Marta Warkowski woke up at 4:17 on the morning of New Year’s Eve day, less than fifty minutes before Cary Alder’s houseboy found his employer dead and twisted on his living room couch. Gregor heard about these things as he was taking Pickles for her morning walk up and down Cavanaugh Street. It was six o’clock in the morning by then. Cavanaugh Street looked the way it had always looked since Gregor had first moved back home from D.C. Old Mrs. Ohanian had opened Ohanian’s Middle Eastern Market and hung a string of garlic bulbs near the door. Linda Melajian had taken down the dinner menu on the Ararat’s plate-glass front window and put up the menu for breakfast. Lida Arkmanian had rushed into the street through the fancy front door of her town house and found Hannah Krekorian waiting for her on the sidewalk. The only thing that didn’t look quite right was the Moradanyan house, down on the far end of the neighborhood, still blank and gray and devoid of even the slightest signs of decoration.
The call about Marta Warkowski came in from Horowitz, who sounded both elated and dismissive. He was elated about Marta waking up. He was dismissive of Gregor, and Gregor found his belief confirmed that the two detectives had never wanted him on the case to begin with. It didn’t matter that much. Gregor and Bennis had been talking for a year now about whether Gregor would go on working. They had come to no definite conclusions—except, maybe, they had. Given this gray morning not quite at the beginning of January, Gregor couldn’t see himself chasing around like a Peter Lovesey hero in the wake of some idiot who wanted to murder his wife.
“Of course, she isn’t exactly giving evidence yet,” Horowitz said over the phone, as Gregor steered Pickles into the wide alley that led behind the Armenian church to Tibor’s apartment. “And maybe I’m getting away from myself. Maybe she’ll have amnesia. The doctors don’t want us in there until we absolutely have to go in. But still. She could tell us everything. She could tell us what happened. We could even get a guilty plea.”
Everybody wanted a guilty plea. Gregor made noncommittal noises. It was as he was signing off that the phone brought up the news alerts and he saw the headline about Cary Alder. He almost stopped halfway down the alley. He made himself keep going. Cary Alder was dead. Gregor had a feeling he knew more about that than anybody else ever would.
Tibor came down to meet him and took the little brown bag full of Pickle’s … uh … business to put in the trash can. It was Tibor at his most Tibor-ish: the three-quarter-length woolen overcoat, the heavy hat with its ear flaps, the scarf wound tightly enough to strangle him around his neck. He was even wearing thickly padded leather gloves, the kind men wore when they trekked through the tundra. Sometimes it felt as if Tibor had never left Yerevan.
“Burberry,” Gregor told him when he came up, bag gone, to meet Gregor and Pickles in the wide courtyard.
“What?”
“You’re wearing Burberry,” Gregor said. “The coat. The scarf. I don’t know about the hat. If you weren’t wearing Burberry, you’d look like you were right off the boat.”
“It was a Christmas gift from Bennis the year after the two of you got married,” Tibor said. “It’s a very good coat.”
“It ought to be. It probably cost as much as a small co-op apartment.”
“You are talking about inconsequentialities,” Tibor said.
This was true. They came out of the alley onto Cavanaugh Street again. There were more people now. Most of them were headed for the Ararat. Some of them were headed farther down the street to where the buses stopped.
Pickles was wearing her little red outfit, complete with the booties and hat. Tibor leaned over and gave her a scratch behind one ear.
“So today Tommy and I will go to the shelter and pick up the other dog,” Tibor said. “That is also an inconsequentiality, except not for the dog. I will enjoy having a dog in the house again. Is there something I should be worried about when it comes to you?”
“Not really,” Gregor said. “We’ve got a fairly calm day planned. Bennis wants to take Javier to the Liberty Bell. I think there’s going to be shopping, and also probably lunch. I think she wants to go to a bookstore.”
“And that is all?”
“I’ve got a theoretical question.”
“I do not trust theoretical questions, Krekor. They are never really theoretical.”
The Ararat was coming up fast now. Gregor could see the door to the restaurant opening and closing, opening and closing. Maybe they should make it part of their routine to bring Javier here every morning for breakfast before school.
“So,” Tibor said. “A theoretical question.”
“About good and evil,” Gregor said. “About people and good and evil.”
“Are we discussing Russell Donahue again?”
“Maybe. Partially.”
“I do not think Russell Donahue is evil, Krekor. I think he is tortured and I think he is lost. I think he believes the things he says. I think he is terrified for himself and for his children and for Donna. I think he lives in a nightmare that will never disappear. But I do not think he is evil.”
“I don’t think he was evil before all the craziness started,” Gregor said. “He was a kind person. He was a person of integrity. He’s those things now in a lot of ways. Even if it’s all pointed in the wrong direction.”
