Not a Creature Was Stirring(80)

“No,” Flanagan said.

“It figures,” Gregor said.

“I never could see what you meant,” Flanagan pointed out. “I don’t know how many times you gave me that lecture of yours about internal constituency—”

“Internal consistency.”

“Whatever. I could never figure out how to do it. Nobody could but you. The younger guys used to finish working on a case with you and walk around for weeks, talking like they’d been present at a miracle. I don’t think you do miracles, but I don’t usually think you’re wrong.”

“Am I right this time?”

“Spell it out for me,” Flanagan said. “Give me a laugh.”

Against his better judgment, Gregor tried the coffee again. His throat was dry, and he needed something. Unfortunately, Flanagan’s coffee was not it. He put the mug down again.

“If you ask me, there’s two things going on. One of them definitely involves the oldest sister, Myra—”

“Myra?”

“Myra Hannaford Van Damm. If you haven’t turned her up, I’d check on her. There’s something going on between those two. You can feel it when you see them together. And I think Mrs. Van Damm may need money. Her father didn’t give her any. She’s married to a rich man, but that’s not the same as having her own.”

“Ah,” Flanagan said.

“But I think there’s something else. Bobby Hannaford is a neurotic. He’s addicted to possessions, yes, you can see that, but he doesn’t really care about them. He cares about his father. I think he hated the man. But I don’t think he killed him.”

“Internal consistency again?”

“It wouldn’t be internally consistent to leave a lot of hundred-dollar bills in a wastebasket with what’s supposed to be a suicide note. It wouldn’t be internally consistent to stage a murder that looks like a murder when what you wanted was to avoid discovery of financial manipulation. Tell me that for a start: Do you know anything about Robert Hannaford doing anything whatsoever in the last six months to indicate he might suspect his son of embezzling? Stock fraud? Insider trading? Anything?”

Flanagan had a pipe. He got it out, lit it up, and watched it die. He didn’t try to get it going again. “On the first of November of this year,” he said, “Robert Hannaford used his voting stock to force the board of Hannaford Financial into scheduling a directors’ audit. It’s supposed to commence right after the first of the year.”

“All right.”

“Will you tell me something? If you’re so sure Bobby has nothing to do with the death of his father, why are you also so sure he really had a motive?”

“Think.”

“I’ve done too damn much thinking in my life.”

“First we have a supposed suicide,” Gregor said. “Then Jackman shows up and refuses to buy it. Then we find a suicide note—not genuine, almost certainly—in a wastebasket with a lot of money in it. If the crime is going to be internally consistent, Flanagan, we know two things. One, there must be some reason somewhere, as yet undiscovered, why we could be led to believe that Emma Hannaford would make a credible murderer. There must also be some reason why Bobby Hannaford would make one. No motive, no sense.”

“Maybe there’s something else going on altogether. Maybe you’re right about your Mrs. Van Damm. Maybe neither of them had anything to do with it, and she wants to do her brother in for some reason of her own.”

“Maybe. Am I right about Bobby Hannaford? Did he have good reasons for wanting the old man dead?”

Flanagan stood up. “He had the best reasons in the world and none at all.”

“Meaning,” Gregor said, “you’re already onto him, but he doesn’t know it yet.”

Flanagan went to his file cabinet, opened the top drawer, and drew out a thick manila file. He tossed it on the desk in front of Gregor. “Here. It’s insider trading, by the way. It’s not mine and it’s sensitive, but you might as well know. Hell, you already do know, practically. I wish to hell I knew how to do that.”

“Internal consistency,” Gregor said.

“Right.” Flanagan dropped down into his chair again, looking old and tired and grim. “Let me tell you all about a man named Donald George McAdam,” he said.





4


An hour later, Gregor was on the street again. He knew more than he really wanted to about Donald McAdam. He knew all he could about insider trading, considering the fact that he knew nothing about stocks and even less about the operations of the market. He had what he had gone to get, confirmation of just how Bobby Hannaford’s neuroses had played themselves out in real life.