Colleen McCullough - Too Many Murders

Carmine didn’t like using a blackboard, but occasionally it became necessary to tabulate things, and then a board was handy.

“There are gentle deaths and agonizing deaths.” He drew a line up the center, forming two columns. “On the gentle side are Beatrice Egmont, Cathy Cartwright, and the three black victims. I call them gentle because none of them saw it coming and all of them died very quickly. Okay, five gentle.”

He entered the left-hand side of his board. “Agonizing has to include Dean Denbigh, but we exclude him here because he falls outside our scope. Which leaves us with five agonizing deaths: Peter Norton, Dee-Dee Hall, Bianca Tolano, Evan Pugh, and Desmond Skeps. However, I want to write them down in order of magnitude-easiest to worst. Who had the easiest death?”

“Peter Norton,” Corey said. Man, he was flying today!

“Why?”

“Because he probably lost consciousness the moment the convulsions began. I know we can’t say that for sure, but I’m betting Patrick would say generalized convulsions interrupt the brain’s conscious pathways.”

“I agree, Corey. So we write Peter Norton down as easiest. Who next in this grisly catalogue?”

“Dee-Dee Hall,” said Abe. “She didn’t fight. She just stood and exsanguinated. A slow bleed from both jugulars, but slow is relative-the blood would have poured out like any liquid under pressure from a pump, and the heart’s a perfect pump. Her suffering would have been as much mental as physical, except that she didn’t move a muscle to defend herself or run. That might suggest that Dee-Dee wasn’t sorry her life was ending.”

Carmine wrote her name on the blackboard. “So we equate her as more or less equal with Peter Norton.”

“Evan Pugh next,” said Abe.

“You really think so, Abe?”

“I do too,” Corey said. “He died of trauma to the spinal cord and internal organs. It was slow, but it was clean . The worst of it would have been inside his mind, and that we can’t speculate about. Everybody’s different.”

“Evan Pugh,” said Carmine, writing. “Next to last?”

“Desmond Skeps,” said Abe. “His death was diabolical, but most of the torture wasn’t half as bad-in my view, anyway-as what Bianca Tolano went through.”

“Abe’s right, Carmine,” said Corey firmly. “Skeps was a famous man, he knew he’d made a lot of enemies, and he must have known there was always a chance one of them would hate him enough to kill him. His torture was superficial, even the cut-off nipples. Whereas Bianca Tolano was an innocent who suffered the ultimate degradation. Skeps could only have equaled her if he’d been raped, and he wasn’t. His murderer-um-”

“Preserved his integrity as a man,” Carmine finished. “Yes, that’s important. None of the male victims was sexually tampered with, and only one female: Bianca Tolano.”

He wrote her name at the bottom of the right-hand column, and stared at the board. “We have to presume that the killer knew them all, so what was it about each one that decided their particular death?”

“Beatrice Egmont was a real nice old lady,” Abe said.

“Cathy Cartwright was a nice woman having a helluva bad time with her family and Jimmy,” Abe said.

“And the three black victims were so totally harmless,” Carmine said. “What about the agonizing ones?”

“The banker was a bully who sometimes abused his power,” Abe said. “And Dee-Dee was a hooker-a crime in itself to some people.”

“Evan Pugh was a blackmailer who picked the wrong victim,” Corey said, “and Skeps was probably responsible for the ruination of tens of thousands of lives in one way or another.”

“Yet the worst death of all was reserved for an innocent.” Carmine stood frowning heavily. “What about her made the killer white-hot hate her?” He looked at Corey from under his brows. “You did the preliminary work, Corey. Did anything ever surface that suggested Bianca wasn’t an innocent?”

“No, absolutely nothing,” Corey said steadily. “She’s exactly who she seems, I’d stake my life on it.” He went red. “I was on the ball, even if I was having a few personal problems.”

“I never doubted that you were.” Carmine sat down and waved a hand at chairs. “So here we have a killer of nine or ten people who is capable of pitying some of his intended victims, yet simultaneously capable of implacable hatred for some others. In one case only, the hatred went from ice-cold to white-hot-Bianca Tolano. A twenty-two-year-old economics graduate aiming for a Harvard MBA. Very pretty, a great figure, but on the shy side. Not man-hungry. At second autopsy Patsy decided she was probably a virgin.”

“She reminds me of Erica Davenport,” said Abe thoughtfully.

“What?”

“Well, she does!” Abe prepared to defend an untenable position. “I can see Dr. Davenport at that age, with her summa cum laude degree and the whole world in front of her. She’s an icicle now, but I bet she wasn’t back then. I bet she wasn’t man-hungry either. Too ambitious. Just like Bianca.”

“Now why didn’t I see that?” Carmine asked slowly. “I spent half of yesterday afternoon looking at Erica Davenport’s FBI file, and failed to see it. Bianca was a surrogate Erica.”

“Jesus, this case gets screwier by the minute!” Abe cried.

“Think about it!” Carmine said eagerly. “If Bianca is a surrogate Erica, it puts her murder in perspective. The random element is disappearing. They are all related somehow! We can rule out Erica Davenport. The biggest question I have about her now is whether Bianca’s murder removes her from danger.”

“There haven’t been any more murders,” Corey said.

“Where do we go from here?” Abe asked.

“You guys concentrate on Peter Norton,” Carmine said, tone brisk. “I’m finding it harder and harder to believe that window-of-opportunity garbage. What if Mrs. Norton had been meaning to kill her husband for some time, and was manipulated into doing the deed on April third? If she’s guilty, then she had to get the strychnine somewhere, and maybe that’s the connection to our mastermind. I want both of you lifting up the flagstones on Mrs. Norton’s buried past. A boyfriend? I doubt it, but it has to be excluded. Is she in debt? Jewels? Furs? Clothes? Gambling? Is she bored with her life as Mrs. Small City Banker? She’s plump, but not unattractive. Look behind every blade of grass, guys. I want to know where this murder belongs.”

Which left him time for lunch at Malvolio’s with Myron, who looked careworn.

“Is she leaning too hard?” Carmine asked, sliding into the booth, his smile disarming the question’s intrusive side.

“Not as much since I advised her to let S.S. Cornucopia sail under its own steam. I should have seen that for myself.”

“You’re the ham in the sandwich.” Carmine turned to the waitress. “I’ll have a lettuce, tomato, cucumber and celery salad with oil-and-vinegar dressing, Minnie, and crackers on the side.” He looked from Minnie to Myron suspiciously. “So what’s the big deal about that?”

Minnie melted away; Myron shrugged. “For you, Carmine, it’s horrific. What happened to the Thousand Island dressing? The hard rolls? The butter?”

“If you’d been eating dinner at my place, Myron, you’d know.” Carmine sipped black, sugarless coffee. “My wife has turned into one of the world’s great chefs, so either I eat rabbit food for lunch, or no lunch at all. Otherwise I’ll turn into the Goodyear blimp.”

“Holy Moses! What gives with the murders?”

“We’re making progress. How much has Erica told you about her childhood and young womanhood?”

“More than she told Desmond Skeps, I think. She conned all the