“Why?” Gregor demanded.
“Why what?”
“Why take the dagger down from the wall,” Gregor insisted. “It’s a highly individualized weapon. Using it would be like announcing there was something out-of-the-way about this death. Why not bring a Saturday night special, or a flic knife? Go down into central Philadelphia and pick something up on the street. Go to New York and pick something up so nobody could connect it to you. You could get it in any of a dozen ways, but you’d have the kind of thing a hopped-up street tough would bring with him if he broke into the house, and that would make the police much more likely to think it was a burglary instead of you.”
“I see what you mean,” Bennis said. “But Gregor, Jacqueline Isherwood Hazzard wasn’t killed with a Saturday night special or a flic knife. She was killed with something that made this funny wound.”
“I know,” Gregor acknowledged. “That’s how we can be sure this was not a premeditated crime. It was probably entirely spur-of-the-moment. It just wasn’t committed with that silly dagger.”
“Then what was it committed with?”
Gregor shrugged. “Some perfectly common item the killer had on him, or her, at the time. Some ordinary instrument nobody would connect with homicide on a day-today basis, but that just happens to be lethal if used in the wrong way. That kind of thing.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, Bennis. This is your murder mystery. You’re the one who came barging in here to tell me that Hannah Krekorian was seen coming home in a cab with a man you’ve decided has murdered his wife.”
“Gregor—”
Gregor cut his omelet into strips with the edge of his fork, then picked up a piece of toast and bit into it.
“Hannah Krekorian is a grown woman,” he said. “If she wants to keep company with a man, it’s her own damned business and none of yours. Paul Hazzard was tried and acquitted of the murder of his wife over four years ago. It is the business of the judicial system of the state of Pennsylvania to determine his guilt or innocence, not yours. Persisting in accusing this man of a crime after he has been duly acquitted—and when you have absolutely no specialized knowledge of your own—is un-American and probably immoral in a larger sense. Stay out of this, Bennis. You are not Hannah Krekorian’s mother and she’s not yours.”
“I’m just trying to look out for somebody I care about,” Bennis said sullenly.
“You’re just trying to meddle,” Gregor told her, “and I won’t have it. Now, order yourself some breakfast. Here comes Father Tibor with a gleam in his eye.”
Bennis poured herself more coffee and sank farther down onto the bench. “I think you’re being completely unreasonable,” she said. “You can’t let people go running off to cut their own throats. It’s not good for them.”
It was Gregor Demarkian’s opinion that most of the trouble in this world had been caused by people who thought they knew what was good for other people better than the other people themselves, but that was an argument he and Bennis had had several times, and he wasn’t going to get into it again.
Instead, he moved closer to the window along his bench and let Father Tibor Kasparian slide in beside him.
“It’s a wonderful morning,” Father Tibor said. “Father Ryan and Father Carmichael have come up with a plan for decisive political action, and it is not completely stupid.”
Two
1
THERE WAS A FUNERAL being set up at Holy Trinity Church when Gregor passed it, going home alone after a breakfast that had been too long and composed of too much food. He had Bennis Hannaford’s stack of computer papers under his arm. Bennis had errands to do in downtown Philadelphia and no particular interest in keeping the information, or the paper it was printed on. “After all,” she said through a haze of cigarette smoke, “I got it for you. I thought you’d be interested. Things have been… quiet around here lately.” It was certainly true that things had been quiet around here lately. The world of extracurricular murders seemed to be going through a recession. Gregor still wasn’t sure he wanted Bennis thrusting four-year-old unsolved cases under his nose and insisting he do something about them—and why? Just because Hannah Krekorian had had dinner with a man who had once been accused of the crime? Gregor knew what Bennis was hinting at, but he thought it was absurd. Hannah Krekorian was a stocky, stodgy middle-aged woman. She was almost old. She was no more interested in romance, or capable of inspiring it, than Gregor was interested in the Super Bowl chances of the Philadelphia Eagles. Or was it the Flyers? Bennis and Donna had season tickets to both the football and the hockey games, but Gregor could never remember which team played which.