Too Many Murders (11 page)

Myron knew Carmine guessed at his plans for Sophia, but they had never spoken of them; Carmine was too sensitive of Sophia’s position to make the first overtures, and Myron was too cagey. If his dear friend Carmine had any real idea of the extent of his business empire, Myron knew he wouldn’t want Sophia burdened with a tenth so much. But the Sophia Carmine knew was a shadowy figure; it was Myron who had been to all intents and purposes her permanent father between her second and her sixteenth birthday, so it was Myron who knew her far better.

Besides, Myron was still hale and hearty, and blithely expected to live for many years to come. Therefore he failed to see why he should take Carmine into his confidence while the girl herself happily pursued the life of a sixteen-year-old in a loving home and at a good school. What didn’t occur to him was that, newly deprived of his beloved child and inexpressibly lonely, he was ripe for someone enterprising to pluck him.

Knowing himself always welcome at Carmine’s, he took a few days off every time he visited New York City and appeared at the house on East Circle. This visit, however, was a surprise; the latest film, featuring no fewer than three top stars, was still in a state of flux. His excuse was that the money for it was in New York, but to Carmine it rang false; the money was always in New York. No, Myron was here because the death of Desmond Skeps was making headlines.

When Carmine walked in, Myron was seated in a large chair in the living room with a glass of Kentucky straight bourbon and soda near at hand, reading a copy of this week’s
News
magazine.

At fifty, he was older than Carmine, and his famed ability to attract beautiful women was a by-product of the power he wielded rather than any remarkable good looks. He was bald enough to keep what hair he still owned cut very close to his scalp; his long and clever
face had a firm mouth and greenish-grey eyes that, Sophia insisted, saw clear through to the soul. When he stood to give Carmine a hug, he was revealed as a short man with a slender body that bore no sign of the fleshpots he adored.

The hug over, he brandished the magazine at Carmine. “Have you seen this?” he demanded.

“Only in passing,” Carmine said, kissing his wife, who came to join them carrying her own tipple, gin and tonic. Sophia was on her heels and gave him a glass of bourbon made exactly how he liked it, diluted with soda but not drowned.

“You must read Karnowski’s article on the Reds,” Myron said, subsiding into his chair. “It’s been years since I’ve seen anything this good, especially on the historical side. He’s given detailed sketches of every member of the Central Committee who’s ever aspired to the secretaryship since Stalin died, and his portrait of Stalin himself is riveting. I’d love to know his sources—there’s material in here I’ve never seen at all.”

“Under ordinary circumstances I’d be buried in it,” Carmine said ruefully, “but not at the moment. Too much on my plate.”

“So I hear.”

“Little pitchers,” warned Carmine, rolling his eyes at Sophia. “Which New York banker is holding you to ransom, Myron?”

“No one you’d know.” Myron looked uneasy, then shrugged. “I guess I’d better get it off my chest right now,” he said, his tone defensive. “I’m divorcing Sandra.”

“
Myron!
” Desdemona gave a gasp. “What on earth has the poor creature done after so many years?”

“Nothing, really. I just got tired of her shenanigans,” said Myron, still sounding defensive.

“What will Sandra do?” Desdemona asked, looking sideways at Sophia, who sat with an expressionless face and a glass of Tab she wasn’t drinking.

“She’ll be fine, honest! I’ve settled twenty million on her, but in a way that means no money-hungry guy can grab it, even by marriage
and community property. She gets to take the housekeeper and the maids, so her habit’s safe.”

Sophia found her voice. “Daddy,
why?
” she asked.

Carmine didn’t make the mistake of thinking the question was directed at him; Sophia called both men “Daddy.”

“I told you, honey. I just got tired of her.”

“I don’t believe that! You got tired of Sandra years ago! What’s changed?”

Here it comes, thought Carmine, sipping his drink.

Myron coughed, looked shy. “Um—well … I met a lady. A real lady.”

“Ohhh!” Sophia’s eyes went round, then something fierce and intensely proprietary flashed into them; by the time she gazed at Myron it was gone, replaced by a limpid curiosity. “Tell us more, Daddy, please!”

“Her name is Dr. Erica Davenport, and she’s the chief legal officer attached to Cornucopia. She lives right here in Holloman! It’s early days yet, but I figured with the death of her boss, Desmond Skeps, she can probably do with some moral support. When I called her from L.A. she sounded harassed. She didn’t ask me to come, but I have anyway.”

Carmine swallowed. “Myron, this could be a conflict. You should have stayed on the West Coast,” he said.

