“Her body is down by the water,” he said, coming into the kitchen. “Call the police, Robin.”
She squeaked and fluttered, but made the call, then came to him, her hand seeking his pulse.
“I’m fine,” he said irritably. “Don’t fuss, woman, I’m fine! I have just undergone a colossal shock, but my heart didn’t falter.” A dreamy smile played around his lips. “I’m hungry, I want a good breakfast. Fried eggs and bacon, raisin toast with plenty of butter, and cream in my coffee. Go on, Robin, move!”
“They conned us,” Carmine said, standing at the water’s edge with Abe and Corey. “How could we have been so dumb? Watching all the roads, not even thinking of the harbor. They dumped her here from a boat.”
“The whole east shore was frozen until Saturday night,” Abe said. “This had to be last minute, it can’t be where they planned to dump her.”
“Bullshit it isn’t,” Carmine said positively. “The thaw made it easier, that’s all. If the water had stayed frozen, they would have walked across the ice all the way from a street we’re not patrolling. As it is, they could use a rowboat, bring it in close enough to throw her out. They never set foot on the shore.”
“She’s frozen solid,” Patrick said, coming to join them. “A lilac party dress sewn with pearls, not rhinestones. Some lacy fabric I’ve never seen before – not proper lace. The dress fits better than Margaretta’s, at least for length. I haven’t turned her over yet to see if the back is buttoned up. No ligature marks, and no double cut in the neck. Apart from a few wet leaves, she’s very clean.”
“Since they never set foot on shore, there won’t be anything here. I’ll leave you to it, Patsy. Come on, guys,” he said to Abe and Corey, “we have to ask every householder with water frontage if they saw or heard a thing last night. But Corey, you’re going to cast our net wider. Take the police launch and go around the tankers and freighters moored anywhere in the harbor. Maybe someone came up on deck to suck in fresh air after days of being stuck belowdeck, and saw a rowboat. That’s the kind of thing a seaman would notice.”
“It’s a repeat of Margaretta,” said Patrick to Silvestri, Marciano, Carmine and Abe; Corey was out on the water in the big police launch. “Faith’s shoulders were narrower and her breasts were small, so they managed to button up the dress. There wasn’t a mark on it, which means she must have been wrapped in a waterproof nylon sheet for the trip in the boat. Something finer and smoother than ordinary tarpaulin. Boats always have a couple of inches of water slopping around in their bottoms, but the dress was bone dry, unstained.”
“How did she die?” Marciano asked.
“Raped to death, like Margaretta. What I don’t know is if their new ultimate tool is deliberately designed to kill, or whether they would prefer it did its job more slowly – over, say, several assaults with it. As soon as Faith died they put her in a freezer, but not a household job. More like a supermarket one. It’s long enough to fit Margaretta flat out, and wide enough that both girls were positioned in it with their arms extended away from their bodies and their legs somewhat apart. They dressed both girls after they were hard as rocks. Faith’s panties were modest, but lilac instead of pink. Bare feet, bare hands. Faith has two misshapen toes from an old break, left foot. That will make her easy to identify if her family ever comes out of its furor.”
“Do you think the same person made both dresses?” Silvestri asked. “I mean, they’re different yet the same.”
“I’m no expert on party dresses. I think Carmine’s lady should look at them and tell us,” Patrick said with a wink.
Carmine flushed. So it’s that obvious, is it? So what if it is, anyway? It’s a free country, and I’ll just have to hope that we never need Desdemona’s testimony to nail these sons of bitches. A police lawyer would tell me that Desdemona is the most serious mistake I’ve made on this case, but I’m prepared to go with my gut instinct that she’s irrelevant, despite the attempt on her life. Love wouldn’t cause me to lose my cop instincts. God, but I love her! When she appeared on my balcony I knew in a second that she meant more to me than I do. She’s the light of my entire existence.
“Have you had any joy tracing the pink dress, Carmine?” Danny Marciano asked.
“No, none. I’ve had someone check in every store that sells kids’ dresses from one end of the state to the other, but hundred-dollar-plus party dresses seem too rich for Connecticut tastes. And that’s weird, considering that Connecticut has some of the wealthiest areas in the whole nation.”
