by Jane Haddam
Oh, well, Gregor thought. Around here, people took what holidays they wanted and adopted them. Gregor was waiting for Donna Moradanyan to get really interested in Hanukkah or Rosh Hashanah.
Hannah Krekorian’s building was very close to Ohanian’s, almost directly across the street. Gregor went purposely to the corner and pressed the button for the walk light, in spite of the fact that both Bennis and old George Tekemanian were jaywalking. Nobody on Cavanaugh Street had the least realistic sense of how dangerous the world was, or what it took to protect yourself from the terrible things it could do to you. Gregor got his walk light and walked, catching up to Bennis, old George, and (traitor) Bob Cheswicki on the other side. They had waited for him.
“We all want you to go first,” Bennis said. “This is going to be a nuthouse.”
“Don’t look at me,” Bob Cheswicki said. “I don’t know what’s going on around here.”
Sheila and Howard Kashinian waved to Gregor and Bennis and old George Tekemanian. Sheila gave Bob Cheswicki a sharp, appraising look. They went upstairs and through the doors. They were followed by all six of the Devorkian girls, three sets of twins between the ages of fourteen and sixteen. The Devorkian girls weren’t paying attention to anybody.
“Let’s go,” Gregor said with a sigh. “If we don’t do it now, it’s only going to get harder.”
3
Whether or not it would have gotten harder was moot. Whether or not it was a nuthouse was not. Bennis’s instincts had been deadly accurate. The stairway that led up to the landing that Hannah’s apartment opened onto was jammed—in spite of the fact that it was still a good six minutes before the official starting time of this party. Gregor, Bennis, old George, and Bob found themselves sandwiched among the Devorkian girls—who were impossible—and six old ladies known to the street only as Mrs. Manoukian, Mrs. Karidian, Mrs. Vartenian, Mrs. Baressian, Mrs. Astokian, and Mrs. Erijian. They were all over ninety. They were all dressed in black. They were each and every one of them as formidable as Cerberus. They were a group of people that anyone on Cavanaugh Street who was giving a major party had to invite, because not to would be grossly impolite, but who could safely be anticipated to not show up. This time they had shown up. Gossip, Gregor thought, was a wonderful thing.
Hannah was standing just inside her own front door, greeting people in a flurried way that made Gregor think she hadn’t intended to greet them formally. In spite of the stiff invitation, she had been thinking of this as just an extended version of “having people in.” Standing next to her was a very tall, very thin man in his mid-sixties. He had a full head of silky gray hair and a very square jaw. Gregor looked at Bob Cheswicki and Bob Cheswicki nodded. Gregor looked back and decided that, to him, Paul Hazzard was an unpleasant-looking man. Women, it seemed, positively adored him.
Bennis leaned over. “I’ll tell you what happened,” she whispered in Gregor’s ear. “Paul Hazzard called Hannah this morning around ten and asked her if he could come over early and help out. Hannah said yes. Paul Hazzard showed up around five. About fifteen minutes ago Paul Hazzard finally figured out what he’d gotten himself into. I’ll bet he was appalled.”
It was Hannah Krekorian who was appalled. The Devorkian girls had said their hellos and gone charging across the living room to the table of food set up against the street-side window. They were well padded as it was, and determined to get more so. Hannah was staring over old George Tekemanian’s shoulder and looking shocked. Gregor thought she must just have seen the old ladies.
“Do you figure that bunch behind us are the Furies or the Fates?” Bennis was still whispering in his ear.
“Shhh,” Gregor said.
“They stare at me in church,” Bennis said. “In a group. In concert. They think I’m a scarlet woman. One of them stopped me on the street about six months ago and told me to be careful about you. Promising a man something you never get to the altar to deliver could unhinge his mind.”
“Good God,” Gregor murmured.
“Krekor!” Hannah Krekorian said, sounding worse than desperate. “How good of you to come. I would like to introduce you to a friend of mine. This is Paul Hazzard. Oh, and this is Bennis Hannaford. And George Tekemanian. And—and—” Hannah looked at Bob Cheswicki doubtfully.
