Colleen McCullough - Too Many Murders

“No need. I’ll pick them up on my way through.”

The public library had its own premises farther down Cedar

Street, but the newspaper morgue was inside County Services, where it was handier for everyone from the police to the fire departments. The public used it too, and there were several habitual browsers in residence, dreamily turning the vast broadsheet pages of ancient copies of the Holloman Post , always full of interesting local news. It was slowly being converted to microfiche, and Carmine wondered how the browsers would like peering at a screen, white on black. They’ll hate it, he concluded, wiggling his brows at Abe and Corey.

“Progress,” he said apropos of nothing to his bewildered henchmen as they left, “can kill a lot of the fun.” Then, as they left the building, “Find anything?”

“A fair amount on the Denbighs, who are into good causes. Mrs. Dr. Denbigh is a literacy nut. The Dean was into anything about the Renaissance. They both supported children’s disease charities. Mrs. Dr. Denbigh is also a women’s libber, big time. Desmond Skeps got a lot of press, we expected that. We noted articles that mentioned him and photocopied the ones that featured him. There wasn’t a lot about the divorce, a bit strange.”

“Well, it was out of state, and Cornucopia would have tried to play it down.” Carmine smiled at Corey, who had given the report, but made sure to include Abe-that lieutenancy was a pain, and when he’d tried to get off the panel, Silvestri said he stayed on it.

“Where are we going?” Abe asked as they headed up South Green Street toward Maple.

“The Cleveland Hotel, where we have to meet the Pughs. They’re here to identify the body, but they don’t intend to go home until they can take the body home too. Their lawyer is with them.”

“Trouble, Carmine?”

“I don’t think so. Danny Marciano took the call, and he says they sounded like decent people.”

The Pughs had been placed in a suite on the floor below the top, overlooking the red stone outcrop of North Rock. With the trees just coming into leaf, the forest that spread around Holloman looked as if a wispy, translucent chartreuse veil had been thrown over it, but Carmine knew that David and Enid Pugh would not notice.

They were in their mid-forties, tanned and fit, dressed in the bright colors that betrayed the climate they lived in, and they were far handsomer than their son. If ever there was evidence for a changeling, it was in the form of Evan Pugh, so conceited, self-absorbed and amoral. The Pugh parents were none of those things, five minutes in their company showed that, and the lawyer was there only to help them with any legal formalities they might encounter. Their grief was private, enclosed, yet unmistakable. How had they produced Evan? They insisted upon being told the entire story of his murder, a painful business for Carmine, who hated to shatter their illusions.

But, “Yes, he would do that,” said Mrs. Pugh sadly. “Evan liked to pull the wings off butterflies. We tried every remedy known to man, Captain Delmonico, but none of us could do a thing to humanize him. The psychiatrists called him a psychopath and said there was no treatment. Davy and I just hoped and prayed that when he became a grown man, he would humanize himself. He was so brilliant! A perfect SAT score… When he chose Chubb, we had to let him go-we wanted him somewhere closer, but he was set on Chubb. The best pre-med and medical school. Medicine was the only choice as far as he was concerned.” She sighed. “Davy and I have been waiting for something like this to happen for a long time.”

“I am so very sorry, Mrs. Pugh, Mr. Pugh,” Carmine said.

He didn’t speak again until he and his sergeants were safely in the elevator. “I suppose some of them have to have model parents.”

“The Pughs are my first,” said Corey.

“And mine,” said Abe.

So when they encountered Myron escorting Erica Davenport through the Cleveland’s foyer, Carmine felt caught. Dr. Davenport was wearing a purple suit today that turned her eyes violet and, he was amused to note, shoes with lower heels; Myron wasn’t tall. Wait until she meets Desdemona! he thought, nodding to his team to go ahead.

“How is Sophia?” was the first thing Myron said.

“Desdemona seems to think that if you take her to lunch-solo-and buy her the peridots she’s been hankering for, you stand a chance of getting back in her good books,” said Carmine.

“It will be done tomorrow, since school’s out.”

“That’s another thing, Myron. In spite of what you said to her about Erica, Sophia got it into her head that you were really coming to entertain her while I worked a heavy case. She adores her baby brother, but he takes up most of Desdemona’s time.”

Myron groaned. “Oh, Carmine, I’m really, really sorry!”

“Tell her, not me.”

“I’ll buy her diamonds!”

“You will not! Desdemona says the peridots are suitable for a sixteen-year-old, and I trust her judgment a hundred percent.”

He nodded again to Erica Davenport, who hadn’t said a word, then followed Abe and Corey out.

“Who is Desdemona?” came her light, crisp voice.

Whatever Myron answered was lost, but Carmine had a fair idea that he would laugh, look mysterious, and tell her to wait and see.

“They’re all talking about her and Myron,” said Abe.

“No wonder she’s wearing diamonds,” said Corey.

Yes, no wonder, thought Carmine. How long has Myron known her, and how can we continue to be friends when I detest the woman? She’s a harpy, feasting on living men.

The rest of the day passed fruitlessly, so when Friday dawned bright and clear, Carmine breathed a sigh of relief. He needed a break from routine. Driving himself, he headed out on I-95 for Cape Cod, a difficult destination because of the huge bites some geophysical monster had taken out of the coastline, Buzzard’s Bay being the biggest. Whichever way he went, it was a long way, so while he was in Connecticut he put his light on the Fairlane’s roof and used his siren to barrel along at well over the speed limit of 70 mph.

Orleans occupied the first part of the Cape’s forearm after Chatham’s elbow, and was commonly held to be the prettiest of many very pretty villages, though at this time of year most of the compounds and cottages would be untenanted. The Cape was a summer resort. Its houses were usually made of cedar boards and shingles left unpainted for the sea to weather them silver, and in July were festooned in pink or white rambling roses. The arm-shaped peninsula, bent like a man displaying his biceps, hugged the placid waters of Cape Cod Bay, glassy smooth in summer, while its outer edge saw the full force of the Atlantic, on the forearm a spume-soaked mass of wave-pounded sand dunes.

Carmine loved the Cape, and if he had an unfulfilled wish, it was to own a summer cottage anywhere on Cape Cod between Hyannis and Provincetown, the first place the Pilgrims made landfall.

Philomena Skeps’s residence was at the end of a lane whose post-and-rail fences would be smothered in rambling roses by July. It was a traditional Cape Cod colonial in silvered cedar, with its share of rose trellises and enough land to say that the property was extremely valuable. It went down to the placid water of the sheltered side and had its own jetty and boathouse; someone liked messing around in boats. On the side wall of the house toward the front was a fuel oil outlet that said the tenant lived here all year round. Gazing about in delight, Carmine trod up the crunchy pebbled path to the front door.

Mrs. Skeps answered it herself. Hers was a dusky beauty, of thick black hair that curled, dark skin, black brows and lashes, dark green eyes.