by Jane Haddam
Bennis sat on the bottom step to wait. Across the street, Lida Arkmanian’s town house was lit up like a lighthouse and festooned with hearts and ribbons—Donna Moradanyan’s first foray into decorating the street for Valentine’s Day. Two blocks up, light spilled out of the plate-glass windows of the Ararat Restaurant, darkened periodically by the shadows of waitresses and diners moving back and forth in front of the big main arc light. Bennis stretched her legs and considered lighting another cigarette, and then she saw the cab.
It was a cab with its occupied light glowing, but there was always a chance it was going to drop its fare on Cavanaugh Street, so Bennis stood up and went to the edge of the curb to wait for it. It did stop on Cavanaugh Street, up beyond the Ararat, in front of the narrow brownstone Howard Kashinian had renovated and turned into two duplex apartments. One of those two apartments he had kept for his own great-aunt Melina. The other he had sold to Hannah Krekorian after Hannah’s husband’s death. It was Hannah Krekorian whom Bennis saw get out of the cab now, her stout little middle-aged-to-getting-old figure moving briskly against the wind. The wind was very bad. February was always a cold time in Philadelphia. This February was starting out to be brutal. Hannah scurried quickly to the first step of her stoop, then turned around.
At the curb, the street-side passenger door to Hannah’s cab remained open. Bennis watched, fascinated, as first one trouser-clad leg and then another emerged from it. The legs were followed by a body and then a head, all unnaturally elongated, all sticklike and stretched. What a tall, thin man, Bennis thought. And it was true. He was immensely tall and emaciatedly thin. He looked like some sort of flexible rod with a coat attached to it. From this distance, Bennis couldn’t make out any of the detail of his face—the best she could do was note that the coat was an expensive one, obvious from the way it moved and the way it hung and the things it didn’t do in the cold—but there was something about him that seemed familiar, and the familiar thing was not pleasant. Bennis reached for her cigarettes, thought better of it, rubbed her hands together in the frigid breeze. The tall, thin man shut the curbside door and paid the driver. He walked over to Hannah Krekorian and took her arm. The two made their way up the steep cement staircase to the brownstone’s front door. Bennis stepped halfway off the curb and began to signal for the cab.
He does look familiar, she told herself. Why does he look familiar? He wasn’t anyone who lived on Cavanaugh Street. He wasn’t anyone she’d known growing up on the Main Line either, although that would have made more sense. Most of the people on Cavanaugh Street were either Armenian immigrants or the children or grandchildren or great-grandchildren of Armenian immigrants. Some of them were tall, but after a certain age all of them ran to fat. None of them had that fine-boned fragility that made a person, male or female, look more ghostlike than real. Even Gregor Demarkian, who was six foot four, was a big massive solid man, not an elegant one.
I have seen that man before, Bennis told herself. I really have.
Then the cab pulled up to the curb and she had to get into it. That was always the way things seemed to work out. She got curious about something and something else came along to prevent her from satisfying her curiosity. It was the way the universe was organized. There was something cosmic out there that was trying to get her. There was—
—there was a distinct possibility that she was getting her period.
She leaned over the front seat and told the driver, “Superior court.”
The driver gave her a strange look, but took gamely off.
Bennis sat back and sighed. She told herself she could go over to Hannah’s tomorrow and just ask who it was. That was what would make the most sense.
Then she closed her eyes and let the cab take her across town, lulling her even in the Friday-night traffic, making her drift off to sleep in spite of the weekend lights. When they pulled up in front of the superior court building, she was nearly snoring.
“Hey, lady,” the cabdriver said.
Bennis came to and reached for her wallet.
Back on Cavanaugh Street, a gust of wind coming up the stairs as Gregor Demarkian opened the front door to let himself in, tugged at the tape Bennis had used to fasten her note to her brother Christopher to her door, ripped the note away, and sent the note and the tape both spiraling down the dark center of the stairwell.