Gregor said, “Robert Cheswicki. Bob. The friend I told you about.”
Hannah was so distracted by the old ladies, the information didn’t take. “Bob Cheswicki,” she repeated. Then she turned a little and said in the shrillest voice Gregor had ever heard her use, “Mrs. Manoukian! It’s such an honor! How delightful it is to see you!”
“I’ll bet,” Bennis said, whispering again.
Gregor poked her sharply in the ribs. Paul Hazzard had stepped back slightly and was looking them over. To be precise, he was looking at Gregor. It seemed Bennis had been right. Paul Hazzard hadn’t recognized Bob Cheswicki’s name. He hadn’t noticed much about Bennis Hannaford either, and that was unusual in Gregor’s experience. Old George Tekemanian might as well not have existed. Gregor didn’t think old George’s existence had even registered on Paul Hazzard’s brain. Nothing seemed to be registering on Paul Hazzard’s brain except what he was concentrating on, which was Gregor Demarkian. His concentration was making Gregor very uncomfortable.
“Maybe I should do something to break the spell,” Bennis said. Whispering again. “Maybe I should go up and ask him if he killed his wife.”
“Behave yourself,” Gregor told her.
“I’m going to do nothing of the kind.”
“Come with me,” old George Tekemanian urged her. “There is rum punch. I heard Linda Melajian tell Mary Ohanian this morning.”
Gregor thought Paul Hazzard looked as if he could use some rum punch. Paul had pulled very far back from his original place next to Hannah Krekorian. Somehow he had pulled them with him, so that they were now standing well away from the door and Hannah’s problems with the old ladies. It was a neat trick. Gregor wondered if Hazzard had done it on purpose. If he had, he was a force to be reckoned with.
“Gregor Demarkian.” Paul Hazzard had that odd sort of deliberately, inflected voice Gregor thought of as “TV anchorperson.” He cocked his head. “Gregor Demarkian,” he said again. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“If you read it in the paper,” Gregor told him, “it was probably inaccurate.”
“Very likely,” Paul agreed genially. “But you are something in the way of being a famous man. Especially in the Philadelphia area.”
“That’s interesting,” Gregor said. He meant that the tactic was interesting. He’d used it himself on one or two occasions, but always with psychopaths and street killers—the kind of people who were usually not well-educated enough to know what he was doing. He wondered how Paul Hazzard would go on with it. There should be an attempt to outline the purported difference, to make Gregor look local (and therefore bush league) while Paul himself was made to seem more cosmopolitan in scope. In Gregor’s case that was, of course, difficult to do if you stuck with the facts. The point of a manipulation like this is that facts had nothing to do with it. It was how you made your opponent feel that was the thing.
“I’m always very interested in anything that’s going on in Philadelphia,” Paul Hazzard said. “I’m afraid I don’t always manage it. I’m in New York so much, I find it very difficult to keep up with the news.”
“I never liked New York as a city,” Gregor replied. “Of course, I never liked Washington either, and I spent a great deal of my time there.”
“That’s right.” Paul Hazzard nodded his silky gray head. “You retired from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I could never retire. I could never stand the way it would limit my scope.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Gregor said, “my scope seems to be far less limited now that I’m on my own than it ever was when I was with the Bureau.”
“Does it? I think I’d find myself at loose ends.”
“There’s always something to keep my in
terest up. I like history, for instance. I never had enough time for historical research when I was directing a government department.”
“History,” Paul Hazzard repeated. “Do you like any particular period of history? Are you one of those people who knows the blood type of every soldier who fought at Antietam or do you plot the course of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow?”
“I’m interested in the history of crime, of course.”
“Of course. Unsolved mysteries, I suppose.”
