Not a Creature Was Stirring(76)

“The note wasn’t found in your room, Teddy.”

“I know it wasn’t. I was just trying to point out—”

“And you can’t complain about the way she treats you, either. For God’s sake. She loans you money. She lets you sleep on her floor—”

“Does she tell you everything we talk about?” Teddy said. “Does she call California and report every time she gets off the phone to me?”

“Of course she doesn’t. Teddy, be reasonable. You’ve got nothing at all to make you think Bennis is running around Engine House tampering with evidence in a murder case. Two murder cases. You’ve got everything to make you think otherwise. And in case you haven’t thought it out, the otherwise is much more interesting than the junk you’re handing me.”

“What ‘otherwise’?”

Christopher took another drag. Outside, it was getting late, growing darker. Teddy watched the snow come down, illuminated by the lights on the back terrace. He loved Engine House. If he could have cleared it of his family, exorcised it, he could have lived there forever. That was the one strong feeling he’d ever had for his sister Emma. If she hadn’t done what she’d done, he just might have been able to live there forever. Even now, thinking about this place as a haven instead of a threat, he wanted to break her neck.

Christopher said, “Think of this. We all hated Daddy. Somebody killed him. So what? Any one of us can understand why any of the others would have done it. Right?”

“Right,” Teddy said.

“Now,” Christopher said, “think about Emma. Emma never did anything to hurt anybody, not to hurt any of us, at any rate. Emma was a nice, sweet little girl. And somebody killed her.”

“Maybe,” Teddy said.

“If somebody did, we’re all in a lot of trouble. Somebody’s going around killing people for no reason at all. If somebody did it once, somebody’s going to do it again.”

Teddy sat straight up. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said. “That’s—”

“Crazy?”

“Of course it’s crazy.”

“Maybe somebody around here is crazy,” Christopher said. “That’s the otherwise, and that’s what worries me.”

Teddy looked down at the bag of grass now sitting in Christopher’s lap. Obviously, marijuana, like all other drugs, must make people paranoid.





3


Up in his bedroom, Bobby Hannaford looked down at the stacks of money laid out on his bedspread, counted through them one more time, and reached for his briefcase. In his briefcase, he had a cellular phone. He needed it.

Ever since the police had come to him with the story of the note and the money, he had been worrying. Ever since the police had left, he had been locked in his room, counting. He had bolted the door. He had pulled the Klee watercolor off the wall and dumped it on the writing table. He had left the safe standing open. Right from the beginning, he had found it hard to think. Now, with the money all counted and not a bill of it missing, he couldn’t think at all.

It kept coming to him, the worst case scenario, a worse worst case scenario than any he’d imagined in all these months of terror and exhilaration. Hundred dollar bills in the wastebasket. That was good. That was incredible. Who had put them there? If he could only believe it was Myra, he could relax. But Myra wouldn’t do that. If Myra found out what he was up to, and wanted to do something about it, she’d be much more direct. She already knew the combination to this safe. She’d told him she did. If she wanted to scare the shit out of him, she’d just walk in here one day while he was at work and clean the damn thing out.

Somebody knew what he was doing and he didn’t know who. That was the kicker. He didn’t know who.

And because he didn’t know who, he didn’t know what that someone would do.

McAdam’s phone was ringing. It sounded far away and fuzzy, the way everything did on cellular phones. Once the conversation started, it would be like talking through water.

The ringing stopped. Someone had picked up on the other end.

“Hello?” McAdam said.

“Don’t hang up,” Bobby said.

There was a long silence. Then McAdam said, “Jesus H. Christ. Of course I’m going to hang up. What do you think you’re doing?”

“Don’t hang up,” Bobby said again. “I’ve got to talk to you.”

“Now?”

“Soon.”

“Here?”

“Anywhere you want. But soon.”

“Where are you calling from?”

Bobby put stacks of money onto other stacks, clearing a place for himself on the bed. “I’m on a cellular,” he said. “I’m calling from Engine House. But that’s not the important thing. I’ve got to see you. Not next week. Not next month. Not next Tuesday. I want you to be at the place tomorrow at seven.”