Not a Creature Was Stirring(101)

“Yesss.” The attempt at control didn’t work.

“Was this file here, in your room, the day Emma died?”

“Yessss.”

“Was the note we found in the file then?”

Cordelia closed her eyes. “Don’t—know.”

“No,” Gregor said, “I don’t suppose you would. You must sleep a great deal.”

“Yesss.” She smiled her smile again. “Emma,” she said. “Sick.”

Gregor was startled. “Emma was sick?”

“This,” Cordelia said. The urgency was back in her voice. “This.”

Gregor blinked. “Emma had what you have? She had multiple sclerosis?”

“Yesss. Check—au—au—”

“We should check the autopsy?”

“Yesss.”

“Mrs. Hannaford, are you trying to say Emma did commit suicide? Because she knew she was sick?”

“No. No. Didn’t—did not—know—”

“Emma didn’t know she was sick,” Gregor said. “But you knew.”

“Yesss. May-be.”

“Meaning you don’t know if she knew or not.”

“Yesss. Not—not—”

“Not suicide,” Gregor said.

“Not.” Cordelia closed her eyes again.

Gregor stood up, agitated. This was getting worse and worse by the second, and what it made him think of was worse still.

“Mrs. Hannaford,” he said, “do you know who’s committing these murders? Do you know for sure?”

She opened her eyes and stared at him. She had very blue eyes, big and widely spaced. Her mouth worked and worked, and finally produced a real smile. It was a smile with an infinity of ambiguity in it.

“Yesss,” she said.

“Will you tell me who it is?” Gregor said.

“No. My—child.”

“You won’t say because it’s one of your children.”

“Yesss.”

“Was Emma killed because she knew who had tried to kill your husband the first time?”

Cordelia looked surprised. “Told—you?” she asked.

“Bennis told me,” Gregor said.

“No,” Cordelia said. It took Gregor a moment to understand she was saying no to his original question, not denying it had been Bennis who told him about the day on the bluff.

Gregor turned away and looked up at the picture over the fireplace mantel, a portrait of Cordelia Day Hannaford when young. Anne Marie was right. Cordelia had been a great beauty. She still was one, when she didn’t move. He wished she was anything but sick the way she was. Even if she’d been on her deathbed with cancer, he could have applied a little pressure. She must realize that not only was one of her children committing these crimes, but her other children were dying from them. She must know it made no sense to protect the dangerous one. In fact, Gregor was so convinced of her intelligence, and her stability of mind, he was also convinced she must have a compelling reason for doing what she was doing. He couldn’t imagine what it might be.

He couldn’t pressure her, either. If he tried, he would get nowhere. She would simply retreat behind her illness, and he would look like a monster. Most people didn’t understand the terminally ill. They thought the dying were incompetent at worst and emotionally unstable at best. Even Jackman treated Cordelia as if her brains had melted along with her triceps.

He turned back to her. “Will you tell me why you think Emma was killed?”

Cordelia’s eyes were closed again. “Yesss,” she said. “Money.”

“Money?”

“Mon-ey.” The word came out harsh, the best she could do to make it firm.

“That isn’t a great deal of help to me,” Gregor said gently.

Cordelia seemed to be slipping away from him, drifting into sleep. “Fold-er,” she said softly.

Gregor got the folder from the chair. “There’s something in the folder?”

“Answer,” Cordelia said.

Gregor opened the folder and looked inside. It was thick with newspaper clippings, some old, some new. He pulled them out and thumbed through them. Cordelia and her daughters all dressed up in evening gowns at a charity ball. Cordelia and her daughters all dressed up in velvet party dresses, in a fashion spread from an ancient copy of Vogue. Cordelia and her daughters, all dressed up in riding clothes and standing in front of a little clutch of horses. He looked up, confused.

Her gaze was intent again, urgent. “Rob-ert,” she said.

“Robert had these? Your husband had them?”

“Yesss. Emma—Em—got—”

“Emma got them for you?” Gregor thought of the police seals, broken. “Emma got them for you from the study, after Mr. Hannaford was killed.”