Colleen McCullough - Too Many Murders

“Once Doubting Doug gets a look at my microdots, John, I should get my warrant,” Carmine said.

“The more so because it vindicates his issuance of warrants after the sniper,” Silvestri said. “No egg on his face. I hope the proof of Dee-Dee’s murder is where you think it is, Carmine, because I have a funny feeling the Feds don’t want this guy tried for treason. The days of the Rosenbergs are over. Smith’s a high-end Boston WASP.”

“I don’t think so,” Carmine said thoughtfully. “There was a Philip

Smith, I’m sure, but at some time over the past twenty-five years, a KGB colonel assumed his identity. Sometimes Smith makes weird mistakes about American customs and traditions, and his wife, according to Delia, is not a Sami Lapp. Delia thinks she hails from one of those Stans that comprise Siberia or the Central Asian steppes. Her native language is not Indo-Aryan.”

“Nor are Turkish and Hungarian, for that matter.”

“True. Despite which, John, I’d bet my last buck Smith’s a plant. There is no Anna Smith in the Peace Corps in Africa, and the Stephen Smith who’s doing marine biology in the Red Sea-interesting color choice-isn’t really attached to Woods Hole. He has a kind of honorary status there thanks to hefty donations to projects the Woods Hole people find difficult to fund. As for Peter Smith, petroleum engineer, he was in Iran working for BP, but went off wildcatting to Afghanistan, of all places.”

“You suspect all three kids are in the USSR?”

“Between assignments, yes. Think how valuable they are! Totally bilingual, as American as apple pie.”

“There’s apple pie everywhere, Carmine.”

“Yes, but not flavored with cinnamon. Flavored with cloves.”

“What’s really worrying you?” Silvestri asked.

“First off, the assistant. We still haven’t found him, and he’s even more resourceful when it comes to murder than Smith is. He’s why I’ve had Danny put a guard on Smith’s hospital room-the most vigilant men only, and in pairs.”

“Any ideas at all about who he is?”

“Only that he’s attached to Cornucopia. Lancelot Sterling was my pick, but I was wrong. It’s not Richard Oakes the male secretary-he’s too frail. So whoever it is hasn’t been noticed as a suspect of anything. If he is caught, we may not even know his face, let alone his name.”

“Don’t Communists usually congregate in cells, Carmine?”

“The ideologues do, but does anyone know about the people who conduct active sabotage or espionage? That’s where the Communist witch hunts failed. Ideology tended to be equated with damaging activity. It didn’t always follow. But there might be a cell of damaging activists centered on Holloman and headed by Philip Smith. We know Erica Davenport was involved, and we know Smith has an assistant. That’s three. How big is a cell? I don’t feel like asking Ted Kelly, but that’s my stubbornness. Say, four to six members? In which case, we’re still in the dark about one to three of them.”

“Pauline Denbigh?” Silvestri asked.

“I doubt it. She’s an elitist and a feminist. The Reds may have loads of women doctors and dentists, but the Communist Party isn’t stuffed with women at a high level, is it? No, I think she was tricked into killing her husband on the correct date, and is getting her kicks out of refusing to admit it.”

“What about Philomena Skeps?”

“I can’t imagine she’s anything worse than an overprotective mother, but I intend to see her again,” Carmine said. “For one thing, the ultimate control of Cornucopia is undecided, and that’s not helped by this car accident. Can Philomena Skeps run the company? Or will she hand it over to her cat’s-paw, Anthony Bera? Or leave it with the suddenly invigorated Phil Smith, given that she doesn’t know he’s a traitor and a killer?”

“Maybe Mr. Michael Donald Sykes will inherit the mantle,” Silvestri said with a grin.

Carmine sighed, so loudly that the Commissioner blinked. “What’s that for?” he asked.

“The FBI helicopter that made it so easy to get to Orleans on the Cape. I don’t suppose County Services can afford one?”

“About as likely, Carmine, as a ticket to Mars.”

“I hate that drive!”

“Then take Desdemona and make a day of it.”

“I will, but not until Saturday,” Carmine said.

“How’s Smith?”

“Coming around, Tom Dennis says. No subdural hematoma or gross cerebral contusions, just a fractured skull and some swelling of the brain that’s going down nicely. His right upper arm and shoulder blade are more painful. Collins needed surgery to fix his broken leg, and is swearing he’ll never ride in an open car again. According to Corey, it was amazing to watch that machine flip in midair.”

“Middle-aged teenyboppers!” Silvestri said. Suddenly he looked curious. “Carmine, what exactly tipped you off that Smith was Ulysses? I mean, it could have been any of them.”

“No, I never suspected Grierson, John. What tipped me off was the verb Bart Bartolomeo used when he described what Erica Davenport said to Desmond Skeps at the Maxwell banquet. Not her words-those he didn’t hear. But he said she kept hissing. It took a while for the lightbulb to go on, and I’m not sure when suspicion became certainty, but you can’t hiss Collins or Purvey or Grierson. Smith, you can. Big time. Whatever else she said must have been full of esses too, but if she’d spoken a name that interrupted the sibilants, Bart would have noticed. Once I realized what Bart had actually said, I concentrated on Mr. Philip Smith.”

“So it was all in a name,” Silvestri said.

Warrant in hand, Carmine drove the next morning together with a squad car and Patsy’s forensics van to the beautiful valley wherein Philip Smith had built his mansion.

Natalie Smith met him at the door, her profoundly blue eyes flashing fire, the anger distorting her smooth, yellowish face. “Can’t you leave him alone?” she asked, her thick foreign accent making the words difficult to understand.

“Sorry, Mrs. Smith, I have to exercise this warrant.”

“Must I sit in the folly? It’s cold today,” she said.

“No, ma’am. It’s the folly we’re searching, so you can stay in your house.”

Carmine walked across the lush grass between the garden beds to where the little round temple stood, its Ionic columns, each fluted, supporting a tiled terra-cotta roof that sat on it like a Chinese coolie’s hat. Only the English could have termed a garden adornment a folly, Carmine thought, treading up the steps. Steps and floor were both greenish terrazzo; the rest of the folly was constructed of pure white marble. Who in America had the skill to fashion this? he wondered. No one, he decided. The columns were probably imported from Italy, where sculptors abounded. American equivalents would be carving fancy tombstones.

A cursory inspection revealed no overt hiding place, but he had Abe Goldberg.

“Think you can find the secret compartment?” Carmine asked.

Abe’s fair, freckled face broke into a smile, his blue eyes sparkled. “Does a fat baby fart?” he asked.

Carmine moved off the steps onto the grass and watched Abe work. First he had two cops remove the white table and chairs, then he stood at the center of the folly and rotated, his head tilted toward the roof. That over, he repeated the rotation, this time gazing at the floor. Then he walked each circular step all the way around, using Carmine as his marker. After which he lay flat out on the floor and started rapping it with his knuckles.

“Nothing,” he said curtly.

The steps had been installed in sections of arc thirty degrees wide, which meant each full step had twelve sections. The edge of the highest step measured about three and three-quarter feet per section.