“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.