Colleen McCullough - Too Many Murders

“Your mama will come out of her conniption fit the moment she hears the villains have been caught. Though what will she hear, Carmine? How much of it will make the news?”

“Precious little. Smith will be written off as a maniac found fit to stand trial. The information in the exercise books will never be used. He’ll go down on physical evidence-the razor for Dee-Dee and the killing kit for Skeps. His motive? Control of Cornucopia,” said Carmine without regret.

“How can that be stretched to encompass Dee-Dee?”

“The DA will allege that she tried to blackmail him as one of her customers.”

“He’ll hate that! He’s a shocking Puritan.”

“Then let him produce a better reason for killing her. One thing for sure, he won’t admit to treason. He’s convinced he won’t stand trial for treason.”

“Do you think he will?” Desdemona asked curiously.

“I have no idea,” Carmine said.

“He must be a very vain man.”

“Vain in every way,” Carmine said with feeling, “from his custom-made clothes to his custom-made house.”

“Not to mention his custom-made sports cars.” She unwound her legs. “Dinner.”

“What is it tonight?”

“Saltimbocca alla Romana.”

“Wow!” Carmine slipped an arm about her waist and walked with her to the kitchen.

“Myron’s bringing Sophia home,” she said, setting out the dishes and checking her ziti in tomato sauce. The frying pan was already sitting on the stove, the veal and its prosciutto waiting alongside a small bowl of minced fresh sage. “Fancy a sear of marsala liquor in the pan afterward?”

“Why not? Has Myron gotten over his depression?”

“The moment, I gather, you ripped him a new arsehole for making Sophia’s life hard.” She lit the gas under her pan, wiped it with a smear of olive oil. “Fifteen minutes and we can eat.”

“I can hardly wait.”

“Have you decided which one gets the lieutenancy?” asked the Commissioner.

“Sir!” cried Carmine, looking thunderstruck. “That’s not my decision to make!”

“If it’s not yours, whose is it, for crying out loud?”

“Yours and Danny’s!”

“Crap. It’s yours. Danny and I will go along.”

“Sir, I can’t! I honestly can’t! Just when I think one guy is it, the other one comes back stronger than ever! Look at their last two cases! Abe collars the mummy fruitcake in a brilliant piece of work. Right, he’s got Larry’s job. Then Corey collars Phil Smith’s papers in a brilliant piece of work. John, they’re both so good! It’s a crying shame that I have to lose one of them to another police department when he doesn’t get the job. Abe is intellectual, thoughtful, sensitive, calm and precise. Corey is clever, thinks on his feet, seizes the initiative, has enough logic to pass, and copes. Different qualities and different styles, but either of them would make a much better lieutenant than Larry Pisano, and you know it. So don’t go passing the buck to me, Commissioner! You’re the head of this department- you make the decision!”

Silvestri listened solemnly, temper unruffled. When Carmine ran down he smiled, nodded, and looked insufferably smug.

“Did I tell you that I had a call from J. Edgar Hoover this morning?” he asked. “He was mighty pleased at the solution to the Cornucopia mess, and very happy to have the FBI take the credit for what was Holloman Police Department work. Well, I played along all dipshit dopey local cop, then I struck a pretty neat deal with him. I wouldn’t contradict a thing, provided that he took Mickey McCosker and his team onto the FBI payroll. J. Edgar was delighted to oblige.” Silvestri huffed, immensely tickled by his own crafty thinking. “Therefore, Captain Delmonico, there are two lieutenant’s jobs going begging. One for Abe, and one for Corey. And I’ll have a proper number of detectives on my payroll at last.”

“I could kiss you!”

“Don’t even think about it.”

“You can have the honor of telling them, John.”

“Any idea who you want for your own team?”

“One certainty. Your niece Delia, if she’s willing to go to police academy and qualify.”

Silvestri gaped. “ Delia? Honest?”

“Dead earnest. That woman is a brilliant detective, she’s wasted as a secretary,” Carmine said.

“She’s too old and too fat.”

“Depends on her, doesn’t it? If she makes it through, she makes it through. I’m betting she will-she’s got all of the Silvestri guile and brains. She doesn’t need to be Hercules, just capable of giving chase and tackling. If she can’t cross a foaming torrent hanging onto a rope by her arms, tough shit. She comes from the academy straight onto my team.”

“What about Larry’s men?”

“I’ll split them up. One to Abe, one to Corey. That way, we each have one experienced detective, plus one new. We’ll choose our second-stringers from the applicant pool.”

“It might earn Delia some enemies.”

“I doubt it. The most the pool will be hoping for are two men into detectives. Instead, there’ll be three.”

“No one will ever believe she’s a cop!” Silvestri cried.

“Ain’t that the truth?”

What fantastic news! Carmine left County Services in the Fairlane, a very happy man. Summer was almost here, though it rarely became hot until after Independence Day, six weeks away.

He picked up the winding, leafy domain of Route 133 and headed for Philip Smith’s property. It bore the scars of much frantic digging, he noted after he passed through the imposing gates and followed the curves of the drive to the house.

“Though,” Special Agent Ted Kelly had told him, “no one’s found another secret compartment. You Holloman cops scooped us. Great stuff you found!”

One of the better outcomes, Carmine reflected as he pushed the bell, was the disappearance of the FBI back to their federal playground. No one would be more relieved than Wal Grierson.

Natalie Smith opened the door, then put her finger to her lips and led him back down the steps to an exposed position on the grass many yards away from the nearest FBI hole.

“They have put microphones inside,” she said.

“How did you know that what I have to say is better said without federal eavesdroppers?” he asked.

The impossibly blue eyes narrowed as the face smiled. “I know because you are the only one who really understands,” she said, her accent far less thick. “Philip found it impossible to believe that a local policeman could spoil his plans, but I knew differently.”

“The faithful Stravinsky,” he said.

Her eyes widened. “Stravinsky? Who is that? The composer?”

“You, Mrs. Smith. Stravinsky can’t be anyone else.”

“Are you arresting me?”

“No. I have no proof.”

“Then why do you say I am this Stravinsky?”

“Because your husband is a very rigid, puritanical man. He has strong feelings about women, wives, whores, the whole feminine half of the human race. Yet on the surface he seems to have abandoned you, his wife. That, Mrs. Smith, he would never do. Therefore he knows that his wife is capable of looking after herself. As would Stravinsky. Who else can the faithful Stravinsky be, except you? Who else shares Philip’s days, nights, thoughts, ideas, aspirations, plans? Who else could impersonate Joshua Butler going up the sophomore stairs at Paracelsus? And why couldn’t Stravinsky get rid of Erica’s body? Because he didn’t have the strength. Mounting a bear trap took every ounce of it. He could hold a pillow over an old woman’s face, or slip a needle into a drugged woman’s vein. His appearance can be so scary that he could walk the streets of Harlem looking for professional gunmen in complete safety. You, Mrs. Smith, you! Don’t bother denying it. You’re a master of true disguise. You alter your appearance from inside your mind.”