Too Many Murders

relished tormenting her as the weeks and then the months went by; beneath the obvious differences, he was not unlike Evan Pugh. I bet they both pulled the wings off butterflies, Carmine thought.

When had the will been made? Carmine looked again, just to make sure he hadn’t mistaken the date. But no, he hadn’t. It was made two months ago, well after Skeps had dispensed with the lady’s services as his mistress. That meant Skeps had coldly considered her merits for the job, and liked them.

He looked at his watch: still time to pay Dr. Davenport a visit before Cornucopia closed its offices for the day. Nor did he call her to make sure she was there; with this new job draped around her shoulders, she’d be there.

Having made a useless trip to Skeps’s offices, he found her upstairs in the penthouse. Which, Abe had discovered, had a small internal staircase hidden inside a guest lavatory. The back wall opened inward when the second in a row of fancy knobs was pressed, revealing a very tight set of iron spiral steps. So Carmine used them, and emerged as if he’d availed himself of the facilities. His appearance didn’t alarm her, just annoyed her.

Today she was wearing dull red, and the eyes she turned on him had gone khaki. Chameleon’s eyes, he thought. They reflect the color around her, but they can’t achieve dull red. The pigment for it isn’t there.

“I must be your prime suspect now,” she said.

“No, if anything you’ve gone down a few notches. Unless he told you what was in his will?”

“Desmond Skeps, so indiscreet? The only thing that ever loosened Desmond’s tongue was alcohol, and by the time I met him, he’d limited his intake severely. One single-malt Scotch a day, that was it, and he never, never deviated. He headed one of the country’s biggest companies, and he knew the damage a loose tongue could wreak. When he first took over the firm, he compromised Cornucopia’s tender for one of the earliest atomic reactors, which enabled a rival company to undercut him using Cornucopia’s own design. It all but killed him. Grierson was the one pulled him out of the fire-if Des loved anyone, it was Wal Grierson. His board was brand-new then. He should have fired all of them except Grierson, but he decided yes-men had their uses-provided, that is, that the boss didn’t get drunk.”

“Obviously you indulged in pillow talk, Dr. Davenport.”

“Oh, she told you, did she? She would!”

“Did Mr. Skeps like women? Get on with them?”

“Oh, come now, Captain, you know full well he hated women! That’s why his will really staggered me. It never occurred to me that Des valued my business sense. Now look at me! I’m Chairman of the Board and I have complete control of young Des’s shares, interests, money.” She gave a breathy laugh. “I, Erica Davenport, am cock of the walk!”

“So you’re going to rub Mrs. Skeps’s nose in it.”

“Not at all.” The eyes were so earnest they were struggling to be blue. “I have no intention of interfering with Philomena Skeps or with her duties as a mother.”

“I have a different question for you, Dr. Davenport. What would happen if Desmond Skeps the Third died?”

Her skin lost its color. “Don’t! Oh, don’t!”

“You’re a lawyer, the eventuality must have occurred to you. So what happens?”

“There are other members of the Skeps family. I daresay the closest agnate relative would inherit.”

Carmine’s heart sank. “Mr. Philip Smith?”

“No, definitely not. Mr. Smith claims blood relationship, but the degree has never been investigated. There is a male nephew and a male first cousin. They would come first, with the first cousin ahead. The nephew is the child of Desmond Skeps’s sister. The first cousin is the child of Desmond Skeps Senior’s younger brother. However, the will was drawn up under New York State law, and I am no expert on that.”

“And it’s irrelevant besides, since Young Des is very much alive. Thank you.” He looked around. “Are you planning to live here?”

“I don’t see why not, though I’ll have to gut the place. Poor Desmond had no taste.”

“You do?”

“I’d rather say that my taste is quite, quite different. I’ll be buying paintings for my pension plan, and hanging them in here. I’ll also be getting rid of that monstrosity.” She flapped a hand at the telescope. “He used to love to play Peeping Tom.”

“So I realized. Did he have a camera attached to it?”

She jumped. “Yes, he did! He did! But it’s not here now.”

“It wasn’t here when his body was still on his massage couch,” said Carmine grimly. “Well, at least I know what Ted Kelly removed.”

“Or perhaps the murderer removed it,” she said.

“Possibly.”

He moved toward the elevator.

“Captain? Will you and your family be at Myron’s party tomorrow?”

“If we’ve been invited, yes.”

“Good! I’m anxious to meet your wife.”

“Why, in particular?”

“She’s brave. Myron told me. It’s not a quality usually associated with women.”

“Hogwash!” Carmine snapped, goaded. “Women are incredibly brave, every day of their lives. To a cop like me, they’re prey. There’s always someone out there watching, stalking, snooping, and no one knows which woman will be a target. Though that’s not what I was driving at, ma’am. Women are brave because they bear the babies and hold the home together-and, man, that can be hard!”

“You’re a romantic!” she said, clinically surprised.

“No, I’m a realist. Good night, Dr. Davenport.”

And what would you know about real women, you attenuated society princess living in an executive washroom world? He seethed, thinking of the thousands of women he had met in the course of his work, tiny memories flashing in and out of his rage, understanding himself no more than a witness to their troubles, pain, hideous predicaments. Cooling, he began to think of the upside, and was able to go home with the worst memories returned to his subconscious.

“You are so too a romantic,” said Desdemona, handing him his bourbon and soda.

He had actually made it in time to receive a wide-awake Julian, who jigged up and down on Daddy’s lap because he wasn’t old enough yet to do much else. Opened, his eyes were revealed as a pale topaz color with a thin outer ring of jet; their lashes were thick, black, and so long they curled, and he had a thatch of black curls atop his big head that would have done credit to any girl. In spite of which no one mistook his sex; there was too much Carmine about him, determined, dogged.

His genesis was a source of perpetual wonder to Carmine, who had never imagined himself fathering a son, and couldn’t think of enough ways to show Desdemona what a gift she had given him so far into his life.

“Squeeze Daddy’s hand,” he commanded.

Julian squeezed; Carmine went through a histrionic performance of ow’s and flinches that had the baby squealing with delight. After that father and son indulged in an orgy of kisses that ended only when Desdemona swooped on the child and bore him off.

“He never tries to fight it,” Carmine said when she returned and sat down to sip her gin and tonic. “I always expect him to try on a power play, or at least start bawling. We were having real fun, then-wham! Mommy cut it short.”

“He’s clever enough to know already that there’s no escaping the fell hour of bedtime. Julian saves his energies for more attainable objectives,” she said, smiling and lifting her glass in a toast.

“Where’s Sophia?”

“Having dinner at the Cleveland with Myron and his Erica.”

“No kidding?”

“No kidding. Myron took her to lunch and gave her the set of peridots, though of course he wouldn’t be Myron if he didn’t exceed orders. She got a very pretty set of garnets too.”

“I presume the breach was healed?”

“Oh, yes. Then the little minx smarmed up to Myron until he agreed to this dinner with Erica. I let her go because if she takes against the woman, it’s better that she should do so in private, not in front of a million people