Bleeding Hearts(101)

Russell Donahue agreed. “These are the best escapes made. They don’t fold up. They’re wider than the average. They’re strong as hell. I’m impressed with the landlord.”

“Don’t be. He was just making sure he couldn’t get sued.”

“Whatever the reason, I’d like to have these on my building.”

“Let’s go around to the other alley and see what it’s like.”

The other alley was much pleasanter than the one they’d come down. There was no garbage in it at all, just a big metal shed with a padlock on it that probably held paints and ropes and brick cleaner. Gregor walked out to Cavanaugh Street and then back to the courtyard, shining the flashlight up and down, thinking. He finally stopped at the foot of the fire escape that led to Hannah Krekorian’s bedroom window and tapped his foot against the flagstones there.

“There would have been a preliminary visit,” he said.

“Fine,” Russell Donahue said. “A preliminary visit to where? By whom?”

“To here. By the murderer,” Gregor said. “There would have had to be a preliminary visit, because this whole operation was very well-planned. Which is a funny thing to say about a murder that in the end depended so much on luck, but there’s nothing I can do about that.”

“You know,” Russell Donahue said, “Cheswicki warned me that you started talking like this after a while. He said I was supposed to keep reminding myself that you’re a genius.”

“I’m not a genius. And I’m making perfect sense. The murderer had the address of Hannah’s apartment, of course, because the murderer had one of those invitations. The problem with that is that everybody on earth seems to have had one of those invitations. Hannah was not being exclusive.”

“What about Hannah possibly being the murderer?” Russell asked. “A few hours ago you were recommending that we arrest her immediately. I take it that’s off.”

Gregor sighed. “I wasn’t recommending that you arrest her because I thought she’d killed anybody. I was just hoping to do something to light a fire under this case. This was beginning to shape up into one of those non-events. Murder happens. Everyone freezes solid. No one makes a move. Unless you’re dealing with an idiot who scatters clues the way Hansel and Gretel scattered bread crumbs, you never solve a case like that.”

“I take it you’ve changed your mind,” Russell Donahue said. “Now you don’t want us to arrest her.”

“Now I don’t think you can,” Gregor told him. “We’ll have to check, of course, but I’m willing to bet my life that Hannah Krekorian has a rock-solid alibi for the time of Candida DeWitt’s murder.”

“Why?”

“Because Hannah is being watched over by a bunch of Armenian-American women who worry. If she suddenly dropped out of sight for a few hours, I would have heard about it. Remember. I was sitting in my own living room when you called. I was available.”

“Right.”

“The murder of Paul Hazzard was definitely planned for last night. The plan was hatched when Paul Hazzard received his invitation to Hannah’s party. At that point, the murderer knew something critical. The murderer knew that Paul Hazzard would not only be at Hannah’s party, but that he would probably be at Hannah’s apartment after the party. I don’t mean that he would have slept overnight. I suppose he might have—before all this started, I used to think I knew the women I’d grown up with very well, but I’m giving that up—but the key here is that it wasn’t necessary for Paul Hazzard to sleep over for this plan to work. It was only necessary for Paul Hazzard to still be in that apartment when everybody else was gone.”

“It won’t work,” Russell Donahue said. His nose was turning blue. The tip of his nose was turning bright blue. “I see where you’re going here. First the murderer came out here to check out ways to get into Mrs. Krekorian’s apartment, and found the fire escape.”

“My guess is that the murderer came out here between five and seven o’clock at night,” Gregor told him. “Monday or Tuesday. On weekends we get a lot of tourist traffic out here, but on weekdays the only busy times are between five and seven. People stop at the Ararat and get take-out to eat back home in the suburbs.”

“Whatever.” Russell Donahue was not interested in this. “The murderer checks out the fire escapes and finds he’s got a way in—”

“—or she—”

“Or she. I’m not going to do that over and over again, Mr. Demarkian. It’ll make me crazy.”