The Prodigal Son(60)

FRIDAY, JANUARY 10, 1969


The cure had worked so well that Delia came into County Services in one of her best outfits, a wool dress in great swirls of dark red, bright red, orange and yellow, like a rainbow that ran out of steam just as it was contemplating going green.

“I think we should look at bathroom runs again,” she said before anyone else could get a spin on the ball.

There was a universal groan.

“No more hands on shoulders!” Donny cried.

“Tch, of course not! I mean in the dark corners on the way to the toilets, inside the toilets themselves,” Delia said.

“We’ve spent loads of time on that,” Buzz said.

“Well, I’m not convinced we’ve spent sufficient. Are we absolutely positive that no one met someone else going to or from? Not necessarily off the high table — the C.U.P. table people, for instance. How do we know we’ve eliminated every and all possibilities?”

“You’re right, Delia,” Carmine said. “We can’t know, and we never will know. If by this time people haven’t come forward to tell us that they met X or Y on a bathroom run, then they never will. The C.U.P. banquet is a leaky sieve, and the Tunbull dinner an exact opposite. No one left Max’s study, even on the shortest bathroom run, after the men went in and Max shut the door. All the men swear it, and I believe them.”

“I’m seeing Max Tunbull this morning,” Abe said.

“What about the ampoule?” Carmine asked.

“Not Millie’s. She regarded it with contempt, said any lab technician could do better after a mere month on the job. However, she did say that the joker’s use of flea powder indicates he knows what tetrodotoxin powder looks like.”

“Captain, do we have a main suspect?” Donny asked.

“You’re as much a member of this team as anyone, Donny, so what do you think?” Carmine asked.

“Dr. Jim Hunter,” he said, hardly hesitating. “Tinkerman’s death got him out of a big hole.”

“What about John Hall’s death?”

“There has to be something there, boss. Is the old guy from Oregon coming — Wendover Hall?”

“He’s supposed to arrive this weekend, staying with Max. If he doesn’t fill in the blanks, we’re up that creek.” Carmine looked at Liam. “What do you think?”

“I vote for Davina and her spooky sister. That huge print run gives all the Tunbulls motive, Captain.”

“Buzz?”

“I vote for Dr. Jim Hunter.”

“Tony?”



“Dr. Jim Hunter.”

“Delia?”

“Dr. Jim Hunter.” Her voice was loaded with significance: she knew about the baby.

But Carmine didn’t ask Abe, a courtesy. “I see Dr. Jim’s a hot favorite,” he said, “and I don’t mind anyone’s having a favorite provided no mind skews the evidence. But none of you will do that, you’re too professional. Liam is just as right when he says all the Tunbulls have a stake in this. John’s death affected how Max’s empire might be divided. We have to find out more about him — he’s a shadow.”

And so the meeting broke up. Delia remained behind.

“It’s hard being privy to information we’re not sharing,” Carmine said to her, “but in spite of that, we continue to keep Davina’s baby our secret for the time being. I’m going to see the old Head Scholar, Dr. Donald Carter. Delia, follow whatever scent your nose thinks best.”



The outgoing Head Scholar of the Chubb University Press had held his post for a full ten years and had seen many triumphs, including, five years ago, a popular bestseller on earthquakes and volcanoes that had astonished every seismologist in the nation — save, naturally, its author, vindicated.

“I don’t know why people in the field were so surprised,” Dr. Carter said to Carmine over good coffee and blueberry muffins. “It’s my experience that ordinary folk are fascinated by how Mother Earth works, or how God sews our molecular design together, or how the Universe got going. It’s my opinion that at least one expert in a field should write a book about it for the layman, even if the result is not a bestseller — it will sell well enough to make a profit, which is all one can ask. Jim Hunter’s book is sheer genius. I admit that I had no idea he could express himself so beautifully. But then, scientists are often like that. Look at Feynman’s lectures — what a wonder!”

“Before we get down to Jim’s book per se, Dr. Carter, I need to know a great deal more than I do about the relationship between the Chubb University Press and Tunbull Printing allied to Imaginexa Design,” Carmine said.