One of Our Own by Jane Haddam

Author:Jane Haddam
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

2

It was not a long walk from Cavanaugh Street to St. Catherine’s School and the convent and the church that went with it. Gregor and Bennis had made that walk in both directions on the night they picked up Javier. In spite of the short distance, though, it required negotiating not one but three distinct neighborhoods. Cavanaugh Street was Armenian, and had been all Gregor’s life. He had grown up there when it had been poor and Armenian and most of its residents had come directly from the old country. Now it was rich and Armenian. Its residents were attached to it because they knew it. It was home. The Ohanians had run the grocery store forever. The Melajians had run the Ararat Restaurant forever. There was a little hole-in-the-wall store that sold religious articles only members of the Armenian church would recognize, including catechisms imported from Armenia itself and written in the Armenian language. Nobody on Cavanaugh Street would ever refer to that cup of sludge Tibor had just served him as “Turkish” coffee. Nobody on Cavanaugh Street would ever refer to “Turkish” anything, except the Armenian Genocide.

The other two neighborhoods were newer, at least in terms of population, part of the shifting population of every American city. Groups moved in and then moved out again. People immigrated and then took off for the suburbs at the first opportunity.

These days the first neighborhood next to Gregor’s own was Somali. It was a small patch of ground with a smaller population, but Gregor knew from what he was told by local law enforcement that the young men who inhabited it caused more than their share of trouble. They came from a country where women were veiled and monitored, and any women who were not veiled and monitored were fair game. Women who wandered through accidentally were likely to get hit on or worse. Bennis had once come close to breaking the wrist of a boy not more than twelve years old when he’d put out his hand to grab her breast when she was walking by. Bennis had considered calling a cop and having the kid arrested for assault. Gregor would have backed her up. In the end, she had decided not to. She was never sure why.

The next neighborhood after that was the fiefdom of people from a small nation in the Pacific. Gregor had never quite gotten them straightened out, but he loved being in their territory and he loved being around them. Every other storefront seemed to offer food. The food was undeniably exotic but also completely wonderful. They fried everything, which was definitely Gregor’s idea of a good time. There were also stores that sold clothes that seemed to consist of large sheets of fabric in bright colors. You could also get cloth like that to use as tablecloths or curtains. The only time Gregor had ever seen anyone angry in the neighborhood was when some boys stole some fruit from a fruit stand. The man who owned the fruit stand had chased them halfway down the block, threatening them with coconuts.

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