Greg made good time from Fox Chapel. The roads were mostly clear of traffic, and the snow of the past few days had melted off the roads, without, so far as he could tell, the slightest help from a snowplow. NPR chattered amiably in the background, having shifted from a perky description of the plight of Middle Eastern refugees, to an equally perky presentation on the merits of mashed-up insect larvae as a replacement for butter.
Greg listened to it all with only half an ear. Having crossed the Allegheny by way of the Highland Park Bridge, he’d climbed up from the river, down into Bloomfield, crossed over to Shadyside, and was now moving smoothly up the steep gradient of Joseph Avenue on his way to school. He had a vague plan about taking a quick nap in the early-morning quiet of his classroom, but he was mostly fixated on Lindsay Delcade. How had she gotten into the custodian’s room? Someone must have let her in, which, reluctant as he was to admit it, continued to rule out her shit of a husband, alibi or not. But, of those who did have keys, Andrea had left the building shortly before Lindsay even arrived, and Ellis and Emily were long gone, one to dinner, the other to home, with no possible reason to come skulking back to the custodian’s room. And there was no sensible scenario in which Demetrius Freedman, who was there, could have persuaded Lindsay to meet him in the school basement. She couldn’t stand the man. And if she had wanted to meet him, she would surely have marched up to the front entrance and demanded his presence from the security guard.
Beyond that, what had made Lindsay Delcade change her Monday night routine and go to Calderhill in the first place? A grungy janitor’s lounge was neither the place for a girls’ night out, nor a suitable tryst for a man on the side. For a brief, disorienting moment, Greg entertained the possibility that Demetrius Freedman was the man on the side, but then rejected it. Demetrius was militantly African American. The idea that he would have relations with a racist or near racist like Lindsay Delcade was absurd.
Or was it? Greg scratched at his eye patch. Maybe, like Bryan Delcade, Demetrius had a secret side to his sexuality, something he was ashamed of. Something completely antithetical to his public persona. And once he got involved with someone like Lindsay, it was all too easy to imagine her pushing him over the edge …
‘This is ridiculous!’ Greg muttered. He pounded out his frustration on the thick padding of the Mini Cooper’s steering wheel. Everywhere his mind turned, it lost traction, skidding into a brick wall of internal contradictions and missing information. Someone had killed Lindsay Delcade. And yet no one could have. He couldn’t shake the feeling he was overlooking something right in front of his face, that he was just too stupid to see.
Also, too stupid to tell the time. He stole a quick glance at the dashboard clock. Stacey wouldn’t open the front entrance until seven a.m., almost twenty minutes away. No wonder the road was so empty. He crested the top of the hill and headed down toward the school, picking the closest of the available free parking spaces. As he got out of the car, he heard a familiar roar coming up the road behind him.
A decrepit, burnt orange Chevy pulled up alongside. The driver lowered their window, grinning.
‘Good morning, Mr Bimbo!’ said Andrea Velasquez. ‘Early for you, yeah? What’s the matter, couldn’t sleep?’
‘Something like that,’ Greg replied, drily. ‘And why are you here? I thought you were suspended.’
Andrea’s cheerful façade crumbled away.
‘I am,’ she admitted. She looked at him, suddenly worried. ‘You won’t tell on me, will you? I need my college books. Thought I’d sneak in before anyone got here.’
Greg smiled at her reassuringly, grateful to make small amends for bringing the subject up in the first place.
‘Me?’ He pointed playfully at himself. ‘No way, lady. I ain’t no snitch. But on one condition. You bring me in with you. It’s way too early for Stacey.’
Andrea grinned at that.
‘Deal,’ she said.
Once she’d parked, the two of them made their way into Dean Close. Approaching the loading bay, Greg noticed that the overflow from the dumpsters was threatening to block vehicular access. It was a good thing the strike was over, he told himself, because there was no way the school could have handled a second week.
He glanced up at the security camera, apparently all-seeing, but blind where it really mattered. A rime of icy snow clung to its housing. The piece of packing case that he’d used to jump down from the ledge the previous Saturday was still there, like a makeshift step.
Greg stopped, staring up at the camera, his face blank.
‘What?’ Andrea prompted.
‘Look at that,’ Greg said, pointing. ‘What do you see?’
‘Well, duh. A security camera.’
Somewhere in the depths of Greg’s coat, his cellphone was ringing. He let it go to voicemail.
‘Right,’ he agreed. ‘A security camera. You can’t miss it. Half the point of a security camera is that people know it’s there. Just knowing about it discourages people from trying to sneak in. Because they know they’ll be seen.’
‘But they weren’t seen,’ Andrea pointed out.
‘That’s exactly my point. Think about it. Before anyone could let Lindsay Delcade into the school, she managed to reach the custodian’s room door without a single pixel of her hitting the security footage. Which means she must have already known that the security camera, even though it’s pointing right this way, couldn’t see her. Which means someone must have told her. There’s no way to tell just by looking at it.’
‘OK, but why? And who? It still don’t make no sense.’
Greg sighed.
‘You’ve got that right, Ms Velasquez. In spades.’ He followed the junior custodian deeper into the loading bay, and then up the steps to the gray metal door. Andrea’s key rattled in the lock. As before, Greg was expecting the slow creaking of a horror movie, but the door swung open smoothly and silently on well-lubricated hinges.
