Too Many Murders (7 page)

“The poisoning cases are all in,” Patrick said, but not in triumphant tones. “Peter Norton was dispatched with enough strychnine to kill a horse. It was in the orange juice. His blood revealed no other toxic tampering over a longer period of time, which tends to support Mrs. Norton’s likely innocence, as does the choice of poison. It’s a strong-stomached poisoner who can administer something as horrible as strychnine and then stick around to witness the dying.”

“I agree, Patsy. It’s a good thing for her that she did go upstairs to get the kids ready for school.”

“You’ve only got her word for it.”

“I have the kids’ words as well. They’re a little young to be coached as accomplices. What brought them all downstairs was the noise their father made, and though Mrs. Norton did try to shoo the kids away, they both witnessed the death. I’m inclined to believe Mrs. Norton’s story that she squeezed the juice before going upstairs, and that she was up there for ten minutes before she heard her husband go down to breakfast, which he ate running.”

“Poison is a woman’s weapon,” said Patrick.

“Usually, yes, but not always. What makes you think this is not a female poisoner?”

“That window of opportunity. Literally, as the juice could only be seen through the kitchen window, but not reached through it. Seizing an opportunity on the spur of the moment isn’t very female, yet that’s what this killer had to do. See the juice, go in the back door, add a hefty dose of strychnine to the glass, then leave. What if someone had come downstairs? He’d have been discovered, so he must have had a convincing story ready. No, this poisoner is a man.”

“Chauvinist,” Carmine said slyly. “What about Dean Denbigh?”

“Oh, that one’s up for grabs—and you know it! Potassium cyanide crystals mixed with jasmine tea leaves inside a perfect bag in turn enclosed inside a hermetically sealed paper packet that my technicians are willing to swear in court was opened only once—by Dean Denbigh himself. And the tea bag is machine stitched, not stapled—stitched only once, those swearing technicians again. All four of the students invited to his klatch were men.”

“While Dr. Pauline Denbigh the wife held her own klatch around the corner in her study,” Carmine said with a grin. “Her guests were all women.”

“‘Klatch’ is disrespectful,” Patrick said solemnly. “Granted, you can’t very well call morning coffee a soiree, yet I gather the function operated rather like one—poetry read out, and so forth.”

“It should really be matinee, but that’s taken. How about a matutinal recitation?”

“Spot on, Carruthers! Your Limey wife is showing.”

“But you like her better now, Patsy, don’t you?” Carmine asked anxiously.

“Of course I do! She’s ideal for you, and that alone makes me love her. I guess it was being towered over that set me against her, and that snooty Limey thing. But now I know she’s brave, and gallant, and very smart. She’s also sexy,” Patrick said, still trying to mend his fences. Carmine’s doubts were receding, but it was still a conversation
they had from time to time. The trouble was, Patrick hadn’t read the signals correctly, hadn’t known just how deep Carmine’s feelings for the lady were. If he had, he would never have breathed a disparaging word about her. And Sandra she wasn’t, thank God.

“Anything else in Denbigh’s blood?” Carmine asked.

“Nothing.”

“What about Desmond Skeps?”

Patrick’s face lit up. “Oh, he’s a doozy, Carmine! He had no long-term drugs or toxins in his blood, but he got a cocktail the day he died.”

“Day?” Carmine asked, frowning.

“Yes, I think the process started well before the sun went down—maybe as early as four in the afternoon, when he took a glass of single-malt Scotch laced with chloral hydrate. While he was out, the killer put a Luer-Lok IV needle in his left intercubital fossa and taped it down. It stayed until he was dead.”

“The same technique as Mrs. Cartwright?”

“Superficially. The similarity ended with the introduction of the IV. Mrs. Cartwright was killed as soon as the needle was in the vein, but that wasn’t Skeps’s fate. He was intubated and given a medical curare that enabled the killer to inflict painful bodily harm on the poor bastard, too immobilized to fight back. He was bag-breathed, but if it was attached to a respirator I don’t know. The torture was burns, mostly, but never severe enough to interrupt pain pathways to the brain—he felt it all, believe me! That says the killer must have some medical knowledge. Third-degree burns aren’t felt; the pain pathways have been destroyed too.”

“The instrument of torture?”

“Some kind of soldering iron is my guess—a red-hot tip that could be manipulated. He even wrote Skeps’s name on his belly, after a sloppy dry shave of the body hair that left the skin grazed and raw. I photographed it extensively. Wouldn’t it be interesting to nail the sucker on a handwriting analysis?”

