Too Many Murders Page 35

  “Nothing,” he said curtly.

  The steps had been installed in sections of arc thirty degrees wide, which meant each full step had twelve sections. The edge of the highest step measured about three and three-quarter feet per section.

  “Cumbersome to remove, but feasible,” he said, picking up a crowbar and inserting it under the overlapping lip of the step.

  He found the one that lifted on his fifth attempt. It was fitted as snugly as the others, but dislodged when levered and broke into jagged pieces.

  “He doesn’t open the compartment with a crowbar, Carmine. See? The section actually slides outward on runners like an expensive drawer. I’ve broken it,” he ended with some regret. “Such nice work too.” Up went his shoulders in a shrug. “No use regretting. Where’s my camera?”

  The Holloman PD used supermarket brown paper bags for large items of evidence, small brown paper bags, and little brown paper envelopes. Abe’s camera flashing blue under his eyes, Carmine flinched at the smell emanating from the compartment, then put both hands inside and withdrew a pair of coveralls akin to a boilersuit. Flash, flash from the camera. The garment was rigid with browned, dried blood, so much so that it took time to compress it into folds, reduce it to something that would slide into the bag. It had not been as carefully preserved as Lancelot Sterling’s souvenir; mold and mildew fuzzed and whiskered its crevices, and insects scurried for shelter.

  “There’s nothing else inside,” said Abe, disappointed.

  “Well, we photographed it in situ, withdrawn, the step, the sliding mechanism and everything else we can think of,” Carmine said, sitting back on his heels. “It’s enough, but I want the razor. Where is it?”

  “You said enshrined, but you don’t enshrine anything you revere in the same space as you put your bloody clothes,” Abe said. “The Ghost, Carmine! Think adoration.”

  “Then it’s somewhere else in here, Abe. In one of these columns. There must be a column drum with a compartment in it at about… head height. So he can look without touching.”

  “Won’t happen,” Abe said pessimistically. “The marble will be too thick to sound hollow. There must be a spring that opens a door when pressed, but not manually. At the weight, given that the door will be the full length of one column drum, Smith must have electrically wired the spring. Wiring under the ground, under the steps and the floor, up inside the shrine column. All of them are probably hollow at their centers, but the shrine one much more so. I bet he triggers the door by an impulse from a wireless control he holds in his hand—he’s a ham radio nut, he must know every trick there is. If he wasn’t carrying the control to Zurich with him—and why would he?—then it’s lying in the open among the other junk in his radio shack.”

  “Check the columns with a magnifier first, Abe. If there is a door, the joins must show.”

  “Look at a column closely, Carmine—any column will do.”

  “Shit!” said Carmine, peering. “A thin line runs down the middle of each flute.”

  “We have to find his control. Either that, or demolish the whole temple.”

  “Which would be a terrible shame,” Carmine agreed. “Okay, Abe, go look in the radio shack. Our warrant doesn’t extend to the house, but the shack’s in the open on the roof. Find the control, and it won’t matter—no, it does matter! Smith’s too rich for us to bluff the lawyers he’ll hire. Back I go to the Judge.”

  Two hours elapsed before Carmine returned with a warrant to look in the radio shack. Judge Thwaites, horrified at the news that evidence had already been recovered implicating Smith in murder, made it a sweeping one. If they needed, they could search the house as well.

  They didn’t need to. A search of the radio shack yielded three small switch panels of the kind people use to open their garage doors. The difference was that all three were homemade. The second opened the door hidden in one column.

  Folded into its ivory shell, the razor was perched on two forked silver prongs arising from a stand worked in exquisite filigree; the whole cavity was lined with padded crimson satin.

  “The stand isn’t silver,” Abe said. “It’s not tarnished.”

  “My guess is chromium plating rather than platinum,” said Carmine, peering closely.

  Using his clean handkerchief, he removed the razor, taking care not to smudge its surfaces. It hadn’t been washed, and dried blood coated it thickly, especially around the hinge. It went into a brown envelope, sealed and witnessed.

