Not a Creature Was Stirring(41)

His leg was stiffer than usual this morning, probably because he’d been up late last night and moving around so much. He sat on the bed and held it straight, the only way he could get his jeans on over the brace. He was very cold. If he didn’t do something soon, he was going to be utterly, irrevocably screwed. He wouldn’t be able to keep it from them, either, and especially not from Bennis. There were too many links between academia and publishing. The first student he’d ever stolen a paper from was now writing mystery novels. Bennis probably knew him.

In his head, the two strains of music began to merge and complement each other. The backbeat was clear and driving, irresistible: it’s not fair it’s not fair it’s not fair. It was the simple truth. It wasn’t fair. Daddy was dead. Once that happened, everything was supposed to be all right.

Jeans on, he limped out into the hall and down to the landing. He took the stairs slowly, one at a time, dragging his bad leg after his good one like a boxer’s dummy that had been inexplicably attached to his hip. In the foyer, he stopped and listened, but heard nothing. Christ, but this was a quiet house. He thumped over to the door that led to the wing where the study was and looked through it down the dark hall. Nothing.

And no one. That wasn’t right. There was a whole ritual for opening Christmas presents. It should be going on right now.

He thumped back across the foyer and went into the main drawing room, where the tree was set up and the presents laid out. The tree was lit up, but the presents seemed to be untouched. Teddy wondered what that was about. Why wasn’t Mother in her chair, handing out packages like Lady Bountiful? Why wasn’t the audio system blasting out Christmas carols? Maybe they thought there was something wrong with opening presents the day after there’d been a murder in the house. Teddy looked around for a box with his name on it, found three, and took the biggest one.

He was just deciding that pink velour pajamas were the most idiotic present he’d ever received, from anyone—what had Chris been thinking? The damn things were off the rack. They’d never fit over his brace—when the drawing room door opened and Myra came in. She was shoeless and makeupless, so unlike her normal self he almost didn’t recognize her. He banished the twinge of guilt he’d been feeling since he’d seen Chris’s name on the “from” end of the tag—Chris had brought presents; Teddy had not—and blinked.

“Good God,” he said. “You look almost human.”

Myra got a glass from a shelf under the bar and started filling it with ice cubes. “Go stuff yourself,” she said.

“I will if anybody ever gives me dinner. What time is Dickie supposed to arrive?”

“Dickie’s at his mother’s.”

“And you’re here?”

“I was supposed to go over at three o’clock. Not going to. It’s snowing again.”

“Well, Dickie ought to love that. Dickie’s mother ought to love it even more. Do you intend to be married after New Year’s?”

There was a bottle of vodka on the bar, opened and out. Myra filled her glass from it, dispensing with side issues like tonic and water. Then she threw a slice of brown, dried-up lime over the top. Teddy thought things must really have gone to hell here last night, what with the police in the house and everything. Limes were never allowed to sit around until the morning.

Myra threw herself into the chair next to the fireplace—where the fire hadn’t been lit; curiouser and curiouser—and said, “I was in the kitchen for a while. I couldn’t stand it any more. Bennis is cooking, and Emma is following her around like a puppy dog, asking what all the terms mean.”

“Bennis is cooking? Where’s Mrs. Washington?”

“Snowed in, in Philadelphia.”

“Can Bennis cook?”

“I really wouldn’t know.”

There didn’t seem to be anything to say to that. Bennis being Bennis, she probably could cook, but that was a can of worms Teddy definitely didn’t want to open. Not when he was feeling so awful. He went back to the tree and got the other two boxes, and then two more he found behind them. By the time he got resettled in his chair, his leg was aching like a son of a bitch.

“So,” he said, “what has you drinking at fifteen minutes past noon?”

“I’m not drinking, Teddy. I’m just relaxing. I have a right to relax.”

“Right,” Teddy said.

“Besides,” Myra said. “I’ve been thinking.”

“God help us all.”

Myra swigged. “Do you really think Daddy’s dying was an accident?”