“I do not think you have to worry about it, Krekor. I do not think they will allow him out of jail ever again. I think that is sensible.”
“I knew somebody else for a while,” Gregor said. “And in a lot of ways he was evil. He was not a kind person. He was almost comically selfish. He hated—I almost don’t know how to describe it. He was like one of those idiots on the Internet. It was as if he wanted to see harm come to people. As if seeing harm come to some people made him feel better.”
“You make him sound like a cartoon,” Tibor said.
“Maybe he was.”
“Was?”
“I think so.”
“People are not cartoons, Krekor. They are not all good or all bad. They are not agents of heaven or agents of hell. They are not all of a piece. That’s why your Internet idiots cannot stand the thought of history. The great civil rights leader turns out to be a serial rapist. The Nazi saves abandoned dogs in the wilderness and ships Jewish children to the camps. God knows these things, Krekor, the rest of us do not.”
“I’m pretty sure that this particular evil person did a very good thing,” Gregor said. “Did it more than once. Did it often enough so that he ruined himself doing it. He told me I should be careful not to give him too much credit for doing it.”
“Krekor.”
“We’re at the Ararat,” Gregor said. “I’d better get Pickles back to Javier.”
Tibor paused just at the Ararat’s door. Then he turned away and went inside. Gregor could hear Lida Kasmanian calling him over to her table.
It was only when the door closed all the way that Gregor realized that the front of the Ararat was awash in Christmas decorations. There were shiny golden bells and silver tinsel and big red bows made out of shiny synthetic satin. They had to have been here all the time. They had to have been here for weeks.
Gregor hadn’t noticed them before.
Bennis was making waffles when Gregor got home, pouring batter into the big no-stick waffle iron Hannah Krekorian had given them for their wedding. As far as Gregor knew, it had never been used before. Looking at it now, he wondered if it would ever be used again. Bennis was very enthusiastic with the waffle batter. It went everywhere, and when the waffles were done it had to be cut off the edges.
Javier didn’t seem to mind. He had four fully cooked waffles with butter and syrup, a glass of orange juice, a cup of hot chocolate, and a banana. He also had two strips of bacon he had kept for Pickles. He held them out as soon as the dog came in.
Bennis frowned at him. “Two,” she said.
Javier nodded. “Sí. Dos.”
Gregor thought it was a good thing there were only the two strips left.
Bennis waved him to a chair and went for the coffee. “Maybe we ought to take him down to the Ararat for breakfast after all,” she said. “I know we discussed it, and it sounded more like a real home to do it all here, but the Melajians are all better cooks than I am and we can’t live on pancakes, waffles, and bacon. Not that Javier seems to mind. Yet.”
“Javier seems to be having the time of his life,” Gregor said, sitting down. “I got a phone call while I was out.”
“I listened to the news. Is it all the same thing?”
“I doubt it. The news was probably Cary Alder. My phone call was about Marta Warkowski. She’s out of the coma, or whatever it was.”
Bennis poured orange juice for herself and sat down, too. “If she’s awake, she’ll be able to tell you what happened to her. Do you think she’ll say what you think she’ll say? That Cary Alder hit her?”
“I don’t know,” Gregor said. “She’s awake, but I don’t think she’s talking yet. She may never talk. She may never remember. If she remembers anything, I hope it’s who was with Hernandez when they stuffed her in the van. Whoever was with Hernandez must have killed Hernandez. But she might never have seen him. She might have been out cold by the time Hernandez and his helper showed up.”
“But you’re sure Cary Alder hit her.”
“He admitted that much, not that my word for it is going to constitute admissible testimony. He got angry, lashed out, and she fell back against the corner of a desk. Horowitz and Morabito have search warrants and forensics people all lined up. The only question becomes who killed Hernandez, and Morales had the motive. He also had fingerprints on the gun. There’s something the two of them should have checked out first thing.”
“You really aren’t happy with the crime consulting thing anymore, are you?”
Gregor shrugged. “It’s hard to tell what I’m happy with anymore, aside from you and the peanut here,” he said. “Something’s gone out of this for me since Russ—well, since Russ. I was thinking it might be a good idea, once school is out for the summer, to take Javier here to see something of the country. Maui, maybe. You like Maui.”
“I do,” Bennis said. “But I think Javier would probably have a better time at Disney World. Especially if Donna would let us take Tommy with us. Or maybe all three of them would come. We could stay at that side resort they have in Florida with all the wild animals.”
“What would we do with Pickles?”
Bennis sighed. “I suppose he’d end up getting eaten by one of the cats. We’ll figure something out. The news said they thought Cary Alder might have committed suicide because he was about to be arrested for bank fraud. They’ve already arrested these two women they think were part of it. One of them is cooperating.”