“All the really unsolved mysteries,” Gregor said, “aren’t perceived as mysteries. They’re the case of old Mrs. Smith who died so suddenly, wasn’t it odd, but heart attacks happen that way. Except that it wasn’t a heart attack and it was worse than odd, but nobody knows it, although one or two people may suspect. Either that, or the crime is unsolved because it’s a simple case of random brutality. Street thug sees old lady with purse on street, goes up to old lady, sticks her with his flic knife, grabs her purse, disappears. As long as he takes only cash and gets rid of the purse at the first opportunity, it’s the perfect crime.”
“But his fingerprints will be on the purse,” Paul Hazzard said.
“Yes, they will, but it won’t matter. The chances are one in a million that the match will ever be made if he’s picked up for something else. Our computer matching systems just aren’t that good.”
“I see.” Paul Hazzard looked away. The room was too full of people. And there was too much noise. “That’s rather disheartening to hear. I’ve spent much of the last four years thinking that a little mystery of my own would be solved any day now, cracked wide open finally by some cop somewhere picking up some junkie thief and running his prints. You did know I was once—involved—in the investigation of a murder?”
“Yes, Mr. Hazzard. I knew that.”
“It was my wife who was killed,” Paul Hazzard said. “My second wife. Jacqueline. They thought I’d done it, of course. They put me on trial for it, but I was acquitted. I suppose you knew all that too.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Do you suppose all these people know it?” Paul Hazzard gestured around the room.
Gregor thought of Bennis with her computer printout. “I wouldn’t worry about it if I were you, Mr. Hazzard. It all happened a long time ago, and the state had a fair shot at you in a fair trial. Even if you did kill your wife, I doubt if anything could be done about it now.”
“There could be new evidence.”
“It would have to be very, very, very good new evidence. There are constitutional prohibitions against double jeopardy. The courts take them quite seriously. So do the police.”
“I didn’t kill my wife.” Paul Hazzard had stopped looking around the room. He was doing his best to stare straight into Gregor’s eyes. “I know it’s asinine to make such a point of it after all this time, but it’s true and the truth of it matters to me. I did not kill my wife.”
Gregor said nothing.
“When I found her lying in the living room that night, I thought I was going crazy,” Paul Hazzard said. “Except, of course, I wouldn’t have put it that way then. Do you believe the universe is split in two?”
“What?”
“Never mind.” Paul Hazzard seemed to straighten, although he hadn’t been slouching that Gregor could tell. “I’d better get back to Hannah. I’m supposed to be helping out. I’m glad to have met you, Mr. Demarkian.”
“I’m glad to have met you too.”
“I’ll bet you are.”
Jab. Thrust. Sharp edge. Stab. Gregor was startled. The comment was such a change from Paul Hazzard’s customary oversincerity. It almost made him human.
Paul Hazzard stepped into the crowd around Hannah near the door. Gregor looked around for Bennis and found her nearly at his elbow. She must have been eavesdropping on the whole thing.
“I don’t like him,” she said promptly. “Do you? He comes off to me like somebody who’s after something.”
“He probably is,” Gregor said mildly.
“I don’t see how you can let him take advantage of Hannah,” Bennis said. “Really, Gregor. Sometimes I don’t know what you’re thinking.”
As far as Gregor was concerned, most of the time Bennis didn’t know what he was thinking. Gregor took this as a blessing.
“I’m hungry,” he said as forcefully as he could. Then he took off as quickly as he could in the direction of the buffet table.
Since Bennis never ate anything at these parties until she had had at least one glass of wine, she didn’t follow him.
4
Twenty minutes later, sated with dolmas and dabgadz kufta and Sarah Melajian’s best khorovadz biberr and he didn’t know what else, Gregor Demarkian sat in a chair along the wall next to Father Tibor Kasparian, drinking a large glass of raki and watching the movement in the room. Bob Cheswicki, Gregor noted, was where he had been all evening—just close enough to Paul Hazzard to know what was going on. Bennis had Tommy Moradanyan asleep in her lap while she sat on the couch next to Mary Ohanian. Their heads were bent so close together, Gregor decided they had to be talking about sex. Hannah Krekorian and Paul Hazzard were more difficult to figure. Paul seemed to be drifting aimlessly through crowds of people he did not know. Hannah seemed to be hovering around him anxiously, as if, if she took her attention away from him for even a moment, he would disappear.
