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

“She would.”

“Why?”

Nordstrom drew one of her shapely calves up under her rump, leaving the other dangling and jiggling its flip-flop. “Tammy saw Brant as the only successful aspect of her own life. His leaving it as a ‘victim of random chance’ didn’t jibe — couldn’t jibe — with her image of him. So it’s not just that she would think malice aforethought: Tammy would have to think that to get her through the night.”

“You study law before turning to zoology?”

Nordstrom half closed her eyes, I suspect resorting to an “aspect” she’d found successful in her own life. “For a year. But I found it boring.”

“Why?”

“Because it seemed to involve a lot of conversations with plodders like you.”

Plodders. “And zoology doesn’t?”

“Brant Sinclair didn’t.”

I’d heard enough about his aura not to need further regaling. “So you and he became a couple.”

“One look, and both of us knew we were destined for each other.”

I wasn’t sure a “plodder” like me understood that. “Love at first sight?”

“Nothing so... romantic. Animal magnetism, he-male/female chemistry. Denying it would have been foolish, failing to act upon it a waste of valuable time together.”

Direct enough. “Some people believe you’re carrying Dr. Sinclair’s child.”

The jaded smile ratcheted up to full wattage now. “Some believe, but only I know for sure. And I am. It’s the last tribute I can give him, you see. To extend Brant’s exceptional gene pool, and to provide me an alpha offspring to raise in the nurturing environment that same trait in a mother can provide.”

I felt Nordstrom was talking more about breeding a particularly sharp sheepdog. “Forgive me, but you don’t seem all that sorry about Dr. Sinclair’s death.”

“Sorry? Of course I’m sor ry. But I’m not crushed.” A shake of the head, letting her hair shimmer down onto her shoulders like the “after” part of a shampoo commercial. “Raising our child with Brant would have been a privilege. Raising our child without him will be a challenge, but the kind an alpha fe male must rise to meet. And surmount, to be worthy of the designation.”

Talk about positive self-image. “If a death by random burglary isn’t acceptable to Tamara Sinclair’s image of her father, then how can it be acceptable to yours?”

Another huffed breath. “Because, as I’d hoped even you would understand by now, my image of me was not dependent upon Brant: It was my appreciation of him that honed this image of myself.”

The straw that broke this camel’s back, so I plodded on out of there.

The night wind was howling as I moved along the row of stones to hers, and when I bent over the grave, I had to use two rocks to keep the roses in place.

Roses, John? At this time of year? Must be a bear of a case.

“More like a wolf, Beth.”

As I imagined her considering that, I stared at the piece of granite. MARY ELIZABETH DEVLIN CUDDY, the dates of her birth and death far too close to each other, both in reality and in my heart.

Tell me, John. About the case.

I did.

Another pause, and I looked down on the harbor at the foot of her hill. The water looked black in what little ambient light shone upon it, the wind causing whitecaps to roll like wave after wave of an attacking army, assaulting the shoreline but not having much evident effect on it.

John?

I came back to her headstone.

Maybe I’m missing something, but how are you going to sort out which of these people — including your own client — is the killer?

I’d given that one some thought. “Try to find the wolf’s new den.”

It took me awhile to get the candids I needed using a telephoto lens.

Calling my client first, I told Tamara Sinclair I needed to push the investigation a bit and asked her where she worked. Without any evident reluctance, she indicated an art gallery on upper Newbury Street in Boston. I camped out in a coffee shop, catching a full-face and profile of her as she arrived at the gallery that next morning.

Then I was off to Corbin University, Deirdre giving me another pass through their gate, where I snapped Associate Professor Jillian Wayne on her way into the Science faculty building. Then Leah Nordstrom, arriving by cab, I assumed from her apartment house, and moving lithely up the steps of the student center. Finally, I caught James Odom as he signed for a delivery of beer outside the tavern two blocks away.

Then I got my copy of the Yellow Pages from the trunk of the Prelude and began to let my legs do the walking.

For the sixth time that afternoon, I laid my array of photos in front of the operative person running a storage facility within a mile of the university, this building looking like a medieval fortress, even to the slotted turrets at all four corners of the roof. The stocky, fifty-something male behind the reception counter wore dusty pants, a sweater with holes instead of patches at the elbow, and a watch-cap on his head that read “NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS: SUPER BOWL CHAMPIONS 2004.” He had a dead cigar stuck in the corner of his mouth, and, introducing himself to me as “Roman, like Julius Caesar,” he also had what to my ear sounded more like a Russian accent than an Italian one.

However, regardless of his heritage, he clearly reacted to at least one of my photos.

“Why you want for me to see these things?”

“You’re from Russia, Roman?”

A stiffening, and he took out the cigar and pointed it at his chest. “Russia? Never. I am born in Ukraine. And I buy this place fair to square with loan from our credit union in Jamaica Plain.”

Another neighborhood of Boston. “I’m not questioning any of that. I just want to know if you’ve rented space to any of these people recently.”

Roman stuck the cigar back in his mouth and looked down at the photos again. “My customers, they want no trouble.”

“And I hope not to cause them any. But this involves a murder, Roman, and I think there’ll be a lot less trouble all around if you talk to me without the police being involved.”

As I’d figured — and, to be honest, regretted — the word “police” caused a different kind of stiffening in the man.

Drawing a deep breath, he looked down again, and pointed, this time with an index finger instead of the cigar. “Her, yes.”

“When?”

“Last week.”

Bingo. “I need to be here when she comes next. Without her knowing.”

Roman glanced at a clock next to him. “One half-hour you wait. She come same time, every day.”

I glanced at his clock, too. “Does she bring anything new to store with you, or take anything away?”

“Take? No. And she bring only the first time.” Roman turned and grabbed some keys I thought might work a freight elevator. “I show you where her locker.”

Fewer rows of lockers and more cellblocks of walled-in, walk-in closets with larger corridors and smaller halls lit by bare, hanging bulbs above us. Roman showed me an unused locker — also with a bulb on an old pull-cord — before tapping on my target’s padlocked door and then leaving me by the same elevator we’d taken to the third floor. The air was dank, even cavelike, and I imagined the storage locker served its purpose.

I settled on a position around the corner, figuring I’d hear footsteps before having to show myself. According to my watch, Roman’s prediction was off by only five minutes.

After the footsteps stopped, I waited to hear the padlock unhasp, the door of the locker creak open, and the pull-cord click, throwing an additional arc of weak light into the main corridor. Then I came around the corner quietly, saying only, “Professor.”