Too Many Murders

“No, I’ll answer,” she said in that sweet, patient voice that never lost its cadence. “We discussed my son’s future, as Dr. Davenport is now the arbiter of his fate. I went to Mr. Mandelbaum’s party for no other reason than to see Erica, and I can’t imagine she had any other reason for asking him to invite me. Erica is not welcome in my home. I am not welcome in any Cornucopia premises. Therefore we chose neutral ground.”

“I suspected that much,” Carmine said. “But you haven’t really answered me. What aspects of your son’s future did you discuss, and what was the outcome of your-negotiations?”

“My son must endure almost eight years of Dr. Davenport’s authority, and the last three or four of those years will be quite insufferable for him. He doesn’t like her, he never has. What I hoped was to persuade her to agree to having another-a second-person involved in his future. It worries me terribly that this woman could ruin his inheritance. Not intentionally, but through incompetence.”

“But anyone left in charge during an heir’s long minority might ruin a business empire,” Carmine objected. “I take it you have no faith in a woman at the Cornucopia helm?”

“No, it’s not that, it’s her! I asked her to bring Tony-Mr. Bera-in as the second person. She refused. And that was the end of our conversation.”

“You must have been mighty thick with Dr. Davenport to have fallen out so badly,” Carmine said. “Why does your son dislike her? When and where have they met?”

Her head slewed to Anthony Bera. Help, help, rescue me! What do I say? What do I do?

“I advise you not to answer, Philomena,” said the mastiff, earning his bone.

Carmine extricated himself from his extremely uncomfortable chair. “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Skeps.”

I feel like Michelangelo chipping away at a hunk of marble, he thought, commencing the interminable drive home. Today I have bared an elbow, a forearm, and a hand. But is it the right one, or the left? And where does Ulysses fit in?

On his return he discovered that Delia had usurped half of his office, where a trestle table and a wheeled chair now stood.

“I’m too cramped,” she explained. “Uncle John really has not been fair about space! The captain of detectives must have a secretary, and said secretary must have a suitable office. I occupy a cupboard!”

“Then why don’t you go complain to Uncle John? Where are Abe and Corey going to put their chairs if I call a conference? And much as I love you, Delia, I do not need your ears flapping in time with your mouth. A work space is only useful to one person. How can I think if every time I look up, I’m looking at you?”

She took this in the spirit it had been tendered, but she had no intention of moving the acres of paper she had spread around, huge sheets with smaller ones clipped to them. Now I have to go fight Delia’s battles, he thought, moving to the door as soundlessly as always. Any other man, thought Delia, would have stomped, but not Carmine. By next Monday I will have a bigger office.

She waited until a certain emptiness invaded the air, her way of telling whether Carmine was in the building. Good, gone!

“Have you worked out how to do it, Uncle John?” she cooed, sidling around the Commissioner’s door.

“No, Delia, I have not. I figured I’d just sit here and wait for you to come tell me how to do it,” Silvestri said.

“How very perspicacious, Uncle John. It’s Mickey McCosker is the trouble. He has twice as much room as Carmine or Larry, but he’s never here. What I propose is that you give Carmine his two rooms, and put Mickey where Carmine is. Shall I have Plant Physical do it tomorrow?”

He nodded wordlessly. Why is she always right?

“Tell me that,” he said to Carmine in Malvolio’s five minutes later, “and I’ll give you Danny’s job. Or mine, if you want it.”

“Cheers, chief.” Carmine raised his glass. “I’m happy to be a captain of detectives, especially if I can have Mickey’s office-or am I supposed to move into his second room?”

“No, you get his office. The second room, Delia informs me, is twice as big.” Somehow he managed to turn his face into a passable imitation of his niece’s, and said in a shrill falsetto, “‘Bags I the second room, Uncle John!’ I said yes. Easier in the long run.” He sipped his bourbon reflectively.

“As I remember Mickey’s second room,” said Carmine, “even at the rate Delia acquires filing cabinets, it should shut her up for two-three years.” He grinned. “Then you’ll have to run for mayor, John, and build her a new County Services.”

“In a pig’s eye!” The Commissioner downed the last of his drink and waved for another. “What’s Delia doing?”

“Some crazy project only she could understand or want to do. It’s about public meetings and functions and it’s germane to the case, so I guess I’m using her as a detective.” Carmine waved for another bourbon, then looked hopeful. “I don’t suppose you’d give her the lieutenancy?”

“No, I would not! Bad enough that she’s got me drinking at four-thirty in the afternoon. Delia and her paper chases!”

Of chaos there was none; by Monday midday Carmine was well ensconced in his new office, which was at the back of County Services and consequently suffered little traffic noise. Light came in through a series of high windows that faced Holloman’s prevailing winds, giving him an occasional cool gust during the dog days of August. The proximity of Abe and Corey’s office was an additional bonus; it lay two doors down the hall. Carmine’s old office was up two flights of stairs on the same floor as the Commissioner’s.

“We need a coat of paint and new furniture,” said Delia.

“When I go on vacation,” said Carmine in his no-arguments tone as he inspected her quarters, strewn with broadsheet-sized papers. “What are these? Plans?”

“Of a kind. With more floor space, I can really spread them out. I should be able to give you my report on Friday.”

Corey walked in. “Carmine, a domestic in the Hollow,” he said. “Woman battered to death, lover nowhere to be found.”

And this, said Carmine to himself as he left, means we’ve hit a stone wall with the mastermind. For now, it’s business as usual. There has to be a loose thread somewhere! I am not giving up, I am not pulling these nine files out of my current load and shelving them at Caterby Street!

“There’s been a development at the Norton house,” Abe said quietly on Tuesday morning. He looked drawn, horrified.

Carmine was up and around his desk in seconds. “What?”

“The little boy is dead.”

His step faltered. “Oh, Jesus! How? Why?”

“Drank or ate something, I was told.”

“But the strychnine was never found!”

“I don’t know if it is strychnine, Carmine.”

“What else could it be?”

“Let’s wait until we know for sure, okay?”

He could walk again. Carmine began to hurry, then wondered why. Poor little Tommy was dead. “Is Patsy on his way?”

“I told him first. Corey went with him.” Abe’s voice shook.

“What’s the little guy’s proper name?”

“Thomas Peter. Five a few days ago in April, so he doesn’t go to school until September. Never will now.”

They climbed into the Fairlane; Abe put the light on the roof automatically. Carmine sat in the front seat, hands over his face.

A nightmare, it was a nightmare! The noise of the siren was oddly comforting: a lonely, desolate sound. They were approaching North Holloman before he took his hands away.

“Has she confessed? Who’s seen her?”

“Only Dave O’Brien-he’s sergeant on duty at North Holloman this week. She called him calm as you like, didn’t call anyone else. Dave went right on over to the house and then called me. That’s all I know.”

“How could that stupid doctor of hers not know what she was hiding? She was so doped up both times I saw her, I didn’t stand a chance of getting anywhere! I should have pushed her, Abe, but she fooled me!”

“Carmine, none of us could have known. If she did kill her husband, the reality was so far from what she