“I did not say that I had met Mr. Hazzard before tonight,” Father Tibor was chiding Gregor gently. He had a glass of raki too. His arrest seemed to have perked him up. “I said I knew more than you would think about the work he does. It is because of Sonia Veladian, Krekor, whose mother married that man with the mustache and later it turned out that the man was, well, you know, with Sonia when she was eleven. The mother threw the man out of the house when she found out. But still, the damage was done.”
“And the mother took Sonia to see Paul Hazzard?” The problem with Father Tiber’s stories was that they not only started in medias res, they started in media confusion.
“No, no,” Father Tibor said. “Sonia was grown-up when she went to see Paul Hazzard, only not actually to see Paul Hazzard but to a—what do you call it—a support group. Yes. For grown-ups to whom things of this kind have happened as children. Sonia Veladian is older than Bennis, Krekor. She was older than Donna Moradanyan is now when she joined this support group.”
“And did it help her?”
“Well, that is a curious thing, Krekor. It did and it didn’t.”
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
Tibor shook his head. “No,” he said. “I don’t. Not here and not now, at this party. I want to drink raki and relax a little. But come to my apartment tomorrow, Krekor, and I will tell you everything I know, and maybe we can find a way to get in touch with Sonia. Although I doubt it. The last I heard, she was in Somalia.”
“Somalia?”
“She is with the U.N. It is a very complicated story, Krekor, but it has a good ending, I think. But I also think I do not like this man Hazzard. In principle.”
“Oh, well,” Gregor said. “A lot of people around here don’t seem to like him on principle.”
“There is not much to like.” Tibor stood up. His glass was empty of raki and nearly empty of ice. He went three steps over to the table and poured himself some more. Across the room, Bennis stood up, put Tommy down on the place on the couch she had vacated, and walked over to Gregor.
“Hello,” she said. “All in all, a very dull party. You’d think a major neighborhood scandal would manage to work up more tension than this. And Paul Hazzard. Didn’t they say Eichmann was banal?”
“Hannah Arendt did,” Gregor told her. “I don’t think Paul Hazzard is banal. I think he’s just minding his manners in a perilous situation.”
Bennis laughed. “The old ladies got hold of him and positively grilled him. He kept doing all that appropriate closure behavior stuff to try to get out of it—you know, saying things like ‘It’s been very interesting talking to you
, but I have to break off this conversation now’—and it was doing him no good at all. They were rolling right over him.”
“They would,” Gregor said.
Tibor came over with his full glass of raki. “You have been losing beads all evening,” he said to Bennis. “Look at the door now. Someone has arrived whom I do not know.”
They all turned to look at the door, where a pretty woman in her forties was standing, holding an invitation card and looking oddly sexy in a plain silk shirtwaist dress.
“Maybe it’s one of Paul Hazzard’s daughters,” Bennis said. “He’s got two. Maybe Hannah invited the whole family.”
It was not one of Paul Hazzard’s daughters. As Gregor and Bennis and Father Tibor watched, the woman walked a few steps into the apartment, held out her invitation card to Hannah Krekorian, and said: “You must be my hostess. I’m very glad to meet you. My name is Candida DeWitt.”
Seven
1
LATER, GREGOR WOULD THINK how odd it was that Candida DeWitt had known exactly whom to introduce herself to, exactly where to go after she had come in the door. It bespoke careful planning of the kind that can sometimes make poor people rich, if they stick to it. It bespoke cleverness too. Gregor thought Candida DeWitt was very clever in the way the English used that word. She was smart and insightful about men and women and how they would behave in tense situations. She was good at putting herself first.
