Not a Creature Was Stirring (35 page)

“Always?”

“Yes. I think I could say always. I don’t know what her marriage was like, Mr. Demarkian. Living with Daddy might have caused a few moral dilemmas. But on the whole, I’d say always.”

Gregor nodded. “She’s a remarkable personality, your mother. One of the strongest I have ever known.”

“You wouldn’t be able to say that if you’d met Daddy. It always looked to me like she was scrambling around, trying to repair the damage right after Daddy did it. Like all that business with Teddy and his leg.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well,” Bennis said, “Teddy’s leg was ruined in an automobile accident. You know that. And Daddy was driving. And Daddy was not sympathetic or supportive or any of the rest of that seventies nonsense when it was over. He just turned on Teddy. And Mother has been making it up to Teddy ever since.”

“Teddy,” Gregor said. He frowned and seemed to sink into thought. Bennis stared at him curiously. He was—different, now that Myra was dead. She couldn’t put her finger on how, or why, but there it was. She looked around the hall again and wondered if she should be doing something polite. No matter how hard Mother had tried, she’d never managed to turn Bennis into a natural hostess.

She got out another cigarette, lit up again, and then stared at the burning tip. At the rate she was smoking on this trip, she was going to have to quit for at least three months when she got back to Boston, just to be able to go on breathing.

“Maybe we should go someplace else,” she said. “Out of the hall. We could go into the living room and have some coffee.”

Gregor came to. “Coffee? No, no. I’m sorry, Miss Hannaford. I meant to tell you when I first came in. We’re leaving.”

“We?” Bennis said.

“Detective Jackman and I. We’ve done everything we can do here. There are some small details to clear up, but they’re the crime unit’s business. It’s after three o’clock. I have to get back to Philadelphia.”

“I keep forgetting you have a life away from us,” Bennis said. “Did you find what you came here looking for, before all this started?”

“I don’t know.”

“I hope you did.”

Gregor took the accordion folder from her. Bennis watched it disappear into his jacket.

“We’ll be out again,” he said. “Try to take care of yourself.”

He turned away and went walking down the hall the way he’d come in.

Bennis stood where she was, watching him. It was true. He had definitely changed. And she didn’t like it.

She was beginning to think she’d made a mistake. She had had it all worked out, when she’d first gone to speak to him—but now…

She watched him lumbering off down the hall, and told herself she wasn’t frightened. Then the phone started ringing, and she nearly jumped out of her skin.

In a perfectly ordinary police station in central Philadelphia, Bobby Hannaford stood leaning against a wall next to a pay phone, listening to the ringing on the other end of the line. The fact that he was in a perfectly ordinary police station bothered him. What he had committed was a federal crime. He ought to be at the FBI, or in the U.S. Marshall’s office. He ought to be taken seriously. Being in a perfectly ordinary police station put a complexion on things he didn’t like at all.

He kept his back to the squadroom, so he didn’t have to look at McAdam. McAdam was handcuffed to a chair.

“Listen,” one of the detectives back there was saying, “what he did was, he had this money in the back of his car. A kind of maroon Mercedes. It was in the trunk.”

“Fifty thousand dollars in one-hundred-dollar bills,” one of the patrolmen said.

Bobby knew who was who, because they’d been having this conversation repeatedly for most of the last three hours.

“So anyway,” the detective said, “the money is in a briefcase. In the trunk, like I said. He drives into this Mercedes dealership, and he goes in, and he finds a car just like the one he’s driving—”

“Another sort of maroon Mercedes.”

“Right. And he buys this car that looks just like the car he’s driving, and he turns the car he’s driving in for the trade-in. But he leaves the money in the first car.”

“This is what I don’t get. He was going to walk away from fifty thousand in cash?”

“That’s what it looks like.”

“But that’s nuts.”

“These aren’t your ordinary criminals here. These are rich guys. Rich guys are nuts.”

“Didn’t the dealer think he was nuts?”

“Nah. The dealer’s used to working with rich guys. So anyway, Hannaford here, he leaves the money in the first car, and he starts to drive away in the second car. Then the Feds come in behind him and stop him, and they search the car he’s driving, but it’s the second car, and the money isn’t in that—”

“This must have taken forever. Dealers don’t like to let cars drive off like that.”