  “I should have remembered to bring rubber gloves,” Patsy’s technician said regretfully. “Dr. O’Donnell is very keen to make them compulsory for gathering evidence.”

  “It’s okay, we’ll manage,” Carmine said. “After all the fuss about this case dies down, the Commissioner and your boss are planning a think tank about evidence. It’s a headache.”

  “If Smith’s prints are on that razor,” Abe said, packing up his camera, “we’ve got him cold.”

  “Provided the prints are either in the blood itself or over the top of the blood,” Carmine said.

  “They will be, Carmine, they will be!”

  “What I’m wondering is what those other two garage door buttons open. Doubting Doug is going to murder me, but I think I have to have a warrant for this entire property, inside and out, and go around every room, statue, sundial, pillar and post until I open two other electrically controlled secret doors. I have a feeling it will pay me to do that,” Carmine said.

  “You’ve already got warrants up the wazoo,” Abe objected.

  “Yes, but the judicial climate is changing, Abe, and the cops who don’t go with it are fools. I want my new warrant to specify that I’m looking for what these two controls open.”

  “Then make sure the batteries powering them are new.”

  On Saturday the Delmonico couple piled into the Fairlane and set off for Orleans. Even though she knew she would have to wait elsewhere while Carmine quizzed Philomena Skeps, Desdemona was delighted at the expedition. She had never been to Cape Cod, and the prospect of a rare day out with Carmine thrilled her. In Holloman he was at the mercy of his huge family, and so by extension was she, not to mention the demands of his job. Now she was almost one hundred percent sure she had him captive for eight or ten hours. No one was going to walk through the door, no phone was going to ring asking for his police presence. Into the bargain, it was a perfect day on the cusp of summer.

  Julian had been left with Aunt Maria and a tribe of girl cousins who would spoil him rotten, and Desdemona was not so doting a mother that she fretted when he wasn’t with her. This was a holiday, and she could see from the volume of traffic on I-95 that quite a number of other people had decided to take a drive Capeward on such a beautiful day. The only thing that blighted her mood was Carmine’s wearing a .38 automatic on his belt together with his gold captain’s shield. But when she opened the glove box to put a bag of candy inside and saw a second .38 nestled among spare ammunition clips, she gasped in horror.

  “Oh, I don’t believe it!” she cried. “Where are we going, to Dodge City?”

  “You’ve been watching television,” he accused, smiling.

  “And you’ve been accumulating paranoia! Honestly, Carmine! Two guns? Extra ammunition? How can I be comfortable in the midst of an arsenal? Is Julian to see this sort of thing?”

  “The spare is always in the glove box, Desdemona. You don’t normally open it, is all. I’d forgotten it was there.”

  “Codswallop! You’d forget your own head first!”

  “Well, maybe.” He grinned. “Without my sidearm I feel naked, and that’s the truth. When we go into a HoJo’s for some breakfast, I’ll be wearing my jacket and no one will know. John Silvestri suggested I take you, but don’t make me regret it, Desdemona. I have to see two suspects today, and while I don’t expect fireworks, it’s a stupid cop that isn’t prepared for them.”

  She sat in silence for a while, digesting the note of finality in his voice and not liking the fact that he had rebuke
d her as if it were she at fault. Her strength and independence rebelled, but her sense of justice said she had known when she married a cop what it entailed. What bothered her was the gap that yawned between the sexes when it came to guns. Women abominated them. Men esteemed them. And Julian would be on his father’s side.

  “I wonder,” she said at last, “how do other women manage to sleep knowing their husbands have a gun under the pillow?”

  “About like you, lovely lady. Out like a light for as many hours as the kids permit.”

  She laughed. “Touché!”

  “If I pushed papers or machined metal for a living, there would be no need for me to carry a gun,” Carmine said. “But cops are peacetime soldiers. There’s a war going on, and soldiers have to be armed. The worst of it is that the war involves civilians too. Look at you and Julian by the boat shed.”

  “Then perhaps,” she said, swallowing, “I should learn to use a gun, even if I don’t carry one.”

