The Prodigal Son (19 page)

“Yeah, but he did it the hard way. Amundsen had dog sleds and more dog sleds and all that Scandinavian know-how. Scott was an Englishman, doing it on a shoestring, walking to the Pole. I mean, it almost feels like Amundsen was
cheating
.”

“You’re not a Spanish grandee! You’re a British bootstrapper. Who’s been indoctrinating you? Are you and Desdemona
cheating
on me? In a dog sled? ‘Mush, Fernando, mush!’”

Their steps went well together; they strode in silence then for several complete rounds, smiling.

“How’s the uniformed division going?”

“Slow but steady. They’re getting used to the forms and the reports, especially after I brought in that hotshot lawyer Anthony Bera to give them a seminar on police roles in evidence as well as demystifying courtroom procedures. He’s impressive. They tended to believe him whereas they had ceased to believe me — new broom’s bristles worn to stubble and all that shit.”

“We got you just in time, Fernando. How are the loots?”

Vasquez threw his handsome head back and laughed. “Great! Especially Corey. He has a feel for the work.”

“More than he ever did for my kind of looting. But he’s not your favorite, is he?”

“With Maureen for a wife? Shades of Torquemada! No, the one I lean on is Virgil Simms.”

“Makes sense. Speaking of him and certain events, have you heard how Helen MacIntosh is going?” Carmine asked.

“Gun happy as ever. She’s leaving her Manhattan precinct for the greener pastures of Nashville.”

“Whom did she kill?”

“Four hoods in three separate incidents. Came out squeaky clean from the internal enquiries, but her colleagues were beginning to step ten paces around her and even then worry if it were far enough to avoid stray bullets.”

“Good luck, Nashville.” Carmine smiled reminiscently. “She won’t last long any place. Gun happy.”

Delia returned to Hampton Street, determined to see Emily Tunbull. Another tattoo on the knocker produced no result, but the garage door was still up and the Seville sitting waiting. She had to be at home, and she wasn’t over at Lily Tunbull’s because their cars were both absent and the house silent. Had she perhaps gone out with Lily and the kids? Not, Delia was convinced, without first closing the garage door. It worked on a remote, no effort involved. No, something was
wrong
.

Back to the yard, still deserted. Nothing had changed; no one had visited it and left evidence of that visit. Delia peered in every downstairs window — no Emily, even sleeping in a chair or on a couch. That established, she threw pebbles at the upstairs windows, to no effect. Back to the yard.

Two sheds. One was probably to hold wood, the other perhaps for some hobby of Val’s; it was difficult to think of Emily as having a hobby requiring a shed. Neither padlock was a serious challenge for a police detective; Delia picked the one
closest to the house first, to find wood of the kind used in fires for visual pleasure rather than actual heating. The second padlock snapped open with equal ease; Delia unhooked it and opened the door.

The poor woman had suffered terribly. Her clothes had been ripped off by her own fevered hands, probably in an effort to sop up some of the frightful mess she was making, couldn’t stem or control. The confined place reeked of vomitus and feces, strewn around as Emily flailed, then convulsed. Her naked body was twisted into a huddle that presented the viewer with her buttocks and perineum, her legs apart continuing the view as far as the mons, all covered in mess. Her upper torso was splashed and smeared with vomitus where the left side had lifted away from the concrete, yet her face looked as if a gigantic hand had squashed it into the ground. The agony written on it was horrifying; Delia leaned against the shed wall and wept in a combination of shock and outraged pity. No one deserved to be seen in death like this! It was appalling, it was inhuman, it was — Delia sobbed.

As soon as she could move she closed the door and put the padlock back in place, then went to the back door — a credit card did the job. Inside, she sat on a chair and pulled a phone on the countertop toward her.

“Carmine? It’s Delia. I’ve found Emily Tunbull … I want personnel who really respect bodies —” She sobbed again. “— no, I insist on it! The poor woman is desecrated, I’ve never seen anything like it. I don’t want her family or any fool setting eyes on her until she’s been tended to, is that
clear?” And she hung up without another word, without waiting for Carmine to answer her or give her directives.

He came himself, siren shrieking, Paul Bachman and Gus Fennell not far behind.

“Delia, what on earth’s the matter?” he asked, coming into the kitchen. “Is she inside? Paul and Gus need to know.”