“You go into some dealer some time, put a guaranteed check down on the table, see what happens.”

“So the Feds pick him up and he’s in this second car—”

Bobby put his head down against the phone and closed his eyes. He just wished he could shut out sound the way he could shut out sight. When the detectives told it, the whole damn thing sounded impossibly, unforgivably stupid. In fact, it sounded impossible and unforgivable, period. Briefcases full of cash. Switched cars. Dawn meetings in tenth-rate cafes where the waitresses spoke only Arabic. Or whatever. He’d seen television movies that made more sense than this.

But here he was, and there they were, and on the other end of the line the phone was ringing at Engine House. Bobby wondered if Marshall was drunk. Somebody should have picked up by now. If he had real luck, he’d get Myra herself right away, and not have to explain anything to anybody else. For the moment.

Not too far down the road, there were going to be newspaper headlines, and legal formalities, and other things he’d rather not think about. For all the Keystone Kops aspects of this morning, this was serious. Eventually, he’d make himself believe that. In the meantime—

The phone on the other end picked up. Bobby heard a clear, high voice say,

“Engine House. Who’s calling please?”

He sighed. It was Bennis, of course. That’s the way his luck was running today.

Now that Daddy was dead, the person he least wanted to hear about his little secret was Bennis.

Even though she was the only one with enough money to loan him the bail.

G
ETTING OUT OF JACKMAN’S
car in front of his apartment, Gregor felt like the Complete Television Daddy. Here he was home from work, and everyone in the world was waiting for him. Of course, Television Daddies had wives and children, not priests and pregnant neighbors, but in his cold and weariness the analogy seemed apt. Maybe any analogy would have seemed apt. He couldn’t remember being this cold, or this tired. It was hard enough getting frustrated with God and the universe. At least they were bigger than you were. Getting frustrated with a two-bit idiot who had killed three people and not even been intelligent about it was something else again. In the Bureau, life had never been like this. Once he knew, he did something about what he knew. Now all he could do was explain the whole thing to Jackman, and try not to get physically violent when Jackman said, “No evidence, no motive, no point.”

Jackman’s car rattled and shuddered to a stop. Gregor rolled down his window and twisted his neck until he could see his living room windows. Yes, he had been right, even from a block and a half away. The lights up there were lit, and the two people walking around in front of the windows were Donna and Tibor. He wondered if Lida was up there too, in the kitchen, getting ready to make sure he ate a decent meal for once.

He pulled his head back into the car and got his gloves off the dashboard. He never wore gloves, but he always carried them. Elizabeth had told him to. Jackman was fiddling with the dangling end of his key chain. Actually, it was the department’s key chain. It had a little tag on it with an address that could be used to mail it back to the Bryn Mawr police.

“Don’t tell me,” Jackman said, “you’re still on your Favorite Suspect.”

“You make it sound like we’re reading a murder mystery and we’ve lost the last chapter.”

“We might as well be.”

“It’s nothing so vague.”

Jackman drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. “Look, I don’t know how long you’ve been harboring this particular suspicion—”

“I told you that. Since just about the time we left Engine House. It occurred to me when I was talking to Cordelia Day. Then I checked it out by talking to the rest of them.”

“God,” Jackman said, “we both say
them
like we’re talking about giant ants. Gregor, I’m not saying you’re wrong, you understand me? If anything, I’m inclined to think you’re right. Psychologically, it fits. But you could write me the greatest shrink study since the death of Freud and it wouldn’t do me any good. I’ve got to have something solid.”

“Opportunity,” Gregor said.

“They all had opportunity.”

“Means,” Gregor said.

“They all had the means, too. I’ve got half a mind to turn that idiot doctor of theirs in to the drug squad. He prescribes Demerol the way a Jewish grandmother prescribes chicken soup. Now come out and say
motive
and give me something to hang it on. It would also be nice to have one piece of physical evidence.”

“That piece of tin,” Gregor said.

“We don’t know what it is,” Jackman said. “And it’s probably nothing.”

