He’d called Engine House at eight o’clock, even though he knew it would have been better to wait until nine. He’d been too edgy to wait. He’d been too tired to be alert, too. The phone’s ringing had had a different quality than it had the night before, but he hadn’t realized it until the call was over. When the phone was picked up, he still expected it to be answered by Robert Hannaford.
Instead, he’d got a woman’s voice. It was flat and nasal, with a tinge of resentment in it—the kind of voice he associated with the embittered and divorced. Because he knew none of Hannaford’s children had ever been divorced—it was amazing what you could find out just by going through the newspapers and Philadelphia magazine, especially when you borrowed the back copies from Lida, who never threw anything away—he’d assumed he was talking to Hannaford’s secretary. He gave his name and explained his business and waited to be put through.
There was a sound of papers shuffling on the other end of the line. The nasal voice said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Demarkian. I don’t have the authorization to connect you.”
“What?”
“I don’t have the authorization to connect you,” she repeated, sounding firmer. “I am allowed to put through calls only from the people named on this list. You are not named on this list.”
“But—”
“It’s very early, Mr. Demarkian. I’m sure you’ll understand why I have to now get off the line.”
There was a click in his ear and then the dial tone. And that was that.
Now he looked down at the mess on his bed—the phone and the newspapers and the magazines and the notes on yellow legal paper—and wondered what he was supposed to do about it all. This last call had been just like the first, and it had left him with the same feeling of residual anger and of residual apprehension. If it hadn’t also left him feeling that Elizabeth was closer to him now than she had been at any time since her death, he might have called the whole thing off. He had a precise understanding of just how dangerous it was to get involved with men like Robert Hannaford. Even when they weren’t engaged in physical homicide, they were heavily involved in murder.
He’d left a cup of coffee on his night table. He picked it up, took a drink out of it, and winced at the cold flatness of the liquid. Then he put it back. He wanted to get out of the bedroom. The place was full of Hannafords—Bennis in People and Life and The New York Times Book Review, Bobby in Forbes, Cordelia Day, Robert’s wife, in The Inquirer and the city magazines. He’d spent most of the last week collecting this stuff, drawn to it the way cocaine addicts were drawn to street corners, and he was sick of it. Elizabeth or no Elizabeth, he wanted to take the whole mess and shove it down the incinerator.
He had just stood up, and found himself staring at the lines of illness edged all too clearly in Cordelia Day Hannaford’s face, when the doorbell rang.
2
Caught in the opening door, Lida Arkmanian looked embarrassed. In fact, she looked devastated. She had a big holly wreath in one hand, a hammer in the other, and a collection of tiny nails sticking out of her mouth. Peeking out of one of the slash pockets of her chinchilla coat she had a card, with his name written across the envelope in Palmer Method script. Gregor found himself biting his lips to prevent a smile. He didn’t need The Process, as the Bureau had called it, to figure this one out. Lida had come by, expecting him to be out to lunch or over at Holy Trinity Church, meaning to decorate his life in secret.
Actually, he was just happy to see her. She took his mind off the fact that, the longer he looked at the pictures, the surer he was that Cordelia Day Hannaford was dying. She had an air he knew well, from all the years he had spent taking care of Elizabeth.
Gregor took the hammer and wreath out of Lida’s hand and positioned the holly on his door, so that it surrounded the bell. It looked nice there, nice enough to make him wish he’d spent some time decking out the place in the proper Christmas spirit. It shamed him to think he hadn’t even considered it. Elizabeth would have started making tinsel balls right after Halloween.
He looked up at Lida and gestured to the wreath. “Nail there,” he said. “If you’d brought bigger nails, we’d only have to use one.”
Lida was blushing. “I didn’t bring the nails for the wreath,” she said. “I didn’t even bring the wreath. I was just—I mean, I was up—I mean, it was—”
“Donna Moradanyan’s idea?”
Lida clucked. “She’s a nice child, Gregor. She’s very worried about you. Here she has the whole building decorated in satin ribbons and silver bells, and you don’t have any decorations to speak of. Not any decorations anyone can see. It’s not healthy, Gregor.”