Not a Creature Was Stirring(54)

The idea was so depressing, Bennis could hardly stand it. She lit another cigarette, realizing too late that the one she’d lit before had hardly been smoked. She put them both out.

“I just talked to Michael,” she said. “He says that now the holiday’s officially over, the police will get in gear. Things will start to happen—”

“Things have already happened,” Emma said. “All that questioning.”

“Well, yes. He meant the wider investigation. Talking to the lawyers and the bank and the insurance company, that kind of thing. Looking for motives.”

“They don’t have to talk to all those people to get motives,” Emma said. “They just have to talk to us.”

“I don’t think they see it that way, Emma.”

Emma finished her coffee and got up to get some more. She fumbled with the spigot on the urn, then filled her cup until it was slopping over. Bennis frowned. That fumbling motion had made her think of something, but she couldn’t figure out what. She tried to see it again, replay it in her mind, but couldn’t make it happen.

Emma came back to the table. “I’d feel better if they acted as if they cared,” she said. “He was our father. It doesn’t matter if we loved him or hated him, does it?”

“It matters to the police,” Bennis pointed out.

“Oh, the police.” Emma waved a hand in the air. “Chris was walking around last night, too, you know. I found him in the hall, where the portraits are, with the candles under them, and he started talking to me about poetry. I mean, poetry. Hell. It’s like it never happened.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Bennis said.

“We should be sitting around in a bunch, trying to figure out which one of us did it. That’s what people do in books.”

“Maybe we don’t want to know which one of us did it.” Bennis lit yet a third cigarette, promising herself to actually smoke it this time. “I don’t think care is the word I’d use, but I think it matters to them. Matters that he’s dead. It’s just taken a little time to sink in, that’s all. It’s not like he was around all the time. Even when we were all home together, he spent most of his time hiding out in his study. He only emerged for meals and fights, and he didn’t always emerge for meals. His not being around isn’t all that strange, Emma.”

“It’s strange to me.”

“Maybe you’re more sensitive than the rest of us.”

Emma sighed. “I don’t like the way the house feels since he’s died. Bobby and Chris. And Myra—”

“Myra?”

“When I got up this morning, she was rummaging around in the cedar closet, looking for a pair of long Johns. Can you imagine Myra in long Johns?”

“No,” Bennis said.

“And she was wearing jeans,” Emma went on. “Jeans and a great big oversize sweater. When I first saw her, I thought she was you. Except not for long, you know. Because she’s dyed her hair that peculiar color.”

“I think she gets tired of all the dressing up she has to do. I think Dickie insists on it, and it annoys her.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Bennis. Myra was born in spike heels.”

Emma took a cigarette out of Bennis’s pack and lit up herself. She was beginning to look haggard again. With those huge black bags under her eyes and the skin of her face gone slack, Emma looked fifty. It was a shock to realize it, but it was true.

Jesus Christ, Bennis thought. She’s younger than I am.

“Bennis?” Emma said. “I know what you’re thinking. I know what you’re all thinking. You have to understand it isn’t true.”





2


If there was one thing Christopher Hannaford was sure of, it was that, once he got beyond the gates of Engine House, he was going to be scared out of his mind. He’d been anticipating it all morning—all night, really. He’d gone into the hall and taken the candlesticks from under the picture of old Robert Hannaford II. He’d gone back to his room and hidden the candlesticks in his blue nylon backpack. He’d told himself he was a complete fool. Once he was in the car and on his way to Philadelphia, he was going to be so terrified, he wouldn’t be able to do anything at all.

As it turned out, he was nothing of the sort. Maybe he was too tired to summon the energy for fear. Christ only knew he hadn’t slept in days. First there was that long stretch in California, playing and replaying that phone call about his thumbs. Then there was that even longer stretch getting across the country, renting cars under assumed names, sleeping in motels so bug-ridden they should have declared themselves flea circuses. Then there was Engine House, with all its security, and one good night’s rest—and then, of course, there was the murder.