“I’m sure the Prof will tomorrow,” she said, wiping tomato off her chin with fingers that trembled slightly. “It didn’t happen until shortly before I left.”
“Shit! How?”
“He’s a doctor, Carmine. He took a cocktail of morphine, phenothiazine and Seconal to cause cardiac and respiratory failure, with Stemetil to make sure he didn’t vomit them up.”
“You mean he’s
“No. Maurie Finch found him shortly after he’d taken everything and kept him alive until they could transfer him to the emergency room at Holloman Hospital. A lot of antidotes and gastric lavage later, he passed the crisis. Poor Maurie was shocked to pieces and blaming himself.” She put down her half-eaten pizza. “Talking about it takes the edge off one’s appetite.”
“I’m inured,” he said, taking another slice. “Is Schiller the only casualty?”
“No, just the most dramatic. Though I predict that after he has recovered enough to return to work, those who have made his life a misery will let him be. No more swastikas inked on his rats – that I found so disgustingly petty! Emotions can be – oh, terribly destructive.”
“Sure. Emotions get in the way of common sense.”
“Is this murderer emotional?”
“Cold as outer space, hot as the center of the sun,” Carmine said. “He’s a cauldron of emotions that he thinks he controls.”
“You don’t believe he does control them?”
“No. They control him. What makes him such a successful killer is the counterpoise between outer space and the center of the sun.” He took the remains of the pizza from her plate and substituted a fresh slice. “Here, this is warmer.”
She tried, but gagged; Carmine handed her a balloon of XO cognac, frowning. “My mother would say grappa, but cognac’s far better. Drink it, Desdemona. Then tell me who else at the Hug is a casualty.”
Heat flowed through her body, followed by the most marvelous sense of well-being. “The Prof,” she said then. “All of us think he’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Issues directives, then forgets he has, countermands things he shouldn’t, lets Tamara Vilich get away with murder -” She put her hand over her mouth. “I didn’t mean that literally. Tamara is a right cow, but I think her crimes are moral, not homicidal. She’s having it off with someone, and she’s terrified of it getting out. Knowing her, I think it’s more than just that he’s forbidden fruit. She’s in love with him, but he’s put a condition on it – secrecy or else.”
“That means he’s either important, or afraid of his wife. Who else besides the Prof?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Carmine, really! We are all feeling the strain! All hoping and praying that if this – this monster strikes again, he won’t implicate the Hug. Morale is so low that the research is suffering dreadfully. Chandra and Satsuma are muttering about moving away, and Chandra in particular is our bright, light hope. Eustace has had another focal seizure – even the Prof cheered up. It’s Nobel Prize material.”
“One up for the Hug,” said Carmine dryly. His face changed, he dropped to his knees in front of her chair and took her hands. “You’re holding something back, and it’s about you. Tell me.”
She twisted away. “Why should I be troubled?” she asked.
“Because you’re driving to and from work. I see the Corvette in the Hug parking lot – I drive past quite often these days.”
“Oh, that! It’s getting too cold to walk.”
“That’s not what my little bird says about you.”
She got to her feet, walked across to the window. “It’s just silly. Imaginitis.”
“What’s imaginitis?” he asked, coming to stand beside her.
He radiated warmth; she had noticed it before, and found it curiously comforting. “Oh, well -” she said, stopped, then hurried on as if to get the words out before she could regret them. “I was being followed home each evening.”
He didn’t laugh, though he didn’t tense either. “How do you know? Did you see someone?”
“No, no one. That’s the frightening part. I’d hear the rustle of footsteps through the dead leaves, and they’d stop when I stopped, but not quite quickly enough. Yet – no one!”
“Spooky, huh?”
“Yes.”
He sighed, put his arm around her and led her to an easy chair, gave her another cognac. “You’re not the kind to panic, and I doubt it’s imaginitis. However, I don’t think it’s the Monster. Lock up that grunty pig of a car. My mother’s got an old Merc she doesn’t use, you can have that. No temptation to the local hoods, and maybe your stalker will get the message.”
“I couldn’t impose like that.”
“It’s no imposition. Come on, I’ll follow you home and see you in your door. The Merc will be there in the morning.”
“In England,” she said as he walked her to the Corvette, “a Merc would be a Mercedes-Benz.”
“Here,” he said, opening her door, “it’s a Mercury. You’ve had two cognacs and you’ve got a police lieutenant on your tail, so drive carefully.”
He was so kind, so generous. Desdemona eased the bright red sports car away from the curb the moment Carmine was in his Ford, and drove home conscious of the fact that her fear had vanished. Was that all it took? A strong man on one’s side?
He supervised the locking up of the Corvette, then escorted her to the front door.
“I’ll be all right now,” she said, and held out her hand.
“Oh, no, I’ll check upstairs too.”
“It’s pretty messy,” she said, commencing to climb the stairs.
But the mess that met her eyes wasn’t what she had meant. Her work box was on the floor, its contents scattered far and wide, and her new piece of embroidery, a priest’s chasuble, was draped across her chair slashed to ribbons.
Desdemona reeled, was steadied. “My work, my beautiful work!” she whispered. “He didn’t go this far before.”
“You mean he’s been in here before?”
“Yes, at least twice. He moved my work, but he didn’t ruin it. Oh, Carmine!”
“Here, sit down.” He pushed her into another chair and went to the phone. “Mike?” he asked somone. “Delmonico. I need two men to watch a witness. Yesterday, understand?”
His calm was unimpaired, but he prowled all the way around the work chair without touching anything, then sat on the arm of her chair. “It’s an unusual hobby,” he said then, casually.
“I love it.”
“So it’s a heartbreak to see this. Were you working on it when he visited earlier?”
“No, I was doing a sideboard cloth for Chuck Ponsonby. Very elegant, but not the same kind of thing as this. I gave it to him a week ago. He was delighted.”
He said nothing further until the flashing lights of a squad car reflected through the front windows, then patted her shoulder and left, apparently to give the men instructions.
“There’s one guy just outside your own door at the top here, and another at the top of the back stairs. You’ll be safe,” he said when he returned. “I’ll drop off the Merc first thing, but you won’t be able to go straight in to work. Leave everything exactly as it is until my technicians get here in the morning to see if our destructive friend left any clues behind.”
“He did the first time,” she said.
“What?” he asked sharply, and she knew he was asking what clue, not simply exclaiming. Carmine on the job didn’t waste time.
“A tiny bunch of short black hairs.”
His face went suddenly expressionless. “I see.” Then he was gone, as if he didn’t know what to say to leave her.
Desdemona went to bed, though not to sleep.
