by Jane Haddam
“Right,” Gregor said. “I’m impressed.”
“Are you?” Russell Donahue suddenly looked distinctly odd. “That’s good.”
“Well,” Gregor said. “I guess I’d better be getting out of here. Mary and Helen will undoubtedly be early.”
“We’ll get a police car to take you over. I’ll bring a car and pick you up too. Six-thirty be all right?”
“That’s a little early, isn’t it?”
“We’ll be going out to Bryn Mawr and there’ll be the weekend traffic.”
“Okay.”
“Go right on downstairs and out the front door. I’ll have a patrol car waiting for you.”
“Okay,” Gregor said again. Russell Donahue still looked distinctly odd. Now, what was this about?
Gregor got his coat off the back of his chair and shrugged it on.
2
By the time he got to Cavanaugh Street, Gregor Demarkian was feeling more than a little guilty about his plans for Hannah Krekorian. They made sense in the long run, but Russell Donahue had been absolutely right about the short run. Hannah was going to hate everything that happened to her. She wasn’t going to remain calm. The whole scene was going to be an enormous mess, but he didn’t see any way to get around it. If he didn’t do something drastic soon, Hannah Krekorian was going to be arrested, tried, and convicted of the murder of Paul Hazzard.
Mary Ohanian and Helen Tevorakian had agreed to meet him at the back of Ohanian’s Middle Eastern Food Store. Mary couldn’t take the time away from work to go over to Helen’s. Besides, Hannah was at Helen’s. Nobody wanted to bring Hannah into this more than they had to.
Gregor had the police car pull up to Ohanian’s directly. He thanked the patrolman and got out. Cavanaugh Street was empty except for a florist’s van in front of Lida Arkmanian’s town house up the street. A man was climbing the steps to Lida’s front door with what looked like a million roses in his arms. Gregor wondered why. Valentine’s Day was almost a week away. He wondered who the flowers were from, too. Lida’s children were usually more cutesy about Valentine’s Day than that. They sent pink teddy bears with balloons that said, “I’m a fuzzy wuzzy bear and I wuv you!”
The display in front of Ohanian’s window had changed a little. Now it consisted of a gigantic outline of a heart cut out of red cardboard and hung with white crepe paper streamers, inside of which was a collection of letters Gregor found it impossible to pronounce. He even found it impossible to concentrate on them. “Bdembrbdra Borgander!” Maybe. Maybe it was “Debgrvwzk Dekobgdr!” Gregor assumed whatever it was was something Valentine’s Day-like in Armenian. Of course, the Ohanians had been in America for a couple of generations by now. They might not have gotten the words right.
Gregor let himself into the store, checked out a display of pideh tortured into heart shapes, and decided that the real danger in having Donna Moradanyan depressed came in the form of the efforts of other people to take her place. Gregor was positively nostalgic for the days of waking up to find his front door wrapped in pink metallic ribbon and dotted with sugar-candy cupids firing arrows at chocolate-chip-cookie hearts.
Krissa Ohanian was standing behind the counter when Gregor came in. She looked up and said, “They’re in the back there. Mary’s supposed to be doing a pastry inventory. I think they’re talking instead.”
Krissa Ohanian was Mary Ohanian’s aunt, and one of those big, solid Armenian women who in another place and time would have been relied on to keep the family together through war and famine. Gregor didn’t know if Krissa was married. He did know she clucked over Mary as if Mary were her own. Mary was barely eighteen years old. To Krissa, that qualified as being hardly out of diapers.
“Her father’s absolutely livid,” Krissa pointed out. “He was going on and on this morning about how he should have let Mary go to Wellesley instead of keeping her here at home, at least she wouldn’t be mixed up in a murder. And he’s livid at Hannah too. For inviting that man.”
“Do people on the street think Hannah killed him?” Gregor asked, curious.
Krissa said no. “They all think it was that other woman, that Mrs. DeWitt. I’d never seen a fancy piece up close before. It was very interesting.”
“Candida DeWitt looks like a suburban matron on the verge of being elected president of the garden club.”
“It’s not what she looks like, Gregor. It’s what she is like.”
If Krissa Ohanian had met Candida DeWitt on the street without knowing who she was, Krissa would have thought Candida was a very pleasant woman with good WASP social connections. Gregor was sure of it.