  “I think that’s sensible,” Carmine said warmly. “Shooting accidents happen through sheer ignorance. I’ll arrange for you to learn at the police range. Better fire a .38 automatic, because I’ve switched to one, though Silvestri won’t.”

  Yet one more battle lost, Desdemona thought. I wasn’t able to make him see my side of it, but he worked me around to seeing his side. And what would I do if someone came after Julian? I would want to protect him.

  They pottered through the incredible seaside mansions of Rhode Island, mostly converted now to institutions and rest homes, but still betraying their millionaire origins. After a good breakfast they entered the biceps of the Cape, and Desdemona marveled at the beauty.

  “Better in July, when the roses are out,” Carmine said.

  “I never realized how many hauntingly beautiful, Old World spots this part of America has. I thought seaside villages like Essex in Connecticut were glorious, but the Cape Cod villages are more so—no, make that differently so,” said Desdemona.

  They reached Orleans in the early afternoon. Carmine set Desdemona down in the sand dunes beginning to run up the Atlantic side of the Cape’s forearm, and drove off to see Philomena Skeps.

  Who was waiting, placidity unruffled. Well, I’m here to spoil that, Carmine thought, seating himself in a white chair on the patio behind her house.

  “When do you move to Boston?” he asked.

  “Not before September,” she said. “One last Cape summer.”

  “But you’ll keep this house, surely?”

  “Yes, though I doubt I’ll manage much more than an occasional weekend visit. Desmond is keen to be somewhere that he can see movies, play pinball machines, mingle with friends.”

  She spoke in the same gentle, even voice, but the unhappiness ran beneath its timber like water in an underground stream. Ah! Carmine thought. She’s beginning to realize her son’s sexual inclinations.

  In fact, she had subtly aged in a very few short weeks. Her eyes were starting to produce crow’s-feet at their outer edges, and two faint lines ran down her cheeks to the corners of her mouth, which now turned down a little. The most amazing change of all was a broad ribbon of stark white hair through the black curls above her left forehead; it gave her an eldritch quality, as of a medieval sorceress.

  “Have you established the future of Cornucopia yet?”

  “I think so,” she replied with a faint smile. “Phil Smith will continue as Chairman of the Board, the present members will all continue, and I will stay in the background as trustee of my son’s controlling interest. Provided nothing untoward happens, I don’t see why anything should change. Erica’s death leaves a vacancy on the Board that I intend shall be filled by Tony Bera.”

  “It’s in relation to the composition of the Cornucopia Board that I’m here, Mrs. Skeps,” Carmine said in the same formal way. “Philip Smith will be leaving the Board permanently.”

  Her deep green eyes widened. “What do you mean?”

  “He’s been arrested for murder and espionage.”

  Her breast heaved; she clutched at her throat. “No! No, that’s quite impossible! Phil? You are mistaken, Captain.”

  “I assure you, I am not. The evidence is overwhelming.”

  “Espionage?”

  “Oh, yes. He’s been passing secrets to Moscow for at least ten years,” Carmine said.

  “Is that why—?” She broke off.

  “Why what, Mrs. Skeps?”

  “Why he speaks Russian when he’s alone with Natalie.”

  “If you’d told me that earlier, ma’am, it would have helped.”

  “I never thought anything of it until now. Natalie’s not comfortable in English, and though Russian isn’t her native tongue, she speaks it well. Phil said he’d done a Berlitz course when he married her. He used to laugh about it.”

  “Well, he’s not laughing now.”

  She twisted in her chair, upset and distracted. “Tony! I need Tony!” she cried. “Where is he? He should be here!”

  “Knowing Mr. Bera, I predict he’s lurking outside waiting for the right moment.” Carmine got up and went to the corner of the house. “Mr. Bera!” he bellowed. “You’re needed!”

  Bera appeared seconds later, took one look at Philomena, and glared at Carmine furiously. “What have you said to put her in such a state?” he demanded.

  Carmine told him, which clearly astounded him as much as it had Philomena. The two of them huddled on a cast iron settee and stared at Carmine as if he bore their execution orders.