2
HANNAH KREKORIAN HAD NEVER been a pretty woman. In fact, she had never been pretty at all, even as a child. That might not have mattered if she had had flair, like Sheila, who was really plain but knew how to make herself up. It might not have mattered if she’d had brains or talent or humor or anything else that could provide an aura of fascination. Instead, Hannah had been a stocky, plain child with a good heart who had become a stocky, plain woman with a good heart. There were advantages in that. Her husband had married her for what he called her “generosity.” Her friends stuck by her for what they called her “helpfulness.” She had been elected to the parish council four times because of her universal reputation as a “good Christian woman.” The problem was, Hannah Krekorian did not want to be a good Christian woman. She wanted to be what Lida Arkmanian had been, when they were all growing up together on Cavanaugh Street. She wanted to be the most beautiful girl in the class, the natural prom queen, the undisputed choice to represent the spirit of spring at the annual citywide Armenian Festival. Most of all, Hannah wanted to be the kind of woman men just couldn’t help being attracted to.
It was so cold on this night, the tips of Hannah’s fingers were turning blue. The joints of her fingers felt too stiff to handle the key to her own front door. The bones in her face seemed made of stone. She was being silly and she knew it. She wasn’t a girl anymore. She was fifty-eight years old, and so was Lida. Sheila Kashinian wasn’t much younger. All of them had grandchildren. None of them was going to be chosen to represent spring this year or any year in the future. What good was it going to do her, wishing her life had been different when she was seventeen?
The key turned in the front-door lock. Hannah pushed against the door and couldn’t make it budge.
“Here,” Paul Hazzard said, coming up behind her. “Let me do that. It’s so cold out here, I can barely breathe.”
Actually, it was Hannah who could barely breathe. She’d been having trouble with breathing ever since Paul Hazzard had come up to talk to her, back at the coffee break during her meeting for the Friends of the Matterson Settlement House. The Matterson Settlement House was one of Hannah’s “charities.” She kept on with it—as she kept on with the Friends of the Philadelphia Public Library and the Friends of the Calliman Museum of Art and the Friends of the Boswell Theater of Modern Dance and all the rest of it—because the meetings gave her someplace to go and the other members of the organization gave her somebody to talk to. Hannah had people she could talk to on Cavanaugh Street, of course. She did a lot of real and well-appreciated work for the church and the Holy Trinity Armenian Christian School. She was surrounded by people she had known forever. It just wasn’t enough.
Wasn’t enough for what? she wondered now, watching Paul get the door open and stand back to let her pass. She’d been so restless lately, so dissatisfied, and she didn’t know why. She stepped into the foyer of her brownstone and turned on the foyer light. The doorway to Melina Kashinian’s apartment was dark. Melina Kashinian was eighty-nine and probably already in bed. That’s what’s really wrong with this place, Hannah thought. Everybody goes to bed too early. And they all go to bed alone.
What?
Paul Hazzard had shut the door behind himself and was now waiting expectantly. Hannah could feel herself blushing hot and hard, as ashamed of herself as if she’d just dropped her drawers in public. It was no good at all to tell herself that Paul Hazzard couldn’t read her mind. Where had a thought like that come from?
“There’s an elevator over here,” she told Paul Hazzard, “just for me. My apartment starts on the third floor.”
“It’s a floor-throu
gh?”
“It’s a floor-through duplex. I don’t think there are any buildings on Cavanaugh Street with more than one apartment on a floor. Not anymore. It was different in the old days.”
The elevator door opened. Paul Hazzard put his hand against the rubber safety edge and let Hannah go in first.
“In the old days, this was a tenement neighborhood,” he said, nodding. “I’m impressed with what’s been done to it. Most of the tenement neighborhoods have become slums.”
“Most of the tenement neighborhoods were slums,” Hannah said. “I always tell my grandchildren that that’s what I grew up in. A slum. My grandchildren live in suburbs, of course. My children wouldn’t live anywhere else.”
“What about you? Why do you live here?”
“Why not?” Hannah shrugged. “I’ve lived here all my life. And my children did well. All our children did well, and the grandchildren who are grown did well, too, and we’ve had a little private urban renewal. It’s very comfortable here.”
