itself to some people.”
“Evan Pugh was a blackmailer who picked the wrong victim,” Corey said, “and Skeps was probably responsible for the ruination of tens of thousands of lives in one way or another.”
“Yet the worst death of all was reserved for an innocent.” Carmine stood frowning heavily. “What about her made the killer white-hot hate her?” He looked at Corey from under his brows. “You did the preliminary work, Corey. Did anything ever surface that suggested Bianca wasn’t an innocent?”
“No, absolutely nothing,” Corey said steadily. “She’s exactly who she seems, I’d stake my life on it.” He went red. “I was on the ball, even if I was having a few personal problems.”
“I never doubted that you were.” Carmine sat down and waved a hand at chairs. “So here we have a killer of nine or ten people who is capable of pitying some of his intended victims, yet simultaneously capable of implacable hatred for some others. In one case only, the hatred went from ice-cold to white-hot-Bianca Tolano. A twenty-two- year-old economics graduate aiming for a Harvard MBA. Very pretty, a great figure, but on the shy side. Not man- hungry. At second autopsy Patsy decided she was probably a virgin.”
“She reminds me of Erica Davenport,” said Abe thoughtfully.
“What?”
“Well, she does!” Abe prepared to defend an untenable position. “I can see Dr. Davenport at that age, with her summa cum laude degree and the whole world in front of her. She’s an icicle now, but I bet she wasn’t back then. I bet she wasn’t man-hungry either. Too ambitious. Just like Bianca.”
“Now why didn’t I see that?” Carmine asked slowly. “I spent half of yesterday afternoon looking at Erica Davenport’s FBI file, and failed to see it. Bianca was a surrogate Erica.”
“Jesus, this case gets screwier by the minute!” Abe cried.
“Think about it!” Carmine said eagerly. “If Bianca is a surrogate Erica, it puts her murder in perspective. The random element is disappearing. They
“There haven’t been any more murders,” Corey said.
“Where do we go from here?” Abe asked.
“You guys concentrate on Peter Norton,” Carmine said, tone brisk. “I’m finding it harder and harder to believe that window-of-opportunity garbage. What if Mrs. Norton had been meaning to kill her husband for some time, and was manipulated into doing the deed on April third? If she’s guilty, then she had to get the strychnine somewhere, and maybe that’s the connection to our mastermind. I want both of you lifting up the flagstones on Mrs. Norton’s buried past. A boyfriend? I doubt it, but it has to be excluded. Is she in debt? Jewels? Furs? Clothes? Gambling? Is she bored with her life as Mrs. Small City Banker? She’s plump, but not unattractive. Look behind every blade of grass, guys. I want to know where this murder belongs.”
Which left him time for lunch at Malvolio’s with Myron, who looked careworn.
“Is she leaning too hard?” Carmine asked, sliding into the booth, his smile disarming the question’s intrusive side.
“Not as much since I advised her to let S.S. Cornucopia sail under its own steam. I should have seen that for myself.”
“You’re the ham in the sandwich.” Carmine turned to the waitress. “I’ll have a lettuce, tomato, cucumber and celery salad with oil-and-vinegar dressing, Minnie, and crackers on the side.” He looked from Minnie to Myron suspiciously. “So what’s the big deal about that?”
Minnie melted away; Myron shrugged. “For you, Carmine, it’s horrific. What happened to the Thousand Island dressing? The hard rolls? The butter?”
“If you’d been eating dinner at my place, Myron, you’d know.” Carmine sipped black, sugarless coffee. “My wife has turned into one of the world’s great chefs, so either I eat rabbit food for lunch, or no lunch at all. Otherwise I’ll turn into the Goodyear blimp.”
“Holy Moses! What gives with the murders?”
“We’re making progress. How much has Erica told you about her childhood and young womanhood?”
“More than she told Desmond Skeps, I think. She conned all the
Cornucopia executives out of self-preservation, but she came clean to me when I asked her. Depression children had a hard time, Carmine.”
“Don’t tell me, I was one. My father was lucky, he kept his job, but his wages had to be spread around the family some. East Holloman was one of the first districts to improve, so by 1935 things were looking up again. St. Bernard’s high school was underpopulated. We got a lot of teacher time.”
“I never felt it,” Myron confessed. “The movie industry did well, so did my pop.”
“It was a crazy decade.” Carmine munched through his salad as if he was enjoying it. “How do you think Erica wound up the person she is now, Myron?”
“I have no idea, and she won’t tell me.”
“Has she ever mentioned what she did in Europe while she tripped around there in the summer of 1948?”
“I didn’t even know she went to Europe, just about London.”
“It’s in her FBI file, and it might answer a lot.”
“I won’t spy for you, Carmine.”
“Nor would I ask you, but spying is already a part of this case. Someone at Cornucopia is selling secrets to the Reds, and Erica is a strong suspect.”
Myron had gone chalk white. His fork fell onto his plate with a clatter. “Oh, God, that’s awful!”
“It’s also classified information. You can’t tell anyone, Myron, though you can tell Erica. She knows all about Ulysses.”
“Ulysses is the spy?”
“It’s his FBI code name. I don’t think Erica is Ulysses, but I do think she knows who Ulysses is. Your security clearance is probably much higher than mine, so I don’t have any qualms about telling you. If you don’t know, then your businesses and your associates are not involved. But it might be that Erica would welcome a true friend.”
Myron’s wide grey eyes filled with tears. He nodded quickly, speechless. When he did speak, his voice sounded normal.
“I seem to have lost my appetite,” he said. “This superb meatloaf is virtually untouched. I don’t suppose…?”
“Sorry, no, rabbit food only.”
“My God! Desdemona must rank with Escoffier!”
“I don’t know about that, but she certainly outranks my grandmother Cerutti, and that’s saying something.”
The next day brought another trek to see Philomena Skeps. Why, he asked himself, does she have to live in Orleans? A three-hour drive even with the siren on in Connecticut, and this time he doubted she’d give him brunch. It wasn’t a hospitable kind of day; the sky was overcast, the wind was blowing, and the Atlantic was trying to demolish the sand dunes, or maybe pile them up higher.
He was right about brunch. Mrs. Skeps met him at the door accompanied by Anthony Bera, who directed Carmine into a small parlor poorly lit by a window covered in rambling rose canes. The lawyer had gone fully formal in a three-piece suit with a Harvard tie, and Philomena wore a mossy green wool dress that showed off her voluptuous figure. Why was such a gorgeous woman wasting her fragrance on the Cape’s salty air? Bera he could understand; Bera was the mastiff hoping to be tossed a bone.
“Do you have any contact with the women’s liberation movement, Mrs. Skeps?” he asked.
“Not really, Captain. I have given small donations for any projects dear to my heart, but I don’t call myself a feminist.”
“Have these projects been drawn to your attention by Dr. Pauline Denbigh?”
“I know her slightly, but she has never solicited me for either membership or money.”
“Do you sympathize with feminist causes?”
“Don’t you, Captain?” she countered.
“Yes, of course.”
“Then there we have it.”
“What did you and Dr. Erica Davenport discuss so earnestly at Mr. Mandelbaum’s party?”
“You don’t need to answer that, Philomena,” Bera said. “In fact, I advise you not to.”
