Bleeding Hearts(122)

“It made a big difference to Paul,” Fred Scherrer said.

“That’s true,” Gregor agreed, “but it didn’t make any difference to the three people here. Did the three of you know the precise provisions of your stepmother’s will?”

“She sat us down and explained the whole thing a few years before she died,” James said. He looked suddenly contrite. “We didn’t like Jackie much, you know. She wasn’t a very pleasant woman. But she’d known us since we were small children, and I suppose she thought of herself as our mother. She was never able to have any children of her own.”

“And then Candida DeWitt came along,” Gregor said.

“Daddy was like that,” Alyssa said. “He was to skirts the way raging bulls are to matadors’ capes.”

“It wasn’t the same with Candida,” Caroline said. “It went on forever.”

“It was over and done with by the time Jacqueline was killed,” Alyssa pointed out. “We think Jackie found out about it and laid it on the line for once. She was such a wimp.”

“She was a codependent with severe dependency problems,” Caroline said sniffily. “She really needed a group. I don’t know why she never went into one. It’s not as if she didn’t know where to find one.”

Alyssa wrapped her arms around her knees and hugged them close to her chest. “Jackie really was a very strange person. She was capable of anything, I think. And she was very upset the few weeks or so before she was murdered. That came out at the trial.”

Fred Scherrer nodded. “It did. The prosecution made a big thing of it.”

“Yes,” Gregor said. “Well, that’s only logical.” He tapped his hands against his knees, thinking. The rest of them—including Donahue and Cheswicki—looked at him with steady curiosity. That was the worst of playing the Great Detective. People kept expecting you to pull a rabbit out of a hat or do the Irish jig or otherwise behave in a decisive and spectacular manner. They kept waiting for it.

Gregor considered the situation one more time. Sometimes what you intended to do had to be scrapped in favor of what you could do. Especially when what you could do was more. He reached into his pocket and came up with the tiny brown cloth bag Bennis had given him to carry the stray pearl earring in. He got up, walked over to the coffee table, and shook the earring out on its surface. Then he stepped back and looked around.

Russell Donahue and Bob Cheswicki knew what Gregor was doing, and could make a fair guess as to why he was doing it. They didn’t move from their places. Fred Scherrer and James Hazzard were interesting. They moved toward the coffee table to get a better look at what was now on it. It was Alyssa Roderick and Caroline Hazzard who were held by what was there. Caroline had gone very stiff and suspicious, as if she suspected a trap. Alyssa looked thoroughly bewildered.

“Is that my earring?” Alyssa asked. “Where did you get it? I went looking for it everywhere yesterday and I just couldn’t find it anywhere.”





2


In some cases, at some times, there is a kind of sea change. The emotional climate shifts. The complexion of the evidence mottles and molts. The angle from which the detective sees the suspects tilts in unforeseen directions. That was what happened in this case now. Gregor had known since Saturday who had committed these murders. He had known how. He had even known why, in a fashion. He knew the sort of explanation of motive that could be given in a court of law. Now he knew something else, something he would never be able to explain to anybody. Now he knew what the murderer felt like.

The little group of people were drawing closer and closer to the coffee table. Alyssa had the earring in her hand and was turning it this way and that, as if there might be something about it she didn’t already know.

“I think it’s mine,” she said. “They’re all so alike, these things. It’s maddening. Everybody has them. It certainly looks like mine.”

“You are missing one?” Gregor asked gently.

“Yes, I am,” Alyssa told him. “I wanted to wear them to the funeral home yesterday, but when I went through my jewelry box I could find only one.”

“I don’t think you ought to say any more.” Fred Scherrer’s voice was very quiet. It was also very firm. “I don’t think you ought to say another thing until you’ve got some permanent representation.”

“But why not?” Alyssa was bewildered. “Do you mean this was found at the scene of the crime or something?”

Gregor took the earring out of Alyssa Roderick’s hand and put it back in its little bag. “It was not found at the scene of the crime,” he said. “Not exactly. It was found in the guest room of Hannah Krekorian’s apartment, across the hall from the bedroom in which your father died.”