Bleeding Hearts (42 page)

“Which was stupid.”

“Not necessarily stupid.” Gregor shook his head. “Remember, Candida had based her life on taking chances. Now she had a book in process that stood to make her a great deal more money than it would otherwise if only she knew the explanation of what had happened to Jacqueline Isherwood Hazzard. And suddenly, she did.”

“Did she have to tell Caroline about it?”

“She didn’t tell Caroline about it. Caroline simply knew that she’d been seen. She thought she’d been seen but not recognized. She wasn’t taking any chances.”

“Marvelous person, Caroline Hazzard.”

“An incredibly lucky person,” Gregor said. “The first time, when she killed her stepmother—because she was afraid of what her stepmother was going to do now that Candida DeWitt was on the scene; Candida was off it by then, but I don’t think Caroline knew that—anyway, the first time Caroline just picked up the weapon that was closest to hand and went at it. The fact that there was a weapon on the wall that imitated the one she’d used was a sheer fluke. The fact that her father was the only person in the house who’d been home, and therefore the only one who’d seen, was lucky too. Caroline Hazzard set out to commit very simple crimes that ended up looking complicated because of chance—and because she always knew how to make use of chance.”

“And she killed her father because he was seeing Hannah?”

“She killed her father for money. She’d always intended to. Paul Hazzard had no idea what he was protecting in that daughter of his, and neither did Alyssa. Caroline was willing to wait for the money as long as she had her father’s exclusive attention. And she did, you know, for almost four years.”

“And then Hannah came along?” Bennis was skeptical.

“Hannah is a nice, comfortable middle-aged woman with a good deal of money who would be more than willing to spend it helping someone she loved put his life back together,” Gregor said. “Paul Hazzard was used to being a media star. He knew enough about the business he was in to realize he could be one again if he went about it the right way and spent enough in the process. I think he made a very smart move, picking up on Hannah.”

“Not for Hannah.”

“No,” Gregor admitted. “Not for Hannah. What are we going to do about Hannah? Before all this started, it would never have occurred to me that someone like Hannah could be in the market for—uh—for—”

“Sex?”

“I don’t think that’s the word I’d use, Bennis.”

“She’s only a year older than you are, Gregor.”

“I know. I know. But she seems older than that. They all do. Even Lida.”

“Lida’s still very pretty.”

“Is she? Well, maybe she is. But at least Lida would have sense enough not to get involved with someone like Paul Hazzard.”

“That’s true,” Bennis said. “What about a much younger man?”

“You have a filthy mind,” Gregor said. “For God’s sake.”

Bennis leaned forward across the booth’s table and looked out the window at Cavanaugh Street.

“What time is it?” she asked.

Gregor checked his watch. “Quarter to nine.”

“They’re early.”

“What are early?”

“The balloons.”

Gregor poured himself more coffee. “Sometimes,” he said, “in fact, most of the time, you don’t make any sense at all.”

T
HE BALLOONS WERE INDEED
early, and there were so many of them, dozens and dozens of them, that Lida Arkmanian didn’t know what to say. She was in the kitchen when the doorbell rang, sitting across the breakfast table from Christopher Hannaford. She had sweat on the back of her neck and a pain in her arms that felt like the beginning of tetanus. She had never been so tense in all her life.

The balloons were big silver-and-red hearts. They were filled with helium and each carried little baskets of heart-shaped candy in a heart-shaped straw bag. Lida went into the living room to watch them come in. They came in until they filled the entire room. Lida sat on the edge of her couch and watched them come, carried in in bunches by two men in blue uniform overalls. When it was over one of the two men went up to Christopher and had him sign a sheet of paper on a clipboard. Then the two men left and shut the door behind themselves, and Lida started to cry.

Christopher stopped in the living room door and watched. Lida could feel him watching. She still couldn’t make herself stop.

“I don’t know why you’re crying,” he said. “You’re the one who’s throwing me out. I don’t want to go anywhere.”