“She’s in the far shed. Pick the padlock, it’s easy. Then look.” Delia tried to repair run mascara, broke down again. “Oh, Carmine, it is
awful
! Tell Paul and Gus that the photographs are to be sequestered.”

Carmine disappeared, came back shortly after white-faced. “I can see why you’re so upset. It’s unconscionable! Don’t worry, Paul and Gus are there, everything will be okay, that’s a promise.” He went into the living room, returned with an unopened bottle. “Here, drink this,” he said, giving her a cognac from the bottle. “Go on, drink it, Deels, please.”

She obeyed; a little color returned to her face after she retched, fought, kept her gorge down. “I will never forget it,” she said then. “Carmine, I beg you, light a candle for me that I don’t die that way! Every skerrick of dignity gone — awful, awful! I’ll never forget it! What happened to her?”

“Tetrodotoxin by mouth is my guess,” he said, chafing her hands. “Much worse than strychnine, even.”

“Light a candle!” she insisted.

“I’ll light a hundred. So will Uncle John. But we have a secret weapon — Mrs. Tesoriero. We’ll get her on the job as well, Delia. It won’t happen to you, I guarantee.”

She started to cry again. Carmine let her, then ordered that she be driven home. She would be all right, he knew, but with her make-up smeared all over her face, she was not fit for public exhibition.

Abe was there when he got back to the shed.

It turned out that Emily had pursued a hobby after all. The shed belonged to her, and contained the paraphernalia of a sculptor. Her medium was ceramic clay, and examples of her work stood on shelves: portrait busts, horses’ heads, cats in various poses. The walls were lined; light came from the roof, of transparent plastic, and air from a ventilator at the top of two opposite walls. No one could see in, which led Abe to wonder how many people knew of her hobby.

“No one’s mentioned it to me,” he said, “including her.”

“She’s aiming to sell the pieces to gift shops once she’s glazed and fired them,” Carmine said, “and she was disliked in the family. I think she was waiting to shock them, take some of the wind out of Davina’s sails.”

The portrait busts were probably not for eventual sale, and perhaps would never be fired, but they showed a talent the other pieces didn’t. Emily could suggest character in her portraits, as in the bust of Max — a tired old man trying to be young. And, had Millie Hunter only set eyes on it, she would have agreed with Emily’s interpretation of Davina: Medusa, down to the last snake on her head.

The body had been removed, but the mess that hadn’t stuck to Emily was still there, and a faint suggestion of putrefaction.

“Did Gus say how long she’d been dead?” Carmine asked.

“The best part of twenty-four hours,” Abe answered. “He thought yesterday afternoon, some time after four.”

“No food in here?”

“None. Just a carafe of water and a glass. Paul took both of them,” said Abe. “I hear Delia was upset?”

“Very. The obscenity of the act really got to her.”

Abe looked slightly displeased. “I wish Gus hadn’t moved the body before I got here,” he said.

“At my orders, Abe. I saw it, and it couldn’t have told you a thing beyond obscenity. The poor creature had torn off all her clothes during her agony, and died twisted into a pretzel. Delia asked that no one should see, and I obliged her. You’ll get the photos, but keep them to yourself. Liam and Tony don’t need to see them. It’s a female thing, and I respect it.”

“Fine by me.” Abe had turned to go when his eye lit upon a small box sitting on a shelf between a curled up cat and a cat with its paws tucked under. He picked his way across the soiled floor and took the box down. “Funny place for it,” he said, opening it, then holding up its contents: a home-made glass ampoule containing about as much white powder as would thinly cover a dime. Even gloved, his grasp was delicate; then he put it back in the box and put the box back on the shelf. “I have to wait for Paul,” he said.

“Padlock the shed and put a uniform on guard, Abe. We need to go through the kitchen before the husband gets home.”

Val Tunbull arrived escorted by a squad car; he had not been told of Emily’s fate, just that his presence was required at home.

Abe met him at the front door and escorted him into his own living room; the kitchen was a hive of activity, and they dared not offer coffee or tea. An unopened bottle of bourbon stood on the bar cart; that would have to do when the time came.

A man in his middle fifties, Val Tunbull had a pleasant, open and good-looking face crowned by a mass of brassy yellow hair Abe and Carmine had come to associate with the Tunbull men.

“What’s up?” he asked, puzzled, but without aggression; he was the second-string man in a family business, and it wasn’t his place to bluster or bully.

