Bleeding Hearts(65)

“The dagger’s missing,” her husband said. “That was the first thing I checked.” He looked solemn. James thought he was hiding glee.

James went into the sitting room. The little glass drinks cart stood up against one of the love seats near the fireplace. James went over to it, filled a six-ounce glass with straight Scotch, and drank the Scotch down in a single long guzzle. Then he filled the glass again. He understood the attraction the idea of the “dysfunctional family” had for so many people. His own family was full of poisonous women.

“Don’t tell any of my clients I’m doing this,” he said.

“They drink herb tea and chant mantras when they’re upset.”

“Oh, James, be serious,” Alyssa said.

“I am being serious. I am also going to get seriously drunk. And neither you nor anybody else in this house is going to stop me.”

“I wouldn’t try to stop you.” Nick slumped into a chair. “I might even help.”

“If Caroline tries to lecture me, I’ll break her neck.” The second glass of Scotch was finished. James modified his approach to the third—not straight Scotch in a six-ounce glass, but Scotch and Drambuie on the rocks in something larger; he was beginning to feel almost calm enough to be civilized—and took it over to the wingback chair. He sat and stretched out his legs. “I do not suggest,” he said, “that you make a point of seeing people dead. It is very unpleasant. It is weird enough to make me start believing in channeling.”

“I thought you did believe in it,” Nick said.

“No,” James corrected him. “I only sell it.”

“You saw the body?” Alyssa said.

“Yes. That’s where I just was. At the morgue, looking at the body.”

“Why?” Alyssa was bewildered.

“Because somebody has to,” Nick put in. “Somebody has to make a formal identification. It’s standard procedure.”

“But it isn’t like Paul was some anonymous person on the street,” Alyssa protested. “He was very well known. And wasn’t he with people who knew him? Wasn’t tonight the night he was going to that party we talked about?”

“I don’t know,” James said. “They didn’t really tell me anything. I think they want a member of the family to make the identification. Don’t ask me what they were up to. They just called.”

“On the radio they just said he died at the home of an acquaintance,” Alyssa said. “I should have thought to put on the eleven o’clock news. There probably would have been more.”

“The radio mostly went on and on about his being stabbed,” Nick said. “That’s why I went looking for the dagger. Is this beginning to look really strange to either of you two?”

“Jacqueline stabbed and Paul stabbed,” James chanted. “That’s not strange. That’s a plan.”

“James,” Alyssa said.

“Maybe Caroline did it in a fit of psychic pique.” James finished his drink and started pacing. “God, you don’t want to look at a dead man’s face. It’s just too weird. It’s just too normal. Paul looked more alive dead than he looked—Never mind.”

“I don’t believe Jacqueline was killed with that dagger,” Alyssa said fiercely. “I don’t care what the police said. I don’t believe Paul was killed with it either. You just wait. There’ll turn out to be some other explanation for why it’s missing. It won’t have anything to do with the crime at all.”

Nick sighed. “She’s been like this since we got home. I can’t get it across to her that it would be too much of a coincidence. If the dagger is missing, it almost has to have something to do with the crime.”

“Yes,” James said slowly. He put ice in his glass and poured out more Scotch and more Drambuie. He felt sluggish and depressed, but his mind was still crystal-clear. It was going to be a long road to unconsciousness. It might actually take him the rest of the night.

“I’ll tell you something I did hear,” James said. “In passing, you understand. While I was hanging around the police.”

“You weren’t hanging around the police,” Alyssa said.

“The dagger isn’t the only thing the two deaths have in common,” James said. “It’s really very interesting. Candida DeWitt was there.”

“What?” Alyssa said.

James finished his drink and reached for the bottle of Scotch. Again.

“I think that woman is persecuting us,” he said. “I think she’s following us all round, making things happen. I think she’s going to end up murdering us all off, one by one.”