Colleen McCullough - Too Many Murders

“You’re saying it’s inherent in the boy?”

“Definitely.”

“Is he effeminate?”

“No! Tough as old leather, hard as nails.”

At which moment the Fairlane entered the parking lot of the lobster restaurant.

Desdemona dismissed worries that were not her concern save as a mother. She was too happy to be cast down, she reflected, ordering a lobster roll. What had sent her in a hurry from London back to Holloman was the knowledge that the fertile segment of her monthly cycle was due, and that if she missed spending it with Carmine, she would have to wait another month to try again. Julian was about to turn six months old; if she conceived now, he would be fifteen or sixteen months old when the new baby arrived. That was long enough. If they were brothers, the younger stood a chance of physically catching up before Julian left home. And that, she thought in satisfaction, means that if they do detest each other, the older won’t always be able to wallop the tar out of the younger.

Tummy full of lobster roll, Desdemona fell asleep before they got to Providence.

And so much for Silvestri’s theory about companionship, Carmine thought, his right arm aching from the pressure of his wife’s head. Still, it’s been a great day, and with any luck I’ll never have to go back to Orleans.

On Monday, Carmine was allowed to see Philip Smith, who occupied a private room high in the Chubb-Holloman Hospital. At Carmine’s request it was the last room down a long corridor, and as far from the fire stairs as any room could be. The room opposite had been requisitioned by the County and served as a recreation area of sorts, enabling Smith’s round-the-clock guards to use its bathroom, have a coffee carafe on permanent tap, and sit in comfortable chairs on their breaks. How the Commissioner had wangled it Carmine didn’t want to know: the FBI was picking up the tab.

Smith’s room was filled with flowers. That, together with the soft lilac of its walls and padded vinyl furniture, gave it an un-hospital look at first glance. Then, past such things, the eyes noticed the sterility of the bed, the ropes and pulleys, the incredible way any occupant of such an infernal rack was automatically shrunken in size, stripped of authority and power.

This Philip Smith looked older than his sixty years, his handsome face collapsed in on itself a little, his blue-grey eyes unutterably weary.

When Carmine entered, only those eyes moved. Smith probably had to be turned and adjusted by a nurse, given his arm and shoulder. Surprisingly, there wasn’t a nurse in attendance.

“I’ve been expecting you for several days,” Smith said.

“Where’s your private nurse?”

“Fool of a woman! I told her to wait at the station until I buzzed.

I’m grateful for the attention when I need it, but I loathe gratuitous solicitude. Can I do this for you, can I do that for you? Pah! When I want something, I’m capable of asking.”

Carmine sat in a padded lilac vinyl chair. “For what they charge, these should be covered in Italian kid,” he said.

“So a visitor’s toddler can wee on them? Have a heart!”

“True. Save Italian kid for boardrooms and executive offices. Where you’re going, Mr. Smith, there won’t even be vinyl. Just hard plastic, steel, mattress ticking and concrete.”

“Rubbish! They’ll never convict me.”

“Holloman will. Have you been interviewed by the FBI?”

“Interminably. That’s why I’ve hungered to see your face, Captain. It has a certain Romanesque nobility the FBI faces have lacked. I think the only person who hasn’t made the journey from Washington to see me is J. Edgar Hoover himself, but I hear that he’s a disappointment in the flesh-soft and rather chubby.”

“Appearances can be deceiving. Have you been charged?”

“With espionage? Yes, but they won’t follow through.” Smith’s lips drew back to reveal teeth yellowed by his hospital stay. “I lost my luck,” he said simply. “It ran foul of yours.”

“Men your age shouldn’t drive twelve-cylinder sports cars, more like. It was wet, the road was a mess, you were going way too fast, and you weren’t concentrating,” Carmine said.

“Don’t rub it in. I must have driven that road a hundred times to board a hired plane. I guess it was the thought that this time I’d be boarding my own plane.”

“I’m charging you with the murder of Dee-Dee Hall, Mr. Smith. We found your coveralls and the razor.”

The hatred blazed; his body stiffened, battling to shed its restraints until the pain struck. He groaned. “That unprintable, unmentionable whore! She deserved to die as all whores should-cut from ear to ear! The scarlet yawn for a scarlet woman!”

“I’m more interested in why Dee-Dee didn’t flee or fight.”

“I need the nurse,” he said, groaning again.

Carmine pressed the buzzer.

“Now look at what you’ve done!” the woman chided, slotting a syringe into an outlet on his IV drip.

“Speak not in ignorance, you moron!” Smith whispered.

Bridling indignantly, she left.

“I’d like to know the why of Dee-Dee,” Carmine said.

“Would you indeed? The thing is, do I feel like telling you?” Smith asked, settling into his pillows gratefully as the pain ebbed. “Are we alone? Are you recording what I say?”

“We are alone, and I am not recording us. A tape would not be valid evidence in a court of law without witnesses present and your consent. When I charge you formally, I’ll have witnesses, and remind you of your rights under the Constitution.”

“So much solicitude, and all for me!” Smith mocked. His eyes clouded a little. “Yes, why not? You’re a cross between a mastiff and a bulldog, but there’s cat in there too. Curiosity is your besetting sin, Erica said to me, very frightened.”

His lids fell, he dozed. Carmine waited patiently.

“Dee-Dee-!” he said suddenly, eyes open. “I suppose you searched for my Peace Corps daughter?” he asked.

“Yes, but I couldn’t find one.”

“Anna wasn’t interested in good works,” Philip Smith said. “Her bent was purely destructive, and America suited her because here there are so few social brakes one can apply to headstrong children. She was the wrong age to make the move from West Germany to Boston and then Holloman-the bleakness of her old life was blown away on the gale of indulgence, promiscuity, infantile aspirations, undisciplined passions. The wrong age, the wrong place, the wrong child…” Smith stopped.

Carmine said nothing, did not move. It would come out at Smith’s pace, and in chunks.

“School? What was school, except a place to avoid? Anna played hookey so much that Natalie and I were obliged to give it out that we were teaching her at home. We were utterly impotent, we couldn’t control her. She laughed at us, she mocked us, she couldn’t be trusted with socialist enlightenment. From her fourteenth year onward, it was like having an enemy in the house-she knew we were hiding something. So Natalie and I agreed that she should have whatever money she wanted, and do whatever she wanted.” Came a sinister chuckle. “Since she hardly lived at home or acknowledged us, few people knew of her, isn’t that odd? We were able to continue our socialist duties by giving up Anna as a lost cause.”

Another pause. Smith dozed, Carmine watched.

“She acquired a boyfriend when she was fourteen. A twenty-year-old petty criminal named Ron David- a black man! ” Smith shouted it; Carmine jumped. “Sex enthralled her, she couldn’t get enough of it or him, would rut with him anywhere, anytime, anyhow. He had an apartment on the edge of the Argyle Avenue ghetto- disease-ridden, rat-infested. Full of whores, including Dee-Dee Hall, who was a good friend of his. Ron introduced Anna to Dee-Dee, and Dee-Dee introduced Anna to heroin. Does that appall you, Captain Delmonico? Don’t let it! Save your horror for my next item of news: Anna and Dee-Dee became lovers. They were inseparable. Inseparable…”