“I wish it were comfortable where I live,” Paul Hazzard said. “I’ve still got the town house my I-don’t-know-how-many-greats grandfather built before the Revolutionary War, but the neighborhood’s not what it was. To put it mildly. The neighborhood’s downright dangerous.”
“Oh, yes,” Hannah agreed. “So much of the city is dangerous these days.”
She had been holding her finger on the “open door” button. Now she released it and the door slid closed. Her head felt stuffed with cotton and very floaty. It was as if she had had a good strong cocktail to drink. Hannah never had anything to drink except a glass of wine at Christmas. Her mother hadn’t approved of drinking, and her father had done too much of it.
The elevator cab slid upward, silent. Paul Hazzard studied the pattern of the wallpaper on the cab’s sides.
“Here we are,” he said as the cab bounced to a stop. “Why are all the foyers in this building dark? It isn’t safe.”
“Cavanaugh Street is always safe,” Hannah told him. “I don’t think there’s ever been a crime here, not really, except one Halloween we had an attempted robbery.”
“Only attempted?”
“Somebody coshed the thief with a—I don’t remember what it was. But it was all right, you know. Nobody got hurt and they caught the thief and we didn’t even have to go to court because there was a plea-bargain.”
“Wonderful,” Paul Hazzard said.
Hannah found her apartment key, wondering why her fingers were still stiff. She did not wonder why she still couldn’t breathe. Paul Hazzard was the handsomest man who had ever said two words to her in her life, never mind asked her to dinner, which he had done. He was the tallest and thinnest and most Wasp-looking man she had ever met.
Hannah got her apartment door open and stepped into her own front hall. Paul Hazzard came in after her and Hannah found herself wincing. It all looked so—so stodgy. So solid and middle-aged and graceless. The big square club chairs in the living room. The hand-tatted antimacassars. The doilies her grandmother had made, badly, from spools of undyed thread. What had she been thinking of?
She scurried quickly into the living room, to the little glass panel in the built-in bookshelves that hid what she had always thought of as her “bar.” Now that seemed pretentious as hell. It wasn’t a bar. It was a bookshelf with a couple of bottles of Scotch on it. They were probably the wrong kind of Scotch.
“Well,” she said. “I don’t keep much in the way of liquor, but I do have some Scotch. If you’d like to have something to drink while I’m getting dressed…”
“Do you have Perrier water?” Paul asked. “Or Poland Spring? Something like that?”
“You don’t want a real drink?”
Paul Hazzard shook his head. “I gave all that up years ago. You have to be so careful with alcohol. It doesn’t take anything at all to get dependent. But you should have something if you want…”
“No,” Hannah said. “No, I don’t drink. I never have. I stick to diet soda and coffee.”
“I’ll bring you some apricot herb tea. It’s better for you. Caffeine does terrible things to your intestines. And as for diet sodas—” He shrugged. “Chemicals,” he told her. “You know.”
“Of course,” Hannah said, although she didn’t know. “I do have some mineral water.”
“I’ve gotten really serious about taking care of myself these last few years,” Paul Hazzard said. “It’s so important when you pass fifty. If you don’t take control of your life, you’ll really go to pieces.”
“Oh,” Hannah said again. “Yes.”
“I’ve even started working out with weights. I’m not bodybuilding, you understand. At my age, that wouldn’t be appropriate, and it probably wouldn’t be healthy. But I’ve started strength training. You ought to try it. It does wonders for me.”
“Weights?” Hannah was worse than bewildered. “I thought women couldn’t—I mean—”
“Nonsense,” Paul Hazzard said. “There are lots of women in the class I take. Young ones and old ones and middle-aged ones. It’s a myth that women aren’t suited for exercise.”
Hannah brightened. “That’s right. You’re a doctor. Mrs. Handley told me.”
“I’m not that kind of doctor. I’m a clinical psychologist. A Ph.D.”
“Oh.”
