Too Many Murders Read online

  “He never tries to fight it,” Carmine said when she returned and sat down to sip her gin and tonic. “I always expect him to try on a power play, or at least start bawling. We were having real fun, then—wham! Mommy cut it short.”

  “He’s clever enough to know already that there’s no escaping the fell hour of bedtime. Julian saves his energies for more attainable objectives,” she said, smiling and lifting her glass in a toast.

  “Where’s Sophia?”

  “Having dinner at the Cleveland with Myron and his Erica.”

  “No kidding?”

  “No kidding. Myron took her to lunch and gave her the set of peridots, though of course he wouldn’t be Myron if he didn’t exceed orders. She got a very pretty set of garnets too.”

  “I presume the breach was healed?”

  “Oh, yes. Then the little minx smarmed up to Myron until he agreed to this dinner with Erica. I let her go because if she takes against the woman, it’s better that she should do so in private, not in front of a million people 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 w
hich 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.

  She snorted, unabashed. “I look like a terminal cirrhosis in black, Captain, so no. Besides, I was dying to meet the new head of Cornucopia. What a victory for women!”

  “Yes, it is, particularly as the decision was made purely on merit. Why don’t you try for Dean of Dante? That would be just as great a victory.”

  “Chubb would give the job to someone from Mars first—if he had a penis and was a Chubb alumnus. I’m trying for Lysistrata when it’s built.”

  “Isn’t it weird to build a college exclusively for women when all-male colleges are being held discriminatory?”

  “Of course. We’ll have our share of men students, I’m sure. The real victory will be a woman-dominated administration. Chubb owes us that at least,” said Dr. Denbigh.

  “What if your husband hadn’t been murdered? Or perhaps I should say, what would happen if your husband were alive at the time Lysistrata is finished?” Carmine asked.

  “I would still have applied for the deanship. If John had refused to go with me, I would have divorced him. Lysistrata, I am assured, will not be hidebound in the matter of a married couple. Such rubbish!”

  “How do you feel about the crumbling of time-honored customs and practices, Dr. Ceruski?”

  He flushed, looked confused. “Ah—it’s really none of my business, Captain. Especially given that it’s hypothetical.”

  Bestowing a smile on them, Carmine moved on. Could she have done it? An idea was stirring in his head, but it would have to wait until Monday … And this isn’t bad fun, his unruly mind was telling him as his eyes fed it information. Thank God my wife can look after herself and knows exactly why I’m here. Good Lord, a woman in a hat!

  The next fish he caught in his net were actually two fish, according to M.M.’s astrologically inclined wife: joined at the hip, one swimming upstream, the other down. Dean Robert and Mrs. Nancy Highman. She was charming and in the Dean’s own age group. Their children were grown and gone from the nest, which made living in college at Paracelsus ideal.

  “I hope you find out who killed that poor, unfortunate young man,” Mrs. Highman said, sipping a glass of white wine. “I had his parents to lunch—such lovely people! What can one do to ease their pain? Try to give them back the body soon, Captain! As for Bob—he just isn’t himself. Well, how can he be? I don’t know how word gets around, but every parent of every student in college knows about the bear trap. Trying to persuade people that none of the other young men is in danger takes up so much of Bob’s time! I don’t suppose you’d let us tell the parents about Evan’s blackmail?”

  Who the hell told the Highmans about that? The Pughs? “I’m afraid not, Mrs. Highman,” he said gently. “That’s what we call sequestered evidence. If it became general knowledge, it would muddy the waters.”

  She sighed. “Yes, I see.” Then she brightened. “Well, I do have some information that might help,” she said.

  “What?” he asked warily, not sure how far she was prepared to go to ease the weight off Dean Highman’s shoulders.

  “I was in that afternoon. Usually I’m not—I have a life class in drawing at the Taft Institute. But our instructor got sick, and it was canceled. I came down late for lunch, about a quarter after one. The foyer was deserted, but there was a fellow in a brown uniform going up the sophomore stairs. I only remembered him tonight after I got here because of that woman over there in the brown tabard with the glittery tapestry tunic underneath it—see? See her? It’s that huge pancake of a brown hat! The fellow was carrying something on his head, brown and circular—the brown cloth made me think of the cover on an instrument. It was bigger than the hat by far, but the hat jogged my memory. Isn’t she a fright? Why’s she wearing a hat to a formal affair? The fellow in brown had a tool belt and pouch like a carpenter, which is why I never thought to notice him.”

  Suppressing what he felt was an excusable exasperation, Carmine leaned a little into Nancy Highman’s face. “Madam, you have been questioned twice. Each time you swore you’d seen no one—in fact, you didn’t even tell my men that you were in college last Monday!”