‘I won’t be a minute,’ Andrea said. She strode across the room to where the custodian’s television sat atop the rickety old bookcase. She crouched down to retrieve her textbooks. Greg closed the big metal door behind them. As he did so, something caught his eye.
‘Andrea?’
‘Yeah?’ She was still fixated on the shelves.
‘Where’s your key?’
‘In my pocket. Where else would it be?’
‘Up there.’ Greg was pointing at the nail by the door. As there had been since Vern Szymanski cleaned up after the police, two keys nestled against each other: mute, and metal, and heavy. ‘I thought one of them was yours.’
‘No way, man.’ Andrea stood up and turned around, a pair of IT textbooks tucked under one arm. She patted a pocket with her free hand. ‘My key’s right here.’
‘But on Saturday,’ Greg protested, ‘when we came down here, you opened the door with one of those.’ He was pointing at the nail again.
‘Sure I did. It was Saturday. I didn’t have my own key on me. I used the spare.’
Greg scratched at his eye patch, frowning.
‘Right. The spare. Not spares, plural. When I came down here the day after the murder, there was only one key on that hook. Then Vern found another one, in a bucket of bits and pieces, which he said was yours—’
‘But it isn’t.’
‘—and put it on the hook with the “real” spare. Which begs the question …’
‘Whose key is it?’
‘Exactly.’
Andrea shrugged her shoulders.
‘Maybe it’s no one’s. Maybe it’s just—’
‘Zhizn’ ebet meya!’
Greg felt slightly nauseous, as if the ground was shifting, making him seasick.
‘What the hell does that mean?’
‘It means I think I know who did it.’ The words were little more than a whisper, squeezed from between dry, cracking lips. And even though he’d said the words out loud, they still didn’t feel real. More like a dream – or a vodka-fueled fantasy. And maybe, just maybe, Greg thought, he was wrong.
Except he knew, with absolute certainty, that he wasn’t.
‘So, who is it?’ Andrea was hopping up and down with barely contained excitement.
Greg didn’t answer. He was staring through the thick panes of the glass-brick window. Dim light seeped through it from the loading bay.
‘Mr Bimbo! Who is it?’
‘What?’
‘Who. The fuck. Did this?’
‘If I tell you, you have to help me out with something unpleasant.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We might not have a lot of time.’
‘Sure. What is it?’
‘You need to go dumpster diving. There’s a lot of stuff to go through before the garbage trucks get here.’ Seeing the look on her face, he broke into a wry smile. ‘No take-backsies.’
The cellphone in his pocket rang again. This time, more to keep Andrea in suspense than for any other reason, he took the call.
‘Hello?’
‘Gregory? It’s Father Kyriakos. Good morning. How are you today?’
‘Good morning, Father.’ Greg could feel his eyebrows arching into his forehead. Andrea Velasquez, meanwhile, was looking at him with a curiosity that had nothing to do with the identity of Lindsay Delcade’s killer. He pointedly ignored her. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘Sorry to call at this time of the morning, but I know you’re an early riser, and I hadn’t heard anything, so I thought I’d call to see if I could perhaps talk you through a few things, you understand, with time being so short.’
‘Slow down, Father,’ Greg said, smiling. ‘You’re going to need to start at the beginning. I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘I’m talking about your cousin, Viktor – and your mother, of course.’
‘My cousin?’ There was nothing he could do to stop the blood draining from his face.
‘Yes. He came to see me Sunday, with bad news about your mother.’ There was a sudden, anxious, pause. ‘He did find you, didn’t he? I hope I haven’t just put my foot in it. These things are too delicate for the phone. If I’ve spoken out of—’
‘No worries,’ Greg interrupted, smoothly. His voice betrayed no connection to the pounding in his chest. ‘Viktor found me. But he didn’t tell me he’d been to see you. What did he tell you about our situation?’
Greg listened, expressionless, as Father Kyriakos relayed the earlier conversation with his ‘cousin’. When he was done, Greg said, ‘I have two cousins called Viktor, Father, both of whom came to see me. But which one came to see you?’
‘Two?’ Father Kyriakos chuckled. ‘This one was big, like a bear. But not fat. A little over six foot, with brown hair and a touch of gray. Nice man. Laughed a lot.’
Morosov.
‘Thank you, Father.’ It was all he could do to stop his hands from shaking, to refrain from pacing back and forth across the custodian’s room like the trapped animal he was. Andrea, after all, was still watching him.
‘Gregory?’
‘Yes, Father?’
‘It’s not for me to tell you what to do, but God will guide you to the right decision if you’ll let him.’
‘Thank you, Father. I’ll do that.’
He hung up.
‘Something wrong?’ Andrea asked. She seemed genuinely concerned. Greg, despite himself, was touched.
‘You could say that,’ he replied. ‘I need to make some calls. And you, young lady, need to start looking in dumpsters.’
‘And what am I looking for, exactly?’
Greg told her. Then, unable to minimize his distraction any further, he pulled out his cellphone and marched out of the room.
‘Hey, wait!’ Andrea called after him. ‘You still haven’t told me who …’
But it was too late.