“But I do know a lot about health and nutrition. I have to. It’s a myth that medicine can treat parts instead of the whole. Even psychologists have to concern themselves with the whole person. Especially psychologists.”
“Oh.” How many times had she said “oh”? Hannah couldn’t remember. She looked around a little wildly and remembered she had promised to get some mineral water. She fixed her attention on the kitchen and headed in that direction. She had to do something, she really did, because she just couldn’t think.
“Mineral water,” she said under her breath. “I do have mineral water. I just don’t have Perrier.”
Paul Hazzard was following her. “Of course, all that about the whole person is very nice—and it’s absolutely essential that you get in touch with your inner child, I insist on that with all my clients—but the fact is, there isn’t any whole person to concern ourselves about if there isn’t a person at all. If you see what I mean.”
“No,” Hannah said breathlessly. “I’m sorry. I’m not very well-read in this kind of thing—”
“The lights in your foyer,” Paul Hazzard said.
“The—?”
“They ought to be on.”
“Well, I suppose they should, but—”
“It’s not sensible to say that there’s never any crime on this street. There’s crime everywhere. It’s a sign of the times. It’s a wholly dysfunctional society.”
Hannah had reached the kitchen. The door was shut. She pushed it open and looked in on the usual spotlessness. It amazed her how much time she spent cleaning. What did she do it for?
“The mineral water will be in the refrigerator,” she said. “Would you like it in a glass with ice?”
“In a glass will be fine. No ice. I wish you’d pay attention to me about the lights.”
“I am paying attention to you about the lights.”
Paul Hazzard propped himself up against the kitchen table. His legs looked impossibly long. His body looked impossibly lean. His gray hair was as fine and smooth as spun silver. Hannah had a hard time believing that he was real.
“I am paying attention to you about the lights,” she said again, “it’s just that—I don’t think you realize—well, Cavanaugh Street isn’t like other places. It really isn’t.”
“We all think our own neighborhoods aren’t like other places. We all feel safe for a while. And then something happens.”
“Did something happen to you?”
“Oh, yes. At least, I was the secondary victim. Who it really happened to was my wife.”
“Your wife?”
Hannah felt a spurt of panic go through her, but it subsided. Paul was a widower. He
had said so back at the meeting. She remembered that now. There was a small bottle of Colorado Sunshine Naturally Carbonated Water on the top shelf of the refrigerator door. Hannah got it out and looked around for a bottle opener. She used to keep bottle openers all the time. They were a necessity. Then flip-tops had come in and she’d got out of the habit. She opened her miscellaneous utensil drawer and stared into it.
“Just a minute,” she said. “I’ll find something to open this with in no time at all.”
“Let’s get back to my wife,” Paul Hazzard said. “Don’t you know what happened to her?”
“No. No, of course I don’t. Should I?”
“Oh, yes.” Paul Hazzard was nodding. “You really should. It wasn’t that long ago. And it was in all the papers.”
“What was?”
“My wife’s murder,” Paul Hazzard said simply. “A man broke into our town house one night to rob the place, and stabbed her through the heart.”
3
EVERY ONCE IN A while, Caroline Hazzard was required to remember that she had once had a stepmother. When that happened, she became extremely agitated and had to go immediately to Group. Caroline had several Groups, and a psychotherapist, too, but when the subject was Jacqueline Isherwood, Caroline stuck to her Healing the Inner Child Workshop. After all, Caroline had been a child when her father had married Jacqueline—Caroline had been five. She remembered with perfect clarity the day Jacqueline had moved into the town house on Society Hill. This tall woman with the heavy perfume and the immense fur coat. This cawing female with her Miss Porter’s School accent and her field-hockey legs. This—stranger, really—whom she was now supposed to love. Hadn’t they realized that love couldn’t be commanded like that? Hadn’t they considered the effect it might all have on her? If it had been only one incident in an otherwise adequate life, it would have been different. Caroline’s life had not been otherwise adequate. Caroline’s life had been an epic of emotional neglect and dysfunctional conditioning. That was why, now, at the age of forty-two—