“I’ll bet both of them will be by the end of the mess,” Gregor said. “And bank fraud is as good an excuse as any.”
“Not a potential murder charge?”
“That, too.”
Javier had finished all his food. He bowed his head over his plate, made the sign of the cross, and said a short little prayer in Spanish. Then he made the sign of the cross again and hopped down to collect Pickles.
Bennis got up and started to clear the table. “It’s been a weird morning already,” she said, “and now you’re back and it’s just as weird. Donna talked to Russ last night. I don’t know what about, but she’s been revved and crazy ever since. And you’ve never been secretive about your work before. I really don’t need any help these days, feeling like I don’t know what’s going on in the world.”
“You know what I noticed this morning?” Gregor asked her. “There are Christmas decorations everywhere. The entire facade of the Ararat is covered with them. Lida has silver bows on her living room window.”
“Is there really something odd about that? It was just Christmas, just before we got Javier.”
“I know it was. But I didn’t notice it. Things were going on right in front of my face, and I didn’t notice them. Maybe it’s time for me to retire for other reasons besides being sick of it.”
Bennis started stacking dirty dishes in the sink. Gregor watched Javier and Pickles go into the living room and get up together on a large, wide, stuffed armchair. Javier had books. Pickles was wearing that alert expression that said she was a very smart dog and willing to indulge the humans in anything they did, no matter how senseless.
“You know,” Gregor said, “I remember Cavanaugh Street when I was in high school. Before the tenements got renovated into town houses and floor-through apartments. When everybody spoke at least some Armenian, and we had an old priest at the church who would go on and on and on about the Armenian Genocide. Displaced persons. People who belonged here and didn’t belong here at the same time. But I wouldn’t have belonged in Armenia, either.”
“You belong here now.”
“Oh, yes. Yes, I do. I’m perfectly at home in this place, even though it’s a lot different than it was when I was growing up. And I have a theory. I think it’s what we’re all looking for. A place where we’re perfectly at home. We build neighborhoods. We build whole nations. Just so that we can feel we fit. And when we lose that, when we don’t fit anymore, anywhere, I think we go crazy.”
“I think you’re beginning to sound pretty crazy yourself,” Bennis said.
Gregor shook his head. “I belong in this place, even if I’m not so sure I belong in this time anymore. But all around us there are people who gather together in small little knots and try to re-create the familiar and the comfortable and the safe, and if they get the formula right, it sometimes mostly works. But some people can’t do that. The world falls apart around them and there’s nothing they can do to get it back.”
“You’re talking about Cary Alder again,” Bennis said.
“Hell,” Gregor said. “I’m talking about Russ.”
Father Tibor’s new rescue dog was a “sort of” Samoyed. At least, that was what the woman at the shelter said while Tommy Moradanyan was putting on the dog’s new collar and fixing the leash to it. The collar had a name on it, as well as all of Tibor’s information. The name was “Spot,” which Tibor explained to anybody who would listen was meant to indicate the white spot that covered the dog’s entire body. This, in turn, was a literary reference. There was a Samoyed named Spot in one of Tibor’s favorite mystery series.
Tommy only cared about getting out of the shelter as fast as he could. It wasn’t what he himself would have called a shelter, which would be a place where dogs were kept safe and comfortable until someone wanted to take them home. That could take a few days or a few years or forever. It wouldn’t matter. In this shelter, it mattered. Animals had three months. After that, they were dead.
Tommy understood why Father Tibor wanted to adopt his dog from a place like this. It still amazed him that the little priest could chatter on and on to the woman at the counter as if he didn’t know she had murder in her heart.
The one positive note in all of this was Spot himself. He came out from the back looking bedraggled and depressed. He got steadily happier and more lively as the proceedings went on. He liked his collar. He liked his leash. He put his front paws on Tommy’s shoulders and licked Tommy’s face clean of anything that had ever been on it, ever.
“I do hope this will work out,” the lady behind the counter said. “When those other people brought him back, I thought it was all over. Then you came in and wanted a dog right away. I’d say it was a miracle. If I were you, I’d call him Lucky instead of Spot.”
“I think he goes with God,” Tibor said seriously.
The woman behind the counter gave a tight little smile and let them go.
Out on the street, Tibor stopped to give Spot a pat on the head. Spot gave Tibor’s face the same treatment he’d given Tommy’s.
“I’ll have to get him some things,” Tibor said as they started walking again. “I understand that he is not a tiny dog and he has more fur than Pickles, but he shouldn’t have his bare feet on these pavements. They’re cold and there are chemicals on them, to keep people from slipping.”
“I wonder who decides what dogs go to what shelters,” Tommy said.
