“You incriminate yourself out of your own mouth.”
“Nonsense!” Davina said. “I believe in Uda’s gifts from long acquaintance with them. When she gazes into the water bowl she is never wrong. And you cannot prove I killed Tinkerman because I did not. I went nowhere near him that night.”
Time to change the subject, thought Delia. “I have another request, Mrs. Tunbull. I want to see your baby.”
That transfixed both of them. Davina, tracing the patterns on the arm of her chair, dug into it so suddenly that Delia heard the nails break. Uda, hands on the back of Davina’s chair, lost color and clenched the fabric fiercely.
“I am sorry, that is impossible,” Davina said, staring at her ruined nails in exasperation.
“Why?”
“Because I do not choose to show him to you.”
“Then, ma’am, I will be back with a warrant — after I’ve posted police guards to make sure you don’t remove the child.”
“You cannot! This is America!”
“I can — and I will.” Delia slid off the chair and stood in all the glory of her purple pantsuit, its orange blouse, the long, bright pink scarf dangling on either side of her head. “Come, Mrs. Tunbull, show me this baby everyone hears so much about, yet no one ever sees. This morning we are private. If I return with a warrant I will be accompanied by two male police witnesses. It will be a circus. Show Alexis to me now, and it remains between the three of us.”
The Savovich sisters said nothing for a moment; then Davina sighed. “Very well, Sergeant. I will bring Alexis.”
The news was too urgent and vital to trust to the police radio, and Delia didn’t feel like finding an unvandalized phone booth to call Carmine in advance; she simply radioed that she was on her way back to County Services, and needed to see the Captain.
Delia bursting with news, Carmine thought as she skittled in like a crab discovering the joys of forward locomotion, was one of the greater pleasures his police work afforded.
“You look like Pandora bearing her box,” he said.
“I feel more like Mauna Loa on the verge of an eruption,” she said with a squeak in her voice.
“Then hit me with your lava, Deels.”
“There is a baby, and he’s absolutely gorgeous,” Delia said. “One of the loveliest children I’ve ever seen. I would have to say, though, that the greatest factor contributing to his beauty is the color of his skin. He’s black.”
A pin dropping would have sounded like a minor explosion. Jaw sagging, Carmine gaped at her for what seemed a very long time before he shut his mouth and looked himself.
“Black,” he said then. “How black, Deels?”
“Medium. Not black black, but darker than café au lait.” She stopped, took a breath, and dropped the real bombshell. “His eyes are green, the exact color of You-know-whose.”
Carmine felt the hairs stand up on his neck. “Jesus!”
“I had to ask her, of course.”
“What did she say? What could she say?”
“Denied it absolutely. Confessed that there was black blood in her own family — a pair of great-grandparents and a grandparent, father of her father. Her grandfather wasn’t a full blood, she said, but he was African to look at. Except for his red hair and his green eyes.” Delia flopped onto a chair.
“And what does Max Tunbull say? Did you get onto that, or did the Savovich ladies dry up?”
“Dry up? Anything but! Once I had Alexis on my knee, they seemed relieved someone else was in on the secret. Apparently Max is so besotted he’d believe anything Davina told him, including the Negro family history. That Jim Hunter could be the father has never even crossed Max’s mind, Davina swears. I confess I am inclined to believe her. She bewitches men, that woman.”
“Did she mention Jim Hunter?”
“No. Just blamed the world for its dirty mind when her baby came out that color. Of course the eyes are only just a known fact — it takes time for babies to color their irises. So for Davina the green eyes are a very recent worry. Instinct prompted her to hide the baby for as long as she could. Emily snipes at her, but Davina holds firm.” Delia propped her chin on her hands. “It is a damnable situation for a woman, I see that. Whether Jim Hunter is the father or the unprovable Negroid family history is true, for a white woman to produce a black baby is — oh, dreadful! Davina has enemies, even among the Tunbulls. She knows the day of revelation must come, but she hoped to postpone it until after Jim Hunter’s book is a big seller, and the Hunters have moved away from her a little.”