“And you weren’t cold?”
“Not in the least. I remember thinking it was just like Mrs. Krekorian. She always keeps her rooms too stuffy.”
“Is the open window some kind of clue?” Helen asked. “I read a murder mystery once where the murderer tried to change around the time the coroner was going to say the death occurred by putting the body in a refrigerator. Is that something like this?”
“I don’t see how it can be,” Mary Ohanian said. “When that kind of thing happens in books, it’s always meant to change the time of death by hours. Nobody could have done that here. Mrs. Krekorian was in the bathroom. There were dozens of people downstairs. The murderer had to know the body was going to be discovered practically right away.”
Helen looked stricken. “I have just been thinking about the times again. It won’t work out, will it, Krekor? That DeWitt woman wouldn’t have had time to commit the murder. She would have had only two minutes.”
“If your times are right,” Gregor agreed, “she wouldn’t have had time.”
“I don’t see how anybody would have had time,” Mary Ohanian said. “Even Hannah. They were never alone up there for more than three or four minutes. How long does it take to stab a man six times?”
Actually, Gregor thought, it didn’t take very long at all. It could be done in ninety seconds flat if you were fast enough and if you had the right things going for you. The most important thing you had to have going for you was surprise. You had to be someone Paul Hazzard did not expect could, or would, hurt him. You had to be someone with a reason for practically throwing yourself into Paul Hazzard’s arms. Unfortunately, Hannah Krekorian fit both those conditions far better than Candida DeWitt did.
Gregor stuck the folded timetable into the inside pocket of his coat.
“I’m going to go over to see Father Tibor,” he said. “Are you two going to be around all day if I need you? After the police see this timetable, they may have a few questions I didn’t think of.”
“I’m going to be around all day,” Mary Ohanian said gloomily. “The way my father’s behaving, he’ll probably chain me in my room.”
Helen stood up. “I’m going to go back and take care of Hannah. She needs taking care of. Any minute now, the full force of this is going to hit her, and she’s going to have a nervous breakdown.”
“I wish I knew why that window was open,” Gregor said. “I wish I knew who opened it. Maybe it’s time I talked to Hannah Krekorian myself.”
“You talked to her last night,” Helen Tevorakian said. “That’s enough for the time being.”
But it wasn’t enough for the time being, and Gregor knew it. Every new fact he found was just making matters worse.
Six
1
WHEN THE FLOWERS CAME to Lida Arkmanian’s house, Hannah Krekorian was sitting on the couch in Helen Tevorakian’s living room, looking down on Cavanaugh Street from the living room window. The couch had its back to the window. She had to twist around to see that way. After the second armful of roses went in, she twisted back and stared at Helen’s coffee table instead. The coffee table had a stack of books on it (The Art of Picasso, Gauguin in Tahiti, Florentine Art) and a big green ceramic frog. The frog reminded Hannah uncomfortably of the game they used to play as children, called Frogs and Princesses. The girls had always been the princesses, of course. The frogs had been the boys who chased them. Hannah couldn’t remember if she had been chased much. She couldn’t even remember if she had been happy to play. It was all so long ago. Nothing seemed real to her at the moment except Paul Hazzard’s body dead on her bedroom carpet and her own dull ache. That was what she had been feeling today, a dull ache. All other emotion had been melted out of her. Paul. The party last night. That woman. Hannah was sure she ought to be angry at somebody. It took too much energy. It required a certainty she didn’t have.
She twisted around to look at the street again. The street was empty. She turned around again and saw that Helen’s heavy teakwood wall clock had advanced another thirty-five minutes. When? While she’d been staring at the street for the second time or while she’d been staring at the coffee table? How? It had been like this all day. It had been impossible.
Hannah got up and made her way to the back of the apartment. Helen’s kitchen was covered with Valentine’s Day cards from her children and grandchildren. Hannah had a load of cards just like these in her own apartment, which she couldn’t get to. They used to pass out cards like that in school on Valentine’s Day. There would be a cardboard box covered in crepe paper with a slit at the top, to act as a post office. The cards would be passed out at lunch. Hannah had a distinct memory of sitting in class all Valentine’s Day morning, scared to death that when the cards were passed out, not a single one of them would come to her. Later she found out that all the other mothers were just like her own. They made their children send cards to every other child in the class, with no one left out. Hannah didn’t know if that made her feel better or worse. She would have been grateful not to have been afraid.