“But Erica’s my friend!” Myron protested.

“And a possible suspect in her boss’s death. I can’t stop your seeing her, Myron, but she can’t come anywhere near my home, surely you see
that!
”

“Oh, potties!” said Myron, using an expletive he had picked up somewhere and thought innocuous enough for Sophia’s ears.

“You’re in love, that’s why you want a divorce,” Desdemona said, gathering empty glasses.

“Do you think so?”

“I do. One more drink, then we eat. Roast leg of New Zealand lamb with all the trimmings.”

She and Sophia left for the kitchen. Carmine stared at his beloved friend sternly. “Myron, I don’t need this complication.”

“I’m sorry, Carmine. I didn’t think! I just wanted to be at Erica’s side.”

“As long as you understand the limitations.”

“I do, now that you’ve spelled them out. I’ll take Erica to lunch tomorrow and explain.”

“No, you won’t. Like all the other suspects, she has to be in the Cornucopia building tomorrow, all day. Maybe into the night as well. I suggest you explain matters on the phone, and hope that I’m done with her in time to take her to dinner.”

“Shit!”

“Be it on your own head, Myron. And don’t expect to get much sympathy from Sophia.”

“Fuck!”

“Your vocabulary’s going downhill, old friend. So what’s so exciting about this
News
magazine article?”

“Weren’t you listening? Just that it’s the best article on the Reds in years, especially about the Central Committee members. In case you’ve forgotten, Carmine, this country is in the middle of a cold war with the USSR.”

“No, I hadn’t forgotten that. But at the moment my city seems in the middle of a hot war against persons unknown. And here come our second drinks, so let’s go back to
News
magazine.”

Since everybody present at the meeting knew how little progress had been made, the only man in attendance who wasn’t surprised at its being called was Carmine. The only woman, Delia Carstairs, had a very good idea what was going down, but her function was to take minutes, not make comments.

“We’re going about this the wrong way,” Carmine said after John Silvestri opened the proceedings. “From today on, the department goes back to normal insofar as it can. Larry, you and your guys will take over Holloman’s routine crimes—by which I mean crimes unconnected
to the twelve deaths of April third. If we don’t pay them any attention, we’ll be swamped by robberies and domestic violence as well as biker and militant and other gang feuds. Get out there and let the local hoods know we haven’t overlooked them. You did great work on the three shootings and the prostitute, Larry, but that’s ground to a halt, and I’m not wasting our manpower chasing leads that go nowhere. So thanks very much, guys, but I won’t need you anymore.”

Significantly, Larry Pisano and his men didn’t look at all indignant. Rather, they looked relieved. In being sent back to Holloman’s routine crimes, their success rate had just soared. In fact, so eager was Larry to get onto his new task that he rose to his feet without being dismissed.

“Then you don’t need me here, Carmine, right?”

“Right.”

Carmine waited until the three men left the room. “What I say now goes no farther, understood?”

“Eminently,” said Commissioner Silvestri. “You’ve formed some conclusions?”

“Yes, sir, I have. I don’t claim that they’re the correct ones, but for the moment they suit my purposes. Some of the eleven murders—from now on we ignore Jimmy Cartwright—I believe were commissioned from out of state. The three shootings, definitely. Possibly also Peter Norton’s poisoning, Bianca Tolano’s rape, Cathy Cartwright’s killing, and the smothering of Beatrice Egmont. Each was done professionally, and I include the sex murder in that because it was so—
textbook
.”

“You’re talking seven crimes, Carmine,” said Patsy, frowning.

“Yes.”

“What about Dee-Dee Hall?”

“No, I think she was a personal kill. And so were Evan Pugh and Desmond Skeps.”

“You’re forgetting Dean Denbigh. Where does he fit in?”

“I’m not sure yet, Patsy. My instincts say a commission, but if
it is, why go to such tortuous lengths with the tea packet and tea bag? Why shouldn’t they show evidence of tampering? Maybe he’s a stray.”

“That I refuse to believe!” said Danny Marciano. “On any other day, there’s a chance, but not on April third. You’ve used up your stray with Jimmy Cartwright, Carmine.”

“I know, I know!”

A silence fell, suddenly so profound that the susurration of Silvestri’s state-of-the-art air conditioner was a roar.

Silvestri broke it. “You’re proposing one murderer, Carmine.”

