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Precious Blood(94)

By:Jane Haddam


Instead of running out to Peg’s house, or even calling, she had gone shopping in town. Now it was six o’clock, and she was sitting in the bar of a pretentiously overdecorated restaurant called Chez Where. The bar was made of mahogany and glass, but not simple mahogany and glass. Every inch of wood was carved into curlicues and masks. Every inch of mirror was etched with swirling patterns in a vaguely Turkish mode. The bar would have looked like the sort of semiprivate London club where English gentlemen took their mistresses, except for two things: an enormous wide-projection TV hung from the ceiling midpoint at the bar, and an almost-as-enormous chocolate Easter bunny, encased in blue and red and yellow tin, that sat on the curved end of the bar’s counter.

Judy was sitting in a booth at the center of the paneled wall opposite the bar. On the leather-padded bench beside her were the things she had bought, without consideration or attention, in the single hour she had spent with her credit cards out: a $22,000 bracelet from the local branch of Tiffany’s; a $6,000 vase from the local branch of Steuben Glass; a $14,000 commemorative plate, made for the country’s centennial, from an antique store called Precious Heritage. There were other things, too, things she could barely remember buying. Four pounds of Cadbury cream eggs. Two Timex watches, one analogue and one digital. Six pairs of fluffy rayon ear muffs, one each in green, lavender, coriander, fuscia, aquamarine, and puce. She didn’t eat candy, didn’t like Timex watches, and hated wearing anything on her head. Having things on her head made her feel marked out to be decapitated.

On the other side of the booth, Stuart was sitting sideways, giving himself a good look at the television screen. The six o’clock news was on, and the lead story, of course, was about Peg. Judy had been staring into her drink since the news started, just in case they showed a scene she didn’t want to see. A scene with blood in it.

“This is amazing,” Stuart kept saying. “I can’t believe they did it. One of the babies came out alive.”

“I think it’s terrible they only got one,” Judy said. “I think it’s more terrible they didn’t save Peg.”

Stuart flapped his hands at her. “You’re upset. You’re not thinking straight. With this nicotine poisoning they’re talking about, I don’t think they could have saved Peg. And what you don’t realize yet is, this is a tremendous break for us.”

“What?”

“It’s a tremendous break for us,” Stuart insisted. The news had gone to commercial. He turned to face her. “All the pressure’s off, don’t you see? Father Walsh’s murder was spectacular, but not as spectacular as this. And this has much more human interest. The dedicated medical staff. The innocent infant saved in the nick of time. It’s going to take all the media attention away from the other thing. Especially since they never got any really good pictures of the other thing.”

Judy stared at Stuart’s vapidly earnest, incorrigably supercilious face and thought: I can’t think of a thing to say. I wouldn’t know where to start. I wouldn’t know what words to use that he could understand.

Stuart made it worse, by being so very solemn when he spoke. “We’ve been worried all along about your being publicly connected to Andy Walsh’s death,” he said, oblivious to the fact that she hadn’t been worried at all, “now we don’t have to worry. Nobody’s going to want to interview you in connection with this. You were nowhere near it. Were you?”

“I don’t know,” Judy said coldly. “I don’t know when it happened. Under the circumstances, Kath and I didn’t quite get around to discussing it.”

Stuart waved this away. “You were at work all day. You were in the Cathedral for Stations of the Cross in front of God only knows how many people.”

“I was in the middle of the St. Agnes courtyard, having a screaming fight with Declan Boyd at one o’clock this afternoon.”

“So what? She couldn’t have been killed at one o’clock. The news said the medics were called at half past two. Be logical, Judy. If she had been dead for an hour and a half, the babies would have been dead, too.”

“One of them was.”

“I just wish you hadn’t talked to the police, or that Demarkian person. Without a lawyer present, I mean. It would have been so much better if you hadn’t talked to either of them.”

“I didn’t talk to them much,” Judy said. And it was true. She’d run into them both on her way out of the Cathedral. They’d been looking for the Cardinal, and she’d been on her way to what turned out to be her shopping spree. They’d asked her a few questions, all easy. She’d given them a few answers, all easy. And that had been that.