In the old days, women used to carry handkerchiefs in their pockets or their pocketbooks. Why had they ever stopped? There was a box of tissues in one of those fancy-colored cardboard boxes on the fireplace mantel. Lida couldn’t think of how it had gotten there. She got up and got a tissue and blew her nose. She always looked so terrible when she cried.

“I know you don’t want to go anywhere,” she said.

“Can you at least tell me why you want me to go somewhere? You don’t seem very happy about the decision.”

“I’m not.”

“Then what?”

Lida shook her head. “I can’t help it. It’s all wrong, that’s all. It just doesn’t fit.”

“What doesn’t fit?”

“Us.”

“Why?”

Lida shook her head again. “Christopher, be reasonable. I’m fifty-eight years old. You’re—You’re—”

“Less than forty.”

“Yes.”

“Lida, for God’s sake, so what? I don’t care. Why do you? We get along together. In bed and out. We more than get along together, for Christ’s sake. What difference does it make how old we both are?”

Lida looked away. “I live here, Christopher. I live on Cavanaugh Street. Maybe what we’re doing would look unexceptional in San Francisco or New York, but on Cavanaugh Street it will be laughable.”

“Everybody knows already. No one is laughing.”

“Christopher, why can’t you be reasonable? I can’t—face people anymore. I can’t stand being so conspicuous. And I am being conspicuous, Christopher, we both are. A hundred roses. A hundred balloons at least—”

“A hundred and forty-four. It was easier to order a gross.”

“Whatever.”

“I’m sorry if they were the wrong thing to do,” Christopher said. “I was only trying to make you happy.”

“You did make me happy,” Lida told him. “You
do.
I wish I could straighten it all out in my own mind. I have liked having you here.”

“I’ve liked being here.”

“Sometimes I think I haven’t slept in months and months and months,” Lida said, “but it hasn’t been that long. I’m just so disoriented.”

“If you’re really going to make me go, I’d better go.”

Lida got up and went to look out the big window that fronted Cavanaugh Street. It was warmer today than it had been for a while. Donna Moradanyan was up on her own roof, doing something with what looked like a complicated mirror. Bennis Hannaford was walking back from the Ararat alone, dressed in jeans and turtleneck and sweater and no coat. What was it about the Hannafords that they never could stand to wear coats? Lida thought Gregor must still be at the Ararat with Father Tibor or old George. Lida thought she was lying to herself. It wasn’t what people on Cavanaugh Street would think that bothered her. This might look like the old neighborhood, but it really wasn’t anymore. The people had changed. The world had changed. The problem was that she hadn’t changed, at least not enough.

Years ago, she had been married. Married happily, she had thought. Had she been lying to herself then too? Just three weeks ago she had thought she was happy where she was, as she was. Now she knew that wasn’t true. What was happening to her? And why was it happening to her
now?

“Lida?”

“Christopher,” she said. “Listen to me. Are you going to take that new job?”

“The job? Yes, I’m going to take it. I thought we already agreed on that.”

“If you take the job, you will have more time off in a week or two, won’t you?”

“I’ll have a couple of weeks off at the beginning of March. Is this supposed to be going someplace?”

“Yes,” Lida said. “I think so. Did you know I have a house in Boca Raton, in Florida?”

“No, I didn’t know that.”

“Well, I do. I do. I have this house and I go there every year at the beginning of March. Usually I invite someone to go with me, Donna Moradanyan or Hannah or someone. So far this year I have invited no one.”

“Are you inviting me?”

Lida turned around to look at him. She loved looking at him. That was the truth. She loved the long lankiness of him, the casual lines, the intelligence in his face. She wrapped her arms around her body and sighed.

“Christopher, it’s as if we got into a sports car together a couple of weeks ago and we turned the speed up to two hundred miles an hour and we never stopped. I have to think. I haven’t been able to think.”

“All right.”

“All right.”

“I could be there, at my house, by the second of March. If you were there on the third, I could pick you up at the airport. I wouldn’t have to invite Donna Moradanyan or Hannah or anyone at all.”

“All right.”

