Not a Creature Was Stirring(36)

“The cart,” Anne Marie repeated.

“It’s only right,” Emma said. “We have a guest. We can’t just let him sit there like—”

“What are you talking about?” Anne Marie said. “We’ve got a corpse, that’s what we’ve got, lying not a thousand feet from this room—”

Cordelia Day Hannaford jerked her hand away. Anne Marie jerked in response, frightened. “Oh, God. Oh, Mother. Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“Marsh-all,” Cordelia said.

“Yes,” Anne Marie said. “I’ll go get Marshall. I’ll go get the cart. Just—just rest, please. I won’t be a moment.”

“You could ring,” Christopher said.

“Don’t be an ass,” Anne Marie said. She hurried out of the room, taking a door at the back Gregor hadn’t noticed before.

Once she was gone, the rest of them relaxed a little, but not much. If Gregor read them right, they were more concerned with their mother than they were with each other, or with the fact that their father was dead in another room. Their principal reason for being so angry at Anne Marie was her insistence on referring to the “corpse.” They wanted it safely out of sight, in another universe.

He turned his attention back to Cordelia, and decided—sentimentally—that she’d come to the same conclusions he had. It would be odd if she hadn’t. Most people overreacted to violent death, and when they were past that they overreacted to their connection to it. He’d have understood if they’d talked obsessively about the murder, or about the father they hadn’t liked very much. It was worse than strange to find them like this.

Cordelia was drooping. Her head had fallen forward. Her eyes had closed. Her hands had curled in on themselves, like the hands of a quadriplegic. Bennis got up and went over to her, checking her out carefully, as if she were a baby.

“Asleep,” she said.

“Thank God,” Myra said. “What’s that idiot policeman thinking of? She should have been medicated hours ago.”

“I told him that,” Bennis said. She moved her mother’s head so that it was resting more comfortably on the back of the chair. “I wonder how much of a horse’s ass he really was. Does she have medical insurance? Does she have survivorship? Did he consider for one single moment that he might get run over by a truck?”

“Well, I’m sure he didn’t think he was going to end up murdered,” the man in the brace said. “Although he should have.”

“Shut up, Teddy,” Myra said.

“Why?”

“She’s got a survivorship.” This came from Bobby, the Complete Yuppie. He was sitting straight up like the rest of them now, but Gregor was interested to note that only the mention of money had gotten him that way. A dead father, a dying mother—none of that had moved him to action. “She hasn’t got medical insurance, because she was diagnosed before he bought his policies. But she gets the annuity incomes as long as she lives, and that should take care of medical expenses. And running the house. Hell, he put everything he had into those annuities.”

“No he didn’t,” Myra said.

Bobby ignored her. “There’s a life insurance policy, too,” he said. “A million dollars worth. I don’t know if it has a double indemnity clause for murder. But she can use that money any way she wants to. She isn’t going to need it.”

“She isn’t going to use it, either,” Bennis said. “She isn’t going to last till New Year’s.”

“I don’t see what good a million dollars would have done her, anyway,” Bobby said. “That won’t pay the taxes on this place.”

Bennis looked ready to hit Bobby with something serious, but at that moment Cordelia’s head slipped, and she was closest. She got it into position again and stroked her mother’s hair. Then she looked up at Gregor.

“I heard them talking,” she said. “He was killed with that statue of his. I don’t see why they’re bothering her. She couldn’t have done that—”

“I’m surprised anybody could do that,” Teddy said.

“He used to be able to do that,” Christopher said. “When he was younger, anyway. He used to keep his arms in shape with it. Lifting it. Putting it down. Lifting it again.”

“That was years ago,” Bennis said, “and the point is, Mother couldn’t have done it. And if Mother couldn’t have done it, there’s no reason to keep her here like this.”

They all looked at their mother, asleep in her chair like this.