Not a Creature Was Stirring(63)

The car slowed. Gregor opened his door and jumped out, hitting the ground just as the boy hit the brakes. Hit was the operative word. Gregor slipped a little on the ice that had formed between the fieldstone edge of the terrace and the heated gravel of the drive. In fact, he almost fell on his ass.

Above him, the great double front doors of Engine House opened and Bennis Hannaford came out. She had put a pair of clogs on her feet, but aside from that she was dressed as Gregor remembered her. Jeans, turtleneck, oversize flannel shirt with the shirttails hanging down to her knees. In her author photographs, Bennis Hannaford always looked city-sophisticated, rich, and successful. In person, she looked like a college student with a paper three days late.

She found him, nodded to him, and came across the terrace and down the steps. She had been crying, hard enough and recently enough so that the skin around her eyes was puffy and red. Her manner commanded him to ignore that.

“Mr. Demarkian?” she said as she came up to him, holding out her hand. “I’m Bennis Hannaford.”

“I know. You introduced yourself the other night.” Gregor took her hand and gave it a little shake. “I’m surprised to see you. From the phone call I got, I expected John Jackman to be waiting for me with a fishnet.”

“A fishnet?”

“To make sure I didn’t get away.”

Bennis sighed and turned to look at the house. “Mr. Jackman is up in Emma’s room, pacing around and swearing a lot. He’s driving my sister Anne Marie crazy. She doesn’t like to hear people say hell in the house.”

Gregor turned to look at the berry-strewn wreath on Engine House’s front door.

“If all Jackman is saying is hell, your sister is getting off lightly.”

“All Mr. Jackman is saying is not hell,” Bennis said. “I’m supposed to bring you up there. Do you want to come?”

“Of course.”

Bennis shrugged at the “of course,” and then started back up the steps to the terrace and the doors. Gregor followed her. It was remarkable what a difference a heated surface made. The terrace was wet but not slippery, and its warmth radiated up his legs and under his coat. By the time they got to the doors, he was feeling almost comfortable.

Bennis let him in, to be met by a small man in a black day suit and a heavily starched shirt. Gregor searched his memory and came up with a name and a designation: Marshall, the butler. He shook off his coat and handed it over.

Bennis shut the doors. “We have to go up the stairs and to the right,” she said. “I’d give you directions and let you go by yourself, but it’s a long hall, and it’s full of people now.”

“Police,” Gregor said.

Bennis nodded. “Police and people connected to the police. Before all this started, I’d had no idea how many people showed up when you had a murder in the family.”

“Do you agree with Jackman, then? That your sister didn’t kill herself? That she was murdered?”

Bennis was halfway up the stairs. She stopped and turned back to him. “Can you tell me something? Were you working for the police the night you came here, Christmas Eve?”

“No,” Gregor said.

“But you’re working for them now,” Bennis said.

“I’ve been asked to, yes. I don’t know what the legalities are in a situation like this, Miss Hannaford. If you don’t want me here, you can probably get John Jackman to send me home. He isn’t going to want to compromise his evidence.”

“Would you compromise his evidence?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t want him to send you home,” Bennis said. “I can talk to you better than I can talk to him. I knew that the other night. I kept hoping you’d be the one to handle things, but then you went home.”

“I got thrown out,” Gregor said drily.

“You left the room and it was Mr. Jackman who came back, at any rate,” Bennis said. “Were you working for Daddy then?”

“Not exactly. Your father approached a friend of mine, who approached me, about my having dinner here that night. If he had approached me directly, I probably wouldn’t have come.”

“Daddy didn’t hire you?”

“No. He didn’t even offer to pay me.”

Bennis smiled faintly. “That’s typical. Daddy didn’t offer to pay anybody, most of the time. He didn’t pay the dentist until the fourth dunning letter came in. That’s rich people’s behavior. Other people have to worry about their credit ratings.”

“I take care of that by never having a credit card.”

“Daddy never had credit cards, either. He had accounts.” She started up the stairs again, dragging her hand along the banister. “It’s been terrible here the last few days. Really terrible. I always used to think things would be better when he died, but they weren’t. We all sat around wondering who did it and thinking we knew.”