Too Many Murders

Desdemona.”

Finally, Sophia put dinnerless to bed and Desdemona a little mollified, he got his drink.

“I wonder where he met her?” Desdemona asked.

“Given the effluxion of time, my love, we’ll find out.”

“Do politicians really use that phrase? It’s so pompous.”

“I’m led to believe they do. But, far more important, how’s Julian? That kid could sleep through the San Francisco earthquake-the noise element, anyway. I’d forgotten how loudly Sophia can howl. Poor little runt.”

“Erica or no Erica, Myron can jolly well take Sophia out to lunch and buy her that set of peridot jewelry she’s been lusting after for weeks.”

“It’s not too valuable, is it?” Carmine asked anxiously.

“No, dear heart. A semiprecious, apple green stone, medium on the Mohr scale, and set in fourteen karat gold.”

“Can he really buy her?”

“Oh, no! Because she loves him as her father, she’ll forgive him, but she has to make him understand that forgiveness comes at a price. Today she crossed a narrow arch across the abyss, and the last vestiges of childhood are gone. We’ve witnessed the tragedy of life-that even the strongest ties begin to fray. Myron is hers in a way you’ve never been, Carmine. In future she’ll love Myron quite as much, but never with complete trust. He betrayed her by showing her that this new woman is more important to him than she is.”

“But that’s like trying to have your cake and eat it too,” Carmine protested. “If she hadn’t come to us, Myron wouldn’t have gotten so lonely. He was a sitting duck.”

“Yes, we both know that-and so does she. But there was enough child left in her to think she could have her cake and eat it too. Now she knows differently, and a part of her sorrow is because she left him,” Desdemona said.

“My children are very lucky,” he said, pulling her into the chair and kissing her tenderly. “They have a wise mother.”

“No, just a rather elderly one.” She gave him a kiss of her own and draped her long body across his lap. “Our dinner is ruined, and we daren’t get Emilia in to babysit, with Sophia feeling mildly suicidal-no, no, she won’t do anything silly, but she’ll think about it, and I’d rather be here. Therefore you have your choice between bologna and cheese on your sandwiches. Or you could have both.”

The murder of Desmond Skeps continued to preoccupy Carmine, who met Ted Kelly in a quiet corner of the Cornucopia cafeteria unaccompanied by Abe and Corey.

“The contents of the filing cabinet were disappointing,” he said, eating scrambled eggs on toast, a dozen rashers of crisp bacon and a mess of baked beans; bologna sandwiches did not a dinner make, and Julian had decided to go colicky just as Desdemona got out the frying pan.

“How do you know what was in the filing cabinet?” Kelly demanded. “I got it back before you had time to go through it!”

“Uh… photocopiers?”

He gaped. “You can’t photocopy top-secret information! That’s a hanging offense!”

“I’ve never been clear on federal death penalties-do you hang them, shoot them, or fry them? It’s been a while since a treason case hit the newspapers. But to counter your statement, Ted, no one has seen my photocopies since they came off the Xerox machine except Delia Carstairs and me, and we’ve got the clearances. Besides, can you see Ulysses sneaking into the Holloman County Services building in search of secrets? Our copies are locked in the evidence cage along with everything from bloody axes to counterfeit plates and a few keys of heroin. It’s a small department, which means the evidence cage sergeants know every cop face that comes through the door. The fact of the matter is that Holloman PD security is infinitely better than Cornucopia security, and you know it. Those dipshits you rubber-stamped as security personnel at Cornucopia couldn’t find their ass with both hands inside their shorts. The real linchpin of good security is knowing the faces that go through the door, and writing every single one of them down in a log. If that happened, you’d know who Ulysses is, even if he’d been Desmond Skeps himself, because not every visit would be bona fide. People are lazy, Ted! They cut corners. And unfortunately employers like Cornucopia save the high salaries for their board members. But you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. If there are log books, how often are they used? Yeah, yeah, I know it’s not under your direct control, but it should be. You’re built like Hercules, but these Augean stables fill up with shit far faster than you can shovel.”

He had eaten his way through this speech while Ted Kelly watched, fascinated; anyone would think the guy hadn’t had any dinner! But, being a just servant of Justice, he nodded.

“I concede all your contentions, Carmine. What we need are stiffer laws and penalties, and in that respect Ulysses is a good thing.” He smiled ruefully. “And I’m glad you looked into the filing cabinet. At least now I know it’s disappointing.”

“Why? Where is it?”

“Under armed guard en route to D.C. When it gets there, it will take weeks for news of the contents to get back to me.”

“Well, the FBI is like the rest of our national capital-full of paper pushers who have to justify their existence.”

The plate was absolutely clean. Carmine drank coffee and stared contentedly at Ted Kelly. “I want to know what you pinched out of Desmond Skeps’s penthouse.”

“I didn’t pinch anything!”

“Horseshit! You did, and before my Medical Examiner and his team reached the crime scene.”

“You have no basis for saying that.”

“I do. Otherwise, my friend, you wouldn’t have disturbed my crime scene ahead of the coroner. You know the rules as well as I do, and you know who has jurisdiction in a murder that doesn’t cross state borders or have concrete ties to juicy stuff like espionage. There was something inside Skeps’s penthouse that you didn’t want us provincial turkeys seeing, and I intend to find out what it was.”

“I didn’t take so much as a paperclip! I just had a look at the body and walked around.”

“Did you touch the body?”

“No!”

“Describe it.”

“After more than twenty-four hours? Give me a break!”

“Crap! You’re a trained observer. Describe it.”

Special Agent Ted Kelly closed his eyes. “Skeps was lying on his back on his massage couch, the mark of an IV needle in his arm. It had dribbled a tiny drop of clear pink fluid, no blood. And yes, I used a swab to take a sample, which dried it up. Skeps was naked. Someone had done a rough shave of his body hair down to the base of his penis, but no farther, and his name was written in a burn. There were other burns as well. His nipples had been cut off with something blunt and heavy. There were ligature marks on his wrists and ankles. That’s all.”

“God, you’re a liar, Kelly! Never touched the body, eh?”

“I didn’t touch it! The swab did!”

“How long was it between your leaving the penthouse and the arrival of Dr. O’Donnell?”

“Half an hour.”

“Did you remain in the vicinity?”

“No, I went downstairs to Skeps’s offices.”

“And you refuse to tell me what you pinched?”

“I didn’t pinch anything.”

“Well, as far as I’m concerned, Ted, the espionage is a goddamn nuisance. If you’d left things alone, we would have shared with you. It’s a pity that the pendulum only swings one way. I won’t be giving you any professional courtesies, be warned.”

“Skeps was murdered by Ulysses, this is a federal case.”

“Offer me some tangible evidence.”

“I can’t.”

“Or won’t, more like.”