Bleeding Hearts(18)
“Do people do things like that?”
“They do considerably worse. I hope she gets very graphic. I’ll defend her in the libel actions for free. It’d be worth it for the publicity. It’d be worth it to see Candida again. I wonder how she is.”
“I always thought you rather liked her,” Sid said. “I liked Candida better than I liked any of them, at least at the time. Of course, they were all under a lot of strain.”
“You could say that. They’re probably still under a lot of strain. I knew Paul at Harvard, you know.”
“Yeah,” Sid said. “I know.”
“He was very successful at that—stuff he does. Enormously so. I suppose that’s where Caroline picked it up.”
“He married a rich woman,” Sid said. “It’s funny how nobody ever mentions that. Nobody mentioned it at the time. Paul had made a fair piece of change, but she had serious money.”
“That’s true.” Fred nodded. “And there was that house, right in the middle of Philadelphia—that belonged to her originally, didn’t it?”
Sid snorted. “You shouldn’t let Harvard cloud your judgment. It belonged to her all right, but Paul was always going around saying how it had been in ‘his’ family since whenever, that ‘his’ great-something grandfather built it. He would outright lie about it.”
“I’m sure he still does,” Fred said. “I think the family name was originally Hazuelski. His father changed it. Paul was Hazzard at Harvard. But it—got around.”
“Did it matter?”
“In a way. In those days. Yes. Of course, I was an outsider too, a public school boy on scholarship—but I like being an outsider. It doesn’t bother me. Paul was from Philadelphia and he was almost-but-not-quite, if you know what I mean. A second-string prep school. A dancing class but not the right dancing class. Invitations to the big deb balls but not to the really important little ones. I remember wondering at the time if Paul was marrying Jacqueline for love or for position or for simple obsession. I don’t think I ever reached an answer in my own mind.”
“Why did she marry him?” Sid asked curiously.
Fred laughed. “Because she was a thoroughly ridiculous woman, that’s why. Jacqueline was the sort of rich woman who has love affairs with projects. The recovery movement was her project. Or maybe Paul’s career in the recovery movement was her project. I don’t know.”
“Whatever,” Sid said. “They’re always saying in the papers that you know who really did it. They’re always saying you’re the only one who knows.”
“The only way I could be the only one who knows is if I’d done it myself,” Fred said, “and I didn’t. I’m glad to be able to say I was in Gstaad at the time. You shouldn’t read the tabloids, Sid, they’re bad for you.”
“You read them,” Sid said.
“The Bickerson jury will be returning to the courtroom in three minutes,” a woman’s low voice said pleasantly through the loudspeakers hanging above their heads. “Will all principals please return to the courtroom. The Bickerson jury will be returning to the courtroom in three minutes…”
Fred checked his watch. “Hour and a half. Maybe they sent out for Chinese.”
“Maybe Chuckie will throw another fit when the verdict is read.” Sid got to his feet. “Is he really that dumb, or is he putting on an act? I keep thinking nobody could be really that dumb.”
“He’s really that dumb.” Fred got to his feet himself. “But she isn’t. I wonder what it is she thinks she’s up to.”
“Who?” Sid demanded.
“Candida DeWitt,” Fred said, leading the way back out into the corridor. “She really isn’t a stupid woman, you know, and this memoir thing is damn near terminal idiocy. So she’s got to be doing it on purpose.”
“Right.” Sid sounded dubious.
“I wonder what she’s up to,” Fred said again. “I wonder if I paid her a visit if she’d tell me.”
8
GREGOR DEMARKIAN WAS OUT to dinner with a friend who had been with him in the FBI, but that was all right. Lida Arkmanian had a key to his apartment. She had a key to old George Tekemanian’s apartment on the first floor of this same building and a key to Hannah Krekorian’s place up the street, but for some reason Lida had keys to neither Bennis Hannaford’s apartment nor Donna Moradanyan’s. There was no significance in this. Keys got passed around on Cavanaugh Street the way baseball trading cards had before they got valuable enough to collect. Keys came and went too, until somehow they mysteriously disappeared, and then somebody had to ask Gregor to jimmy a lock.