Too Many Murders

fellows.”

Her lips thinned. “Then I had better tell you, Captain, that Mr. Purvey’s cocktail waitresses are men in drag. He likes them about eighteen or nineteen years old, with their own hair grown out and their body hair depilated.”

“It’s nice to have one’s suspicions confirmed,” he said, smiling. “Now what about Mr. Kelly?”

A scarlet spot had appeared in each cheek and the lips were a straight line. She answered obliquely. “For two people who may end in seeing a lot of each other, Captain, we’re not getting on too well. Though of my own volition I would never have made a friend of you-you’re too much the male chauvinist pig.”

He laughed, understanding her. “It’s a lot of years since a man has ever been in a position to throw uncomfortable questions at you outside your legal province, and now here he is, and you don’t like it. Or him. We’re not having a social encounter, Dr. Davenport. You’re being interviewed as a possible suspect in a murder. When we do finally meet socially, this has to be forgotten, not toted like extra baggage.”

The cobalt eyes flew to his, astonished. Some internal struggle took place, then she sighed and nodded. “Yes, I see, Captain. I apologize. Yes, I am a member of the Board, purely because Desmond Skeps felt he needed Board representation from his legal department. And my dates with Gus Purvey aren’t regular. They’re limited to functions the Board considers obligatory. As for Mr. Kelly-I presume you’ve learned that he’s here to investigate espionage. However, that knowledge is surplus to your requirements, surely. You’re simply an insatiably curious man, Captain Delmonico, one of those irritating guys who can’t bear not knowing every prurient detail of everyone’s life.”

“What a great reading of my character! Insatiably curious! Right on target, Dr. Davenport. However, it’s my insatiable curiosity that’s responsible for my ability to get solutions.”

“You are, the Governor tells us, formidable.”

Carmine left the window with a resolution that, for the duration of this investigation, every blind in his house would be drawn. There were too many barbarians.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, ma’am.”

And off he went, leaving his quarry still standing in front of her desk, full lips thin.

The filing cabinet contained all of Cornucopia’s data pertaining to any item Desmond Skeps had reason to think had either definitely or possibly been passed to the Communists.

Delia, whose security clearances were quite as high as Carmine’s, had already waded into the document fray. When Carmine joined her it was four in the afternoon, and she had dealt with the two top drawers, the definite thefts.

“Jesus!” he exclaimed. “Has Uncle Sam got any secrets left?”

“Cheer up, Carmine, it’s not as bad as it looks,” she said. “What you see is the paperwork attached to eight items, from the rocket fuel governor to the gunsight. In addition there are two separate and distinct improvements to something called a ramjet, another rocket part, the blueprints of an experimental aviation cannon, a new atmospheric analyzer, and the formula for some sort of steel-this last, it seems, highly experimental. Bad enough, but at first I thought it was going to be far worse. Mr. Skeps stuffed everything in the drawers, including letters and memos. I think he intended to go through every sheet himself-or perhaps he even had, if his murder is related to the espionage.”

“Which it may or may not be. What’s in the bottom two drawers?” Carmine asked.

“Things that Mr. Skeps may have considered more terrifying than the confirmed thefts. They concern items that passed into production as long ago as a decade.”

Carmine whistled. “That is scary! If Skeps was right, it means Ulysses has been active inside Cornucopia for the last ten years.”

Delia sat down on a wheeled stool with a flop that sent it whizzing away until Carmine caught it, by which time they had both found a laugh, soon dead. “If the FBI doesn’t know, they will as soon as they open the bottom drawers. Every company engaged in defense work has lost something,” Delia said.

“The most maddening part is that I don’t need the extra work involved in looking for Cornucopia’s spy. I’m tempted to call Ulysses a red herring, except that he’s the size of a blue whale, and I don’t know enough to be certain that Skeps’s murder has nothing to do with Ulysses. I feel as if I’m stuck up to my chin in quicksand, Delia.”

“I believe that in films quicksand is actually just a bath of water with sawdust on top,” said Delia, who was an inveterate moviegoer. “Perhaps this is the same.”

“Then the bath’s too deep for my feet to reach the bottom.”

“Why do they need to? Tread water, Carmine, and spit out the sawdust.”

“How right you are! Kelly’s the espionage expert, not me. I’ll go after the murderer, and if he happens to be the spy, that’s gravy.” He grinned. “Or sawdust.”

When he let himself in his front door shortly after seven that evening, Carmine expected to hear the joyous sounds that always followed in the wake of Myron Mendel Mandelbaum. Instead, his ears found silence. When he walked into the little sitting room where they usually gathered before dinner, three of the five people he loved most in all the world were there, mute. Desdemona’s face was downcast, Sophia’s tear-stained, and Myron’s a mixture of frustration and anguish.

“Carmine, tell them I’m not deliberately hurting them!” Myron cried, jumping up.

“I would, if I knew what you were talking about.”

“Daddy, he’s leaving!” Sophia said, weeping afresh.

“Leaving?” Carmine asked, astonished. “You only just got here, Myron!”

“He’s not leaving Holloman,” Desdemona said, getting up to pour Carmine a drink. “He’s moving to the Cleveland Hotel.”

“You’re joking!”

“No, Carmine, I’m not joking. The thing is, I want to be free to see Erica, have her come and go as she pleases and as I please. I understand why you can’t have her as a guest in your house, I really do, but much as I love Sophia, she’s not the reason why I made this trip east. I came to be with Erica, who’s going through a rough time…” Myron faltered, ran down, and stood staring at Carmine helplessly, one man to another.

God, he must be head over heels in love with the woman, Carmine thought. Myron so thrown off balance that he wounded Sophia with ill-chosen words? It must be the first time ever. And Sophia was howling like a five-year-old, Desdemona was furious at such lack of tact, Myron was shaking as if he was about to keel over-what to do? One thing at a time, Carmine. Get rid of Myron first.

He threw an arm around Myron’s shoulders and propelled him out of the room. “Are your things packed?” he asked.

“Yes!” A gasp. “Carmine, I’m so sorry! I didn’t know how to tell them, then I fucked it up-Sophia, my Sophia!”

“Don’t worry about her, she’ll forgive you. Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll call a cab.” He picked up the hall phone. “Get your bags out of the house up to the road and wait for your cab there. I’ll stay with Sophia and Desdemona.”

“Thanks, Carmine. I’m in your debt forever. Once all of you get to know Erica, you’ll love her. She’s- wonderful!”

Hah, thought Carmine, returning to the sitting room. Your Erica is devious, a man-hater, everything you loathe in women, only you can’t see it. What’s her magic, and why don’t I feel it?

It took a long time to calm Sophia, who was devastated. What else had Myron said to her, between his arrival and now, to provoke the kind of grief that feels like the end of the world? He had made no secret of his reason for coming, and Sophia had seemed to take the news well. But not now, face covered in snot, howls loud enough for the neighbors to hear, and they were way away. Nor could he get through to her, as if she had transferred some of Myron’s crime to him. Because he was another man, or because he was another Daddy? Carmine didn’t know, but his child’s grief cut at him like a blunt knife.

He had never seen Desdemona so upset either, though a part of him rejoiced at that; it said she loved Sophia with heart and soul, would go to bat for her no matter what.

“But a hotel!” she said between clenched teeth. “How dare he? The Cleveland is close to a hundred years old!”

“If he doesn’t like the way the toilet flushes, he can afford to call a plumber. Besides, they refurbished their suites last year, and you know Myron-no poky single room looking at the back of Macy’s. He’s sleeping with her,