by Jane Haddam
“Was Paul Hazzard angry with you?”
“Paul Hazzard was thoroughly professional,” Sonia told him. “At least, he was in public. Very smooth. Very slick. He had to be. But we weren’t always in public.”
“Oh?”
Sonia pulled her legs up onto the chair and wrapped her arms around her knees. “The second day, there was a very nasty session right before lunch. I had to interrupt other people to speak, because Paul Hazzard just refused to recognize me. It got very tight there for a while. When it was over, I went to the ladies’ room. When I came out of the ladies’ room I saw Paul Hazzard standing a little farther down the hall, near a door I thought was probably the men’s room. It wasn’t. There was another corridor just like the one where the ladies’ room was, only on the other side of the building, and the men’s room was there. Anyway, Paul Hazzard saw me and motioned me over to him, and I went. I had to have been a good two feet away from him when he reached out and grabbed me.”
“Grabbed you?”
“By the waist,” Sonia said. “He pushed me through the door I’d thought was the men’s room. It turned out to be some kind of utility closet. He pulled the door shut behind him and it was absolutely dark in there. And all the time he’s got both his hands around my waist and he’s shaking me. I was too surprised to scream. Then he slammed me against the wall and grabbed my breasts. Hard and tight. It hurt.”
“Good Lord.”
“And then he started talking to me,” Sonia said, “and it was weird, Mr. Demarkian, because he wasn’t angry at me, he wasn’t shouting, he wasn’t sharp, he was using that same low, lulling voice he always used, the same one he used to talk about giving yourself unconditional love and nurturing your inner child. He was even using the same kinds of words. He was saying I was in denial and that my denial was manifesting itself as a problem with authority and that I was afraid to accept love and understanding. It just went on and on and on like that, and the whole time he was talking he had hold of my breasts and he was not being gentle or seductive or anything else of the kind. He was digging his fingers into me. The pain was incredible. I tried to kick him once or twice, but he was too fast for me. I called him a son of a bitch and he told me that just went to show that he was right. I was exhibiting inappropriate anger. I was still furious with my abuser, but I didn’t think it was safe to get angry at Ern so I was getting angry at him instead. At Paul Hazzard. It was insane.”
“It sounds worse than insane. How did you get out of there? Did he let you go?”
Sonia shook her head. “I don’t know if he ever would have let me go. That’s silly, of course. Eventually he would have had to. I guess I mean the situation was beginning to feel eternal, and I was getting more and more scared, and I didn’t really know what to do.”
“Did you call out?”
“I think I did call out,” Sonia said. “I know I must have been shouting, because after it was all over, my throat hurt. I suppose nobody heard me. Maybe everybody was down at lunch.”
“Maybe nobody wanted to hear.”
“I thought of that too,” Sonia said. “Anyway, Paul Hazzard went on and on and on and I kept twisting and turning and trying to wrench myself away from him and all of a sudden it worked. Do you know how that is? His strength must have flagged for just a minute and mine must have had an upsurge and his hold just broke.”
“I know how that is.”
“Well, I ran for it,” Sonia said. “I lurched into the dark in the direction I thought we’d come in, right past Hazzard’s body, and I made it. I fell into some debris. Cans of stuff. I couldn’t see what they were. I kept stumbling around into things and he kept grabbing me and laughing and I got more and more frantic by the minute, but all of a sudden it was all right. I found the door.”
“And you got out.”
“You bet,” Sonia said. “I went flying out of that closet like Rocket J. Squirrel being launched by Bullwinkle. You’ve never seen anybody move so fast. I got out into the hall and it was empty. I couldn’t see anybody anywhere. I just took off. The corridor was off this big open reception space with couches and plants and things in it. I headed for there.”
“Did Hazzard follow you?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Demarkian. I didn’t look back to check. I just ran.”
“And then what did you do?”
“I went back to my room. I packed my things. I called a cab. And I left.”
