Colleen McCullough - Too Many Murders

“Mr. Smith,” Carmine said gently, “a policeman investigating murder uses many techniques to obtain information, but more than that, he also uses them to learn in the small amount of time at his disposal what kind of person he’s questioning. During our first interview you were rude and overbearing, which leaves me free to tread heavily on your toes, even though your toes are sheathed in handmade shoes. You imply that you have the power to see me-er-‘disciplined,’ but I must tell you that no one in authority will take any notice of your complaints, because those in authority all know me. I have earned my status, not bought it. Murder means that everything in your life is my business until I remove you from my list of suspects. Is that clear?”

Two Philip Smiths suddenly looked out of one pair of eyes. One was the haughty aristocrat; the other was watchful, careful, hard, and highly intelligent. Carmine pretended not to notice.

Smith brushed past him without answering. Carmine went on into Erica Davenport’s outer sanctum, staffed, he was intrigued to see, by a thin young man of nondescript appearance.

“You have a male secretary,” he said, going to her window.

“It seemed a nice conceit for a woman executive. How may I help you further, Captain?”

“You didn’t tell me you’re on the Cornucopia Board.”

“Is it relevant? If it is, I fail to see why.”

“Everything is relevant in a murder enquiry, Dr. Davenport. And did you really think I wouldn’t find out why the FBI is so interested in Cornucopia? Both you and Mr. Smith passed it off as- irrelevant. I’ve also learned that your regular date is Mr. Gus Purvey, whose penchant for cocktail waitresses you’re happy to conceal from his fellows.”

Her lips thinned. “Then I had better tell you, Captain, that Mr. Purvey’s cocktail waitresses are men in drag. He likes them about eighteen or nineteen years old, with their own hair grown out and their body hair depilated.”

“It’s nice to have one’s suspicions confirmed,” he said, smiling. “Now what about Mr. Kelly?”

A scarlet spot had appeared in each cheek and the lips were a straight line. She answered obliquely. “For two people who may end in seeing a lot of each other, Captain, we’re not getting on too well. Though of my own volition I would never have made a friend of you-you’re too much the male chauvinist pig.”

He laughed, understanding her. “It’s a lot of years since a man has ever been in a position to throw uncomfortable questions at you outside your legal province, and now here he is, and you don’t like it. Or him. We’re not having a social encounter, Dr. Davenport. You’re being interviewed as a possible suspect in a murder. When we do finally meet socially, this has to be forgotten, not toted like extra baggage.”

The cobalt eyes flew to his, astonished. Some internal struggle took place, then she sighed and nodded. “Yes, I see, Captain. I apologize. Yes, I am a member of the Board, purely because Desmond Skeps felt he needed Board representation from his legal department. And my dates with Gus Purvey aren’t regular. They’re limited to functions the Board considers obligatory. As for Mr. Kelly-I presume you’ve learned that he’s here to investigate espionage. However, that knowledge is surplus to your requirements, surely. You’re simply an insatiably curious man, Captain Delmonico, one of those irritating guys who can’t bear not knowing every prurient detail of everyone’s life.”

“What a great reading of my character! Insatiably curious! Right on target, Dr. Davenport. However, it’s my insatiable curiosity that’s responsible for my ability to get solutions.”

“You are, the Governor tells us, formidable.”

Carmine left the window with a resolution that, for the duration of this investigation, every blind in his house would be drawn. There were too many barbarians.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, ma’am.”

And off he went, leaving his quarry still standing in front of her desk, full lips thin.

The filing cabinet contained all of Cornucopia’s data pertaining to any item Desmond Skeps had reason to think had either definitely or possibly been passed to the Communists.

Delia, whose security clearances were quite as high as Carmine’s, had already waded into the document fray. When Carmine joined her it was four in the afternoon, and she had dealt with the two top drawers, the definite thefts.

“Jesus!” he exclaimed. “Has Uncle Sam got any secrets left?”

“Cheer up, Carmine, it’s not as bad as it looks,” she said. “What you see is the paperwork attached to eight items, from the rocket fuel governor to the gunsight. In addition there are two separate and distinct improvements to something called a ramjet, another rocket part, the blueprints of an experimental aviation cannon, a new atmospheric analyzer, and the formula for some sort of steel-this last, it seems, highly experimental. Bad enough, but at first I thought it was going to be far worse. Mr. Skeps stuffed everything in the drawers, including letters and memos. I think he intended to go through every sheet himself-or perhaps he even had, if his murder is related to the espionage.”

“Which it may or may not be. What’s in the bottom two drawers?” Carmine asked.

“Things that Mr. Skeps may have considered more terrifying than the confirmed thefts. They concern items that passed into production as long ago as a decade.”

Carmine whistled. “That is scary! If Skeps was right, it means Ulysses has been active inside Cornucopia for the last ten years.”

Delia sat down on a wheeled stool with a flop that sent it whizzing away until Carmine caught it, by which time they had both found a laugh, soon dead. “If the FBI doesn’t know, they will as soon as they open the bottom drawers. Every company engaged in defense work has lost something,” Delia said.

“The most maddening part is that I don’t need the extra work involved in looking for Cornucopia’s spy. I’m tempted to call Ulysses a red herring, except that he’s the size of a blue whale, and I don’t know enough to be certain that Skeps’s murder has nothing to do with Ulysses. I feel as if I’m stuck up to my chin in quicksand, Delia.”

“I believe that in films quicksand is actually just a bath of water with sawdust on top,” said Delia, who was an inveterate moviegoer. “Perhaps this is the same.”

“Then the bath’s too deep for my feet to reach the bottom.”

“Why do they need to? Tread water, Carmine, and spit out the sawdust.”

“How right you are! Kelly’s the espionage expert, not me. I’ll go after the murderer, and if he happens to be the spy, that’s gravy.” He grinned. “Or sawdust.”

When he let himself in his front door shortly after seven that evening, Carmine expected to hear the joyous sounds that always followed in the wake of Myron Mendel Mandelbaum. Instead, his ears found silence. When he walked into the little sitting room where they usually gathered before dinner, three of the five people he loved most in all the world were there, mute. Desdemona’s face was downcast, Sophia’s tear-stained, and Myron’s a mixture of frustration and anguish.

“Carmine, tell them I’m not deliberately hurting them!” Myron cried, jumping up.

“I would, if I knew what you were talking about.”

“Daddy, he’s leaving!” Sophia said, weeping afresh.

“Leaving?” Carmine asked, astonished. “You only just got here, Myron!”

“He’s not leaving Holloman,” Desdemona said, getting up to pour Carmine a drink. “He’s moving to the Cleveland Hotel.”

“You’re joking!”

“No, Carmine, I’m not joking. The thing is, I want to be free to see Erica, have her come and go as she pleases and as I please. I understand why you can’t have her as a guest in your house, I really do, but much as I love Sophia, she’s not the reason why I made this trip east. I came to be with Erica, who’s going through a rough time…” Myron faltered, ran down, and stood staring at Carmine helplessly, one man to another.