Festival of Deaths (43 page)

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.”

E
VERY 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—

Now, at the age of forty-two, Caroline was sitting at her desk in her office off the back hall of WPBP, trying to remember just what equipment she needed to bring home with her so she could take it to Westchester tomorrow to give her demonstration. She had written the list out last night and put it in her bag so she would have it when she needed it, but somehow it had gotten lost. She had reminded herself during coffee break this morning to come down to the office to check it all out as soon as she got a chance, but she never did get a chance. Coffee break had been difficult and lunch had been impossible. She had called her Overeaters Anonymous buddy, but she hadn’t been able to get through. Then the day had gone on getting worse and worse, and here she was.

Seven-fifteen. Sitting in the office. Trying to remember what to bring. What Caroline Hazzard did for a living was to produce a local public television show on home improvement for women. Once or twice a week, she gave lectures on home improvement for women to women’s groups. The lectures were always project-specific. How to design an addition. How to build a staircase. How to replace a floor that had rotted from mildew and humidity with one that wouldn’t rot anytime soon. Caroline liked solid, practical projects that women could go home and start work on immediately. She liked specific step-by-step information that could be followed to inevitable success. She liked to see women empowered. She wanted to help women build their self-esteem. It was just that there was something wrong in her, that was all. It was just her programming that was off. That was why she couldn’t ever seem to feel empowered or full of self-esteem herself.

There was a spray of crumbs across the corner of her desk—her sister Alyssa’s crumbs, from the Peak Freans Alyssa had been eating when she’d dropped in to visit half an hour before. It was Alyssa who had made Caroline think of Jacqueline Isherwood. Alyssa always did things like that. Alyssa was a saboteur.

They were
all
saboteurs.

Caroline leaned forward and pressed the intercom buzzer. A moment later the speaker crackled and Sandy’s voice said, “Yes? Miss Hazzard? Can I do something for you?”

Caroline felt momentarily guilty. Sandy must have a life of her own outside the office. It couldn’t be right for Caroline to make her stay late just because Caroline couldn’t make up her mind what to do next. What was Sandy doing down there, at her desk in the typing pool, with no work to do and nobody to talk to?

If there was something Sandy wanted, it was Sandy’s responsibility to ask for it. That was what they taught you in Group. It was a symptom of codependency to think you had an obligation to read other people’s minds.

“Sandy,” Caroline said. “Yes. I need some help. Could you come in here for a minute?”

“I’d be glad to.”

“Bring your copy of the Westchester itinerary with you if you have it. I seem to have misplaced mine for the moment.”

“I have it, Miss Hazzard. I’ll be right in.”

Was that a tongue-click of annoyance Caroline heard, coming at the end of Sandy’s sentence? Caroline didn’t like Sandy much. She didn’t think Sandy liked her either. If it had been up to Caroline, Sandy would have been replaced by another secretary practically immediately. It was not up to Caroline. Sandy was a member of the typing pool, assigned to assist Caroline when Caroline needed assistance. She was also WPBF’s star hire under the Americans with Disabilities Act. She wasn’t going anywhere soon.

The door to Caroline’s office opened and Sandy came in, walking a little heavily on the brace that propped up her withered right leg. The leg was withered because something awful had happened to it when Sandy was a child, but Caroline could never remember what. The leg seemed less important to Caroline than Sandy’s weight, which put Sandy definitely on the pudgy side. People like Sandy were beyond Caroline’s comprehension. She didn’t understand why they didn’t do something about themselves.

Sandy put a thick sheaf of papers down on the edge of Caroline’s desk and sat herself in the visitor’s chair, stretching her braced leg out along the carpet. She was wearing a new pink sweater and a chipped front tooth. It was just like her, Caroline thought, to spend her money on clothes instead of dentistry.

“Well,” Caroline said, forcibly stopping herself from saying “I’m sorry.” She said “I’m sorry” far too much. They were always pointing that out in Group. It was part of Sandy’s job to stay late, not a special favor Sandy was doing Caroline.

Sandy was looking at the sheaf of papers. “I’ve got the itinerary right here,” she said, “and a copy of your lecture and your materials list. Have you packed your materials yet?”

“No,” Caroline said.

“I can pack them for you if you like. You’re going to need the compass. That can be tricky. And you’re going to need the plane. I hope you don’t have trouble carrying it.”

Normally, of course, nobody would have trouble carrying a compass and a plane, but Caroline’s weren’t the ordinary kind. Specifically, they weren’t the ordinary size. Back when the show had started, Caroline had tried using standard-size equipment. It had made demonstrations difficult, on the air and off, because the equipment had been much too small for the audience to see properly. Now Caroline had her equipment custom-made. Her plane was the size, and the weight, of a brick. Her compass was a good two feet along the pivot. Her protractor could have been used as a fan in the Plaza Hotel’s Palm Court. Carting this stuff from one end of the mid-Atlantic states to the other was exhausting.

At the bottom of Sandy’s sheaf of papers was a copy of the poster Caroline took with her everywhere she was to speak. Sitting as she was, Caroline could look right down at the part in her own black hair.

She got out of her chair and went to the window. It wasn’t much of a window. It looked out on the low roof of the building next door, which was about to collapse from neglect.

“Sandy, did you see my sister come in, or leave? My sister Alyssa?”

“Yes, Miss Hazzard, of course I did. She stopped by on her way in and her way out.”

“Stopped by where?”

“At my desk, of course.”

“Alyssa stopped at your desk?”

“Yes, Miss Hazzard, she almost always does. If she has the time.”

“How extraordinary,” Caroline said, completely at sea. “Well, that’s very nice of her, I suppose. Did you talk about anything?”

“Not anything in particular. She had some cookies.”

“Alyssa always has cookies.”

“It must be nice to be able to eat like that and stay so thin,” Sandy said. “I gain weight if I so much as look at fudge.”

“It’s a kind of addiction,” Caroline said. “Alyssa is addicted to food. She can just kid herself that she’s not because she never gains weight.”

“Oh,” Sandy said.

“We’re an addiction-prone family. We all are. Even my brother James. Did Alyssa tell you what she’d come here to talk to me about?”

“No, of course not.”

“Did you know I used to have a stepmother? A woman named Jacqueline Isherwood.”

“Isherwood?”

“Jacqueline Isherwood Hazzard.”

Sandy looked surprised. “The one who was murdered? Really? I’m very sorry. That must have been awful for you.”

Caroline shrugged. “I suppose so. A lot of things have been awful for me. I was very damaged as a child.”

“I should have made the connection,” Sandy said slowly. “I always knew your father was the psychologist. And it was in the papers at the time.”