“I’m supposed to go in back here?” he asked, pointing behind the counter at a curtain.
“I’ll let you through.” Krissa pulled up the hinged countertop and stepped close to the cash register to let Gregor pass. “They’re all the way in the back there. Just follow the light.”
Gregor followed the light. The back of Ohanian’s Middle Eastern Food Store was like a cave with stalagmites of cardboard boxes rising from the ground. Some of the boxes had words printed on them in English, but most of them didn’t. A great many of the boxes had import stamps plastered all over their sides. Greek, Hebrew, Arabic—when the Ohanians said “Middle Eastern,” they weren’t fooling around.
The light led to an open space at the very back, where three boxes had been laid side to side and covered with a pair of worn terry-cloth dishtowels to make a table. Krissa had been absolutely right. Mary wasn’t doing a thing about taking an inventory. Mary had a bottle of Coke. Helen Tevorakian had a bottle of 7-Up. They were both bent over a sheet of paper placed carefully on Mary’s clipboard. It was not a sheet of paper that would tell anybody how many bags of pignolia nuts were on the shelves.
Neither Mary nor Helen looked up when Gregor came through. Helen was murmuring something about how Lida couldn’t have been getting it right, it had to have been much earlier than seven twenty-two. Then Mary said no, seven twenty-two was just right, Helen forgot how early everybody was getting to the party.
Gregor Demarkian coughed. Mary Ohanian jumped guiltily and nearly fell off the packing box she was using as a stool.
“Don’t sneak up on people like that,” Helen Tevorakian chided him. “You could kill somebody.”
“I wasn’t sneaking at all,” Gregor told her. “I walked right up to you two and you didn’t even notice. What are you doing?”
“Making a timetable,” Mary Ohanian said. “We thought, you know, that since you wanted to talk to us about what happened last night, we’d get it all written down. All the times and that kind of thing. We called people.”
Gregor held out his hand for the sheet of paper. “I don’t suppose it occurred to either one of you that you could leave the detecting to me? Or to the police?”
“Well, we don’t want to leave the detecting to the police in this case, do we?” Helen demanded. “The police think Hannah killed that stuck-up little jerk.”
“He wasn’t little,” Mary Ohanian said. “He was very tall. He was the thinnest person I ever saw in my life who didn’t have an eating disorder.”
“Maybe he did have an eating disorder,” Helen said indignantly.
“Let me see that thing,” Gregor insisted. “Right now.”
Helen Tevorakian took the paper off the clipboard and handed it up. “It’s just a rough outline. We know we’re not professionals, Krekor. We’re just trying to help.”
“And you know what people in this neighborhood are like,” Mary put in. “Always hearing omens and sensing prophecies. You should hear Mrs. Kashinian on the subject of ghostly presences from the other side.”
“Sheila says she heard a ‘desperate moan’ at just about seven o’clock.” Helen Tevorakian was being as diplomatic as she could. “Sheila says it was coming from upstairs.”
Gregor looked at the sheet of paper they had handed him. Amateur or not, it was a pretty fair job. That expensive private school the Ohanians had sent Mary to must have done
some good. Gregor thought Mary’s father ought to be ashamed of himself. He ought to have let Mary go on to Wellesley. Maybe they could get a few people together on the street and convince him to let Mary go next year.
The outline went into considerable detail. It was very neatly printed. And it was very well organized. “6:45 to 7:05—MAJORITY OF PEOPLE ARRIVE AT PARTY,” it said, and then:
7:00 to 7:05—SHEILA KASHINIAN HEARS MOAN FROM SECOND FLOOR (?)
