Not a Creature Was Stirring(84)
Bennis smiled. “Teddy’s like that. One of those people who’s always being done to, if you know what I mean—and never by accident, either. No matter what happens in Teddy’s life, it’s not just somebody else’s fault, but somebody else’s plan. Mostly mine.”
“Your brother thinks you’re out to get him?”
“My brother thinks I’ve written and published nine fantasy novels—and landed them all on The New York Times best-seller list—in a deliberate attempt to keep him from getting a job in the Harvard University English department.”
“Why do I have this terrible feeling that you think what you just said is supposed to make sense?”
Bennis laughed. “It doesn’t make sense. None of the Hannafords makes sense, except maybe Mother. Teddy is sure Daddy tried to kill him. You couldn’t convince him that it isn’t true. But then, he’s convinced that the only reason he hasn’t had a brilliant academic career—he teaches in a small college in Maine—is because he’s being done out of it by nefarious plots. He likes to think I’m behind those plots because I do have a brilliant career, or what passes for one in popular literature. It would never occur to him it might have something to do with the fact that I work my butt off and he doesn’t. And if it did, he wouldn’t believe it.”
Linda Melajian came back to the table, her arms laden down with plates of stuffed vine leaves and sautéed eggplant. She laid the plates out between them, then took a moment to stare at them each in turn. The verdict of the street was in. Bennis Hannaford was too young for him and probably up to no good. Gregor wondered what the good ladies of Cavanaugh Street were going to do about it—and then reminded himself that they were only looking out for him, trying to protect him from himself. Awash in the atomized peculiarities of Hannaford family life, he didn’t know if he liked that or not.
Linda rearranged the plates, rearranged the salt and pepper shakers, and then, reluctantly, turned to go. Bennis and Gregor both watched her retreat, amused for different reasons.
“I should have worn my city clothes,” Bennis said. “I’d really have looked like a scarlet woman.”
“She doesn’t think you’re a scarlet woman,” Gregor said. “Just a fortune hunter.”
“Wonderful,” Bennis said.
Gregor speared a piece of eggplant. “Go back to this murder attempt. Are you sure it was a murder attempt? It couldn’t have been another accident?”
“It was reported as an accident,” Bennis said. “That goes without saying. If it had been reported any other way, Emma would have had to stand trial. She was over eighteen at the time. Mother wouldn’t have put up with that. But knowing the circumstances, I’d say it wasn’t possible. For it to be an accident, I mean.”
“What were the circumstances?”
Bennis speared a piece of eggplant of her own. “Well, this is early 1980, you understand. January. Usually the middle of miserable weather in Philadelphia. But that year, we had an exceptionally warm January thaw, and temperatures in the high sixties for about a week. The snow melted. Flowers started to come up. False spring.”
“I’ve lived through a few false springs,” Gregor said.
“Yes. Well. Daddy’s doctor was always telling him to get out into the air, so in the middle of this false spring he decided he wanted to sit out by the bluff. That’s to the back of our property, way to the south. There’s a place where the land just stops, a kind of dirt cliff. It’s not tremendously high, but it is straight down and there are a lot of jagged rocks at the bottom. Very jagged rocks. At any rate, Daddy decided he wanted to go sit out there, and Mother decided she wanted to have us all together for a family barbecue or something. Mother was always trying to get us together for something or the other. And we were all home—”
“Was that unusual?”
“Very unusual,” Bennis said. “It wasn’t a pleasant house to live in and none of us got along with Daddy. But this was Emma’s coming-out year. Mother wanted us around to give her a send-off, so we were there. All seven of us. Mother got this picnic together and told us all she wanted us to be there. Anne Marie and Emma and Myra and I gave in immediately. We always do when Mother asks us for something. The boys—”
“Somehow,” Gregor said, “I can’t believe the boys defied your mother.”
“They didn’t defy her. They just found excuses. Lots and lots of excuses. Good ones, too.”
“And they didn’t come?”