jacket over his shoulders and went out into the foyer, where Bennis was waiting for him. It was cold as hell outside, but she was not wearing her jacket, and wouldnât if he asked her to. He got his own coat off the rack and put it on. She walked away from him and out the door onto the landing.
There really had been a time, he thought, years ago, before his wife had died, before heâd retired from the Bureau, before heâd moved back to Cavanaugh Street, when he hadnât had anything more complicated to think about than the paperwork required to document the interstate tracking of serial killers. He was not Bennis Hannafordâs lover, or Tibor Kasparianâs friend, or the man a lot of people looked to to make sanity prevail in a thoroughly insane world. He did not remember the change coming over him. He could not pinpoint the one moment when he had begun to be someone he had never been before. He couldnât even tell if he liked this version of himself better than he liked the other.
What he did know was that, no matter how much he wanted to talk to John Jackman and find out what the police had on both the bombing and the murder out in Bryn Mawr, heâd be content to be ignorant for the rest of his life if it meant he didnât have to walk past the front of that exploded church. He
had
walked past it, two or three times a day, every day since it happened, but he wasnât used to it, and he didnât think he ever would be. If heâd been a different kind of man, he would have packed everything he owned into a couple of suitcases and taken off for a place where nobody had ever heard of Holy Trinity Church. Unfortunately, it would be impossible to go anywhere where nobody had heard of Tony Ross.
2
Oddly, it was much less difficult for Gregor to actually walk down the street in front of Holy Trinity Church than it was for him to think about doing it. The church always looked far less damaged than he had imagined it was, and he was able to ignore the fact that he knew it looked far less damaged than it actually was. The police had cordoned off the sidewalk directly in front of it. Anybody walking down Cavanaugh Street on that side now had to cross the street to continue. They had put a guard there the first two nights. The guard had disappeared on the third morning, far sooner than Gregor thought appropriate. In an FBI investigation, it would have taken far longer than this to gather the necessary evidence. He was determined to keep his disapproval to himself. John Jackman was now commissioner of police in Philadelphia. He was here because he was taking a personal interest in this case, and that at a time when all the police departments from the city down the length of the Main Line had been pressed into emergency service in the murder of Tony Ross. And it wasnât just the police departments. You could see the problem was that the media had started out only vaguely interestedâoh, murder at one of those fancy estates in Bryn Mawr; good for a week or two; yawnâand then woken up to what had really happened. One of the most powerful men in the world, one of the men who ran the banks and dictated policy to governments, had been killed by a sniper with a silencer on the front steps of his own house. At any other time, the destruction of Holy Trinity Church would have been big news in Philadelphia. There would have been an outpouring of support and a concentration on the human angle. There might even have been a fund to rebuild the church. Gregor found that he resented, more than a little, that none of that was happening. It didnât matter that Tibor wouldnât need a fund to get the church rebuilt. People on the street would give what they could, and in some cases that was plenty. It mattered that nobody was paying attention. This had to be the worst hate crime in the history of the city. Nobody was noticing.
John Jackman was standing at the door to the Ararat up ahead, bent
There really had been a time, he thought, years ago, before his wife had died, before heâd retired from the Bureau, before heâd moved back to Cavanaugh Street, when he hadnât had anything more complicated to think about than the paperwork required to document the interstate tracking of serial killers. He was not Bennis Hannafordâs lover, or Tibor Kasparianâs friend, or the man a lot of people looked to to make sanity prevail in a thoroughly insane world. He did not remember the change coming over him. He could not pinpoint the one moment when he had begun to be someone he had never been before. He couldnât even tell if he liked this version of himself better than he liked the other.
What he did know was that, no matter how much he wanted to talk to John Jackman and find out what the police had on both the bombing and the murder out in Bryn Mawr, heâd be content to be ignorant for the rest of his life if it meant he didnât have to walk past the front of that exploded church. He
had
walked past it, two or three times a day, every day since it happened, but he wasnât used to it, and he didnât think he ever would be. If heâd been a different kind of man, he would have packed everything he owned into a couple of suitcases and taken off for a place where nobody had ever heard of Holy Trinity Church. Unfortunately, it would be impossible to go anywhere where nobody had heard of Tony Ross.
2
Oddly, it was much less difficult for Gregor to actually walk down the street in front of Holy Trinity Church than it was for him to think about doing it. The church always looked far less damaged than he had imagined it was, and he was able to ignore the fact that he knew it looked far less damaged than it actually was. The police had cordoned off the sidewalk directly in front of it. Anybody walking down Cavanaugh Street on that side now had to cross the street to continue. They had put a guard there the first two nights. The guard had disappeared on the third morning, far sooner than Gregor thought appropriate. In an FBI investigation, it would have taken far longer than this to gather the necessary evidence. He was determined to keep his disapproval to himself. John Jackman was now commissioner of police in Philadelphia. He was here because he was taking a personal interest in this case, and that at a time when all the police departments from the city down the length of the Main Line had been pressed into emergency service in the murder of Tony Ross. And it wasnât just the police departments. You could see the problem was that the media had started out only vaguely interestedâoh, murder at one of those fancy estates in Bryn Mawr; good for a week or two; yawnâand then woken up to what had really happened. One of the most powerful men in the world, one of the men who ran the banks and dictated policy to governments, had been killed by a sniper with a silencer on the front steps of his own house. At any other time, the destruction of Holy Trinity Church would have been big news in Philadelphia. There would have been an outpouring of support and a concentration on the human angle. There might even have been a fund to rebuild the church. Gregor found that he resented, more than a little, that none of that was happening. It didnât matter that Tibor wouldnât need a fund to get the church rebuilt. People on the street would give what they could, and in some cases that was plenty. It mattered that nobody was paying attention. This had to be the worst hate crime in the history of the city. Nobody was noticing.
John Jackman was standing at the door to the Ararat up ahead, bent
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