  “Two places vacant on the Board!” Bera exclaimed.

  Which gives me an idea of his priorities, Carmine thought. He doesn’t give a rat’s ass about espionage or murder, all he cares about is a pliant Board to protect young Desmond’s—and his own—interests. Mr. Anthony Bera bears watching.

  “If it’s any consolation, Mr. Smith’s last executive order was to appoint a new managing director for Cornucopia Central,” he said briskly. “He fills Erica Davenport’s non-Board shoes, though not her Board ones. His name is Mr. M. D. Sykes.”

  This news item didn’t interest either of them, but Carmine hadn’t thought it would. He’d thrown it in to provoke a reaction, and had he got one, he would have had to dig into the past of Mr. M. D. Sykes. A relief to know there was no necessity.

  When he left, it was with the rooted conviction that Tony Bera would skim as much cream off young Desmond’s milk pan as he could over the next eight years. But that was white-collar crime, not his concern.

  “What an odd world it is,” he said to Desdemona as they headed for a lobster restaurant. “Some guy pinches ten grand from his firm, and he goes to prison. Whereas some other guy pinches millions from a company’s funds and doesn’t even get prosecuted.”

  “Better to be at the top of the heap than the bottom,” Desdemona said. “Oh, Carmine, thank you for today! I rolled in the sand, paddled, let the wind blow through my hair, feasted my eyes on these gorgeous villages—absolute heaven!”

  “I only wish I’d accomplished more,” he grumbled. “That pair may not be spies or killers, but they’re guilty of a lot of things. Bera’s got Philomena hooked, yet he’s also seduced her son. The bastard swings both ways.”

  “Oh, that’s disgusting!” she cried. “To make love to a woman and her son! Surely she doesn’t know?”

  “No, she doesn’t know, though she’s starting to suspect that young Desmond likes men too much. If you saw the kid, you’d know he’s behind the eight ball anyway. Too beautiful. It probably began at school, and that’s what she’s blaming.”

  “You’re saying it’s inherent in the boy?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Is he effeminate?”

  “No! Tough as old leather, hard as nails.”

  At which moment the Fairlane entered the parking lot of the lobster restaurant.

  Desdemona dismissed worries that were not her concern save as a mother. She was too happy to be cast down, she reflected, ordering a lobster roll. What had sent her in
a hurry from London back to Holloman was the knowledge that the fertile segment of her monthly cycle was due, and that if she missed spending it with Carmine, she would have to wait another month to try again. Julian was about to turn six months old; if she conceived now, he would be fifteen or sixteen months old when the new baby arrived. That was long enough. If they were brothers, the younger stood a chance of physically catching up before Julian left home. And that, she thought in satisfaction, means that if they do detest each other, the older won’t always be able to wallop the tar out of the younger.

  Tummy full of lobster roll, Desdemona fell asleep before they got to Providence.

  And so much for Silvestri’s theory about companionship, Carmine thought, his right arm aching from the pressure of his wife’s head. Still, it’s been a great day, and with any luck I’ll never have to go back to Orleans.

  On Monday, Carmine was allowed to see Philip Smith, who occupied a private room high in the Chubb-Holloman Hospital. At Carmine’s request it was the last room down a long corridor, and as far from the fire stairs as any room could be. The room opposite had been requisitioned by the County and served as a recreation area of sorts, enabling Smith’s round-the-clock guards to use its bathroom, have a coffee carafe on permanent tap, and sit in comfortable chairs on their breaks. How the Commissioner had wangled it Carmine didn’t want to know: the FBI was picking up the tab.

  Smith’s room was filled with flowers. That, together with the soft lilac of its walls and padded vinyl furniture, gave it an un-hospital look at first glance. Then, past such things, the eyes noticed the sterility of the bed, the ropes and pulleys, the incredible way any occupant of such an infernal rack was automatically shrunken in size, stripped of authority and power.

  This Philip Smith looked older than his sixty years, his handsome face collapsed in on itself a little, his blue-grey eyes unutterably weary.