Not a Creature Was Stirring(52)

“I don’t have a detective’s license,” Gregor pointed out. “I have no intention of getting a detective’s license.”

“So who says you have to be a detective? Like I said, you could be a consultant.”

“Do you know what that is?”

“No,” Jackman said, “but that’s not the point. Neither does anyone else.”

Gregor poured himself another cup of coffee. He was being set up. He knew he was being set up. He just didn’t care. He hadn’t felt this good—this invigorated—since Elizabeth had gone into remission in 1982. He got his lonely bottle of Scotch off the bookshelf, poured a finger into his coffee, and handed the bottle to John Henry Newman Jackman.

“You have an ulterior motive for all of this?” he asked.

“Of course I do,” Jackman said. “You seen the newspapers lately?”

“Mmm.” Gregor didn’t know how “lately” Jackman meant.

“This is big-time publicity,” Jackman said. “It’s making the networks, for Christ’s sake. Do you know what happens when there’s big-time publicity?”

“Intimately,” Gregor said.

“Yeah,” Jackman said. “You would. Well, I’m taking a lot of heat. Be practical, Gregor. If you do this, the publicity will be terrific. I’ll look like an effing hero. And if I look like an effing hero, the bozos will stay off my back.”

“I see. So, which is it? Am I supposed to consult or am I only supposed to pretend to consult?”

“Oh, you’re supposed to consult.” Jackman looked alarmed. “If you’ve got any more ideas like the ones you had on the night, I want to hear about them.”

“Fine.” Gregor sat down again. “I have this idea. I think you’d better get yourself ready for another death.”





SIX


1


THE TROUBLE WITH ENGINE House, Bennis Hannaford thought, is that it’s just like a self-winding watch. If you don’t do something in particular to stop it, it goes on and on and on and on and on. She looked down at the old-fashioned telephone she’d just hung up. It was eight o’clock in the morning, two days after Christmas, Tuesday, December 27. Back in Boston, it was a workday. Michael had just been getting out of the shower when she called. It bothered her he’d been so damn annoyed to hear from her, especially because he’d been expecting to. Eight o’clock was the time they’d agreed on, to get around the little problem of the telephones at Engine House. Cordelia Day Hannaford was an old-fashioned woman. She didn’t want phones in most of the rooms of her house. There was one in the kitchen, because Mrs. Washington would have quit without it. There was one in the study, because Daddy had insisted on it. There was one in Anne Marie’s room, in case of emergency. Other than that, there was this one small telephone stall off the sitting room on the first floor. Engine House was an enormous place, with wings spread out over the landscape. To make a call here, you sometimes had to hike through half a mile of corridors.

You’re exaggerating, Bennis told herself. It wasn’t the hiking she minded as much as the possibility of being overheard—or the certainty of it. She kept getting these urges to restrict her phoning to business calls, even though she had no business to call about. The new book was in the stores. The new tour was over. The radio and print interviews had been wrapped up months ago. She had nothing to do with her life but read other people’s novels and concentrate on Michael—except all this had come up, and she couldn’t concentrate on anything. She put her cigarette out in the ashtray she’d brought along from the kitchen and then put the ashtray on the upper shelf, where the maid was sure to see it.

This morning, Bennis thought Daddy’s dying was a lot like the ache you get after riding a horse for the first time. You ride. You feel fine. You think everything is going to be all right. Then, long after you have any reason to expect it, it gets you. They’d been cool enough the night it happened, and they’d been cool enough on Christmas Day—if you could call the way they were when they were together “cool.” Even yesterday hadn’t been too bad. Myra and Teddy had played chess, which they did every Christmas. They’d ended the chess with an argument, which they also did every Christmas. The rest of them had wandered aimlessly around, eating too much and talking about the Flyers.

Now, with the holiday over and the snow under control, the servants were back in force, and Engine House was having the Christmas Mother had planned for it. Sort of. Through the door of the telephone room, Bennis had seen silver serving tray after silver serving tray being delivered to the dining room. They would be set out on the sideboard and provided with silver serving spoons. The result would be something like the breakfast scene in Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, elaborate and barren. Even when Mother was in fine form and nothing out of the ordinary had happened and they were all on their best behavior—say once every ten years—that scene was barren. Today—