“Pipe dreams, Patsy.”

“While the curare was still concentrated enough to sustain the paralysis, the killer injected Skeps with a small amount of something dilute but caustic. The pain must have been terrible.”

“Jesus, Patsy,” Carmine said, “whoever murdered Skeps hated him! The only other victim of outright torture was the rape case, Bianca Tolano.”

“At some stage,” Patrick went on, “the killer brought Skeps out of his curare paralysis. The airway was removed and Skeps was bound at the wrists and ankles with single-strand steel wire about an eighth of an inch in diameter, tight enough that it would have hurt atrociously to struggle. Yet he struggled! The wire ate into his flesh, though the areas are too bony for deep penetration.” Patrick ceased, and looked enquiring.

“The killer needed to interrogate Skeps, I’m guessing. Or, failing that, needed to hear the mighty tycoon beg and plead like some peon at the bottom of the Cornucopia hierarchy. Under curare, he was mute, especially around an airway. That’s the most important thing you’ve told me, Patsy. A vocal Desmond Skeps was necessary to round out the killer’s purposes.”

“The vocal period can’t have lasted more than an hour, if that long, Carmine. Then Skeps was re-intubated and got more curare—a stronger one. He would have been immobilized when he was finally killed with a solution of common drain caustic. Jesus! All in all, I estimate that from the Scotch to the Drano took twelve hours.”

“And Cornucopia is without its owner-director,” Carmine said. “That alone is of national importance. One of the biggest engineering conglomerates in the world, leaderless overnight.” He huffed. “Any other information I should have?”

“Nothing calculated to make your task easier, at any rate. The bullet boys have reported back on the three shootings, and I’ve managed to do the autopsies. Ludovica Bereson was killed with a .38, but we thought at first it was a smaller caliber because the bullet didn’t
exit. It lodged in the mass of bone at the base of her cranium. Cedric Ballantine was killed KGB style, with a .22 bullet into the back of his head just below the inion. The bullet was inside. Morris Brown took a bigger caliber—a .45 to the chest. It exited his back but hit the spinal column squarely on its way out, so it didn’t travel as far as Pisano’s men assumed. I sent them back to the crime scene and they found the bullet where Morris fell. It was too mangled for markings, but intact enough to gauge the caliber. That means three different handguns.”

“That no one heard,” said Carmine, growling. “The gunmen used silencers. But the guy who commissioned the hits must have asked for different calibers, otherwise I think the weapons would all have been .22s, everybody’s favorite for close-up work.”

“Larry thinks the shootings are way out of Holloman’s league.”

“He’s right. And the old lady out in the Valley?”

“Smothered with her own pillow. She was a congestive cardiac failure who didn’t let it stop her, but her heart gave out very quickly under the pillow. The bedclothes were a little mussed, but she probably didn’t last long enough to suffer much.”

“What about Dee-Dee Hall?”

“Throat cut with a cutthroat razor. No sign of it at the scene. She was cut twice—very cunning! The first slash went from ear to ear, just deep enough to sever the jugulars. No sign of a fight—no defensive wounds. She seems to have stood there pouring blood while her killer watched, then she fell to her knees and collapsed. When he figured she’d lost too much blood for her arteries to spurt, the killer moved in again cool as you please and cut her throat a second time, way deeper than the carotids. About all holding her head on was the spinal column.”

“A cool killer indeed. Abe’s got it, right?”

“No, you passed it to Larry Pisano and his boys. Abe’s got the old lady, Beatrice Egmont, and Corey’s got the rape girl, Bianca Tolano.”

When Patrick frowned, Carmine stared at him in surprise. “What gives, Patsy? What did I say?”

“Both your guys are applying for Larry Pisano’s lieutenancy when he retires at the end of the year. They’ve worked together a helluva long time, and they get along together fine, but they’re two very different men,” said Patrick in apologetic tones. “And I know you know all this, so I must sound as if I’m teaching my dear old granny to suck eggs, but sometimes it takes someone on the outside to see things clearly.” He paused to see how this was going down.

“I’m listening,” Carmine said.

“I think it has to be kid gloves for you between now and when the decision about who replaces Larry is made. Are you a member of the job panel, Carmine?”

“Uh—yeah,” said Carmine, feeling the stirrings of unease.