They had to pass through a corner of the Somali neighborhood to get to Cavanaugh Street. There were no Christmas decorations up there, and no signs of an impending New Year’s Eve. Cavanaugh Street was different. The little newsstand at the edge of the neighborhood was decked out in shiny plastic Christmas balls and New Year’s noisemakers, the kind that unfurled when you blew them. Tommy remembered smacking more than one of his classmates in the face with them at holiday parties. He would have to teach Charlie how to blow one. She would love it.
There was a bench right in front of the steps to the Armenian Christian Church. When they got to it, Father Tibor sat down and began petting Spot again. Tommy sat down, too. It was crazy in this cold, but Spot didn’t seem to mind, and from the bench Tommy could see his own house several blocks away. There was something odd about it. Tommy couldn’t put his finger on what.
“Tcha,” Father Tibor said finally. “You are going back up there? To the prison? To see Russ?”
“Eventually. And don’t ask me what I’m doing. My mom asks me what I’m doing. I can’t explain it. I mean, I know I can’t change what he did. And I know he’s never going to get out of prison. Part of me thinks maybe I can show him how wrong he is about everything that’s happening. And if I can do that—” Tommy threw his hands into the air. “I don’t know. I don’t know what that’s supposed to fix.”
“Do you know why I became a priest?”
“If you think you’re going to talk me into that—”
“Tcha,” Father Tibor said. “In one way, it was the same reason as the other men in my seminary class. We did it because the Soviet authorities didn’t want us to. We did it because we were Armenians and we wanted to remember that. But I couldn’t have chosen this life for only that reason.”
“So?”
Spot had been sitting quietly on the ground. Now he jumped up and put the front half of himself into Tommy’s lap. Tommy laughed.
“Listen,” Father Tibor said. “We wanted to remember we were Armenian and there was nothing wrong with that. But there was nothing right with it, either. Armenians are no different than anybody else. There are good things about us and bad things about us, and the worst thing about us is the same as the worst thing about everyone else. Do you know the joke, about the Catholics in heaven?”
“No.”
“There is a new arrival in heaven,” Father Tibor said, “and Saint Peter shows him around. Over there are the Methodists. Over here are the Muslims. Over in that other place are the Lutherans, and next to the Lutherans are the Jews. The new arrival sees a group of people behind a high wall and asks, ‘Who are they? What are they doing behind a wall?’ ‘Oh,’ Saint Peter says. ‘Those are the Catholics. They think they’re the only ones here.’”
Tommy laughed again.
“But it’s true of all of us,” Tibor went on. “We all think we’re the only ones here. But there is a place in one of the epistles of Saint Paul, where Paul is talking to a group gathered to hear him preach, and what he says is, ‘You are neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female. You are all one in Christ Jesus. You are all sons of God.’”
“My mother would give you a four-hour lecture about sexism.”
“No,” Father Tibor said. “It is not sexism to put it that way. In the culture of the time, sons could inherit but daughters could not. Paul is saying that in Christ, there will be no such divisions. We will not be the only ones here. We will all inherit the kingdom of God. And when I heard that, I thought it was what I wanted to be a part of, what I wanted to see happen in the world. That we will all inherit. That we will all be part of each other.”
“I may not be as crazy as Russ is, Father, but I don’t think that’s the direction the world is heading in.”
“It is never the direction the world is headed in. It is only the direction the world should be heading in.”
“In the opposite direction of Russ.”
“Think of yourself as part of a tide,” Father Tibor said. “If enough people are going in the right direction, more and more people will be dragged along with them.”
Spot got down from Tommy’s lap and tried a similar maneuver on Father Tibor’s. Father Tibor scratched him behind the ears and stood up.
“You should go home. Your mother will be worried about where you’ve gone.”
“Yeah.”
Tommy stood up. He was looking down Cavanaugh Street at his own house again, the tall brownstone walls, the peaks and whorls of the roof facade. Spot pranced around his legs, happy to be out in the air, straining against the leash to get a better sniff at the feet of the few people who came by.
And then he saw it.
He really saw it.
The roof facade was glinting, and as he watched he saw a cascade of gold foil paper come down the house’s dull stone front.
“Tommy?” Father Tibor asked.
“I’ve got to go,” Tommy said. “I’ve got to go. That’s my mom.”
“Tommy.”
“She’s decorating the whole damned house.”
And that was true.
After two years of nothing, of barely tinseled twigs at Christmas and blank walls at Easter and all the lights out and the doors locked for Halloween, Tommy Moradanyan’s mother was doing her thing again. She was wrapping their entire house in gold foil paper. She was celebrating, and that meant she could now see something to celebrate.
Tommy figured he’d better get over there and help.