Colleen McCullough - Too Many Murders

“The thoracic and abdominal cavities have been stuffed with a plastic mattress foam,” Patrick said, “as well as sticks of incense and spices. This is a serious attempt at mummification without the natron Herodotus describes. Sterling’s brought the Egyptians up to date-better tools, better techniques. As you can see, Mark is very good-looking, with a head of hair like M.M.’s, kind of apricotbcolored. That may be why Sterling made no attempt to remove the brain-didn’t want to risk ruining it. The kid was in the pink of health when he was asphyxiated, probably with a plastic bag during a drug-induced sleep. Strangulation would have marred him. I can’t establish a time frame for the anal sex, so I can’t tell you whether he was by inclination homosexual. There’s been a lot of anal insult over the past year, certainly. The ligature tying off the rectum-the one that severed the colon-is a good ten inches in from the anus, which suggests that Sterling has been engaging in necrophilia.”

All Abe’s pleasure fled in an instant; he stared at Patsy in horror. “No!” he whispered.

“Definitely yes, Abe,” Patsy said gently.

“Any idea when he died?” Abe asked, valiantly recovering.

“I think that receipt tells you more than autopsy can. Put down seven months ago, Abe.” Patrick looked at Carmine. “Where is Mr. Lancelot Sterling?”

“Downstairs in a holding cell.”

From which he was brought to an interrogation room. Abe did the questioning, while Carmine watched on the far side of the one-way window.

He appears so inoffensive, Carmine thought. Just one of literally millions of men who spend their working hours pushing paper in offices, have never done any other kind of job, and never will. Living unexciting lives, looking forward to putting their feet up with a few cans of beer to watch football.

Sterling was on the tall side of average, had a good head of nut-brown hair, and regular features that should have made him handsome, yet didn’t. A part of that was his expression-haughty, conceited, humorless. The other contributing factor was his eyes, which lacked all animation. He would never pull the wings off butterflies, Carmine thought, because he wouldn’t even notice their existence. Whatever world he lives in has no color, no vitality, no joy, no sorrow. All it consists of is a single appalling drive. In all truth he is a monster. Being caught hardly impinges on him; all that matters is that he’s lost Mark Schmidt and his little change purse.

“Do you think he’s killed others?” Abe asked later, seeking the respected opinion he’d leaned on for years.

“You know more about this case than I do, Abe. What do you think?” Carmine countered.

“Then, no,” Abe said. “He’s paid to flog youths, but Mark Schmidt is his first murder. It’s taken him years to assemble his tools and things like seventy pounds of hygroscopic crystals.”

“Do you think he’d kill again?”

Abe thought for a while, then shook his head. “Probably not, at least while Mark Schmidt fascinated him. If the attraction faded or the body decomposed too much, he’d wait until he found the right person, even if it took a long time. He made no secret of the fact that they lived together for six months. Well, he made no secret of any of it. He maintains that Mark died from natural causes and he couldn’t bear to part with him.” Abe flailed his hands around, frustrated. “It’s a good thing he’s mad-really, really mad. No one will want to try him, too much publicity.”

“And there you have it, Abe. If it’s any consolation, you worked the case exactly as it needed to be worked.” Carmine looked into his eyes. “Will you sleep tonight?”

“Most likely not, but all things fade. I’d rather lose my sleep than my humanity.”

And home to an empty house. Carmine went up to his bedroom and stood staring at the big bed, properly made because he was a tidy man who disliked all kinds of disorder. Born and raised a Catholic, he had long left organized religion in the past; his job and his intellect rebelled against the astronomical conundrums lumped together under the single word “faith,” something he couldn’t see or feel. Of course Julian would go to St. Bernard’s Boys together with however many male siblings he might end up owning, but that had a certain logic.

Kids needed ethics, principles and morals instilled in them at school as well as at home. As to what Julian and his potential brothers made of “faith” once they were grown, that was their business.

Even so, gazing at the bed, Carmine was conscious that his house was filled with presences, the intangible spiritual relics of his wife, his son, all the others who had lived here. It made his loneliness worse, not better. Oh, the time and thought he’d put into this room, once he was entrusted with the decorating! A very plain room, Desdemona had said, but sumptuous in color; she had been awestruck at his instinct for color. He’d had an antique Chinese three-leafed screen in storage, trimmed in black and silver brocade, painted in black upon a white background, of rounded mountains poking their heads through mist, wind-warped conifers, a small pagoda up a tortuous flight of a thousand steps. He’d hung it above the bed, and done the room in lavender blue and peach so that neither sex triumphed. Desdemona loved the room and when heavy with Julian had embarked upon embroidering a bedspread in black and white, an echo of the screen. His birth had interrupted it, and it lay inside a cedar chest awaiting, she joked, her next pregnancy. If they had enough children, one day it would be finished. In the meantime, the spread was lavender blue with a little peach detail.

Missing her unbearably, he turned away and went down to the kitchen, where his aunt had left a clam sauce for pasta. His mother was still too busy blaming herself for Desdemona’s peril to bother about cooking, but his sisters, aunts and cousins were making sure he didn’t starve. The door to Sophia’s tower led off the family sitting room, and was firmly shut; the owner of the eyrie was having a hard time of it in L.A., she informed her true father over the phone, as Myron was hovering on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Justifiably annoyed, Carmine had called him, abused him roundly for worrying a teenaged girl, and told him to snap out of it. Damn Erica Davenport! he thought for the hundredth time as he tipped fine fettuccine into a pan of boiling, salted water. She had cut a swath through the people he loved.

Voices sounded at the front door; a key turned in the lock. Carmine stood stock-still by the stove, the last of the fettuccine falling into the water of its own accord. Desdemona! That was Desdemona’s voice! But he couldn’t move to go to her, shock had nailed his feet to the floor.

“I might have known he’d still be at Cedar Street,” she was saying to someone, “and I’ll bet he forgot to shop.” Then, in a loud call, “Thank you, sir! I’ll be fine.” The taxi driver.

She forged into the kitchen like a battleship in full sail, Julian on her left arm, wearing slacks and a blouse creased from her journey, her face flushed, her eyes sparkling.

“Carmine!” she said, stopping in her own wake as she saw him. The wonderful smile transformed her plain face. “Dearest heart, you look like a fish in the bottom of a boat.”

He closed his mouth and enveloped her and the baby in his arms, his lashes wet as he searched for her lips and found them. Only Julian, squawking at being squashed, recalled them to the time and place. Carmine took his son and kissed him all over his face, something Julian loved; Desdemona moved to the stove.

“Pasta and clam sauce,” she said, peering into the bowl and the pan. “Aunt Maria, I’ll bet. There’s tons for two of us.” Then she took Julian from his father. “If you’ll excuse me, I intend to give him his dinner, then a bath, after which he goes sleepy-byes.”