2
Fred Scherrer came to Cavanaugh Street when Candida DeWitt called him. He sat next to her as she gave her statement to the police and wondered what good he was going to be. He could never do much for clients who weren’t willing to listen to his advice. Candida DeWitt didn’t listen to anyone. When he got to her at the scene, he told her she didn’t have to tell anyone anything. She didn’t have to make a statement of any kind. It was never a good idea to make a statement right on the spot like that. Even perfectly innocent people got confused. Fred was almost positive that Candida was innocent of the murder of Paul Hazzard. Over the years, he had developed an instinct for that sort of thing. It was an instinct no detective would ever be able to match, because it had been developed from years of listening to guilty people tell him the truth. It wasn’t that no client had ever lied to him. Hundreds had tried. None had persisted. Fred was very good at making clients see that lying to their lawyer was a piece of idiocy. Their lives depended on Fred’s knowing the truth and all the truth. But Candida wasn’t giving off the right vibes, here. She wasn’t the kind of quiet she would have been if she had stabbed Paul. She even seemed a little frustrated. Fred thought he understood. Candida was the sort of person who wanted her enemies alive and kicking. She wanted to watch the expressions on their faces when she got her revenge.
In spite of his advice, Candida insisted on giving a statement. She sat down with a very polite and very young detective in a badly-fitting suit, and answered everything he asked her but volunteered nothing. Fred did not have high hopes for this young detective’s career. There were so many obvious questions to ask that didn’t occur to him to ask. What was Candida doing at that party? When was the last time before the murder that she had been in contact with Paul? The young detective had to know who Candida was. If he hadn’t started out knowing, by now he should have been told. Oblivious, he went on and on with his list of routine questions.
After it was over, Candida put on her coat, picked up her purse, and waited for Fred to lead her to the door. She waited with the air of someone who had done nothing more important than trade recipes with a friend.
Fred had driven his own car down to Philadelphia from New York, but he hadn’t used it to come in to town from Bryn Mawr. He didn’t know his way around the city well enough to trust that he wouldn’t be the victim of a carnapping, crawling through the dark streets in a highly polished Mercedes-Benz. He’d engaged a taxicab instead, and paid for it too, both because of the long trip in from the Main Line and because he wanted it to wait. Fred Scherrer could bribe taxi drivers with the best of them. He was not cheap about baksheesh. The cab was waiting just a couple of blocks down when he and Candida came out of Hannah Krekorian’s apartment building. The cab would have been closer, but Hannah’s block was still clogged with police cars.
Fred walked Candida to the cab in silence, opened the door for her, helped her in. It was largely symbolic help—a gesture invented for hobble skirts and bustles—but Candida liked that kind of symbolism. Fred closed her door and went around the cab to get in himself on the other side. He leaned into the front seat and asked the driver to take them back to Bryn Mawr. Then he pulled the bulletproof privacy shield shut and turned to Candida.
“All right,” he said. “Now you’re going to tell me what’s going on.”
“Of course,” Candida said. She had her purse on the seat at her side and her hands folded in her lap and her legs crossed at the knee. She could have been Donna Reed playing the perfect ladylike housewife.
“Did you know Paul was going to be at that party? Did you go there to cause a scene deliberately?”
“Of course,” Candida said. “I wouldn’t have gone otherwise. I did ask you to come with me.”
“And I told you I didn’t like parties and I refused to come. I won’t do that again. Have you known this woman, this Hannah Krekorian, a long time?”
“I’d never met her before tonight.” Candida explained about the invitation. “I went to talk to Alyssa about it. For some reason, I thought she was the most likely one to have sent it. Not that I told her that. I implied I thought it was Caroline. It’s not really Caroline’s kind of thing though. That mess written on my fireplace, that’s Caroline’s kind of thing.”
Fred rubbed his face with the palms of his hands. “You do realize how this looks? Paul has a new woman friend. You show up to put a damper on things. Paul ends up dead. Right now the two prime suspects in this case are Hannah Krekorian and you.”