Тимоти Уилльямз - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 126, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 769 & 770, September/October 2005

And he ran from the kitchen to his own room and slammed the door behind him. But even as he dived onto his bed and lay facedown he knew that with his heart beating the way it was, he wouldn’t be able to resist telling the whole thing, and about the cigarette, too, when his mother followed him into his room. Fighting was so awful. Resisting her so impossible.

She would be there any second. He put his pillow on the back of his head so that he would make a dramatic picture for her when she arrived to scold him, and then punish him. As long as she didn’t forbid him to carry on with the Web-site class. Oh God, she wouldn’t do that, would she?

It would be so unfair. Because Marie was always running away to her room when she wanted to break off a conversation that might get her into trouble. And she not only always got away with it, she bragged about how she’d throw a fit to her friends. How sometimes she added screams, just for effect.

Several minutes passed before it dawned on David that his mother had not followed him to his room.

Was it possible that she wasn’t going to?

Was it possible that he — David — had thrown a fit and gotten away with it?

Beneath his pillow, David began to giggle.

Gina was still in the kitchen when Angelo came in. “We have to talk,” she said.

“Sure, baby,” Angelo said.

The “baby” caught Gina so much by surprise that she was shaken from her own agenda.

“Guess what happened today?” Angelo pirouetted, and then put the case with the agency camcorder down on the table before his wife. “Guess what finally happened...”

“Shriver came out?”

Angelo beamed.

“He came out and you got him.” It was the object of the long surveillance.

“Not only came out, in the bright sun where we could see him clearly,” Angelo said. “He forgot something and ran back up the steps to the house.” He patted the camcorder again. “ Ran. And it’s all in here.”

“You checked?”

“I played it back as soon as he got into his car.”

“He drove?” The case was an accident claim in which the “victim,” Shriver, purported to be all but totally disabled because of injuries to his spine.

“I’ll put it on tape and make a backup,” Angelo said. “And then we party.”

“Yes. All right. Of course.” Gina decided to defer the difficult conversation for a while. Let Angelo enjoy the moment.

But he said, “What do we need to talk about? Marie?”

Well... “Yes.”

“No luck from David?”

“No.”

“I guess we better follow her, then.”

“I think maybe we’ll have to.” The cloud that had blotted Gina’s day was suddenly relieved. A rule for years had been never to use detection techniques or equipment inside the family. But this time she’d tried every other avenue she could think of. She’d expected her husband to have difficulty about taking an unprecedented step.

But Angelo was having difficulty with nothing. “I’ll be free tomorrow,” he said. “Fa-la-la. How about I pick up the trail as she leaves school?”

When he found the restaurant in Saltford, Salvatore was surprised how posh it looked. No Michelin stars, but despite being well off the main road it was well-presented and inviting. Chances were that the food would be decent. Whether he’d be able to say the same of the woman was another matter.

Client Cottard had been seriously smitten with... with... with Deena. Deena, Deena, Deena. Must remember. Deena Scott, who on the phone had sounded quite nice — rather like the restaurant. Not only the sound of her voice but the care with which she spoke. “Look, Salvatore,” she’d said, “I don’t often do what I’m about to, but do you think we could meet for dinner tonight? I feel really dumb, and it must sound like I’m desperate, which I’m not, honestly. Usually I’d wait till I felt I knew you better, but you sound so nice, so gentlemanly, so... What can I say? So together. And it’s the only evening I have free for a week.”

After checking his diary Salvatore confirmed that he too could do tonight, so together it was.

Marie was on the phone to Cassi. “It’s not like she said anything when I came in, but I could tell by her face. Then all through dinner she was bottling it up, like any minute her cork would pop. The only reason she didn’t is that Dad’s happy about some work thing. But her. .. She’s getting on my wick. She really is.”

“I so know what you mean,” Cassi said. “It’s like they think they own you.”

“Well, she doesn’t.” Marie stamped her foot. “In fact, let’s go out again.”

“Now? Tonight?”

“Why not?” Marie thought about “why not” after she said it. But answer came there none, as Aimee said today, which sounded pretty cool. Marie’s grandparents weren’t due back from London for at least two days. And no one from Cassi’s family ever went anywhere. Cassi herself hadn’t been to London more than twice in her life, poor thing.

When she and Cassi had saved up some more money they could change all that. There could be days out, to ride the Millennium Wheel. Or nights out... “See you in fifteen minutes outside Doolally’s,” Marie said. “Sooner if I don’t have to pick a fight.”

David sat with his face even closer than usual to the computer screen. Despite this, his attention wavered. Every few minutes his mind went back to the exchange with his mother.

His success at being able to avoid her previously irresistible pressure still made him grin, even giggle. He’d entered new territory. Never before had he picked a fight to escape confessing something he didn’t want to say.

Life was going to be different now. Did he look different? Would he be able to see it in a mirror?

David caught bits of his reflection on the glass of the monitor’s screen. Was he, at last, a real teenager?

“Of course you may go out,” Gina said, “as long as your homework’s done.”

“Done and dusted,” Marie said. At least to the extent of her having planned slots in her morning classes to work on it. That portion of her homework she planned to do at all. It’s not like every bit of homework was important, just because some silly old teacher got a whim and assigned it. Everyone knew that. Everyone who wasn’t ancient. Old people were so rigid, too unsubtle to understand the fine points. So it wasn’t a lie to say that her homework was done. It was just a simplification to save her mother needless anxiety.

“Fine.”

“I won’t be late,” Marie volunteered, in order to reward her mother’s cooperative mood.

“Well, well, well,” Salvatore said as he was shown to the table reserved by Deena Scott.

“You must be Salvatore.”

“I certainly am. And you’re Deena.”

“Please, sit down.”

He sat, but looked around. “Where are the cameras?”

“What cameras?”

“Because this has to be one of those television programs.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You’re gorgeous. And it makes no sense at all that you’d be advertising to meet men.”

“Well, thank you for the compliment.”

“It’s not just flattery. I’m surprised, that’s all. And I’m not complaining.”

“Perhaps you don’t know much about the life of a modern businesswoman.”

“Perhaps I don’t. But I’m eager to learn.”

“And I’d tell you all about it, if only it were interesting,” Deena Scott said with a sigh. “But my hope is that we’ll find more entertaining and exciting topics to talk about this evening.”

“Let’s give it a try.” Salvatore lit his first full-wattage smile of the night.