Colleen McCullough - Too Many Murders

“Missing Myron?” he asked.

“Very much,” she answered. “But I’m sure you’re not here to pay condolences, Captain. What do you want?”

“All eleven of the people whose murders I am investigating were closely attached to the table sponsored by the Fourth National Bank at a function held more than four months ago,” he said, watching her so intently that he hated needing to blink. “December third of last year, a Saturday night. It was a banquet held by the Maxwell Foundation.”

“Yes, I remember it,” she said, composed now. “I went with Gus Purvey and we sat at Phil Smith’s table.”

“Do you know where Desmond Skeps sat?”

Her smooth brow creased, her lids fell. “He was in an odd mood, I remember that. Not that it was unexpected. I had been informed that my amorous services were no longer wanted. His table was at the other end of the hall, and the people at it were unknown to me.”

“Yet you visited the table.” Say yes, Erica, say yes!

“Yes, as a matter of fact I did.” She grimaced. “It was unpleasant, but I should have known it would be.”

“How, unpleasant?”

“Des was drunk.”

“Yet according to your own statement, Mr. Skeps had limited himself to one drink a day for many years. At the time you gave that statement, you didn’t mention his lapse from grace at the Maxwell banquet.”

“It only happened the once, Captain.”

“Why?”

“Why the lapse from grace, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“I have no idea, but if you think it was because he had done with me, you’re mistaken, Captain. There was no love lost between us.” She thought a moment, then said, “Nor liking.”

“What about the woman with him at the table?”

She looked genuinely puzzled. “What woman? He was alone.”

“A woman who stood six feet tall, and would have seemed tall even seated. To your eyes, very common. Some black blood, handsome face, bottle-blonde hair, a lot of makeup, busty. I think she probably wore a tight satin dress in a bright color-emerald green or shocking pink. Not scarlet. There may have been a white mink stole, the real thing.”

Her face had cleared. “Oh! She was at the table, but she was sitting between an attractive young woman and an old lady with white hair who had trouble breathing. She didn’t pay Des any attention, and he ignored her. Well, he was too drunk to see across the table-sloppy drunk. I couldn’t understand a word he said, so I didn’t stay long.”

“If you sat next to Desmond Skeps, was there anyone on his other side?”

“Yes, a very fat man who overflowed his chair.”

“And beyond him?”

“I couldn’t see. The fat man blocked my view.”

“Who sat next to you besides Skeps?”

“A rather repulsive young man who tried to put his hand on my leg. The women were all bunched together, and I didn’t blame them. Even Dean Denbigh was unpleasant.”

Carmine kept at her for some time, but learned nothing new. When he left, it was with a sense of failure.

Before the elevator arrived, he was joined by the male secretary, Richard Oakes, in the company of a man at least ten years his senior. When they all got in and wanted the first floor, Oakes shivered and drew as far away from Carmine as he could.

“Who’s your companion, Mr. Oakes?” Carmine asked.

When Oakes proved too petrified to reply, the stranger did. “I’m not Mr. Oakes’s companion,” he said, sticking his jaw out. “I’m Lancelot Sterling of Accounting.”

“Oh, the lovely boss! A tormentor as well as a gossip.”

“Excuse me?”

“Forget it,” Carmine said, and rode down the rest of the way in silence. Sterling gave him several nasty glances, but the look on Richard Oakes’s face said aggression would be a mistake. No one at Cornucopia had talked, least of all Special Agent Ted Kelly, but somehow the story of the fisticuffs outside Malvolio’s had reached the executive floors. No doubt Accounting would be next, if Oakes’s expression was anything to go by.

On the first floor Oakes and Sterling, heads together, went to wait for an elevator down to the parking levels. Carmine walked outside to his Fairlane, which no traffic cop would have dreamed of ticketing.

Several days passed, during which Carmine, Abe, Corey and Delia strove to find a table hopper who had visited table 17.

Coming up with nothing, Carmine went back to Silvestri.

“I need one of your television news bulletins,” he said to the Commissioner. “Something to the effect that anyone who had contact with Mr. Desmond Skeps at the Maxwell Foundation banquet four months ago should come forward, as vital information might be forthcoming.”

“Thank God it hasn’t leaked that everyone sitting there is dead. Don’t worry, Carmine, I’ll make it sound routine as well as vital,” Silvestri promised.

He was as good as his word, but no one emerged from the woodwork, as he put it himself.

“Thwarted,” said Delia.

“Stymied,” said Abe.

“Fucked,” said Corey.

None of which made Carmine any easier to live with, Desdemona reflected as the fourth week of investigations wore on. So she tried to cheer him with tasty meals and as much exposure to Julian as possible. This latter was helped by the case’s inertia, as a thwarted, stymied, fucked Carmine was home much earlier than a busy, productive one.

Though Julian was not yet six months old, she wanted another baby as soon as possible, believing that siblings closest in age stood a better chance of getting on together. It was a fallacy, her mother-in-law kept telling her, but Desdemona could be very stubborn, and in this case, she was. So the arrival of her period cast her into a bleak mood that exasperated Emilia Delmonico into a rare burst of temper.

“Stop feeling sorry for yourself!” Emilia snapped. “Take the baby for a walk and soak up some sun. He’s a Thanksgiving Day baby, he’s never felt a warm sun. Now it’s high spring, and a beautiful day outside. Enjoy it!”

“But I want to make a bearnaise sauce,” Desdemona objected.

“Carmine would eat steak with no sauce at all. Now go!”

“I feel like an afternoon in my kitchen.”

“You need to get out of your kitchen more often! What do you want, a fat Carmine with heart disease?”

“No, of course not, but-”

“But me no buts! Put Julian in the stroller and go for a walk, Desdemona.”

“He’s too young for the stroller.”

“Hogwash! He sits up straight and holds his head up fine. It’s good exercise for both of you. Now go! Go!”

Since Carmine had fitted the stroller with straps, Desdemona ran out of arguments. Taking care that Julian was able to lie back if he felt sleepy, his mother set off. Truth to tell, she admitted, their land was too steep for the buggy, and Julian in the stroller sat up looking around, alert and interested.

After a tour of East Circle her despondency began to lift; she even felt kindly toward her know-it-all mother-in-law. It was indeed a beautiful day of cloudless sky and zephyr breeze; May would come in perfect. At the top of the long, snaky path that led from the street down to the house, Desdemona decided that today Julian should have his first cognizant sight of an expanse of blue water: the harbor, never busy enough to be foul with detritus.

Feeling her lungs open up, she pushed the stroller down past the house in the direction of their jetty and boat shed, rejoicing in the lush greenery all around her. The forsythia had done with blooming and now formed dense hedges, replaced along the water’s edge by salt-loving bushes. The property sat in a lee, and Connecticut was not usually hurricane country.

Where the wife of the previous owner had put a park bench, the view from the path to the water had been cleared. Desdemona sat and gazed down at her baby to see how he was faring. He was drinking it all in, eyes wide between their lush lashes, silent witness to Emilia’s wisdom. Yes, less time in the kitchen, more walking with Julian. She undid his straps and lifted him out to sit on her lap, her cheek against his curls, inhaling his sweet clean smell. My baby, my Julian!