Jackman’s head came up quickly. “Did you check that out? The information you got us on Bobby Hannaford was wonderful. Does the FBI know something—”
“No, no. You can see it, that’s all. A certain kind of rich person dresses poor these days, but Chris Hannaford’s clothes are worn to shreds. He stopped taking care of himself in the most fundamental ways. He doesn’t eat. He doesn’t sleep. I don’t think he’s brushed his hair in weeks.”
“That could be dope.”
“I don’t think Christopher Hannaford takes serious drugs,” Gregor said. “The indications aren’t there. He isn’t jumpy and paranoid. That rules out cocaine. He’s not glazed over and he’s not shaking. That rules out heroin. The psychedelics aren’t addictive, just bad for you. Maybe he smokes a little marijuana. He has the smell clinging to him.”
“But if he isn’t taking dope, what would he need money for?” Jackman asked. “He’s got a regular job. It doesn’t pay Lee Iacocca’s salary, but it does pay a living wage. And he’s got that trust fund. That pays just about a living wage, too. What would he need money for?”
“I don’t know.”
“But you definitely think he needs it,” Jackman said.
Gregor nodded. “I think he took the candlesticks to pawn. I think he found no pawnbroker would take them. I think he brought them back and left them in his room.”
“Why didn’t he put them back in the hallway?”
Gregor shrugged. “Lethargy. Fear. Lack of opportunity. Who knows? That young man is not thinking straight. But if I’m right about all this, that,” Gregor jerked his head toward the writing room door, “makes a lot more sense than it might.”
“I’m glad it makes sense to you,” Jackman said. “I’m beginning to think we have an upper-class Charlie Manson on our hands.”
“If we had an upper-class Charlie Manson, we’d have a lot less of this kind of strangeness and a lot more of the messy kind. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about psychopathic serial killers, it’s that they love rituals. And there’s nothing ritualized about this. The murders have been planned, John, but the settings haven’t been.”
“The settings,” Jackman repeated.
Gregor stood up, restless. “Always, always, the murderer is using whatever is at hand. The Demerol. It’s all over this house. There’s a stock of it in almost every medicine cabinet. The death of Robert Hannaford. The statue was in the study. The murderer didn’t bring in something to crush his head with. The death of Emma Hannaford. The second note was in Bennis Hannaford’s handbag. The murderer didn’t write a new one.”
“What about the first note?”
“I don’t know yet, but I think we’ll find it had been left around the house, too. Assuming it wasn’t a real suicide note.”
Jackman rubbed his jaw. “I was thinking about something, last night after you called me about Hannaford Financial. We keep forgetting about that book we found in Emma Hannaford’s room. The Predator’s Ball.”
“I haven’t forgotten about it,” Gregor said.
“It’s about the junk bond business. Ivan Boesky and Dennis Levine and all those people. Insider trading. I was thinking Robert Hannaford might have been killed because he’d found out what Bobby was up to at Hannaford Financial, and Emma Hannaford might have been killed because reading this book had given her ideas—”
“John, whatever the reason for those murders, they have nothing to do with Hannaford Financial.”
“Why not?” Jackman said. “It fits, doesn’t it? The mess at Hannaford Financial is the best motive we’ve got, for Christ’s sake. And there doesn’t seem to be any other motive. Cordelia Day Hannaford gets the insurance, but she’s in no shape to go running around this house dropping statues on people.”
“What about the death of Mrs. Van Damm?”
“I say we go looking for a link with Hannaford Financial,” Jackman said. “I’ll say we’ll find one.”
“Maybe you will,” Gregor said, “but if you do you have another problem. At least theoretically, Bobby Hannaford wasn’t here when this was done to Mrs. Van Damm.”
“The theoretical isn’t the actual,” Jackman said. “You told me that when I was twenty-two years old.”
“I’m glad you remembered it. But John, if Bobby Hannaford did this, he’d have had to get into the house and stay in it for over an hour without anyone seeing him. It took that long for the Demerol to kill Myra Van Damm.”