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Not a Creature Was Stirring(91)

By:Jane Haddam


“Nobody was in mourning for Daddy,” Teddy said. He got his act together and sat down, too, right next to Chris. “It’s Emma who’s gumming up the works around here.”

“I wouldn’t call it ‘gumming up the works,’” Bennis said.

“Don’t you start,” Teddy said. “I don’t want to hear one more word about one of us being some kind of homicidal maniac. Daddy was the only homicidal maniac. And he’s dead.”

Bennis put her coffee down on Chris’s other side. “I don’t think a homicidal maniac is what we have to worry about.” She turned to Myra. “That’s what we were talking about. We were trying to get a hold on what was going on here.”

“You really don’t think Emma committed suicide?” Myra said.

“No,” Bennis said. “I don’t. And Gregor Demarkian doesn’t, either.”

“I think that’s just sentimentality,” Anne Marie said. “You liked Emma. You think suicide is a terrible thing. You’re just trying to make it easier on yourself, emotionally.”

“I think she feels guilty,” Teddy said. “Emma wrote her that letter, and she didn’t do enough about it right away, and she thinks that if she had Emma wouldn’t have committed suicide at all.”

“Don’t psychoanalyze,” Anne Marie said.

Myra took out the pack of cigarettes she had borrowed from Bennis, got a cigarette, and lit up. “No matter what the police think, a suicide makes sense. After all, Emma tried to kill Daddy once before—”

“Did she?” Bennis said.

Myra was surprised. “Well, of course she did. Who else could it have been? I know I didn’t do it. And the boys weren’t even there.”

“The boys could have been there,” Bennis said. “It’s not like they have iron-clad alibis, or whatever they’d have to have.”

“Alibis?”

“I know what this is,” Teddy said. “Demarkian again. Alibis, for Christ’s sake.”

“That’s what they called them,” Bennis said, “last time I checked.”

Anne Marie stirred uneasily in her chair. “I don’t think we should talk like this. If it wasn’t Emma—if somebody else killed Daddy and then somebody killed Emma—I don’t think—isn’t that what happens in books? Someone starts nosing around and finds out too much, and the next thing you know he’s dead.”

Myra tapped impatiently against the side of her coffee cup. If she wasn’t careful, she really would break that nail. Honestly, Anne Marie was such a dork. “This isn’t a book. In real life, people don’t go around killing other people just because they know too much, or just because they suspect something, or whatever. In real life, people kill for money.”

“Money,” Anne Marie said. “Nobody killed Daddy for money.”

Myra could think of at least one person who could have killed Daddy for money, but she didn’t want to bring that up right now. It wouldn’t explain Emma’s dying, anyway. As to what would—she looked down at her coffee and pushed it away from her.

She was being silly. After this debacle with Bobby, she had a good idea just how competent her family was at making and executing plots. She had a fair idea how most of the world was, at that. That was why she could never get behind conspiracy theories. Most people were much too stupid, and much too shortsighted, to work their way through the long haul. And for what she’d been thinking to be true, somebody would have had to be working a very long haul indeed.

Still.

She picked up her coffee cup, took it back to the sideboard, and poured the coffee in it into the utility urn. Then she poured herself another cup and went back to her place at the table.

“Was there something wrong with the coffee?” Anne Marie said.

“I put too much sugar in it.” She hadn’t put any sugar in it at all. She thought Anne Marie probably knew that. She could see Bennis did. She reached for the sugar bowl and carefully poured half a teaspoon into this cup, just to cover herself. “Are you sure you didn’t take that first note?” she said to Bennis.

“Of course I’m sure,” Bennis said.

“What about you?” This to Anne Marie.

Anne Marie flushed. “I didn’t take anything. I got out of the room as fast as I could. There was vomit on the floor and the place stank.”

“Well,” Myra said, “there’s probably a simple explanation for it. Maybe Emma didn’t leave a note. Maybe the one they found in Bobby’s wastebasket was on the floor somewhere, and a maid picked it up and threw it out without ever knowing what it was.”