“Then get yourself removed from it, that’s first off. Only one of your guys can succeed, and to bring in an outsider for no better reason than to keep the status quo between them would be grossly unfair. Either of them would make a better lieutenant than Larry, as I’m sure you understand. But the rivalry has begun, and they’re looking sideways at each other. Every task you set them is judged in the light of how it measures up. So when you gave Abe his first case, you gave him a little old lady smothered with a pillow. Not much time has elapsed, but it’s sufficient to tell Abe that
his
murder isn’t going to be glamorous or juicy. Whereas you give Corey a sex murder! He’s got clues to work, an interesting crime scene, a list of possible suspects in the men who’ve dated the girl. As far as Abe is concerned, your scales are balanced in Corey’s favor. And, into the bargain, Abe is a Jew. Yeah, yeah, Carmine, I know you don’t have an anti-semitic bone in your body, and under normal circumstances Abe knows that too. But this is an Italian-Irish police department, and Corey’s roots are Irish. The fact that, of the two of them, it’s Corey
looks
like the Jew is suddenly irrelevant to Abe. He thinks you’re on Corey’s side.”

Carmine gave a groan. “Shit!”

“It’s not too late, but watch your step in the future, and make sure you display a keen interest in Beatrice Egmont’s murder—without treading on Abe’s toes. Don’t forget both men have wives at home
to keep up the pressure and exaggerate the slights. There’s a big difference between a senior sergeant’s and a lieutenant’s pay and perks. You don’t have two people vying for the promotion, Carmine, you have four.”

“Thanks, Patsy,” he said, and left.

When Carmine phoned Beatrice Egmont’s home, Abe answered. He sounded down, didn’t have the usual note of optimism in his voice.

“Are you very busy with your case, Abe?”

“Anything but, Carmine. I’ve done the neighbors and her two sons, who live in Georgia but took the first plane north. So far it’s bleak,” said Abe. “Nothing’s gone from the house, not even a cheap ornament, and no one, including me, can find a motive for the poor old thing’s murder. She wouldn’t harm a fly.”

“There seems to have been a lot of that among the deaths—harmless people. But one or two stick out, and I could use some help, Abe. I can’t move on Desmond Skeps yet, but I need someone with your people skills to start ferreting out a list of possible suspects. A man that powerful has to have plenty of enemies, and he wasn’t famous for his tact and diplomacy either. If you’re satisfied that you can’t proceed with Beatrice Egmont unless you catch a break, would you mind looking into Skeps’s friends and acquaintances for me?”

The voice when it came was eager, enthusiastic. “I’d be glad to, Carmine. Is the file at Cedar Street?”

“I’m looking at it as I speak. But before you start, go talk to Patsy, who can fill you in on the way Skeps died. Diabolical!”

There. A little mending of fences had been done, but he’d have to hope that Dean Denbigh and Mr. Peter Norton didn’t mire him down. It was vital that he insert himself personally into Skeps’s murder as soon as possible, and Carmine had his own way of working, which did not include flitting between several cases. The two that stuck out were Evan Pugh and Desmond Skeps—theirs were cruel, detached killers.

Now to get Dean Denbigh out of the way.

* * *

Two Chubb colleges, he thought as he drove up the north side of Holloman Green. The huge park, bisected by Maple Street, was still populated by skeletal trees, but even bare, they were magnificent, for they were venerable copper beeches planted in clusters that ensured plenty of sun-drenched grass. Garden beds already planted out promised a wonderful showing in May, and daffodil shoots were poking above the grass blades, not long off their profligate blooming. Dogwood trees indicated that there would be a breathtaking, curiously oriental wealth of flowers at the end of the first week in May, when the Green would be thronged with visitors photographing madly. Holloman Green was a “must” for spring tourists.

The other side of North Green Street belonged exclusively to Chubb University, whose campus was Princeton’s only rival. In between gardens and grassy knolls stood the colleges, with the gothic cathedral bulk of the Skeffington Library dominating the far end. Most of the oldest colleges were at the top end of the Green, an orderly array of eighteenth-century buildings smothered in Virginia creeper. Here, along this side, were the frat houses and secret societies as well as the later colleges, some Victorian gothic, some the imitation Georgian so popular as the nineteenth century turned into the twentieth, and some the modern wonders belonging to the twentieth century. He passed the sprawling X of Paracelsus College with a grimace, quite forgetting that two months ago he and Desdemona had stood admiring its austere marble façade and the Henry Moore bronzes flanking its entrance.