The news of his wife’s death visibly shook him, but he refused the liquor. “Tea, I’d like some tea,” he said, tears rolling down his face.

Abe made up his mind. “I’m very sorry, Mr. Tunbull,” he said, “but we’ve had to confiscate every kind of food and drink in your house. Your wife was poisoned, and we don’t know where she got the poison. Is your son home?”

“Yes. When the cops came for me, he followed.”

“Then how about you and I walk to your son’s house? You can have your tea there, and company as well.”

Val Tunbull rose at once. “Yes, please. I have to tell Ivan — it will break his heart.”

Abe guided him out the front door. “Did your wife have any enemies, sir?” he asked, putting a hand beneath Val’s elbow.

Val’s footsteps faltered; he leaned on Abe a moment. “I guess so. She — she hated Max’s first wife, Martita, and that led to big trouble.” He stopped, wiped his eyes, blew his nose. “Max found it hard to forgive her, but it’s such an old business now that I can’t see how it figures. Emily disliked Davina too, but Davina put her in her place. Martita could never have done that. That’s why I didn’t worry about Emily’s campaign against Davina. She’s a tough cookie.” He was talking fluently, as if much of this had been bottled up for want of a willing ear to listen. “And Emily had discovered sculpting in clay — she loved it, just loved it! I thought some of her work was great, and I encouraged her. She’d be out in her shed day and night — I had it lined, made real comfortable — having a ball — she was so happy at last.” He cried desolately.

Abe compelled him to stop walking until he had composed himself; they continued slowly.

“Did your wife ever say anything about the poisoner?”

“She told me she knew who it was, but honest, Lieutenant, I didn’t believe her. Telling those kind of whoppers was Emily’s besetting sin — she loved to stir people, you know? But I’m sure she was making it all up. Truth is, Emily would have loved to be like Davina — pushy, glamorous, smart as new paint.”

“Did she say anything specific? Mention a name?”

“You’re missing my point, Lieutenant. She never did say anything convincing. This time she said she knew where the poison stash was — stash? No, I think that’s my word for it. Emily said hoard, I think. Anyway, you know what I mean.”

“I do.”

“But I couldn’t get anything more out of him,” Abe said to Carmine a few minutes later. “We
know
she had one ampoule of it, but that’s not a stash. The poisoner has at least three ampoules left, maybe more, if he saved what he didn’t use when he took his injection doses.”

“Whatever,” Carmine said, “we’re not going to find any tetrodotoxin in Emily’s kitchen, are we?”

“No, we’re not. My guess? It was in the water carafe.”

A conclusion also reached by Gus Fennell.

“There was nothing left in her stomach at all,” he said to Carmine and Abe. “Her vomiting was so intense that the samples of vomitus we scraped up contained intestinal matter as well. Tetrodotoxin was present, but the nature of the food was impossible to determine beyond the fact that it was soft, quickly digested and non-fatty in nature. The one item we could reconstruct was some bread wrapped around a kind of curry filling, but that held no poison at all. I’m guessing her water from the carafe.”

“Does it have a taste?” Abe asked, curious.

“Who knows? Want to try it?” Gus asked.

“No, thanks!”

“Did you manage to make her presentable, Gus?” Carmine asked.

The nondescript face fell. “No. Once rigor passed off I was able to straighten her out and arrange her body decently, but
the face is marred. Her husband will have to identify her, but it’s a closed casket funeral, can’t be otherwise.”

“Time of death?”

“Between four and six p.m. yesterday.”

“Val Tunbull did say she worked day and night in her shed, but he didn’t mention that she wasn’t home at all last night.”

“I think Emily’s hobby has enabled her to get out of domestic or connubial duties she no longer feels much enthusiasm for,” Carmine said. “There was a very comfortable couch in her shed, and a good heater. My guess is that Val didn’t mention her absence because it’s a regular occurrence. Any bets he eats a lot of meals at his son and daughter-in-law’s next door?”

Paul came into Gus’s office. “Want the news about the ampoule?” he asked, dark face inscrutable.

“Why not?” Carmine asked.

“Flea powder. No tetrodotoxin whatsoever.”

“Shit!” from Carmine.

“Any prints?” from Abe.

“Only Emily’s. I think we’ve been handed a genuine red herring,” Paul said.