“We’re not dealing with psychopaths here.”
“We’re dealing with at least one person who must justify to himself, or herself, something that cannot be justified in the ordinary way. This was a particularly deliberate murder, John. It wasn’t the kind of thing you could excuse yourself for afterward as having been done in the heat of the moment. If half my speculations the night of the crime were correct—”
“Half of them weren’t,” Jackman said wryly. “All of them were. Or all of them we could check out.”
“He was drugged before he was hit?”
Jackman sighed. “He had about a hundred fifty milligrams of Demerol in him, his prescription, came out of a bottle in one of his desk drawers. We found traces of it in a cup of hot chocolate he had on the table next to the fireplace. I asked one of the daughters, the fat one—”
“Anne Marie,” Gregor said.
“Anne Marie. She said the only way she ever saw him take Demerol was by chewing them, straight, not even water to wash them down. And she said he only took one at a time, and that maybe once a month.”
“Meaning he hadn’t built up a tolerance to them,” Gregor said. “A hundred fifty milligrams. It’s remarkable he wasn’t in a coma.”
“Maybe he was.”
“True.” Gregor sat back, thinking. “Do you see what I mean?” he said finally. “This is a murder that was meant to look like a murder. Somebody went to a great deal of trouble to make sure there was no ambiguity. Why not just put three hundred milligrams of Demerol in the hot chocolate? That would have muddied the issue just enough. We might have suspected accident. We might have suspected suicide—” Gregor stopped. “That’s interesting,” he said.
“What’s interesting?” Jackman was suspicious.
“Suicide. Something I heard while I was waiting in that suspects’ room of yours. Robert Hannaford had an insurance policy.”
“That’s right.” Jackman nodded. “It was a small one for somebody like him. About a million dollars. But it was made five years ago. The restrictions are history. The insurance company would have paid off even if it had been suicide.”
“What about murder? Was there double indemnity for murder?”
“Yes,” Jackman said, suddenly thoughtful. “Yes, there was.”
“Accident?”
Jackman’s face fell. “Yeah. There was double indemnity for accident, too.”
“Don’t look so depressed,” Gregor said. “You have to find out something about the man’s habits, that’s all. It’s possible that an accident, an incontrovertible accident, would have been impossible to arrange. Certainly it couldn’t have been done by feeding the man Demerol. The insurance companies don’t operate like the courts. The only thing they need not to pay off is a reasonable excuse for being suspicious.”
“And Demerol would have given them a reasonable excuse for claiming suicide? I can see that.”
“So, if there’s no way to arrange a solid, bulletproof accident, the only alternative is to make the murder look like a murder. And I’ll tell you something else.”
“What?”
“There are laws in this state, in every state, preventing a murderer from profiting directly from his crime. Do you know who the beneficiary of that insurance policy is? If it’s one of the children—”
“It’s not one of the children. It’s Cordelia Day Hannaford.”
Gregor stopped. “Ah,” he said.
“The only one in the house who couldn’t have committed that crime,” Jackman said. “I know I was being a pain in the butt that night, but I never even suspected her. She’s—”
“I know,” Gregor said. “Physically incapable.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look frustrated before. Christ, I’m frustrated all the time. Maybe people aren’t always internally consistent.”
“I didn’t say people were. I said criminals were. And lunatics.”
“Whatever. Do you want to hear what I really came here about?”
“Not the murder?”
“Oh, it’s about the murder, all right. Over the past couple of days I’ve had a really brilliant idea. I want to hire you.”
“As what?”
“A consultant. Why not? That jerk out in Oregon or whatever hired himself a phony psychic. I should be able to hire myself a nationally known murder expert, a guy who’s had his picture—”
“Jackman.”
“Well, I should. And you’re interested. And you’re bored stiff with being retired. I saw that as soon as I walked into this apartment. You’re living like a monk and you’ve got a pile of puzzle magazines in your bathroom that looks like delivery day at the local newsstand. You’d love to have me hire you.”