7:00 to 7:20—EVERYBODY EATS AND TALKS
7:22—CANDIDA DEWITT ARRIVES
7:27—HANNAH BURSTS INTO TEARS AND RUNS UPSTAIRS
7:33—PAUL HAZZARD RUNS UPSTAIRS AFTER HANNAH
7:36—MARY OHANIAN GOES UPSTAIRS TO CHECK ON THE SITUATION
7:39—MARY OHANIAN COMES DOWN
7:33 TO 7:48—CANDIDA DEWITT TALKS TO GREGOR DEMARKIAN
7:42—HELEN TEVORKIAN GOES UPSTAIRS TO CHECK
7:48—HELEN TEVORKIAN COMES DOWNSTAIRS
7:48 TO 7:50—DISCUSSION IN THE PARTY ABOUT WHAT TO DO NEXT
7:50—CANDIDA DEWITT GOES UPSTAIRS TO CHECK
7:52—HANNAH KREKORIAN STARTS SCREAMING
7:52:02—EVERYBODY RUNS UPSTAIRS TO SEE WHAT’S GOING ON
Gregor folded the page in his hands. “I’d like to keep this, if the two of you wouldn’t mind.”
“We made it for you to keep,” Helen Tevorakian said. “It isn’t as complete as it might be. I have Hannah over at my apartment, of course, but the doctor’s given her a sedative. And I wouldn’t have felt right about questioning her.”
“I’ll talk to Hannah myself later,” Gregor said. “Let me just clear up a couple of points here. Mary went upstairs right after Paul Hazzard did.”
“That’s right. Practically on his heels. Except not quite. If you see what I mean.”
“What I’m interested in is what you found when you got there,” Gregor said. “Was the door to Hannah’s bedroom open?”
“Oh, yes.” Mary nodded.
“Where was Hannah?”
“In the bathroom.”
“No,” Mary said. “The bathroom door was closed. And locked.”
“How do you know that?”
“I saw Paul Hazzard try it. He rattled the knob and then he called out to Hannah. To Mrs. Krekorian.”
“Did Hannah answer?”
“Not really,” Mary Ohanian said. “She was crying, you know. She was totally hysterical. I could hear her.”
“All right,” Gregor said. “Did Paul Hazzard see you? Or hear you? Did he know you were there?”
“I don’t think so, Mr. Demarkian. He never turned around. And Hannah was making a lot of noise.”
“All right,” Gregor said again. “That’s clear enough, I suppose. Helen, let’s go to you. You went up later. Why?”
Helen Tevorakian shot him a dry, self-deprecating smile. “Why isn’t the question here, Krekor. The question is how we all managed the admirable self-restraint it took not to install ourselves outside Hannah’s bedroom door the minute after Paul Hazzard ran upstairs. We were all itching to get up there.”
Gregor laughed. “Noted. I’ll take that as an explanation. You did go up there though. What did you find?”
“Nothing, really,” Helen said. “The bedroom door was locked by the time I got there. I couldn’t see anything.”
“You’re sure it was locked.”
“Absolutely sure. I tried it myself.”
“Then what did you do?”
“I listened. I stood very still outside in the hallway and listened hard.”
“What did you hear?”
“Paul Hazzard pacing in the bedroom. Hannah crying. Still behind the bathroom door.”
“Can you really be sure about either of those things?”
Helen Tevorakian considered it. “I can be sure about Hannah’s crying. It was really very, very muffled. It would have been much clearer if there had been nothing between us but that one bedroom door.”
“But you can’t be sure about the pacing,” Gregor prodded.
“I can be sure I heard somebody walking around in there. That was unmistakable. And Hazzard was in there, Gregor. I remember wondering if he was pacing around like that to keep warm,” Helen said. “It was terribly cold in the hall. Frigid.”
Gregor played with the piece of paper in his hands and frowned. “Mary, when you came upstairs and saw Paul Hazzard in Hannah’s bedroom, was there a window open in that bedroom?”
Mary was alert. “You mean the window that was open later when we found the body? Oh, no, Gregor, it wasn’t open when I went up. I could have seen the curtains blowing from where I was standing.”
“And you weren’t cold?”
“Not in the least. I remember thinking it was just like Mrs. Krekorian. She always keeps her rooms too stuffy.”
“Is the open window some kind of clue?” Helen asked. “I read a murder mystery once where the murderer tried to change around the time the coroner was going to say the death occurred by putting the body in a refrigerator. Is that something like this?”
“I don’t see how it can be,” Mary Ohanian said. “When that kind of thing happens in books, it’s always meant to change the time of death by hours. Nobody could have done that here. Mrs. Krekorian was in the bathroom. There were dozens of people downstairs. The murderer had to know the body was going to be discovered practically right away.”
