“It’ll be all right,” Gregor told Bob when Bob arrived at his apartment at six-thirty on Friday, “because she doesn’t have the faintest idea who you are. Does Paul Hazzard?”
“He might know I’m an assistant commissioner of police,” Bob said, “but he wouldn’t know I’ve got any interest in the case. Why should he?”
“He probably won’t even know you’re an assistant commissioner of police.” Bennis came into the living room from Gregor’s kitchen, nibbling on a dolma she had found in his refrigerator. Bennis was wearing what Gregor thought of as “one of her Bennis outfits.” It was a long, straight dark dress with a plain neckline and close-fitting sleeves, sewn all over with tiny black and silver beads. Bennis looked wonderful, very twenties-glamorous and exotic, but Gregor had the uneasy feeling that she was wearing more on her back than it had taken Donna Moradanyan to buy her last car. Bennis finished the dolma and licked her fingers.
“There really isn’t any reason he should recognize an assistant commissioner of police,” she said reasonably. “It’s not like Mr. Cheswicki is the commissioner himself. The commissioner is always on television and being interviewed in the newspaper and whatever. Assistant commissioners are… anonymous.”
“It’s still a good thing we’re not lying about his identity,” Gregor said. “Just in case.”
Bob looked bemused. “I wish you were clearer about what it is you wanted me to do at this thing. I’m sure it will be a nice party and the food will be wonderful, but—”
“Aren’t you happy to finally get a chance to meet Paul Hazzard in person? After all these years of hearing about him?”
“Well, I am,” Bob said. “It will be interesting.”
“Maybe it will also be helpful,” Gregor told him. “I don’t know. I suppose I’m not sure what I’m looking for either. I just want someone else there whose impressions I can trust. Just in case.”
“That’s twice you’ve said that.” Bennis took her pack of cigarettes out of her evening bag. “Just in case of what?”
“Just in case Paul Hazzard really is the murderer,” Bob said cheerfully. “Gregor’s been going crazy with the material I gave him last week. I think he’s almost as interested in it as he would have been in a fresh case. We’ve started a pool down at the department about how long it’s going to take him to come up with a theory.”
“I’ve got six theories already. Don’t you think it’s time to go?”
Bennis shot a look at Gregor’s little table clock and sighed. “We’re going to be early as hell, but we always are, and if we don’t go, you’ll make me crazy pacing around worrying we’ll be late. Do you know what it is you’re trying to do here tonight?”
“I think so,” Gregor said.
“He usually does,” Bob Cheswicki pointed out.
Bennis had a big cashmere shawl to wear outside instead of a coat. She picked it up off the back of Gregor’s couch and wrapped it around herself.
“If we’re going to go, we ought to go,” she said. “Maybe Paul Hazzard will be there too, getting ready to help Hannah greet the guests. Then you two can have him all to yourselves for fifteen minutes.”
2
Gregor Demarkian was almost always the first person to arrive at any party. He was so distressed at the idea of being even a minute or two late, he sometimes arrived at his dental appointments a good fifteen or twenty minutes early. Tonight, however, he wasn’t going to be close to being the first on the scene—and it bothered him to realize he should have anticipated that. Old George Tekemanian was waiting impatiently for them in the hall when they came downstairs. They had agreed to walk old George over, and old George had been ready to go by quarter after six. So, apparently, had the rest of Cavanaugh Street. Gregor held the door open for old George while Bennis and Bob Cheswicki went down the steps to the street. When Gregor emerged into the night air, he suddenly saw what looked like a slow start to a Mardi Gras. Everybody seemed to be out. Everybody seemed to be dressed up. The neighborhood looked as wild as it did when Donna Moradanyan was really in the mood to decorate. Gregor saw Sheila Kashinian—in four-inch heels, too much makeup, and her best blond mink—hanging off Howard Kashinian’s arm. He saw Mary Ohanian, and Linda Melajian’s mother, Sarah, gotten up in “party dresses” of the kind that used to be popular for “semiformals” in the early sixties. He saw Linda Melajian herself, in silver studs and leather, looking as if she were about to be married to a punk rock guru. The only people on the street who looked the least bit normal, or even sane, were Lida Arkmanian and Bennis Hannaford’s brother, Christopher. Lida was wearing a dress. Christopher was wearing a suit that didn’t look like it belonged to him. They were standing at the bottom of the steps to Lida’s town house, talking.