Skinner looked back up Bart and RoseAnne Wilkins' driveway. 'So what do we do now?' he asked. 'We're done here, I reckon, and our return flight isn't until half seven tomorrow.'
'Ah hell, we'll see the sights of Helena, eat some prime beef and try to drink the Napa Valley dry. But first, let's see if the other young soldier's getting better treatment in Vegas than he was when we spoke last.' He dial ed Brand's number.
Skinner watched as his friend spoke to the Special Agent. His expression was serious, matter-of-fact, as he listened, until all at once it broke into a wide grin. 'You say?' he exclaimed. 'Kid, you've made my day. Thanks, I'l see you Monday, back in Buffalo. Meantime, if you want to spend the weekend in Vegas continuing your investigation, that's al right with me… just don't let me see any roulette chips on your expenses claim.'
He pushed the 'end' button and put the cellphone back in his pocket.
'Well?' Skinner demanded. W 'You're going to love this, pal,' said Doherty. 'Superintendent Barbara Weston will not, but you will. The guy who iced Sander Garrett stole his Cubans, Bob. He took his Goddamned cigars!'
33
Mario McGuire, clad in a white scene-of-crime suit, looked at the sheet in the corner of the room and shivered at the recent memory of what lay under it. To escape it as much as anything else, he rose from his seat by the wide window and walked through to the apartment's main bedroom.
His aunt lay on her bed, fully dressed; she was staring at the ceiling.
He sat beside her and took her hand. 'How you doing, Sophia?' She turned her head to look at him; her eyes were rimmed all round with red, made al the more vivid by the paleness of her face.
'Mario…' It was a whisper and it was all she could say.
'Yeah, yeah.' He stroked her arm, doing his best to soothe her. 'Listen,' he said, his voice not much louder than hers, 'the doctor wil be here soon. She'l give you a shot, and then I want you to go with Maggie, back to our place. She's downstairs in a patrol car. You can't stay here.'
She frowned, her eyes almost crossing as she tried to focus on him.
She raised herself off the pillow, bracing her weight on an elbow. 'But will the police not want to talk to me?'
'Yes, we wil, but no one's going to do that until you're fit and ready for it; and the guy who'l decide that is me. You're my auntie and no one's going to impose on you.'
'But who's going to tell the girls? Who's going to tell Nana? Who's going to tell your mother?'
'I'll do al that, don't you worry.'
She nodded, and lay back on the pillow once more, staring upwards again. 'Why, son, why?' she murmured. 'Why would anyone…'
He had no answer for her, not so soon. He was about to tell her as much, when the silence of the big flat was shattered by a scream. He jumped up from the bed, his foot slipping for a second on the plush carpet, and headed back to the great open-plan living room, almost at a run.
His cousin Paula was standing, with the sheet in her hands, staring down at her father's body. She was wearing a designer trouser suit, and most of her long dark-skinned back was bare as he looked at her.' Jesus!' he gasped, crossing the room to her side in four long strides, as Detective Superintendent Jay, drawn by the commotion, emerged from the kitchen.
'Greg!' McGuire roared at him. 'Are your people asleep out there?'
He turned her round forcibly, twisting her away from the sight on the floor. 'Who let you in here?' he asked.
'A guy outside tried to stop me,' she hissed, 'but I kicked him on the knee and came in anyway. Mario, what is this? What's happened?'
She wriggled in his grasp; she was big and, in her heels, almost as tal as he was, but stil he was much too strong for her.
'We're way short of being able to answer al of that,' he said, quietly,
'but your father's been shot, and he's dead. Aunt Sophia found him when she came in from the theatre; she and my mum took Nana Viareggio to the show at the Kings.' He paused, letting it sink in. 'What brought you here at this time of night?' he asked her.
'I was out for a meal at the Malmaison; when I was leaving I looked across the water and saw the ambulance outside the building. Then when I got here, I saw Maggie sitting in a patrol car. Oh, Mario
…' Finally, Paula's hard outer casing seemed to crack. She laid her forehead on his shoulder and cried like a baby. He released his grip on her, and enfolded her in his arms, hugging her to him; as he did so, something came to him, a fragment of memory from a very drunken night many years before.
'Okay, kid,' he whispered, feeling her tears dampening the front of his tunic. 'Let it out, let it out.'As they stood there, embracing, his own grief for his dead, clownish, clumsy, but ultimately likeable uncle came to him. He buried his face in Paula's silver hair, kissing it gently. 'Okay, okay, okay,' he murmured, over and over again, feeling her hold tighten on him, feeling the warmth of her al the way down his body, feeling himself reacting, involuntarily, to it.
The weight of Greg Jay's hand on his shoulder brought him back to the time and place. 'Mario,' said the superintendent, gently, 'the doctor's here.'
He blinked and nodded. 'Paula.' She looked up at him, her face a mess of smeared mascara and eye shadow. 'Go see your mother,' he told her.
'She's in the bedroom.'
'Okay,' she agreed, beginning to gather herself together once more.
'Thanks, cousin. Look, take care of things, will you? Viola's going to be out of it, that brother-in-law of mine will be no better, and Mum's going to need me. Can you do that?'
'Of course. I'l handle everything.'
She kissed him on the cheek. 'Thanks,' she murmured. 'Love you for it.'
He turned, steering her towards her parents' room; as he did, he saw Sarah Grace Skinner standing in the doorway, waiting for him.
'Sarah,' he exclaimed, 'thank Christ it's you. I'm so glad you were able to come.'
'No problem,' she assured him. 'I haven't retired you know. The nanny's living in, for now at least, so I could leave the kids.'
She frowned at him. 'This is your uncle, Mr Jay told me.'
'Yes.'
'Should you be here?'
'Try to keep me away,' he grunted. 'Should the Boss be with the FBI?'
'You got me there,' she admitted. 'Let's get to work, then.'
'Okay, but first, could you talk to my aunt? She needs a sedative; then Paula and Maggie can take her out of here.'
'Paula? Oh yes, that was your cousin; I remember her now, from your wedding reception, a striking-looking woman, isn't she. How's she taking it?'
'She's made of solid steel inside; she'll be all right.'
'I'll decide that; I might just stick a needle in her anyway. You wait here.' She turned, medical bag in hand, and fol owed in Paula's footsteps, going into the bedroom after a gentle knock on the door. Mario heard the sound of his aunt's sobbing as she entered.
He stood in the living room for several minutes, watching Inspector Arthur Dorward and his crime-scene team beginning their task of gathering all the tiny pieces of potential evidence that the room might hold, watching the photographer as he took picture after picture of Beppe's body.
Final y, Sarah reappeared, looking sombre. 'This is unusual for me,' she confessed quietly to McGuire. 'In fact it's unique. Invariably, when I arrive at a scene the grieving relatives are long gone, but not this time.'
The detective looked at her with a trace of alarm in his eyes. 'You want us to get someone else?' he asked.