“You didn’t report this to anybody? You didn’t tell anybody that it had happened?”
“I told my boyfriend when I got back to school,” Sonia said, “but if you mean did I report it to the police or something, no. I don’t think I would have known whom to report it to.”
“You could have charged the man with assault.”
“Maybe. But look at it realistically, Mr. Demarkian. Who was I? Just a screwed-up college senior who had been in therapy for nearly a year. Just one more hysterical woman with mental problems. Paul Hazzard was one of the most successful and respected psychologists in the United States. And there had never been a report like that made against him before.”
“You could have charged him with assault,” Gregor repeated. Then he sighed and shifted on his feet. He had been standing up the whole time Sonia was telling her story. He had been too interested to notice that he was uncomfortable. Now he rocked back and forth and bent his knees. They creaked. “Paul Hazzard,” he said, “is rapidly turning into one of those murder victims you feel it’s just as well that they’re dead. He’s headed straight for that category of murder victims that I would just as soon have killed myself. Is that the only time you ever saw him? The first and the last?”
“You bet,” Sonia said. “It was the first and I made a point of it being the last. There’s all this stuff in the recovery movement about how victims cling to being victims. After you’ve been victimized, you’re supposed to go looking for people to victimize you because that’s the kind of relationship you’re comfortable with. Well, maybe I never really fit the profile. I not only never saw Paul Hazzard again, I never had anything else to do with his organization. Or with the recovery movement in any form. After that afternoon I never even went back to Group.”
Just then Gregor’s phone started ringing. He had instruments in the kitchen and the bedroom, and the ringing came to him in stereo.
“Just a minute,” he told Sonia. “I’m supposed to be going someplace at six-thirty. That may be the man who’s picking me up.”
“Take your time,” Sonia said.
2
Gregor went out into the kitchen and picked up the phone. He looked at the dishes in his sink and the cake on his table and wished he were better at housekeeping. He said hello into the receiver and thought about Sonia Veladian. Gregor didn’t know much about psychology in spite of the fact that the department he had founded and headed at the FBI had been called Behavioral Sciences. He hadn’t given the department its name. He knew how the minds of serial killers worked. He knew whether the serial killer involved was an out-of-control psychotic or the kind of otherwise sane man whose tastes ran to the violent. He also knew something about the mental life of the people he called acculturated psychopaths—the people who had no more conscience than a Ted Bundy or a Jeffrey Dahmer, but who had sense enough not to actually kill anybody. They just went along, taking what they wanted no matter what effect it had on other people. Maybe that was what the recovery movement meant by “getting your needs met.”
On the other end of the line, Russell Donahue’s voice sounded strangled. “Mr. Demarkian? Is that you? Can you hear me?”
Gregor came to. “Yes, Russ. Yes. It’s me. I’m sorry. My mind was wandering. I take it you’re going to be late.”
“I’m going to be right on time,” Russell Donahue said. “I’m headed your way in a patrol car with all the sirens blasting. We’ve got an emergency.”
“What’s an emergency?” Gregor asked.
“Twenty minutes ago Fred Scherrer called the Bryn Mawr
police. He reported finding the body of Candida DeWitt, stabbed in the chest and lying dead on the floor of her own living room.”
There was a high kitchen stool against the wall next to the telephone. Gregor sat down on it with a thump, stunned.
“Good God,” he said. “Now what?”
“Now we start all over again from the beginning,” Russell Donahue said, “and I get off this goddamned cellular phone and pick you up. See you in a minute or two.”
“Right,” Gregor said.
He said it to dead air.
