Warren Murphy: King's Curse

"The family is not receiving visitors," said the butler.

"I'm not exactly a visitor," said Remo, sidestepping past the butler. As the butler turned to stop Remo, Chiun went by the other side.

"Where'd the killing take place?" Remo asked.

"I must ask you to leave," the butler said.

"We'll be going in a minute. Relax," Remo said.

"Miss Delpheen is in a deep state of shock, over grief for her mother. You must leave."

A young woman, her gray blue eyes staring dumbly into a far-off nowhere, padded into the main hall. She wore white shorts and a white blouse, and her small anklet sneakers moved sluggishly. A tennis racket hung limply from her right hand. She had sandy yellow hair and her skin was gently golden from much sun.

"I can't believe it," she said softly. "I can't believe it."

"I'm sorry to hear about your mother," Remo said. "She was your mother, wasn't she?"

"Who?" said the girl, pausing under a large chandelier that looked like an upside-down bush of glass.

"The tragedy. The woman who was killed."

"Oh. Mother. Yes. She's dead. I can't believe it"

"I've come to help," Remo said.

"I can't believe it," the girl repeated. "Six-four, six-two, six-love. And I double faulted four times. I never double fault. Once, maybe, if I'm on the verge of death."

"Tennis?" said Remo. "You're worried about a tennis loss?"

"Loss? It was a fucking massacre. I'm Bobbi Delpheen. What can I do for you?"

"I think you're involved in something far more sinister than you realize. I've come about your mother's death. I've come to help you."

"Mother's taken care of. She's at the morgue. Funeral's been taken care of too. Six-four, six-two, six-love. And I double faulted four times. Four times. Can you believe it?"

"Miss Delpheen," said Remo somberly. "Your mother's been murdered. I don't think the police can help, but I can."

"With what?" she said. She had a perky charm and a sweet face, as though she'd been designed by a cartoonist for a toothpaste company. Cute, thought Remo. White, thought Chiun.

"With your mother's tragedy," Remo said.

"Her problems are over. I've got my own. Leave me alone. Four double faults." She shook her head and turned away but Chiun spoke up.

"I can teach you to never twice error," he said, looking disdainfully at Remo. For, as he had often said, "To tell the truth to a fool is to be more the fool yourself."

"Double fault," corrected Bobbi Delpheen.

"Yes, that," said Chiun.

"You don't even know how to say it," she said.

"I did not say I would teach you to talk the game, but to play the game. All games of physical skill are the same."

"Tennis isn't like any other game."

"It is like all games. The winners are those who do not let their ignorance defeat them."

"I've been through twenty-eight professional instructors. I don't need some gook philosophy," said Bobbi.

"That instrument hits something, yes," said Chiun, motioning to her steel-framed racket.

"Get these two out of here," said Bobbi Delpheen to the butler.

Chiun's long fingers flickered in the shimmering light of the chandelier. The racket was out of Bobbi's hands and in his, leaving her groping at air. With no more than a gentle slow wrist action, Chiun waved the racket, and then gliding upward in a small leap, knocked crystal pieces from the chandelier above, like harvesting shiny berries from a tree. He was on the floor before the shiny glass pieces reached his open hand. Then, one by one, with a stinging whip of the racket, he hit each crystal down the long hall into the back of a chair. Seven crystals made a single hole the diameter of an espresso cup in the back of a brocaded chair. A tuft of white down sprouted from the small hole.

"I notice you didn't shift weight, didn't drive into the shot," said Bobbi.

"I've come to help," said Remo.

"Shut up," said Bobbi.

"I'll remove them now," said the butler.

"Shut up," said Bobbi.

"Forget the nonsense you have learned," said Chiun. "Your feet do not hit. This instrument hits. I will teach you all, but first you must help me."

"Name it."

"Do as my pupil asks," said Chiun.

"What does he want?" Bobbi asked.

"I could not explain," Chiun said, "for I do not think he knows."

The first place Remo examined was Mrs. Delpheen's study. Chiun watched Remo. Bobbi slumped in a chair, drumming her fingers, bored.

"This is where your mother was killed then?" Remo asked.

"Yes, yes," said Bobbi and blew some air from her puffing cheeks. "The cops say nothing should be touched for a while."

The blood on the desk and floor had dried. And Remo noticed a clot covering a small pointed-up object. He lifted it up, breaking the brownish film around it. A pyramid paperweight. And an outline of its base had been pressed into the hard wood desk. Perhaps someone had leaned on it or had been held down on it. He noticed a bright yellow quill in an inkwell behind the desk. The room was sedate in brown polished wood, dark frames, and dark upholstery, yet the feather of this quill was bright yellow. He lifted it and saw it had no point.

"Was this feather here before your mother was killed?" Remo asked.

"I don't know. This was her study. I never went in," said Bobbi. She made a tennis stroking motion with her right arm, looking at Chiun.

"Later," he said.

"I want to talk to the police and see the body," Remo said.

A homicide lieutenant met the grieving daughter, Bobbi Delpheen, and her two friends at the city morgue, which looked like a gigantic white hospital room with large stainless steel files along one side.

"Look," said the homicide lieutenant, a cigar pegged in the center of his teeth, unlit and oozy. "I'm going out of my way for you people. But I need some cooperation, too. Now, miss, I hope you're sufficiently recovered to answer some of my questions."

Bobbi looked to Remo, who nodded.

"We don't think this was personally motivated, Miss Delpheen, but could you think of anyone who had any ill feeling toward your mother? Who just might want to kill her?" asked the lieutenant.

"Anyone who knew her intimately," said Bobbi. She made another tennis motion with her right hand. Chiun signaled "later."

"Would that include you?" asked the detective.

"No. I say anyone who knew her intimately. That would leave me out, and Mother's five husbands, too."

"She was a cold person then?"

"Only to relatives. To everyone else she was hostile and haughty."

"Was your mother engaged in any special activities that you know of?"

"Pick any six. She was a joiner. She was on more committees than that congressman who got it."

"We've already found one that overlapped," said the detective. "They were both on the monuments committee at the museum. Does that mean anything to you?"

"No," said Bobbi, and Chiun had to signal her again that tennis would be later.

"Do you think you're strong enough to view the remains? We're going to have an autopsy tomorrow."

"I thought her heart was ripped out," said Bobbi. "Who needs an autopsy? That probably killed her."

"It was a homicide. This is routine."

The lieutenant pulled back a stainless steel square that looked like a file. It was a morgue slab. A white sheet, dotted with drops of brown, covered a series of rises like miniature Wyoming foothills.

"Brace yourselves," said the lieutenant, then he pulled back the sheet. Mrs. Delpheen's face was a frozen, waxy twist of flesh. The mouth was locked open, but the wrinkles, well hidden in life, now streaked down her face, obvious. Her aging breasts hung like melted marshmallows in loose cellophane sacks. And where the middle of her chest had been was now a dark coagulated hole.

"We believe some sort of dull knife and forceps were used," said the detective. "That's what careful scientific analysis told us about the congressman. And the FBI spared no avenue of investigation. Even brought in heart specialists and surgeons."