Unfortunately, even if Candida did have a usable key to Paul Hazzard’s house, that didn’t let Hannah off the hook. There was still the blood to consider. There was still the motive to consider. Candida DeWitt might very well have hated Paul Hazzard. The newspapers and magazines all liked to pretend she did. Still, the sequence of events that had brought her to hate him was over four years old. There had been six stab wounds in Paul Hazzard’s chest. This was a crime committed in hot blood. Would Candida’s blood have been that hot after all this time? She hadn’t been raving or upset by the time the crowd reached Hannah’s bedroom after the murder. In fact, except for Gregor himself and Bob Cheswicki, she had been the most levelheaded one there.
Gregor sat in the chair next to the desk that belonged to Russell Donahue in the big bull pen of a squad room in the police station that served Cavanaugh Street—a much cleaner and nicer and less ominous place than the one where Gregor had met Bob Cheswicki earlier that morning—and tapped his fingers against Russell’s copy of Halberstam on Contracts.
“Mary Ohanian,” he said. “And Helen Tevorakian.”
“You said that before,” Russell told him. “We called. They’re meeting you at two.”
“Yes, I know. Russell, listen. If you could do anything at all at this moment, what would you do? Arrest Hannah Krekorian?”
“I don’t know,” Russell said. “I suppose so. Maybe I’d wait a few days. Maybe I’d talk to the district attorney first. I’d have to talk to the district attorney first in a case like this. There are a couple of things I might want to straighten out. There are one or two things about this case—”
“Yes,” Gregor said. “I understand that. What I was thinking, though, was that it might be in the best interests of everybody involved if you did arrest Hannah Krekorian. Right away.”
“What?”
Gregor stood up. “Not right away,” he said. “Not right this minute. There are a couple of things I want to check out first. Mary Ohanian and Helen Tevorakian. Candida DeWitt.”
“What about Candida DeWitt?”
“We have to talk to her. Today. But after that I think the best thing to do, assuming that everything still stands more or less as it stands now, is to arrest Hannah and get it over with.”
“But why?”
“Because you would have arrested her if I weren’t here mucking up the process. Because once you arrest her, everybody else in this case will relax.”
“Except Mrs. Krekorian. She won’t relax. It’s no fun to be arrested.”
“We’ll work the timing right,” Gregor said. “We won’t let her spend any actual time in jail. We’ll get the judge set up and the bail and all the rest of it. I don’t want to persecute her, Mr. Donahue.”
“Russ,” Russell Donahue said. “It still won’t be pleasant. Getting fingerprinted. Getting photographed. That woman will go all to pieces.”
“She might,” Gregor admitted, “but she’ll go to pieces even worse at a trial. We want to avoid the trial.”
“One way or the other, she’s going to have to be at the trial.”
“I’m trying to ensure that she won’t have to be there as the defendant,” Gregor said. “Let’s try to get in touch with Candida DeWitt. Let’s see if we can’t go out there this evening and ask her a few questions.”
“I’m not on duty this evening.”
“You are now.”
“I’ve heard about you.” Russell Donahue sighed. “Sit down again, Mr. Demarkian. I’m going to go out and have Mary Lee Espicci call Candida DeWitt. She’s better at getting appointments than I am. I’ll be right back.”
“Right,” Gregor said.
He sat down again. Russell Donahue disappeared. Gregor picked up Halberstam on Contracts and noted that Russell’s place was marked by a course registration receipt from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Russell Donahue must be good. Penn didn’t make allowances for students who worked full-time jobs in urban police departments. Penn didn’t make allowances for anybody. If you wanted to be treated like a special case, you went to Penn State. Still, Russell must have convinced the law school to allow him to attend part-time. That was remarkable enough in itself.
Russell came back from wherever it was he’d gone and sat down again behind his desk.
“All taken care of,” he said. “We’re set up for seven-thirty tonight. I may even get to grab a hamburger for dinner. She’s got Fred Scherrer with her, by the way.”