Part Three
Cloaks and Daggers…
One
1
PEOPLE WHO LIVED IN the Philadelphia metropolitan area tended to think of the city and the Main Line as one place. In spite of the differences in landscape and architecture and social tone, the Main Line belonged to Philadelphia, and everyone knew it. Away at boarding school and college, teenagers from Radnor and Wayne said simply that they were “from Philadelphia,” and got into the particulars only with people they knew really well. Very social brides announcing their weddings in the Inquirer and The New York Times said that they were the daughters of “Mr. and Mrs. Whomever of Philadelphia and Palm Beach” in spite of the fact that the houses they had grown up in were nestled into fifteen acres in Paoli. In reality, of course, the towns of the Main Line had very little to do with each other and nothing at all to do with the city of Philadelphia, at least in any official capacity. Radnor had its own police department. Bryn Mawr had its own police department. Philadelphia had its own police department. All the police departments cooperated if they really had to. They preferred not to. There was a streak of competitive jealousy running through their relations as bright and strong as a splash of fresh blood on a white cotton curtain in an English murder mystery.
Candida DeWitt had lived in Bryn Mawr and now she had died there. She had also been one of the chief suspects in a murder case in Philadelphia. She had also been killed in a way that made everyone—even the Bryn Mawr police—certain that she had been murdered by the same person who had murdered Paul Hazzard. Then there was her connection to the death of Jacqueline Isherwood Hazzard. Then there was—
Gregor Demarkian tried to remain calm in the front seat of Russell Donahue’s car as it pulled into Candida DeWitt’s driveway and coasted down the gravel to the other cars assembled at Candida’s front door. It was an unmarked car this time. Russell hadn’t thought it was the best idea to come into somebody else’s jurisdiction with sirens blasting. Down by the door there were plenty of marked cars with their lights pulsing in the darkening evening. Bryn Mawr had pulled out all the stops.
Russell Donahue slowed to a crawl, looking for a place to park.
“For God’s sake. They’ve got the whole department out here. You’d think somebody had shot the president.”
“Fred Scherrer,” Gregor suggested.
Russell nodded. “Yeah. Maybe. Scherrer doesn’t make me too happy either. Do you mind a bit of a walk? I can’t get any closer than this without blocking something.”
Gregor didn’t mind a bit of a walk. Russell pulled the car to a stop and they got out. This close, Gregor could see that the front door to Candida’s house was wide open. Men went in and out of them at irregular intervals, looking grim. A slight man in a trench coat came to stand on the front porch. He looked in their direction, squinted a little, then nodded to himself. Then he began walking toward them.
“Fred Scherrer,” Gregor Demarkian said again to Russell Donahue. “You did say Scherrer called the Bryn Mawr police and not us?”
“Yeah. But that doesn’t mean anything, Gregor. He might also have called us. I wasn’t the person taking the calls.”
Fred Scherrer was walking toward them. It was as cold as Gregor could ever remember it being, in Philadelphia or anywhere else. He wished he were in the habit of wearing a hat. He pulled the collar of his coat up behind his ears and wrapped his scarf more tightly around his neck.
Fred Scherrer didn’t seem to notice the cold. His trench coat was wide open. His hands were in his pockets, but he took them out often to adjust his coat or stroke his face. He wasn’t wearing gloves. Gregor wondered about all the nervous mannerisms. Was Fred Scherrer always like this? How did it affect juries? He was an extremely successful defense attorney. He had to be doing something right.
Fred Scherrer stopped in the middle of the driveway and let Gregor and Russell walk the rest of the way to him.
“Mr. Demarkian?” he said. “I believe we met last night.”
“Briefly.”
Scherrer turned to Russell Donahue. “I saw you last night too. I’m afraid I don’t remember your name.”
“Russell Donahue. Detective first grade.”
“Good, good. There’s a guy in there from Bryn Mawr Homicide who’s making no sense at all, but maybe that’s normal. Nobody seemed to be making much sense last night either. This is the first time in my life I’ve ever been this… close to it all, if you know what I mean.”
“Yes,” Russell Donahue said. Gregor said nothing.
“Close to it all in more ways than one,” Fred Scherrer said. “Did you know I was staying here for the weekend?”
“Yes,” Russell said quickly.
