The Prodigal Son(46)

“He had nothing to forgive.”

“Your husband said this incident with John Hall occurred the day before you left for Chicago.”

She laughed merrily. “He would! In fact he may even think it was. Jim’s not good on time spans and dates. Science is his all, he’s neither perceptive nor poetic, I’m afraid.”

“Yet I’m told that A Helical God is both perceptive and peotic. How come?”

“Work, Captain, that’s his work! A different compartment entirely from ordinary living. Where his work’s concerned the genius comes roaring up out of the depths of his brain and you wouldn’t know him for the same person. Jim is split.”



“Have there been infidelities on his side?”

Millie looked stunned. “Jim? Unfaithful?” Her eyes danced. “If it had ever occurred to him, maybe he might have been, but women have the wrong skeleton. It’s not a helix. Physically he is the strongest man I’ve ever encountered, but he doesn’t waste his strengths on things that aren’t helical.”

“Whose idea was it to write A Helical God?” Carmine asked.

For a long moment Millie looked absolutely taken aback, then she drew a breath as if she had forgotten that to breathe was a necessity. “What a fascinating question, Carmine! Do you know I just can’t answer it? He didn’t say anything to me, he just sat down at our old IBM typewriter one night and started hammering the keys. I wasn’t even aware he knew such a thing as a bestseller existed until he explained what he was doing when he went to bed about four in the morning. Oh, his mind! It came out already parsed, analyzed and edited, Dr. Carter said. Every chapter in sequence, the jargon dumbed down to exactly the right extent. His prose was amazing! So poetic! I was awed, Carmine, awed.”

“When did he start to write it, Millie?”

“Um —” She paused to consider. “As far as I remember, it was September of 1967, because he was through it and had a good manuscript by the end of 1967 — a year ago. The only one who’d seen it was me, and I was determined he should take it to a commercial publishing house that would know exactly what to do to market it.” She clenched her fists in frustration. “But Jim wouldn’t consider a commercial publisher. He wanted it to be a bestseller, yes, but he wanted the kudos of the Chubb University Press imprimatur on it, same as his two textbooks. I couldn’t budge him, and look at the trouble it’s led to! All the idiocies of Head Scholars and the overall good of the House outweighing the income from a big bestseller — when we heard that Tinkerman had replaced Dr. Carter as Head Scholar, I think Jim would have done anything to get out of his C.U.P. contract. But he couldn’t. His own craving to maintain his academic laurels had tied him to C.U.P. no matter what.”

Carmine smiled. “Did you say, ‘I told you so!’?”

She giggled. “No, I did not. Otherwise murder would have been done, with me the victim. A cut-and-dried case.”



Lunch a memory, Buzz battled on with Dr. James Hunter, to no effect; he wasn’t about to lose his cool again.

Then Carmine sent in a note.

“Who gave you the idea for A Helical God?” Buzz asked.

Hunter blinked. “Idea?”

“Yes, idea. Whose idea was it to write that book?”

“Mine,” Jim Hunter said.

“And there are pigs flying everywhere …” Buzz taunted. “Dr. Hunter, bona fide scientists don’t get sudden inspirations to write popular books. People with a commercial axe to grind suggest them, maybe help push the project along. Who helped you?”

“Me, I, and myself.”

“No one so much as whispered the idea to you? You didn’t dream it in your sleep?”



“Absolutely no one contributed, even my sleep-brain.”

“Would you go on oath to say that?”

“What a ridiculous question!” Hunter said, but not angrily. “My book is not under suspicion of murder, Sergeant, so I fail to see why you bring it up.”

Carmine entered. “Dr. Hunter, a pleasure,” he said.

“I wish I could say the same.”

Reaching into his pocket, Carmine produced a small glass jar. “Would you participate in an experiment, Doctor?”

“With what object?”

“Possibly clearing you of suspicion of murder — or, if the contrary, making it highly likely that you did commit murder.”

“Captain Delmonico, I will gladly participate in any kind of experiment that might prove my innocence. Bring it on.”

“It’s not intimidating,” said Carmine, smiling as he took the lid off the jar. “Give me your right hand, please, palm facing downward, fingers extended but together.”