Colleen McCullough - Too Many Murders

“But if she did, why did Evan Pugh wait four months to act? I can see the logic of letting time go by,” Abe said, “but I can’t get my head around Evan Pugh’s four-month wait.”

On the far wall opposite Carmine’s desk hung Mickey McCosker’s only attempt at decoration: a cheap cardboard reproduction of a wilted arum lily in a vase. Suddenly it was too much to bear. Carmine got up, walked across, yanked at the picture, and pulled it down. He perched it on top of an empty wastebasket and brushed his hands together in satisfaction.

“I hate it,” he said to his stunned team. “Mickey said it reminded him of his wife on their wedding night, though he never said which one.”

He sat down again. “I believe the answer lies in Evan Pugh’s character,” he said. “Because it was sadistic, he got a kick out of the nasty vibes flying around after Erica arrived. But at the end of the evening he went back to Paracelsus and embarked on some other creepy mischief. He forgot about the events at table seventeen until he was reminded by one of those quirks of fate no one can predict. An issue of News magazine at the end of March featured a special article on the Communist leaders since the great purges of the late Thirties. It went on sale about March twenty-sixth, and Myron was carrying a copy when he came to Holloman to introduce us to his lady love, Erica Davenport. He was raving about the article, and begging me to read it. I didn’t have the time because we’d just had twelve murders.”

“My God!” Corey exclaimed. “Evan Pugh read it!”

“Yes, and whatever the journalist said about some of the Central Committee members tallied exactly with what Erica had said. After that, he must have remembered the things she hissed-a significant word from Bart Bartolomeo. Plenty of esses in her speech, I’m guessing. And think of our luck! We found Bart five months after the Maxwell banquet, and he’s the perfect witness! His profession disciplined him to notice things and remember them.”

“Erica told Skeps who Ulysses was,” Abe said. “Wow!”

“Yes, and Evan Pugh remembered.”

“Pugh recognized his name?” Corey asked.

“I doubt it,” Carmine said. “All he needed was the name. He was a pre-med who got straight As-he knew how to research. After News came out, he must have decided all his Christmases had come at once. A chance to tease and torment someone with far more to lose than mere money. He didn’t need money himself. That’s one of the strangest things about this case-no one needs the money.”

“He sent off his letter,” Abe said.

“And Ulysses was forced to kill everyone connected to table seventeen,” Corey added.

“Answer me this, Carmine,” Abe said, frowning. “Why didn’t Ulysses just hire an out-of-state gunman and mow each of them down? Why all the histrionics? Poison, injection, shootings, rape, knife, pillows. Is he laughing at us?”

“No, I think it was an attempt to make the killings seem unrelated,” Carmine said. “Yes, he’s got an ego the size of Tokyo, but it doesn’t rule him. This guy probably has colonel’s or even general’s rank within the KGB-he’s as cold as ice, he doesn’t posture like a politician. All he’s been trying to do since December third is patch up Erica Davenport’s mistakes. We have to assume that he’s never made a mistake himself, and it may be that Erica wasn’t his choice-more that she was the only sleeper Moscow had to front for Ulysses. Women have a weakness, guys. They fall in love differently from men, which makes them hard for men to control.”

“So Ulysses tried to vary his murders, hoping we’d be as confused as we were snowed under,” Abe said thoughtfully.

“Exactly.”

A pause ensued; Corey terminated it. “There’s another thing puzzles me, Carmine,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“Why wasn’t Bart murdered?”

Carmine looked uncertain. “The best I can come up with is that it’s possible Erica never even knew he was there. He was a silent man on the far side of a very fat guy, and he would have been invisible to her if she didn’t give the table her attention when she sat down. We know she didn’t, because she was drunk, and focused on Desmond Skeps. If she never realized Bart was there, Ulysses wouldn’t have been told. The other possibility is that she kind of noticed him, but he’s such an anonymous type that she forgot him a moment later. One thing I do know, guys-if Bart’s still alive, Ulysses either doesn’t know he exists, or he hasn’t been able to find out who he is.”

“We have to put a watch on Bart,” Corey said.

“And give his importance away? That’s why I had lunch with him openly, even walked him back to the Nutmeg Insurance building. We didn’t look like a detective and a witness, we looked like two old pals catching up. I used to live in the Nutmeg Insurance, and Ulysses will know that. So I must have friends there, right?”

“No watch,” said Corey, mentally deducting lieutenant’s points.

“What about Netty?” Abe asked hollowly.

They gazed at each other in dismay. Then Carmine shrugged.

“We’ll just have to hope that she heard something really tasty at Buffo’s wine cellar. There’s a good chance. It was a women’s lunch with plenty of libbers present. Pauline Denbigh on the menu?”

“One thing we never do,” said Corey. “Whoever sees Netty doesn’t so much as breathe Bart’s name.”

On the morrow Carmine, Danny Marciano and John Silvestri had to attend one of the Mayor’s “ceremonials,” as the Commissioner had named them. Ethan Winthrop was a true Connecticut Yankee by birth, but he owned the temperament of a P. T. Barnum. His much loved mayoralty was as stuffed with pomp and circumstance as he could persuade his councilors to condone, which meant there was plenty; his councilors were thoroughly cowed and didn’t honestly care, so long as they could enjoy councilors’ perks. Thus Taft and Travis High Schools received fat subsidies for their bands, a benefit all around: Taft or Travis marched off with all the band trophies far and wide, while the Mayor could fill Holloman’s air with the sounds of brilliant brass during his ceremonials.

Having to attend these events irked the police chiefs, and was one of the few disadvantages Carmine suffered after his promotion to captain-lieutenants didn’t need to go, captains did. Worse than that, it meant digging out his uniform. Under normal circumstances only Danny Marciano was in uniform, as he headed the uniformed cops. Silvestri, a law unto himself, was prone to wear a black suit and a black polo-necked sweater. Carmine stuck to chinos, shirts without a tie, a tweed jacket with a Chubb tie in one pocket, and loafers. Neat and comfortable.

Since the police dress uniform for such senior cops was encrusted with silver braid and detail, it was navy blue rather than black, to avoid any Gestapo connotations. Women like Delia Carstairs, Desdemona Delmonico and Simonetta Marciano privately thought that the three senior officers looked terrific in dress uniform; all were trim-waisted, broad-shouldered and handsome. Netty had a full wall of photographs of her Danny in full dress uniform, with a few of Silvestri and Carmine to round them off. This view was not shared by the martyrs encased in the uniforms, which had high Chinesestyle collars that Carmine, for one, swore had been sharpened on a wheel.

However, needs must. Carmine, Danny and Silvestri attended on the Green while both high school bands played and marched, and the Mayor did his thing alongside M.M. of Chubb in all the glory of his President’s gown and cap. It was Town’s tribute to Gown as the academic year drew to a close. Luckily the day was fine and calm; the Green was in bloom, the grass springy and still lush. Best of all were the copper beeches, back in leaf and towering over Mayor Winthrop’s celebration of an amity that sometimes had its fragile side.