“I’ve been staying in the guest room,” Fred Scherrer said, “but that was mostly a technicality. If—this—hadn’t happened, I would probably have changed rooms by the end of the weekend.”
“Oh,” Russell Donahue said.
“I’m not going on and on about my private life for no reason,” Fred Scherrer said. “I want you to know what was going on up front. They think I’m hiding something.” Fred jerked his head back in the direction of Candida’s front door. “They think I killed her in a jealous rage and now I’m trying to make it look like she was somebody else’s victim. They probably think I killed Paul too.”
“Did you?” Gregor Demarkian asked.
Fred Scherrer smiled grimly. “If I’d wanted to kill Paul Hazzard, I could have done it four years ago, when I directed his defense after he was charged with his wife’s murder. Trust me, that would have been much more effective than stabbing him six times, even if he hadn’t gotten the death penalty. It would also have been much safer.”
“Something could have happened between that time and this,” Gregor Demarkian said.
“It could have, but it didn’t. I’ve barely seen the man in the last four years. Not that you ought to take my word for that.”
“I try not to take anybody’s word for anything.”
“Smart man.”
Fred Scherrer turned and looked back at Candida’s house. As far as Gregor could tell, the scene hadn’t changed at all. The door was still open. Men were still walking in and out. There were still too many lights on everywhere. Fred Scherrer shivered and turned back to them. Gregor thought that he looked feverish, that his eyes were unnaturally bright.
“Come on,” the attorney told them. “Let’s go up to the house and meet the bozos. Maybe you can do something to get their brains on track.”
2
The Bryn Mawr police handling the investigation into the death of Candida DeWitt were not, in fact, bozos. One of them, a big man named Roger Stebbins, Gregor knew from previous experience with murder in Bryn Mawr. Stebbins was not as good a police officer as his chief, but he was good, and comparing him to John Henry Newman Jackman might not have been fair. John Henry Newman Jackman, Stebbins’s chief, was the single best local Homicide man Gregor had ever met. Roger Stebbins was a man Jackman trusted. That was enough for Gregor any day.
Roger Stebbins was standing just inside the front door, against one wall of the two-story foyer, near a pair of doors that led off into a room on the left. Gregor paused a moment to be impressed with the foyer. The floor was marble. The staircase that led to the second floor balcony was a sweeping curve of polished mahogany and inlaid teak. There was a chandelier hanging from the nearly invisible ceiling by a thick chain, made up of hundreds of tiny prisms
that scattered little rainbow arcs of light in every direction. Gregor remembered somebody saying that Candida DeWitt had done very well at her way of life. That seemed to be an understatement.
Roger Stebbins had straightened up a little when he saw Gregor and Russell Donahue come in. Now he crossed the foyer with his hand held out.
“Mr. Demarkian? I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Roger Stebbins.”
“I do remember you. This is Russell Donahue of the Philadelphia police. Detective first grade.”
“Right,” Stebbins said. He shook Russell Donahue’s hand in a perfunctory way and then shoved his hands into the pockets of his trousers. He looked very worried. “I talked to John Jackman about this,” he said. “John sent his regards and said to give you all the help you wanted. I don’t exactly know what kind of help I could give. It all seems straightforward enough on the face of it.”
“Has the body been removed?” Gregor asked.
Roger Stebbins shook his head. “We left it. John said you might want to see it.”
“I do. We do,” Gregor said. “Where is it?”
Roger Stebbins looked back over his shoulder at the doors he had been standing next to when Gregor and Russell entered. “It’s in there. I’ve had to post a guard or keep watch myself every minute. That bastard Scherrer is like ooze. He gets into everything.”
Fred Scherrer didn’t seem to be into anything at the moment. He had disappeared. Gregor started toward the inner doors. Roger Stebbins and Russell Donahue followed.
“This is the living room, more or less,” Roger Stebbins said, “except you know what it’s like in these great big houses. There are at least three other rooms on this floor that a regular person might call a living room.”
