Colleen McCullough - Too Many Murders

It was a long call. Though he wept, Myron wasn’t wounded to the core.

“I guess I’ve been expecting something like this,” he said. “Maybe because I think she was expecting something like it. I can’t say her own death, but definitely something awful. She was so glad to see me go! Not like she was sick of the sight of me, more as if I was just another worry. The trouble was, I couldn’t get her to tell me what was making her afraid.”

Carmine let him wander on, hating to make his suffering worse, but he had to be told how she died in case some fool in the know let it slip. Fools like Phil Smith or Fred Collins, constantly met in New York boardrooms.

And finally, after all that, Carmine had to tell him about Desdemona and Julian.

“Carmine, you’ve got to get them away!” he cried, real terror in his voice. “Listen, I was planning to ask if I could have Sophia for a while-she can finish her school year in L.A., it won’t set her back-”

“You can have her, Myron,” Carmine said. “I’d rest easier if she weren’t here, I confess.”

“Okay, okay, great, that’s great, but that’s not what I was going to say!” Myron yelled so loudly that Carmine had to hold the receiver away from his ear. “I’m sending some money to Desdemona, and you’re going to take her and Julian to London. And shut up, Carmine! I won’t take no for an answer!”

“The answer has to be no, Myron. Number one, I’m a public servant and can’t take money from millionaires-nor can my wife, that’s implicit. Number two, I’m in the middle of a case I can’t leave,” Carmine said patiently, ignoring the squawks in his ear. “And why London, of all places?”

“Because Desdemona wanted to live there before she married you, and because it’s the other side of the Atlantic from this killer,” Myron said.

“I appreciate the gesture more than I can say, you old fart, but it’s impossible. Leave it there, please.”

But it was a long call. By the time Carmine hung up, he was tired. Arguments were at the top of his pet hate list, whereas to Myron they were the food and drink of existence.

Abe and Corey weren’t in their office. Carmine went to see Patrick, hankering for a friendly face.

“You’ve told Myron?”

“Yes. He took it well, all considered. The best part of it is that he’s taking Sophia for a while. She’ll be very happy to go, they’ll spoil each other rotten, and I won’t need to worry about her. I don’t think this motherfucking killer will bother hiring someone to murder her in L.A.”

“Me neither. And, if it’s any consolation, I don’t think he would have tried to kill Desdemona if she hadn’t caught him in the boat shed. A pity, though, that she’s not from Montana or New Mexico-it would be good to have a place to send her.”

“That’s what Myron says, except that his solution is for me to accept a large sum of money and take Desdemona and Julian to London for the duration.”

Patrick laughed, then turned to his autopsy table. It was draped with a sheet. When he removed it, Carmine was forced to look at Erica Davenport’s naked body, its arms and legs grossly swollen, misshapen and discolored, its face blue-black with tongue protruding, its trunk so unmarred and proper that it did not look as if it belonged to the extremities.

“Poor woman,” Carmine said.

“Poor indeed,” Patrick said, voice grim.

“What, Patsy?”

“At some time in her late teens or early twenties she was brutally raped, how many times I don’t know, but multiple. Anal as well as vaginal, devices as well as penises. The scar tissue would have prevented much cavorting in a bed-she must have been terrified that a lover would notice. Skeps must have, if his relationship with her was as long-term as Philomena Skeps says. I found out when I was washing her.”

Carmine leaned against the tiled wall. “That answers so much, Patsy.”

“I thought it would.”

“When’s the full autopsy?”

“I was going to do it now, but this discovery will make it a longer business, so first thing tomorrow morning.” Patrick’s vivid blue eyes had dimmed; he loathed posting rape victims. “Who will bury her, Carmine?”

“Myron. He wasn’t as surprised as he ought have been, because she gave him her will before he left. He’s appointed executor. Her estate-I have no idea what it’s worth-goes to Women Against Rape. I add that she fooled Myron, he didn’t know she was a rape victim herself. Something else I have to tell him! As to Cornucopia, her guardianship of Desmond Skeps the Third, she made no mention. She must have known that if anything were to happen to her, Philomena Skeps’s case for total custody of her son would be much stronger. The mastermind must have known that too, which suggests that, whatever he’s all about, it’s not control of Cornucopia. My, won’t the dogs be snarling there!”

“Go home, Carmine” was Patsy’s reply.

Carmine went home.

His house had emptied of the women, including his mother, but there were police patrolling the grounds and an air of urgency. News of what had happened had spread throughout East Holloman with even greater speed than usual. The Silberfeins, his closest neighbors, had risen to the emergency splendidly from the moment Sam Silberfein found Desdemona in their yard. Ordinarily he would have been at his dry cleaning business, but Sylvia hadn’t been well that morning, and he had stayed home. By the time Carmine arrived, an ambulance with a physician’s assistant on board had dealt with Julian, chilled to the bone but otherwise little the worse for wear. The problem had been Desdemona, who wouldn’t leave Julian even to get out of her wet clothes, and was blue with cold. It was Carmine who persuaded her to go home complete with Julian and the medic, Carmine who thanked the Silberfeins ardently, fervently, Carmine who peeled off Desdemona’s clothes and gave Julian a bottle of breast milk from his mother’s refrigerated reserves while she warmed up in a bath of tepid water.

When he came into the bedroom she was still sitting near the crib, which normally stood in the nursery next door. She had managed to get her feet under her and sat hunched over, eyes on the sleeping baby.

Carmine didn’t try to lure her away. He found another chair and put it down opposite hers, but not where it impeded her view of Julian. Her face was dry, though because of her huddled posture he couldn’t tell if she was shaking. Her expression was of flintlike hardness, but her eyes held absolute love.

“It’s time to give me some details,” he said, matter-of-fact.

“Ask away.”

“Can you describe the guy?”

“His size, yes. About average-not tall, not short. I think he was a fit man. His reflexes were quick. His pistol was an automatic, but I imagine a.22. There was no silencer, so a big round would have sounded loud. I certainly didn’t hear a shot, and I presume he shot that poor woman in the boat shed?”

“No, she was strangled,” Carmine said quietly. “The handgun must have been for emergencies. You were an emergency.”

“What I have to sort out in my mind, dear love, is my fear,” she said steadily. “I can do that better if I can see Julian. It wouldn’t be logical or sensible to skulk about for the next however-many years expecting something like that to happen again, but that’s what I want to do. Somehow I have to put today behind me, and Julian says I can do that. Look at him! He went for his first swim and his first underwater dive, he didn’t have a clue what was happening to him, but he had Mummy.”

“He’s also not old enough to remember,” his father said.

“We won’t know that until he sees the Harbor again, or perhaps is taken into a swimming pool, or has a paddle at Busquash Beach. If there are buried memories, they’ll surface.”