  “Oh, dear! Please don’t be annoyed, Captain! I’m just not a remembering kind of person unless something jogs me, truly! Like that hat over there. It’s so ugly! And then—bang! There was the workman in brown, with the brown pancake on his head. He— he rose to the surface!”

  “Was he a big man?”

  “No, he was very small, like a child. Thin … And he had a limp, though which was the bad leg I can’t remember. If his boots had made a black mark on the marble floor I would have called him down and rebuked him, but they didn’t have those icky rubber soles that drive Bob crazy. So I went on into the dining room and forgot him.”

  “Did you see his face?”

  “No, I was looking at his back.”

  “His hair?”

  “Hidden by the brown pancake.”

  “What about his hands? Was he a white man or a black man?”

  “I think he wore workmen’s gloves.”

  Jesus, the guy had balls! Here we’ve been assuming he picked an hour when the college was deserted, when all the time he was there while the dining room was serving lunch. At any moment a sophomore student might have taken it into his head to visit his upstairs room, and run into this limping, diminutive murderer. Who would have—done what? Nothing beyond what was expected of a carpenter, even if the youth who encountered him was Evan Pugh. But it hadn’t happened. The killer had a sublime faith in his luck, apparently substantiated. How many more surprises would Myron’s reception yield? And, wondered Carmine, who is the woman in the brown pancake hat?

  Gus Purvey, Wallace Grierson and Fred Collins had circled their wagons, but Carmine had no trouble breaking their formation. Now he had Desdemona with him, and they were awed into submission. Purvey, deprived of Erica, had come alone. Collins was squiring his twenty-year-old wife, Candy. Grierson’s wife, Margaret, another tall woman, was looking indescribably bored when the Delmonicos arrived, and seized upon Desdemona with glee. They moved away a little and commenced animated talk.

  “Your wife’s loaded with class,” said Grierson to Carmine. “Was she—or is she still, maybe—a detective?”

  “No, she was a hospital administrator, one of the new kind that couldn’t castrate a tomcat,” said Carmine. “Hospitals are run as businesses now, more concerned about ledgers than the quality of nursing.”

  “Pity, that. Health isn’t a commodity, it’s a state of being.”

  “We’ll have to get you on the Chubb-Holloman Hospital board.”

  “I wouldn’t mind that.”

  “I envy any woman with a career,” said Candy with a sigh.

  “Then go get a career, Candy,” Grierson said, not unkindly.

  “You’ve got your career!” Collins snapped. “Wife and mother.”

  Purvey laughed. “You’re just sour at being pipped at the post by the old grey mare,” he said through the guffaws. “It’s a good color for ou
r Erica, grey. But cheer up, Fred! Maybe the race isn’t over yet.”

  “It is for me. And for you. And for Phil. Not for good old Wallace here, of course. He’ll survive,” said Collins.

  “You mean you could find yourselves out in the cold, cold snow?” Carmine asked.

  “Bound to be,” Purvey answered.

  “I guess it was a big shock” was Carmine’s next comment.

  “What?” Collins asked.

  “The will.”

  “It was an insult! Disgusting!” Collins hissed.

  “Did any of you expect it?”

  Grierson chose to answer. “Not even Phil Smith, and he was closest to Desmond. I’d say it was a forgery, except that Tombs, Hillyard, Spender and Hunter drafted it, kept it, saw Desmond sign it, and then put it in their vault. It came up to Holloman in a top-secrets briefcase chained to the courier’s arm, and Bernard Spender opened it in our presence. It’s the genuine article, for sure. I’d hoped that somewhere it would say why Desmond decided on Erica, but it doesn’t. There’s not one personal reference in it, even as a footnote. Just pages and pages designed to foil Anthony Bera if he sues on Philomena’s behalf.”

  “Don’t you think Dr. Davenport will make a good chief, sir?”

  “I think she’ll run Cornucopia into the ground. That’s why I’m going to get an agreement out of her that I get first refusal of Dormus when the crash happens,” Grierson said.

  “How many of you knew that Dr. Davenport was Mr. Skeps’s mistress?” Carmine asked.

  That flabbergasted them; there could be no mistaking their reaction. None of them had known. And here am I, Carmine the mischief maker, inserting that barb under their skins, yet another poison. “Oh, come!” he said, sounding mocking. “You must have wondered the moment you heard the contents of the will, even if you hadn’t believed anything amorous existed between them before that.”

  “I for one genuinely believed Desmond chose her for her ability,” Grierson said. “In fact, I don’t see how their being lovers changes that. Desmond wasn’t the kind of man to be influenced by emotions. He was wrong to judge her so capable, but it wasn’t a judgment he made because she was his mistress.”