Colleen McCullough - Too Many Murders

“Not nonsense. Good sense. How you must have sweated! Though it looked as if you’d gotten away with it, you still made your plans in case you hadn’t. Four months went by. Four whole months! Then Evan Pugh fronted up to your office, bold as brass, and handed you a letter. By the time you’d read it, he was gone. But you’d set eyes on him, and you knew what he was. It takes one to know one. The plan swung into action.” Carmine stopped.

“I’m tired, and in pain,” Smith said. “Go away.”

“A bear trap!” Carmine said. “What was its significance?”

“It had none because I have no idea what you’re talking about. It’s because of people like him that you’re persecuting me. Not because of a whore. Dee-Dee Hall doesn’t matter.”

“She does to me,” Carmine said, and walked out.

“It was unreal, John,” he said to the Commissioner later. “At first I thought Smith adored his daughter, but he couldn’t have. No one who loves would incarcerate the object of his love in a Siberian concentration camp. He could so easily have shut her away in some plush asylum-places like L.A. and New York must abound in them! No, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but you know what I mean.”

“I do.” Silvestri chewed on his cigar and grimaced, then threw it in his wastebasket. “Where did you find the time to do all the research?”

Carmine smiled. “A bit here, a bit there. It seemed so far out that I couldn’t share it until I’d gotten it all straight. I think maybe Smith’s people in Russia were czarist aristocrats who switched camps in time to ride the Communist parade. Lenin was short of educated helpers in 1917 and probably willing to overlook the antecedents of some eager volunteers. Smith himself would have grown up under the system from his tenth birthday. We tend to forget that it’s only fifty years since the Red Revolution.”

“A mere mote in history’s eye,” Silvestri said. “It runs so counter to human nature that I’m picking it only has another three or four decades to go before the greedies pull it down.”

Carmine’s eyes danced. “I love it when you philosophize,” he said, grinning.

“Any more remarks like that, and you’ll feel the toe of my regulation boot up your ass.” He changed the subject. “I’d feel happier if I thought we were any closer to catching Smith’s assistant, Carmine.”

“Not a sign of the bastard,” Carmine said. “He’s lying low and waiting for orders. What I don’t know is if his orders will come from Smith or Moscow.”

“I’m fed up with wars, especially cold ones.”

“Insane, isn’t it? Smith’s not in a position to issue any orders at the moment. The FBI or CIA or whoever are tapping his phone.” Suddenly Carmine bounced in his chair. “Want to hear something weird, John?”

“Weird away.”

“Smith can’t bring himself to use the word ‘spy.’ When he came to a spot in his narrative where he had to say it, he went all melodramatic on me and called it his ‘patriotic socialist duty.’ I’ve never heard anything weirder than that, spoken by a sophisticated smoothie like him. For a minute I really felt as if I were in the pages of a Black Hawk comic book.”

“In denial, I suppose,” Silvestri said.

“Yeah, I suppose.”

“When are you going back to Smith’s property to play with your garage controls? It might pay off.”

“I agree, but give me a day or two, sir! The Judge can be very exasperating,” Carmine wheedled.

It got him nowhere. “Tomorrow, Captain, tomorrow.” Then Silvestri relented. “I’ll call the persnickety old terror and beg him to be nice. Once he hears the story, he’ll play ball.”

Abe and Corey were in their office, sufficiently bored to follow Carmine to his room with alacrity.

“We have two controls,” Carmine said, “and five acres of landscaped gardens as well as a three-storey mansion to search.”

“No, sir, three controls,” Abe said. “The one that opened the column might open another door out of signal range.”

“I don’t know about that,” Corey said dubiously. “I heard that a garage door control on Long Island was opening the missile silo doors on a base in Colorado.”

“Yeah, and we can all get Kansas City on our television sets if the weather’s right,” Carmine said. “Well, on this exercise we’re not going to worry about missile silo doors or Kansas City, okay? You’re right, Abe, we should use all three controls. What I want to do today is work out a plan.”

“Delia!” said Abe and Corey in chorus.

“Delia?” Carmine called.

She came in quickly, the only one of his little task force disappointed at the solution of the importance of Dee-Dee Hall; her mission of exploration had fizzled as soon as Smith explained about his daughter.

“Isn’t it lucky,” she said gleefully, “that I have aerial survey maps of Mr. Smith’s property? I got maps of all four suspects’ properties and had Patsy blow them up to poster size.”

“One step ahead as always,” said Carmine.

Though the picture was black-and-white, it displayed most features clearly, provided they were not under the canopies of trees. A border of tall conifers surrounded Smith’s five acres. The house showed all its exterior features, from cornices to the radio shack, and the artificial lake proved to have a tiny isle in its middle joined to land by a Chinese bridge. The picture had been taken with the sun directly overhead-a necessity for a useful survey from the air.

“The white or grey dots must be statues, and the fountains are self-explanatory,” Delia said. “The jumble behind the house must be garages, garden or equipment sheds, the usual appurtenances of a mansion on a fair-sized piece of land. See there? That’s a patch of dead or dying grass, so you should check it for a slab of concrete underneath. My papa insisted on building an atomic bomb shelter in our back lawn, and the grass was never the same over it. He still keeps it stocked with food.”

“Well, I don’t think we should deal with the outside first,” Corey said firmly. “If I were Smith, I wouldn’t have my secret compartments anywhere I’d get wet. And what about a hard winter? Feet of snow!”

“You’re right, Corey,” said Carmine. “We do the house first. Also the outbuildings and the immediate vicinity of the house. He has an army of Puerto Rican servants to clear snow away.”

“There’s one more thing,” Abe said.

“What’s that?” Carmine asked, enjoying listening.

“The controls might trigger more than one door each.”

“Depending on missile silo doors and Kansas City. What a bummer! Who can give us advice?” Carmine asked.

“The new guy working with Patrick,” Corey said. “I had lunch with him the other day. He was the one told me about the missile silo doors-he used to be a master sergeant in the air force. This guy-his name is Ben Tucker-is a utility player. Photography, electronics, mechanics. I can ask him for tips.”

“Do that, Corey.”

“What about warrants?” Delia asked.

“The Commissioner assures me that Doubting Doug will play ball,” Carmine said.

“Huh! I’ll believe that when I see it,” Abe muttered.

Whatever Silvestri had told Judge Thwaites worked. When Carmine appeared in chambers the next morning, his warrant was already waiting for him.

“Commie spies!” His Honor exclaimed, wearing the same face that saw him hand down a maximum prison term. “You nail this bastard to the wall, Carmine!”

Their plan had been worked out: they would start as far from each other as possible, Carmine upstairs on the roof working down, Abe on the bottom floor working up, and Corey in the outbuildings. Each had a control, understanding that, having done it all, they would have to exchange controls and do it again, and yet a third time. For that reason, a system was mandatory, and each man was doomed to the same territory three times over.