Helen looked stricken. “I have just been thinking about the times again. It won’t work out, will it, Krekor? That DeWitt woman wouldn’t have had time to commit the murder. She would have had only two minutes.”
“If your times are right,” Gregor agreed, “she wouldn’t have had time.”
“I don’t see how anybody would have had time,” Mary Ohanian said. “Even Hannah. They were never alone up there for more than three or four minutes. How long does it take to stab a man six times?”
Actually, Gregor thought, it didn’t take very long at all. It could be done in ninety seconds flat if you were fast enough and if you had the right things going for you. The most important thing you had to have going for you was surprise. You had to be someone Paul Hazzard did not expect could, or would, hurt him. You had to be someone with a reason for practically throwing yourself into Paul Hazzard’s arms. Unfortunately, Hannah Krekorian fit both those conditions far better than Candida DeWitt did.
Gregor stuck the folded timetable into the inside pocket of his coat.
“I’m going to go over to see Father Tibor,” he said. “Are you two going to be around all day if I need you? After the police see this timetable, they may have a few questions I didn’t think of.”
“I’m going to be around all day,” Mary Ohanian said gloomily. “The way my father’s behaving, he’ll probably chain me in my room.”
Helen stood up. “I’m going to go back and take care of Hannah. She needs taking care of. Any minute now, the full force of this is going to hit her, and she’s going to have a nervous breakdown.”
“I wish I knew why that window was open,” Gregor said. “I wish I knew who opened it. Maybe it’s time I talked to Hannah Krekorian myself.”
“You talked to her last night,” Helen Tevorakian said. “That’s enough for the time being.”
But it wasn’t enough for the time being, and Gregor knew it. Every new fact he found was just making matters worse.
Six
1
WHEN THE FLOWERS CAME to Lida Arkmanian’s house, Hannah Krekorian was sitting on the couch in Helen Tevorakian’s living room, looking down on Cavanaugh Street from the living room window. The couch had its back to the window. She had to twist around to see that way. After the second armful of roses went in, she twisted back and stared at Helen’s coffee table instead. The coffee table had a stack of books on it (The Art of Picasso, Gauguin in Tahiti, Florentine Art) and a big green ceramic frog. The frog reminded Hannah uncomfortably of the game they used to play as children, called Frogs and Princesses. The girls had always been th
e princesses, of course. The frogs had been the boys who chased them. Hannah couldn’t remember if she had been chased much. She couldn’t even remember if she had been happy to play. It was all so long ago. Nothing seemed real to her at the moment except Paul Hazzard’s body dead on her bedroom carpet and her own dull ache. That was what she had been feeling today, a dull ache. All other emotion had been melted out of her. Paul. The party last night. That woman. Hannah was sure she ought to be angry at somebody. It took too much energy. It required a certainty she didn’t have.
She twisted around to look at the street again. The street was empty. She turned around again and saw that Helen’s heavy teakwood wall clock had advanced another thirty-five minutes. When? While she’d been staring at the street for the second time or while she’d been staring at the coffee table? How? It had been like this all day. It had been impossible.
Hannah got up and made her way to the back of the apartment. Helen’s kitchen was covered with Valentine’s Day cards from her children and grandchildren. Hannah had a load of cards just like these in her own apartment, which she couldn’t get to. They used to pass out cards like that in school on Valentine’s Day. There would be a cardboard box covered in crepe paper with a slit at the top, to act as a post office. The cards would be passed out at lunch. Hannah had a distinct memory of sitting in class all Valentine’s Day morning, scared to death that when the cards were passed out, not a single one of them would come to her. Later she found out that all the other mothers were just like her own. They made their children send cards to every other child in the class, with no one left out. Hannah didn’t know if that made her feel better or worse. She would have been grateful not to have been afraid.
Hannah got a cup out of Helen’s china cabinet and put the teakettle on for water. Helen kept a little box of teabags next to the chocolate Ovaltine in her pantry and Hannah got that out too. Hannah didn’t know if she wanted a cup of tea, but getting one was something to do. She wished she’d had the courage to go down to the Ararat this morning. She wished she knew what people were thinking. Most of all, she wished she knew if people were laughing at her. She wouldn’t blame them if they were. Paul Hazzard, for heaven’s sake. What had she been thinking of?