“I’m making you angry,” Lida said. “I knew I was going to make you angry. I don’t understand these things, Christopher. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“You’re doing fine,” Christopher said.

Then he walked over to the window where she was standing and put his arms around her. For a moment it made Lida feel as if this whole scene had been a mistake. Christopher would not walk out the front door. The two of them would go straight upstairs again. Everything would be back at the beginning. But instead of kissing her on the lips he kissed the side of her neck and rocked her back and forth a little.

“You can pick me up at the airport,” he said, “but I want you to understand one thing right up front.”

“What’s that?”

“Women are enough to make any sane man nuts.”

A
FEW HOURS LATER
, when Christopher was back at Bennis’s apartment and Gregor Demarkian was doing his best not to read the story about himself in the
Philadelphia Inquirer,
Donna Moradanyan came down from the roof and let herself through the window to the fourth-floor landing. She was just snaking her head into the warm when a tall figure came up the stairs. He looked startled to see her and Donna felt embarrassed to be seen. She pulled herself all the way inside and shut the window behind her.

“Hello,” she said. “Excuse me. I was up on the roof.”

“Was that safe?” Russell Donahue looked doubtful.

“It’s safe enough, I guess,” Donna said. “I do it all the time. Do you want to come in for a minute? Were you looking for me?”

“Well,” Russell Donahue said. “Yes. I mean, yes. I was looking for you.”

“That’s nice.”

Donna had not bothered to lock her apartment door. She never bothered to lock her door except at night, when she went to sleep, and she did it then because of all the scare stories Gregor Demarkian told about sneak thieves and serial killers. She let Russell in to her foyer and then went around to lead him into the living room. Her kitchen was full of scraps and glue and masking tape and she didn’t want him to see the mess in there. Russell walked across the living room and looked out the window. He put his hands behind his back and seemed embarrassed.

“Well,” he said. “The thing is, I wanted to ask you something.”

“Of course. Do you mean about the case? Is there something about the case that hasn’t been cleared up?”

“No, no. The case is finished. That’s the point. Now that the case is over, there’s no conflict of interest.”

“I don’t understand.”

“There’s no conflict of interest if I come and visit you,” Russell Donahue said desperately, “and if, you know, if I take you out or something, and of course Tommy too, I didn’t mean to leave Tommy out of it, I really like Tommy, and I don’t have a whole load of free time what with work and I’m going to law school but—the thing is—I mean—would you mind if I came to visit?”

Donna Moradanyan was finding it very hard to breathe. “No,” she said softly. “No, I wouldn’t mind.”

“You wouldn’t? Oh. Good.
Good.
That’s wonderful.”

“It is?”

“I’m very impressed by you,” Russell Donahue said earnestly. He was still looking out onto the street. Donna was looking at her shoes.

“I don’t see what there is to be impressed with,” she said. “My life always feels to me like complete chaos.”

“It’s Tommy,” Russell Donahue said. “He’s a really great kid. And all that drawing you were showing me the other day.”

“Oh,” Donna Moradanyan said.

“So maybe this coming Wednesday we could take Tommy out to see the machine museum. You know the one I mean? They’ve got all these machines and buttons the kid can push to make them work and they whir around and make a lot of noise. I thought Tommy would really like that.”

“He would,” Donna said. “He’d love it.”

“Great,” Russell Donahue said. Finally, he turned around. “Well, I’ve got to go into work. I’ll see you on Wednesday. Around two o’clock?”

“That’s good,” Donna said. “Two o’clock.”

“Great,” Russell Donahue said again. He went back out into the foyer and looked around. He seemed considerably less nervous than he had been when he walked in. Donna didn’t know if she was less nervous or not. She opened the door for him. “Well,” he said. “I’ll see you Wednesday.”

“Wednesday,” Donna repeated.

“Great,” Russell Donahue said for the third time.

He went out the door and onto the landing. The door closed behind him but Donna could hear his feet on the stairs, the clatter of shoes, the sound of a hum. She stepped back and stared at the closed door, and then she did something she hadn’t done since she was ten.

She put her hands behind her back.

And crossed her fingers.

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