“That must be fun for him,” Russell Donahue said.
“Yes,” Donna Moradanyan said. “Yes, it is.”
Bennis ran a hand through her thick black hair. “We’re going up to Gregor’s apartment, Donna. I’ll leave my door open. I talked to Sheila Kashinian. She’s got the helium you need for the balloons. When you’re ready for it, just call and Howard will bring it over. He stays up until midnight.”
“Great,” Donna said.
Bennis turned to Gregor. “My brother Christopher wants to talk to you. He knows something about Paul Hazzard. Or he met him once. It’s complicated.”
“Good,” Gregor said. “I’d like to talk to Christopher. Is he around here somewhere?”
“No,” Bennis said darkly. “He is definitely not around here somewhere, and quite frankly I couldn’t tell you where he was. Nobody ever tells me anything. Are we going upstairs?”
“Yes,” Gregor said. “Yes, of course, right away.”
“Good.”
Bennis wheeled around and started marching up the stairs to the third floor. She reminded Gregor of one of those grim-faced monsters in a Ray Harryhausen movie, a Greek fury processed through Freud.
“Valentine’s Day,” she said when she was halfway up to the third floor landing. “To hell with it.”
Right, Gregor thought.
As soon as he got upstairs, he was going to get back to the murders. They were going to be a lot less complicated than whatever it was Bennis had gotten herself involved with.
3
Actually, it turned out to be easy to get back to the murders once Gregor had let them all into his apartment. The change in scenery seemed to cause a change in Bennis. She calmed down dramatically and began bustling around the kitchen. She put the teakettle on. She looked into his refrigerator and made a face. The only time he had what she considered halfway decent food in his place was when Lida or Hannah or one of the other women brought some over—and they seemed to have given that practice up for Lent. If it hadn’t been for the Ararat, Gregor would have starved to death this week. Bennis sat down in a kitchen chair and stretched her legs.
“Well,” she said. “What is it? Did I accidentally stumble over the murderer in Hannah’s living room and not know it?”
“No,” Gregor said. “I want you to look at something I’ve got and tell me what it is.”
“Let me make that phone call,” Russell Donahue said.
He got up and started to dial from Gregor’s kitchen wall phone. Gregor went to the windowsill over his sink and fished around in the little straw basket he kept odds and ends in until he found the single pearl earring he had picked up from the carpet of Hannah Krekorian’s guest room the night before. He placed it on the table in front of Bennis.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“It’s a pearl earring for a pierced ear,” Bennis said in mock solemnity. “In fact, it’s probably a Tiffany pearl stud.”
“Does it belong to Hannah Krekorian?”
“Of course not, Gregor. Hannah’s never had her ears pierced.”
“Do you know whom it does belong to?”
Bennis shrugged. “Practically everybody I know who has pierced ears has Tiffany pearl studs. They cost about five hundred dollars. They’re a really good anniversary gift or birthday gift in the really-special category. Donna has a pair she got from her parents. Lida Arkmanian has a pair her daughter Karen bought her for Christmas a couple of years ago. I have a pair.” Bennis pulled her hair away from her face. “I wear them all the time.”
“Are any of those people missing an earring?” Gregor asked.
“Donna isn’t,” Bennis said. “Or, at least, she wasn’t this morning. She was wearing hers. I don’t know about Lida.”
“Was Lida wearing hers at the party last night?”
“No, Gregor. She was wearing her gold shells. Don’t you ever notice anything?”
Gregor Demarkian had made a career out of noticing things. These were just not the right kinds of things. Bennis looked curiously at the earring.
“Did you find that in Hannah’s apartment last night?” she asked. “Was it at the murder scene?”
“It was in Hannah’s guest room. You don’t happen to know if Hannah had a guest staying there who might have been wearing earrings like this? Or how often that room is thoroughly cleaned.”
“That room is thoroughly cleaned every December first and June first. That’s when the cleaning service comes in and does a sweep,” Bennis said. “I can’t remember Hannah ever having a guest stay over in that guest room except her granddaughters, and they’re tiny. They don’t wear earrings yet.”