Too Many Murders

at this wretched bash Myron’s throwing tomorrow night. I’ve accepted on our behalf, of course.” She glanced at her watch. “I imagine she’d have come home by now if things weren’t going well.”

“Erica Davenport is a puzzle, Desdemona.”

“And a murderer?”

“I don’t think so, though Skeps’s death has given her great power. According to his will, she’s the head honcho.”

“My goodness! A signal victory for women,” Desdemona said, gazing at Carmine through the eyes of total love. It was fine to be an independent woman answering to no one; she had been one of those well into her thirties, and perhaps it was better to get the independence urge out of the system early. But there could be no doubt that life with Carmine, at the very center of a large Italian-American family, was infinitely preferable.

“What’s for dinner?” he asked, secretly craving Italian.

“Spaghetti and meatballs a la Emilia Delmonico.”

What a night! He’d gotten to cuddle a wakeful Julian, his dinner wish had been granted-maybe later on he and Desdemona would make a brother or a sister for their son. Though he felt it was too soon, Desdemona didn’t.

He drained his glass. “Then let’s eat,” he said. “Tomorrow night we’ll have to eat all the things that give us indigestion-lobster, softshell crab, Iranian caviar, raw this and raw that. Myron’s importing the chef, I hear.”

* * *

Carmine may not have been looking forward to Myron’s party, but he seemed to be the only one. After Erica’s promotion it had changed from lounge suit to black tie, whether at Myron’s whim or Erica’s no one knew, and sent the female guests into conniption fits-what to wear?

Much to her father’s relief, Sophia decided not to go. No reason was tendered, but Desdemona suspected the girl was thoroughly intimidated by Myron’s new girlfriend. After her dinner with them she had come home enthusiastic, all “Erica this” and “Erica that,” but it rang hollow. So much patrician beauty, sophistication, intelligence and aloofness were just too formidable when met in the same person. Sophia had understood herself checkmated.

Since at her size Desdemona couldn’t buy off the rack, Carmine was spared the what-to-wear dilemma; though it wasn’t vast, his wife had a wardrobe for every emergency. Privately he thought she looked stunning in an ice-blue gown she had embroidered herself in the manner of a dress Audrey Hepburn had worn in a film called Sabrina. In the days when she had managed the Hug, Desdemona had earned large fees for her embroidery, so skilled that she had made vestments for Roman Catholic priests. And, Carmine was delighted to see, she hadn’t minimized her height. Her size thirteen silver sandals (so handy to have drag queens in New York City!) sported three-inch heels.

The first couple Carmine and Desdemona encountered, in the elevator, were Mawson MacIntosh and his wafty wife, Angela. She left Chubb politics to her husband while she explored other planes of existence from yoga to astrology. Theirs was a good partnership, for under the waftiness Angela had a memory that never forgot a face, a name or a conversation. Handy for the President of Chubb! Carmine had long given up wondering how Myron, a West Coaster born, bred, educated and domiciled, knew so many of the East Coast establishment; he just did.

“So tonight we meet the new head of Cornucopia,” said M.M.

“Indeed we do,” said Carmine, refraining from telling M.M. that she was one of his suspects. M.M. probably knew anyway.

“Darling, we’ve already met her,” said Angela. “Surely you remember? At a charity banquet four months ago. She was with Gus Purvey. I remember her because she’s so beautiful-an Aquarius with Scorpio rising and her Jupiter in Capricorn.”

“Huh!” M.M. grunted and stood back for the ladies to go out first. “You look delicious, Desdemona.”

They plunged straight into the fray, headed by Myron and Erica. Their hostess was in silver-grey taffeta and silver tissue, which turned her eyes pale grey; the heels were down under two inches, Carmine noted. Whatever kind of feminist she was-and she had to be one-her technique was subtle, didn’t include intimidation of the male on any tangible level. Myron was so proud of her, so anxious to introduce her to everyone who mattered, apparently oblivious to the fact that she was a major player of the power game in her own right. What was going to happen when they clashed in a board room, as inevitably they would? Or had she factored that in too?

Myron introduced her to Desdemona while Carmine watched. As she was obliged to tilt her head far back to look up into Desdemona’s face, she could only see it from beneath, not its most flattering aspect. So her eyes, seeking a more comfortable level, fixed on Desdemona’s rings.

“Lovely,” she said, forcing a smile. How could a grotesquely tall woman possibly feel at home with her grotesqueness? To wear high heels! Carmine Delmonico was a tall man, but she dwarfed him, and he didn’t seem to mind! How could she catalogue them?

“The diamond is my engagement ring,” Desdemona was saying, “and the sapphire is for the birth of our son.”

“You’re English?”

“Yes, but an American citizen these days.”

Desdemona smiled and moved away; the crowd was building up.

“What do you think of the snow queen?” Carmine asked.

“Not snow, love. Snow’s soft and yielding. Ice queen.”

“Good point. Does her age show?”

“To me it does. She’s very hard, in a way you can’t be at twenty or even thirty. I imagine that soon she’ll avail herself of face lifts-the grooves between the sides of her nose and the corners of her mouth are beginning to show.”

“Is she capable of murder?”

“Corporate murder, certainly. But in the manner of a shark. She’d bite you in half before you so much as noticed her in your vicinity. But I can’t see her getting herself into any situation that would require physical murder. Unless, of course, something pushed her into making a terrible slip.”

“While you stood with her she read you as a freak, but now we’re half the room away, she can’t take her eyes off you.”

“No, I think she was more interested in you, Carmine. She had hopes of seducing you, I think, but after seeing me, they died. She can’t cope with people outside her experience, which is actually quite limited. To her, men are such poor, insecure creatures that they couldn’t bear to be towered over, for example. Now she doesn’t know what to think.”

“That’s what I read on her face, though not the seduction. What does that mean, my oracle?”

“That she’s attracted to you, silly!”

Delia came up, extraordinary in pink frills; Carmine left his wife and his secretary to chat while he started to prowl. No one was absent, as far as he could see.

He stopped by Mr. Philip Smith, whose wife was elsewhere.

“How do you know Myron, Mr. Smith?” he asked.

The cat showed at once. “It’s Phil at social functions, Carmine. Myron is the head of a New York bank with which we do a great deal of business, Hardinge’s. A merchant bank only, no depositors in the First National sense.”

Condescending prick! “Is that how Myron met Dr. Davenport?”

“Erica, Carmine, Erica! Yes, of course. She’s Cornucopia Legal, always involved in our banking business.”

“When did this meeting occur?”

Smith shrugged. “I have no idea. Ask them. In fact, if you’re so intimate with Myron, I’m absolutely astonished that you don’t know. Or is the intimacy just a Myron exaggeration? He’s such a dreadful leg-puller sometimes.”

“Ask him,” said Carmine affably.

And eat shit, you stuck-up clotheshorse! said Carmine to himself as he walked away. Your speech is as stiff as your back.

Next, he encountered Dr. Pauline Denbigh and the acting Dean of Dante College, Dr. Marcus Ceruski. They were busy devouring lobster patties, ecstasy written on their faces.

“Not in mourning, Dr. Denbigh?” Carmine asked, Smith’s snaky gibes still smarting.