“Wealthy mothers of little girls spend their lives driving their Caddies from one shopping center to another,” Silvestri said. “They go to Filene’s in Boston, for Chrissake! And Manhattan.”
“Point taken,” said Carmine with a grin. “We’re examining Yellow Pages from Maine to Washington, D.C. Who’s for a stack of hotcakes with bacon and syrup next door?”
At least he’s eating again, thought Patrick, nodding his consent to this plan. God knows what he sees in that Limey woman, but his ex-wife she ain’t. He’s not hooked on a looker for the second time, though the more I see of her, the less I think of her as downright unattractive. One thing for sure, she has a brain and she knows how to use it. That’s bound to entrance a man like Carmine.
“Oh, Addison went to the Hug,” said Robin Forbes to Carmine chirpily when he arrived back at the house.
“You sound happy,” he said.
“Lieutenant, for three years I’ve lived in hell,” she said, moving around with a spring in her walk. “After he had that massive heart attack, Addison became convinced that he was living on borrowed time.
Having no idea that Addison Forbes harbored homicidal fantasies about his wife, Carmine left after another walk around the property thinking that it was indeed an ill wind blew nobody any good. Dr. Addison Forbes would be a much happier man – at least until Roger Parson Junior’s lawyers found a challengeable clause in Uncle William’s will. Was it a part of the Ghosts’ scheme to destroy the Hug as well as beautiful young girls? And if it was, why? Could it be that in destroying the Hug, they were really destroying Professor Robert Mordent Smith? If so, then they were well along the road to success. And whereabouts did Desdemona fit? He had spent their breakfast together grilling her in true, remorseless police fashion: had she seen something she’d buried below all conscious memory, had she been walking some street when a girl had been abducted, had someone at the Hug said something inappropriate to her, had anything unusual entered the tenor of her days? To all of which, bearing his questions patiently, even taking the time to puzzle over them, she returned firm negatives.
After a fruitless cruise through the Hug, Carmine climbed back into the Ford and aimed for the Merritt Parkway, which traveled to New York on the Trumbull side of Bridgeport. Though he did not expect to be permitted to see the Prof, he could find no reason why he ought not inspect as much of Marsh Manor as possible, ascertain for himself what the Bridgeport police had reported: that it would be easy for an inmate to break out of the place.
Yes, he decided, turning in through the imposing pineapple-topped gates, agoraphobia would keep more patients inside Marsh Manor than security patrols. There were no security patrols.
Right. Where to next? The Chandras. Their estate was off the Wilbur Cross where Route 133’s seemingly aimless course brought it into an area of farms and barns in pleasant fields and apple orchards. Too late to have another talk with Nur Chandra at the Hug – he had finished there last Friday, as had Cecil.
The house wasn’t on the scale of the Marsh Manor funny farm, but the estate reminded Carmine of a Cape Cod compound, half a dozen residences scattered around it; though this, in ten acres, was much larger. If it impressed Carmine at all, it was in letting him see how much organization went into making living luxurious for two people and a few kids with money to burn. No doubt the Chandras employed a manager, a deputy manager and a specialist manager as well as the army of turbaned lackeys. The whole thing structured so that the Chandras themselves never gave a moment’s thought to so much effort. A metaphorical snap of the fingers, and whatever was wanted appeared immediately.
“It’s highly inconvenient,” said Dr. Nur Chandra, speaking to Carmine in his imposing library, “but necessary, Lieutenant. The Hug was perfect for my needs, even to – and including – Cecil.”
“Then why go?” Carmine asked.
Chandra looked scornful. “Oh, come, my good man, surely you can see that the Hug is past tense? Robert Smith won’t return, and I am told that the Parson Governors are seeking a way out of financing the Hug. So I would rather go now, while things are in flux, than wait until I have to step over yet more bodies. I need to get out while this monster is still killing, so that I am quite removed from suspicion. For you won’t catch him, Lieutenant.”
“That sounds good and logical, Dr. Chandra, but I suspect that the real reason you’re anxious to hustle yourself off right now concerns your monkeys. Your chances of taking them with you in the middle of the present chaos is
