Colleen McCullough - Too Many Murders

“Hobbies that don’t fit,” Carmine said instantly. “Most important, home darkrooms capable of color film development, enlarging, diminishing. A peculiar taste in books, such as Nazi Germany, Communism, Russia in all ideological guises, Mainland China. Also sciences at a higher level than we might expect. Abe, you get Lancelot Sterling because you have a knack for finding secret doors and compartments. I’m putting Larry Pisano on Gus Purvey. And you, Corey, get Fred Collins.”

“Which leaves you with Phil Smith,” Abe said thoughtfully. “Any reason for that, Carmine?”

“No, not really. Fred Collins smells the skunkiest, but I don’t want him spooked by getting our biggest cannon. As chief executive, Phil Smith will expect to get me.”

“His wife is a seed,” Delia said, wrinkling her nose.

“How do you mean, Delia?”

“She says she’s a Sami Lapp, but I doubt it. Too much Tartar in her features. Her accent’s unusually thick for someone who’s spent most of her life in an English-speaking country. More the way a Chinese speaks English, if you know what I mean-the syntax and sounds of her native tongue are just too far from those of any Indo-Aryan language,” said Delia.

“That’s right, you talked to her at Myron’s party,” Carmine said. “What did you think of her as a person?”

“Oh, I liked her. I told you, she’s a seed.”

Judge Thwaites having been very willing to issue warrants, Carmine began his searches at two in the afternoon. It was a coordinated operation, each team in place before all the homes were invaded simultaneously. Opposition was principally on account of each family’s ejection from their premises while the search went on, with the single exception of the head of the household. All the men were at home thanks to the sniper, who had frightened every woman in Holloman and its surrounds.

Phil Smith lived quite a long way out, on a beautiful property nestled in the flank of North Rock where the basaltic outcrop had flung out a small canyon whose walls, decreasing in height, enclosed a large, classically Georgian house built of limestone. It stood in quite English gardens, replete with beds of flowers in full bloom and having a planned, Inigo Jones look to them from the placement of trees and bushes to fountains and statues. There was even a folly, Carmine discovered, a round, open temple of Ionic columns that held a table and chairs. It overlooked a small artificial lake on which white swans cruised gracefully and weeping willows fringed the far bank. No surprise then to see peacocks wandering, tails folded, to pick amid the grass for grubs and worms.

Philip Smith was not amused, but, after perusing the warrant thoroughly, he asked his wife to wait in the folly while he escorted Carmine and his cops on their search. The servants-all Puerto Ricans, Carmine noted, who seemed inured to Smith’s arrogant treatment-were banished to their cars.

Smith was clad in camelhair trousers, a fawn silk shirt and a fawn cashmere sweater: what the lord of the manor wears when he is at home, Carmine thought. His superbly barbered iron grey hair was swept back from his face without a parting, and his freshly shaven cheeks smelled faintly of some expensive cologne.

“This is an unpardonable imposition,” he said, following Carmine into the house.

“Under ordinary circumstances I’d agree with you, Mr. Smith, but after what happened on the Green this morning, I’m afraid the gloves are off,” Carmine said, gazing around a foyer that rose three storeys and was capped by a stained glass ceiling of blues, greens and whites-no red spectrum colors to conflict with the sky. The floor was filled travertine, the walls pale beige, and the art stunning. Whoever had done the decorating had not attempted to impart a baronial look-no suits of armor or crossed pikes. The staircase flared to the second floor, and repeated the pattern up to the third. A balustrade ran around the second and third floors where they abutted the soaring foyer. The Smiths’ taste in art was eclectic: old, Impressionist, modern, ultramodern, photography of a high order.

“Okay, here we go,” he said to Smith. “Every painting has to come down, sir. Its back has to be inspected as well as the wall behind it. My men know to be careful, but do you want to stay and supervise, or would you prefer to go on with me?”

“I’ll go on with you, Captain,” Smith said, lips thin.

Carmine paid due attention to the various living rooms, but if Smith were Ulysses, he’d not use them for nefarious purposes apart from concealing something behind a painting. Each of them would have to be examined.

The library was a room to strike envy into the heart of any reader, though Carmine decided that its owner was not a scholar by inclination. Many of the volumes were there for gilt-edged, leather-bound show: beautiful Victorian editions of sermons, outmoded scientific theories, classical literature from Greece and Rome. The shelves bearing colorful dust jackets of novels and nonfiction works were those Smith frequented. Innocuous stuff, from Zane Grey to movie star biographies. The safe, he soon discovered, was behind a section of assorted editions of the Britannica ; the beaded walnut trim had worn where Smith’s hand triggered the lever.

“Open it, Mr. Smith,” Carmine said.

Smith obeyed, smiling sourly; he wasn’t worried.

It held $10,000 in cash, some securities and shares, and three locks of flaxen hair, two tied with blue ribbon, one pink.

“My children’s hair,” Smith said. “Have you done that?”

“No,” Carmine said. “Why keep them in here?”

“In case of burglary or simple vandalism. The art doesn’t really matter, but my children do.”

“They’re all away, aren’t they?”

“Yes. I miss them, but one cannot impede the progress of one’s children for the sake of having them nearby,” Smith said a little sadly.

“Whereabouts are they?”

“Anna is in Africa-Peace Corps. Her mother worries about her constantly. She’s already infected with malaria.”

“Yeah, it’s a slapdash program,” Carmine said. “They never really prepare these kids for what’s in store. And the boys?”

“Peter is in Iran-he’s a petroleum geologist. Stephen is a marine biologist attached to Woods Hole. At present he’s somewhere in the Red Sea.”

The safe closed, they moved on. The bedrooms underwent scrutiny-Smith and his wife still slept together-and they moved to the top floor.

“Mostly junk,” Smith said, “but Natalie likes everything kept tidy, so it’s not difficult to search.” He was relaxed and more affable than at the beginning of his home’s inspection; it was hard to sustain outrage when its object was so patently indifferent to it.

“You have no live-in servants?” Carmine asked.

“No. We like our privacy as much as the next one.”

“What’s this?” Carmine asked, looking at a tightly sealed door. He pushed it, but it refused to open.

“My darkroom,” Smith said curtly, and produced a key.

“You mean yours is the eye behind all those great photographs in the family room and the television den?”

“Yes. Also the little movie theater upon occasion. Natalie calls me Cecil B. de Smith.”

Carmine chuckled dutifully and entered the best-equipped darkroom he had ever seen. There was nothing it didn’t have, and everything was automated. Even Myron didn’t have facilities like these-though why should he, owning a studio? Philip Smith could take a set of blueprints all the way down to a microdot if he felt so inclined. But was he so inclined? There was one way to find out.

“Given the nature of this case, Mr. Smith, I’m afraid I’m going to have to impound the contents of your darkroom,” he said without apology. “That includes all your film, developed and undeveloped, these books on photography, your photographic paper and cameras. It will all be returned to you later.”