Not a Creature Was Stirring(98)

“Maybe Bobby fed it to her early this morning, before he left for ‘work.’”

“And came back,” Gregor pointed out, “and got in unnoticed—remember the guard at the gate. There’ll be a record, and there’s no way to sneak onto this property. That was the first thing you checked out. If Bobby left, there will be a record. If he came back, there will be a record. If he was in the house, he had to get around, use a poker on Mrs. Van Damm, hide the poker or wash it or whatever, get the candlestick out of Christopher’s room—”

“Assuming that’s where it was.”

“Assuming that’s where it was,” Gregor agreed. “But my objection stands. This house is full of servants. It’s better staffed than a hotel. Somebody would have seen him.”

“Crap,” Jackman said. He slumped. “Now what are we going to do? I can’t buy hate as a motive in this case. To kill three people out of hate you have to be certifiable. And besides—”

“You don’t think people kill other people out of hate?” Gregor smiled. “I don’t either. At least, I don’t think they kill in this way.”

“Right. Pick up a poker and bash somebody’s head in in a fit of pique, that’s hate. Run around exchanging suicide notes, that’s premeditation. And premeditation means a practical motive.”

“Which we don’t have.” Gregor stopped pacing and leaned against the wall. “I’ll tell you what we do have. Three people dead. Three very particular people dead. And three people involved in attempted frames.”

“This is not news, Gregor.”

“I know it’s not. But it’s the answer, John. It came to me as soon as I saw her in there. It can’t be Hannaford Financial, because everything possible has been done to point us to Hannaford Financial. It’s what we’re being pointed away from that we have to consider.”

“Gregor, there isn’t anything we’re being pointed away from. There isn’t anything to be pointed away from. There’s just Hannaford Financial.”

“There is something,” Gregor said. “And not only is there something, but it’s got to be something so obvious we’re going to kill ourselves when we find it. That’s the only way all this trash makes sense. There’s only one reason for strewing all these clues around the landscape, and that’s to make sure we don’t see what would otherwise be all too easy for us to see.”

“Crap,” Jackman said.

Gregor looked up at the hallway wall, to the picture niche where a Braque etching had been decorated, beyond all reason, with a cluster of Hannaford family ornaments. A cherub, a bell, a ball, an angel. Tin. Gregor sighed.

“That’s the only thing that doesn’t fit,” he said. “That’s the only thing that must be a mistake. That piece of tin on the floor of Robert Hannaford’s study. I wish it had been smaller. Then it could have been one of these decorations.”

“Well, it wasn’t smaller,” Jackman said. “And it probably was a decoration. The damn things are everywhere.”

“I know.”

Down at the end of the hall, a door opened. Gregor and Jackman raised their heads together, to see Anne Marie Hannaford walking slowly toward them, looking shaken and angry at once. Gregor knew all about the mood she was in. She was frightened at what was going on in her house and angry because it had been going on long enough so that she could no longer count on what they would do. Gregor didn’t blame her. If he was right—and he was right; Jackman’s skepticism notwithstanding—there would have to be another death in this house.

Anne Marie covered half the distance to them and stopped, reluctant to come any closer.

“Excuse me,” she said. “Mr. Demarkian? My mother—my mother would like to see you.”





TWO


1


GREGOR SPENT MORE TIME thinking about Cordelia Day Hannaford than anyone else in this case, but he didn’t like to. That was inevitable, given Elizabeth, but it had a few kicks to it he wouldn’t have expected. Until he had seen her that first time, on the night Robert Hannaford died, Gregor hadn’t thought he was a numb man. If he felt less than he used to, it was because he had less to feel. All the drama and emotion of a protracted dying: it was like living through a monsoon season. When the season was over, normal weather was bound to feel like no weather at all.

Then he had walked into the living room. Gregor could still see that: Cordelia in her chair, her dress covered with blood and her head held steady by act of will; the rest of them stretched out around her, like dangerous kittens protecting a mother cat. Gregor had felt made of eggshell, irreparably cracked. It was silly to tell himself that seeing her had “changed everything.” It hadn’t. It had simply changed him back.