lemonade.
“No, I wasn’t.” The eyes filled with tears, blinked away. “No one would tell me how she died, Captain, beyond saying she was murdered.” Now the eyes were direct, resolute. “However, I take you for a kind but hard man, and ask you. How did she die? Was it very bad?”
“Yes, it was very bad. She was tortured first. Every long bone in her arms and legs was broken. Then she was strangled with a rope noose.”
“A hanging?”
“No. Simple strangulation, if I may be excused for saying that. It probably came as a relief.”
No tears now, but the creature behind the eyes had retreated to some place he couldn’t reach. “I see,” she said. “That is an odd kind of torture, surely? There was no sexual element.”
“From my experience, it was not a sexual murder. She was tortured to obtain information, I think. Certainly the textbooks would argue no sex was involved, though sometimes I wonder how much-or how little-we know about sexual murder. Did it ever occur to you that she might be in danger?”
“Not of murder. Rape I could understand, because she invited it-so cold, so sexually uninterested. There is a kind of man who regards women like Erica as needing to be brought down a peg or two, and what more effective way than rape?”
God, this is an intelligent woman! he thought. “Did you know that she had been gang-raped as a young woman?”
“No, but it makes perfect sense.”
“She didn’t confide in you?”
“I told you, Captain. We were not on good terms.”
“Recently, yes, but at one time you were. There’s no point in denying it, Mrs. Skeps.”
“Yes, at one time we were great friends. It’s because of me that she became Desmond’s mistress-I begged her. Of course that altered our friendship, though we remained close for a long time after. Had I known of the rape, I would never have asked. I was very selfish, Captain. While Erica kept him sexually sated, Desmond left me alone. It surprised me when she said that they engaged in nothing but fellatio, but of course men love it.”
“Why did it surprise you?” Carmine asked.
“Because she was so uninterested in sex. Not disinterested, uninterested.” Philomena Skeps struck her hands together. “Oh, please! Let’s leave this sordid subject!”
“Why were you such great friends?”
“A marriage of minds. Our intellects meshed perfectly. We loved to read, we liked to discuss what we’d read-all the myriad activities, phenomena and creatures of the world fascinated us. We loved beauty in all its guises-a moth’s antennae, the iridescence of a beetle’s carapace, fish-you name it, we loved it. Neither of us had ever known such a wonderful friendship. So when it ended, I was devastated.”
“Why did it end? How did it end?”
“I still don’t know. Erica ended it out of the blue. In November of 1964, Thanksgiving Day. She was coming here to dinner with me, Tony, young Desmond. But she arrived far too early. I was in the kitchen,” Philomena Skeps said in a desolate voice, “at the counter, making the turkey stuffing. Erica came in, stood about six feet from me, and said our friendship was over. She disliked me, she said, and was sick of pretending otherwise. Desmond was making it hard for her, she said. Young Desmond detested her, and she was sick of that too. There were a dozen more reasons, all much the same as those. I was too astounded to argue, I just stood with my hands full of bread and listened. Then she turned on her heel and left. Just like that! I never really saw her again, except at functions and meetings we couldn’t avoid.”
“It must have been a sorrow for you, Mrs. Skeps.”
“No, a tragedy! Life has never been the same since.”
“How did you cope with the fact that your ex-husband gave Erica control over your son’s inheritance?”
“I was crushed, but I wasn’t surprised. Desmond would have done anything to make life difficult for me. It affected Tony worse. He couldn’t find anything in the will that would enable him to challenge it legally. Of course now that Erica is dead, things will be different.” She couldn’t keep the satisfaction out of her voice.
“Why did your son detest Erica?” Carmine asked.
Her smile was twisted. “Jealousy, of course! He felt that Erica was more important to me than he was, and in one way he was right. An intellect craves equal company, and no matter how great the love, children can never compete on an intellectual level. It is a wise child who understands that. Young Desmond isn’t wise. So he loathed Erica, who stole me from him. When the friendship ended, my son rejoiced. Which reminds me, I must stop calling him ‘young’ Desmond. He’s simply Desmond now.”
How he managed to keep his face expressionless, Carmine never after understood, only that somehow he had, while this very strange woman produced a mixture of Oedipus, Clytemnestra, Medea and about a dozen other Greeks who’d wormed their way into the psychology textbooks. I fervently hope, he thought, that by the time this terrifying amalgam explodes, I’ll be safely retired. Jesus, what a mess!
“Mother?” came a voice.
Speak of the devil!
With two dark parents he couldn’t help but be dark, though face and body were more Philomena than his father. Having come into puberty, he had embarked upon his first growth spurt, and was taller now than his mother. He wore nothing save a pair of cutoff jeans, revealing a wide-shouldered, narrow-hipped physique that ended in beautiful hands and feet. When he moved the hands, they were graceful. His face was as much feminine as masculine, of that kind called epicene, and Carmine doubted that the double-sexed look would vanish as he grew older. Chiseled features in a northern European mold, and large, bright green eyes smudged with thick black lashes. Nor would he develop acne; his brown skin was flawless, innocent of pustules.
Carmine felt his hackles rise. Here was
The boy came to lean against his mother, standing to one side of her chair, and she turned her head to kiss his arm, smiling.
“Captain Delmonico, this is my son, Desmond.”
“Hi,” said Carmine, rising and extending his hand.
The boy took it, but fastidiously, with a faint moue of distaste around his red-lipped mouth. “Hi,” he said. Then, to his mother, “Is this about the Wicked Witch of Cornucopia?”
“About Erica Davenport, yes, dear. Some lemonade?”
“No.” He stood posed like a Praxiteles statue, oblivious to the fact that the visitor’s foot itched to kick some manners into the conceited little shit. “I’m bored,” he said.
“With all that schoolwork still to do?” she ventured.
“Since my I.Q. is two hundred, Mother, it’s scarcely a problem!” he said tartly. “I need a bigger library.”
“Yes, he does,” she said to Carmine ruefully. “I’m afraid that we’re going to have to move to Boston. The Cape suits me, but it retards Desmond.” Her head went back to her son. “As soon as the legal ramifications are disentangled, dearest, we’ll go to Boston. Just a few more weeks, Tony says.”
“I take it you’ve fully recovered from the chicken pox?” Carmine asked the boy.
He didn’t like the reference to a pedestrian childhood ailment, so he ignored the question. “Where’s Tony?” he asked, fretful and peevish.
“Here!” said Anthony Bera’s voice from the back door.
The change in young Desmond was both sudden and dramatic; he lit up, bounded to Bera and hugged him. “Tony, thank God!” he cried. “Let’s take the boat out, I’m bored.”
“Good idea,” Bera said, “but I have to talk to the Captain first. Why don’t you get things ready? We need bait.”
The boy went off, but not before a little more talk passed between him and Bera. Carmine smothered a sigh of mingled sorrow and disgust. Young Desmond had already been sexually initiated, but not by a woman. Bera was mentor in this area too. A few more Greeks flitted through Carmine’s mind.
“Did young Desmond exaggerate his I.Q.?” Carmine asked as soon as the boy was out of earshot.
“Some,” Bera said, laughing, “but it’s right up there in the genius range.” He frowned. “It’s rather narrow, however. His gifts are mathematical, not artistic, and he lacks curiosity.”
“A detached reading of someone devoted to you, surely.”
“There’s no point in being anything else,” Bera said, not perturbed by the fact that Carmine had realized what
