Bleeding Hearts(87)

“No, Krekor, none of those things. I thought he had gone away.” She paused and thought about it. “Because the sounds of the moving stopped. First he walked faster. And then he just stopped. I couldn’t hear him moving out there at all anymore.”

“And that was it,” Gregor said. “You couldn’t hear him moving. You didn’t actually hear anything else.”

Hannah shuddered. “He must have been dead, Krekor. I understand that now. But I didn’t hear any of the things you might think I should have. I didn’t hear him fall—or if I did, I just thought it was more of his pacing. I did hear him—well, I thought he was swearing under his breath. It was hard to tell.”

“When was this?”

“Just about the time he stopped pacing. You see, Krekor, that was another reason I thought he’d gone. It all fit in. He got tired of waiting for me to come to my senses. He got angry. He swore a little under his breath and then he went.”

“You couldn’t make out what he said?”

“No, Krekor. It didn’t sound like words at all. It sounded more like a moan.”

Gregor Demarkian seemed to start, and Hannah looked at him curiously. What an odd thing for him to take so strongly, she thought.

“Is that all you wanted to know?” she asked him. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you very much. I was right there and I should know, but I don’t.”

“One last thing,” Gregor told her. “When you came out of the bathroom. What did you do?”

“I opened the door and I looked out. I couldn’t see him anywhere. I walked out into the middle of the bedroom and then—”

“Stop. Before you get to ‘and then.’ Can you remember whether the bedroom door was open or closed?”

“It was closed, Krekor. I looked there first thing when I came out. In case he was just leaving or he was standing on the landing where he could see me.”

“I don’t suppose you can remember whether you closed the bedroom door when you first came into the bedroom?”

“No, Krekor, I can’t remember. I don’t think I did.”

“Never mind. Go back to the ‘and then.’ ”

Hannah took a deep breath. “Well,” she said, “I walked out into the bedroom, and I nearly tripped over him. I remember that. It is all very fuzzy, Krekor, I am sorry, I think I went into some kind of shock. He was lying there on the carpet and there was blood everywhere, just everywhere. And I dropped to my knees and I grabbed—I grabbed that thing—”

“The dagger? Where was it? Was it in the body?”

“It was on the floor in a pool of blood. I could never have taken it out of the body. I grabbed the—the dagger—and then I realized I was cold, so cold, and somewhere in there I started screaming and screaming and in the back of my mind I kept telling myself I had to do something about it. I had to get downstairs and call you or call the police or call an ambulance or something and in the middle of it all I stood up, and she was standing in the doorway to the bedroom with a very odd look on her face.”

“By ‘her’ you mean Candida DeWitt?”

“Yes.”

“She was looking at you and she had an odd look on her face?”

“No, Krekor. I don’t think she was looking at me.”

“She was looking at Paul Hazzard?”

Hannah shook her head. “She was looking over my right shoulder, I think. She was maybe staring into space. I am not doing very well with this, Krekor, but I am doing the best I can.”

“You’re doing fine,” Gregor assured her.

Hannah looked into the bottom of her teacup. “I wish I understood things better… Not just what happened last night, but life. I wish I understood why things are.”

“Mmm,” Gregor said noncommittally.

Hannah got up and put her own teacup in the sink. Really, it was useless to try to explain things to men.

They never understood anything.





2


At the time that Jacqueline Isherwood Hazzard died, Alyssa Hazzard Roderick’s only real interest in her will was insofar as it went to prove that Paul didn’t have a motive to murder her. That the will was set up in such a way as to pass the bulk of Jacqueline’s estate to Paul Hazzard’s children when Paul Hazzard died had been explained to her, but Alyssa hadn’t seen the point in paying attention to it. After all, Paul was a relatively young man, and a healthy one. He worked out and ate tofu and never touched more than a glass of wine after dinner. Alyssa thought Paul was going to live to be at least a hundred and three. He was going to live much longer than she would, because she was going to be done in by her love of chocolate-chip cookies. Caroline always said Alyssa had an addiction to chocolate-chip cookies. That was the only explanation Caroline could find for why Alyssa would eat them first thing in the morning, sitting up in bed.