“Yes. And if I’m right, he made a terrible mistake in dispatching all his victims on the same day. That meant he had to farm most of them out. But this isn’t a dodo, this is a mastermind. Therefore he
knew
he was making a mistake, and that says he had no choice. For some reason they all had to die on the same day, which suggests that the threat they posed is very recent and had to be acted on at once.” Carmine’s face looked both grim and elated, an expression everyone there knew: he was looking forward to—yet dreading—the hunt.

Silvestri shook his head. “I don’t know how you manage that, Carmine, conning us into thinking your way before we really know what you’re driving at. One murderer? It’s crazy!”

“I agree, sir, but let’s go with it! Is it any crazier than twelve murders in one day in a city the size of Holloman? In fact, to me it’s the only answer that makes any sense. If eleven people have died in such disparate ways, doesn’t it scream one killer? Mass murder happens, but it’s some psycho with a machine gun in a crowded place, or a hijacker bringing down a plane because he didn’t understand the thing he was holding. This is different.”

“I get your drift,” the Commissioner said. “Go on.”

“To hire professional killers says the mastermind—that’s not a word I like—has unlimited money. Why don’t I like the word ‘mastermind’? Because on at least one occasion he was very indiscreet and earned himself the nickname of Motor Mouth from Evan Pugh. That’s why we’ve found no trace of anything Pugh could have used
for blackmail. The subject of the blackmail is simply something Motor Mouth said and everybody except Evan Pugh forgot. The hardest kind of blackmail to prove.”

“It’s too far-fetched,” said Danny Marciano.

“I agree, it is far-fetched, but not
too
far-fetched. Give me a better reason for three out-of-state shootings, Danny! Those harmless people were handpicked for execution by men using silencers and accustomed to fast getaways. Far too sophisticated for Holloman! One incident, yes, but three, all at the same time? Never happen. I get the feeling that the guy who commissioned these killings is laughing at us as provincial dunderheads.”

“Then he doesn’t know you, Carmine,” said Abe loyally.

“Oh, I think he does, Abe, if only socially. This is a small city, and I get around.”

“How do you intend to proceed?” Silvestri asked.

“My usual way, sir. I’m taking all eleven cases back, and Abe and Corey as well. Sorry, guys, but I can’t do without you. If I send either of you to question people, I can be sure it’ll be done as if I did it myself. That goes for looking at evidence too. Today we concentrate on Desmond Skeps. Abe’s done the workup, but now we tighten the noose at Cornucopia.”

Carmine looked directly at his boss. “You may get some pressure from Hartford on this if we ask too many awkward questions. Or even from Washington. I also have to inform you that my fool friend, Myron Mandelbaum, is smitten with Cornucopia’s legal officer, a woman named Erica Davenport. I’ve warned him off and he knows he can’t invite her to my home, but I don’t want any flak coming your way because of him.”

Silvestri remained unruffled. “What’s a bit more flak from Hartford and Washington, when I have a press conference in a few minutes? The sharks are in a feeding frenzy over Skeps’s death, so I intend to throw them chunks of Skeps. Keep them chomping at his carcass. Twelve murders?
What
twelve murders? I’ll be firm that we have no local suspects for Skeps’s murder, of course. That’s why the FBI is
here. We’re looking in New York and other financial capitals. That’s the way I’m going to play it, one press conference after another. Keep the sharks way away from Holloman.” He waved a hand. “Go away! I have to think.”

Carmine went, frowning. FBI? What did Silvestri mean?

The Cornucopia building stood on the corner of Maple and Cromwell, downtown in the shopping and business district, and was only a year old; at forty storeys it was the tallest structure in Holloman. The penthouse was Desmond Skeps’s residence, while the lower thirty-nine storeys housed the head offices of all of Cornucopia’s many companies, with Desmond Skeps’s own offices located on the thirty-ninth floor. Curiously, he had provided no direct access between his working and living quarters; in order to enter the penthouse, he had to leave his offices and travel back down to the first floor and his private elevator to the penthouse. I suppose, thought Carmine, it keeps business truly separated from pleasure.

The downstairs foyer was sheathed in multicolored marble and adorned with lush palms in handmade marble pots; a closer inspection revealed that the palms could be lifted out holus-bolus in smaller, plastic pots. There was an enquiry desk and a visitor’s desk whose lone attendant’s job was to pin a tag on each visitor. Those who worked inside the building took no notice of anyone on their way in or out. One bank of elevators served floors two to nineteen, the other floors twenty to thirty-nine; the penthouse elevator stood alone at the blind end and had NO ADMITTANCE painted on a wooden stand in front of its shiny copper doors.