“We should be sure.”

Jackman sighed. “Gregor, I’ll check it out. I’ll start tomorrow morning and I’ll check into the ground. But you’ve got to understand, I’ve got no more reason to suspect who you want me to suspect than I have to suspect any of the others.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I don’t,” Jackman said. “Not the kind of reasons I need.”

Gregor shoved his gloves into his pockets, opened his door, and got out. His foot went into a white mountain that was all give and no resistance. He pulled it out to find his pants caked with white.

“Listen,” Jackman said, just before Gregor slammed the door shut and cut off conversation, “go to sleep. Get a good rest. We’ll start tomorrow.”

Gregor chinked the door shut and stood on the sidewalk, watching Jackman drive away.

The character of Cordelia Day Hannaford.

That accordion folder full of clippings.

The people who were dead and the sequence they had died in.

It seemed perfectly clear to him.

He turned around, went up the steps, and let himself into the building. Old George Tekamanian’s apartment was dark, so he didn’t knock. He just picked up his meager collection of mail and stuffed it into his coat.

He was already on his way up the stairs when he saw the Federal Express envelope lying on the hall table near the door. Just in case, he came down again and checked it out.

It was, surprisingly enough, addressed to him. It was return-addressed to a friend of his in Boston, who had left the Bureau and gone into business as a private detective. Gregor opened the envelope and found a single sheet of paper.

Gregor—

Called and called but could never get in touch. Didn’t know how fast you needed this.

Keep in touch.

Timmy

Underneath there was a name and address.

Gregor sighed. He’d give this to Donna Moradanyan and let her do what she wanted with it. At least somebody was going to get what they were after today.

He let himself into his apartment to find that not only were Tibor and Donna in his living room, not only was Lida in his kitchen, but old George Tekamanian was ensconced in one of the living room chairs, drinking rum he’d brought up from downstairs and looking very pleased with himself. It was a kind of party, staged entirely for his benefit, complete with food. He could smell the food. Lida was in there with his pots and pans—and probably some of her own pots and pans—cooking. He stuck his head into the kitchen and mumbled a few courtesies, just so he could tell himself he wasn’t being as rude as he felt like being. Maybe Lida was feeling ruder. She shooed him out without really looking at him and went on with her cups of flour and folds of dough.

Gregor hung his coat and jacket on the coatrack, loosened his tie, and rolled up his sleeves. Then he tucked the Federal Express envelope under his arm and went into the living room.

The television was on in there, blaring out the story of Bobby Hannaford’s arrest. Donna looked up as he came in and smiled.

“This is incredible,” she said. “This guy must have been nuts.”

“A corporate raider,” old George said solemnly. “I told you that, Krekor.”

Tibor unwound himself from his place on the couch. “Is this the answer to your case, Gregor? We have been talking, Donna and George and Lida and I. We think, perhaps, this young man has done dishonest things with his father’s company, his father is an evil and unforgiving man, so—
pfft
.”

“
Pfft
,” Gregor said. He looked at Bobby Hannaford’s face on the television. The news had reached Engine House before he and Jackman left, so he knew all about it—more, in fact, than the television reporters possibly could. The story had been so bizarre, he’d called Flanagan and checked on it. Now Bobby Hannaford looked mulish, silly, and thoroughly frightened, like a small boy used to getting in trouble, but not this much trouble.

“So,” Tibor said. “What do you think of our theory?”

“I think it’s wonderful,” Gregor said, “except for the candlestick.”

“Candlestick?” George said.

Gregor explained about the candlestick. Then he explained about the notes that had appeared and disappeared after Emma Hannaford died. Then he explained about pointers, the kind that went the wrong way.

“The money in the wastebasket,” he told them, “must have come from the briefcase Robert Hannaford showed Father Tibor. Hannaford told me he’d have it with him and I could count the money before I ate my dinner. It must have been in the study when he was killed. It must have been removed by his murderer. And when it became increasingly obvious that Jackman wasn’t going to buy suicide in Emma Hannaford’s death, some of the bills from it were planted in Bobby Hannaford’s wastebasket to point us at Hannaford Financial.”