Colleen McCullough - Too Many Murders

Between his first visit and this one, the Cape Cod villages had greened up and produced some May flowers; the day was fine and the sky blue, the Atlantic placidly calm. I still want a summer cottage here, Carmine said to himself. It would be so great to take my children paddling, teach them to swim, help them build sand castles, have peanut butter and jelly picnics. My son’s experience in Holloman Harbor won’t turn him off. Julian is not timid or shy; he’s too like his mother.

He thought about them as he drove the short distance to the Skeps house. People like Corey’s wife deemed their overt happiness a front, but then, that was Maureen; she could never believe that other women weren’t filled with her own discontent. And of course what almost everyone-even Patrick-failed to take into account was the age factor. Most people had been married at least ten years by the time he and Desdemona tied their knot, and the events that had drawn them together were as perilous as exhausting. Desdemona had never been married, and his own first marriage had been a brief thing of lust rather than love. Age, he reflected, brought wisdom, but it also brought a genuine gratitude for the happiness of sharing life with someone as much liked as loved.

Philomena Skeps was in her front garden watching for him, clad in cutoff jeans, sneakers and a plain white T-shirt. The flesh of her smooth brown legs was firm, and it was evident that her breasts did not need a bra to enhance them; her mop of black hair was carelessly bunched on top of her head. If she was aiming for a gamine look, however, she missed the mark; her beauty belonged in a French salon, not a street market.

“Captain,” she said, shaking his hand firmly. “If we sit behind the house, we can enjoy the fresh air without getting cold. I do so much love fresh air.”

“Where’s Mr. Bera?” he asked, following her down the far side of the house and around the back to a flagged patio.

“He’ll be here when he makes it,” she said, indicating a white, woven cane chair. “Lemonade?”

“Thanks.”

He let her settle, let her chat about the joys of spring and fresh air, watching her as he sipped an excellent proprietary concoction. Her eyes in the sunlight were the same green as water full of ribboned weed, dense and changeful.

“You weren’t tempted to go to L.A. for Erica’s funeral?” he asked, holding out his glass for more S.S. Pierce lemonade.

“No, I wasn’t.” The eyes filled with tears, blinked away. “No one would tell me how she died, Captain, beyond saying she was murdered.” Now the eyes were direct, resolute. “However, I take you for a kind but hard man, and ask you. How did she die? Was it very bad?”

“Yes, it was very bad. She was tortured first. Every long bone in her arms and legs was broken. Then she was strangled with a rope noose.”

“A hanging?”

“No. Simple strangulation, if I may be excused for saying that. It probably came as a relief.”

No tears now, but the creature behind the eyes had retreated to some place he couldn’t reach. “I see,” she said. “That is an odd kind of torture, surely? There was no sexual element.”

“From my experience, it was not a sexual murder. She was tortured to obtain information, I think. Certainly the textbooks would argue no sex was involved, though sometimes I wonder how much-or how little-we know about sexual murder. Did it ever occur to you that she might be in danger?”

“Not of murder. Rape I could understand, because she invited it-so cold, so sexually uninterested. There is a kind of man who regards women like Erica as needing to be brought down a peg or two, and what more effective way than rape?”

God, this is an intelligent woman! he thought. “Did you know that she had been gang-raped as a young woman?”

“No, but it makes perfect sense.”

“She didn’t confide in you?”

“I told you, Captain. We were not on good terms.”

“Recently, yes, but at one time you were. There’s no point in denying it, Mrs. Skeps.”

“Yes, at one time we were great friends. It’s because of me that she became Desmond’s mistress-I begged her. Of course that altered our friendship, though we remained close for a long time after. Had I known of the rape, I would never have asked. I was very selfish, Captain. While Erica kept him sexually sated, Desmond left me alone. It surprised me when she said that they engaged in nothing but fellatio, but of course men love it.”

“Why did it surprise you?” Carmine asked.

“Because she was so uninterested in sex. Not disinterested, uninterested.” Philomena Skeps struck her hands together. “Oh, please! Let’s leave this sordid subject!”

“Why were you such great friends?”

“A marriage of minds. Our intellects meshed perfectly. We loved to read, we liked to discuss what we’d read-all the myriad activities, phenomena and creatures of the world fascinated us. We loved beauty in all its guises-a moth’s antennae, the iridescence of a beetle’s carapace, fish-you name it, we loved it. Neither of us had ever known such a wonderful friendship. So when it ended, I was devastated.”

“Why did it end? How did it end?”

“I still don’t know. Erica ended it out of the blue. In November of 1964, Thanksgiving Day. She was coming here to dinner with me, Tony, young Desmond. But she arrived far too early. I was in the kitchen,” Philomena Skeps said in a desolate voice, “at the counter, making the turkey stuffing. Erica came in, stood about six feet from me, and said our friendship was over. She disliked me, she said, and was sick of pretending otherwise. Desmond was making it hard for her, she said. Young Desmond detested her, and she was sick of that too. There were a dozen more reasons, all much the same as those. I was too astounded to argue, I just stood with my hands full of bread and listened. Then she turned on her heel and left. Just like that! I never really saw her again, except at functions and meetings we couldn’t avoid.”

“It must have been a sorrow for you, Mrs. Skeps.”

“No, a tragedy! Life has never been the same since.”

“How did you cope with the fact that your ex-husband gave Erica control over your son’s inheritance?”

“I was crushed, but I wasn’t surprised. Desmond would have done anything to make life difficult for me. It affected Tony worse. He couldn’t find anything in the will that would enable him to challenge it legally. Of course now that Erica is dead, things will be different.” She couldn’t keep the satisfaction out of her voice.

“Why did your son detest Erica?” Carmine asked.

Her smile was twisted. “Jealousy, of course! He felt that Erica was more important to me than he was, and in one way he was right. An intellect craves equal company, and no matter how great the love, children can never compete on an intellectual level. It is a wise child who understands that. Young Desmond isn’t wise. So he loathed Erica, who stole me from him. When the friendship ended, my son rejoiced. Which reminds me, I must stop calling him ‘young’ Desmond. He’s simply Desmond now.”

How he managed to keep his face expressionless, Carmine never after understood, only that somehow he had, while this very strange woman produced a mixture of Oedipus, Clytemnestra, Medea and about a dozen other Greeks who’d wormed their way into the psychology textbooks. I fervently hope, he thought, that by the time this terrifying amalgam explodes, I’ll be safely retired. Jesus, what a mess!

“Mother?” came a voice.

Speak of the devil!

With two dark parents he couldn’t help but be dark, though face and body were more Philomena than his father. Having come into puberty, he had embarked upon his first growth spurt, and was taller now than his mother. He wore nothing save a pair of cutoff jeans, revealing a wide-shouldered, narrow-hipped physique that ended in beautiful hands and feet. When he moved the hands, they were graceful. His face was as much feminine as masculine, of that kind called epicene, and Carmine doubted that the double-sexed look would vanish as he grew older. Chiseled features in a northern European mold, and large, bright green eyes smudged with thick black lashes. Nor would he develop acne; his brown skin was flawless, innocent of pustules.