too stodgy for the business casual atmosphere of the twenty-first century? Maybe he was too rational for all the television shows about mediums and psychic children?
It had turned out that he didn’t own any kind of outerwear that was not utterly formal, as if human beings would not be able to survive in the world of the Obama administration if they didn’t own something called a “barn jacket.”
The shower was on down the hall in the bathroom. Bennis was singing something that required her to hit the C above high C, which she couldn’t do. This would be something by Joni Mitchell, who was the singer Bennis loved most in the world. All of that meant something, Gregor was sure. He just didn’t know what.
He went down to the end of the hall where the bathroom was and knocked on the door. The apartment felt small and cramped these days, because it was filled with too much “stuff.” The worst of the stuff had disappeared over the past few weeks. He didn’t have to go on tripping over stacks of bathroom tile samples and books of dining room wallpaper samples. Bennis had made enough of the decisions about what would happen to this house they had bought to renovate that it wasn’t necessary to live any longer with her indecision. Still, there suddenly seemed to be too much of everything in the apartment, as if she never put anything away anymore, on the assumption that they’d have to take it out and move it later anyway.
He knocked on the door again. The sound of the water got fainter. Bennis must have turned it down.
“What is it?” she called out.
“I’m going to go get Tibor,” Gregor said. “I’m feeling too restless to stand around here. Do you mind?”
“Of course I don’t mind. You ought to take another case.”
“Yes, I know, I ought to take another case.”
“I left the paperwork from the last case out on the kitchen table. You’ve got to give it to Martin as soon as you can. It’s getting to be the end of the year. You can’t just leave your paperwork in a mess. The IRS gets cranky.”
“I’ll get to the paperwork this afternoon,” Gregor said.
He meant it, too. At least, he thought he did. He didn’t remember that he’d always had such a hard time taking the paperwork seriously. There it was, though. If you got paid money for doing anything at all, you had paperwork to do, and the state of Pennsylvania and the government of the United States to answer to.
He went down the hall and into the living room. He went through the living room
Arthur turned and looked into the water, and for just a moment he did not know what he was seeing. There was somebody in the water, yes, but that wasn’t the problem. The problem was the water itself. It was the wrong color, the wrong shade, something. There was something in there, something dark against the palish clearish blue, but—
But it didn’t matter, because that was when the building went up in flames.
PART I
ONE
1
It was six o’clock on the morning of Monday, the fifth of November, and it was cold. It was so cold that Gregor Demarkian found himself staring down at the jacket his wife had laid out for him across the back of the living room couch and wondering if she’d gone insane. Insanity was never to be completely ruled out when it came to Bennis Hannaford Demarkian, but the forms that insanity took were not usually thin cotton jackets presented for wearing in the freeze that heralded the run-up to winter. Bennis was much more likely to do things that would not be considered illegal only because she was a very good friend of the mayor.
Gregor picked the jacket up and put it down again. It was the jacket Bennis had bought him a couple of years ago, when she had gone on one of her periodic campaigns to “update” him.
“Somehow or the other, you just don’t seem to get the spirit of the times,” she’d said.
He’d been at a loss to know what she was talking about. Maybe he was too stodgy for the business casual atmosphere of the twenty-first century? Maybe he was too rational for all the television shows about mediums and psychic children?
It had turned out that he didn’t own any kind of outerwear that was not utterly formal, as if human beings would not be able to survive in the world of the Obama administration if they didn’t own something called a “barn jacket.”
The shower was on down the hall in the bathroom. Bennis was singing something that required her to hit the C above high C, which she couldn’t do. This would be something by Joni Mitchell, who was the singer Bennis loved most in the world. All of that meant something, Gregor was sure. He just didn’t know what.
He went down to the end of the hall where the bathroom was and knocked on the door. The apartment felt small and cramped these days, because it was filled with too much “stuff.” The worst of the stuff had disappeared over the past few weeks. He didn’t have to go on tripping over stacks of bathroom tile samples and books of dining room wallpaper samples. Bennis had made enough of the decisions about what would happen to this house they had bought to renovate that it wasn’t necessary to live any longer with her indecision. Still, there suddenly seemed to be too much of everything in the apartment, as if she never put anything away anymore, on the assumption that they’d have to take it out and move it later anyway.
He knocked on the door again. The sound of the water got fainter. Bennis must have turned it down.
“What is it?” she called out.
“I’m going to go get Tibor,” Gregor said. “I’m feeling too restless to stand around here. Do you mind?”
“Of course I don’t mind. You ought to take another case.”
“Yes, I know, I ought to take another case.”
“I left the paperwork from the last case out on the kitchen table. You’ve got to give it to Martin as soon as you can. It’s getting to be the end of the year. You can’t just leave your paperwork in a mess. The IRS gets cranky.”
“I’ll get to the paperwork this afternoon,” Gregor said.
He meant it, too. At least, he thought he did. He didn’t remember that he’d always had such a hard time taking the paperwork seriously. There it was, though. If you got paid money for doing anything at all, you had paperwork to do, and the state of Pennsylvania and the government of the United States to answer to.
He went down the hall and into the living room. He went through the living room
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