The Prodigal Son(84)

She cheered a little. “I promise.”

“Let’s get out of here and leave the experts to it.”

She lurched. “Good idea. My blood sugar’s down.”





Abe found the secret drawer behind the priceless icon, that was a given, but whatever it had contained was gone.

“No fingerprints or other hard evidence either,” Carmine said to Delia, sliding back into his Malvolio’s booth after a session on Luigi’s phone. “I asked Abe to inform the Tinkerman daughters’ lawyers that there is an immensely valuable icon must be incorporated in his estate. There’s no sticker says it’s on loan from the Parsons, so why shouldn’t those two poor girls enjoy the fruits of its sale? Possession is nine-tenths of the law.” He huffed in satisfaction.

Delia was looking better. “What do you think was in the secret drawer?” she asked.

“Hard evidence, that’s for sure. But it also suggests that Tinkerman was murdered for more than his appointment as the Head Scholar of C.U.P. He knew something about the killer that survived his death, that made the murder of his wife an urgent and immediate necessity.”

“I’m all out of ideas,” said Delia.

“Me too. It must be dynamite,” Carmine said.

“At least in scholastic circles, which were the only circles Tinkerman knew — or cared about. I am flummoxed.”

“Is that an English or an American word?” Carmine asked.

“What?”

“Flummoxed.”

“I really don’t know, except that my potty papa would probably say it derived from an English dialect.”

“North, not south.”

“Carmine, honestly!” Delia squawked. “What does it matter?”



“It doesn’t except it’s all in how you look at a thing.”

Delia groped for the right reply, found it. “I’m flummoxed.”

“Exactly.”



Gus Fennell was more forthcoming.

“A hollow-nosed bullet. Made soup of her brain stem.”

“Had she been drugged first?”

“A very large but non-lethal dose of Seconal. I’d say she had been asleep at the desk for hours when the bullet was fired.”

“Head on the desk, as we found her?”

“Yes. I think he stayed with her until he was satisfied she was virtually comatose.”

“Any evidence as to how it was administered?”

“Orally, but nothing containing Seconal was found. He must have removed the glass — a drink of some woman’s tipple is my guess. He would have drunk whiskey. But no glasses.”

“Painless, instantaneous, right?”

“Right,” Gus agreed.

“A killer with scruples,” said Carmine thoughtfully. “Thanks, Gus. Her daughters will apply for burial, probably in conjunction with their father. It isn’t often kids bury both parents at once.”



Abe, who had hovered on the periphery of Edith Tinkerman’s murder, had more to say. “Whatever was in the drawer filled it,” he said to Carmine at a general meeting later on.



“How could you tell that?” Carmine asked curiously.

“There was no high-water mark, if you get my meaning. When papers fill a space, they leave fibers and fragments behind clear to the top of the space. Like in this drawer, not a deep one at two inches. I had Paul run a 3-D microscope over its insides, and they displayed the same distribution of fibers, shreds, mites. The drawer wasn’t packed, but it was full. In terms of sheets of paper, the number would depend on the weight of the paper. Twenty-pound rag, about a hundred sheets to every fifteen millimeters brand new, unused. Eight- or ten-pound crap, about twice that. If the sheets were crumpled or creased or even used, fewer. I couldn’t even hazard a guess without knowing what was in the drawer,” Abe said in his usual calm tones. “However, the paper wasn’t high grade. Ordinary crap, judging from the fibers. If you pushed me to a guess, Carmine, I’d say about a hundred-fifty sheets of ordinary paper in non-mint condition.”

“Any other observations? Those are brilliant.”

“From Paul, one. The blotting paper bore impressions of a letter, several pages long, written in good grade blue-black ink with a fountain pen — or a nibbed pen, at any rate. Paul is working on the blotter, but doesn’t hold out much hope. The pages were blotted on top of each other and in no particular sequence. Dr. Tinkerman may have prided himself on his penmanship, but he didn’t care where he blotted what he’d written, and he was a frequent blotter. So Paul has the phrase ‘may not have meant’ free and clear, as well as ‘I cannot believe that he intended this to remain as is’ followed by many sentences that cover each other up completely.” Abe shrugged. “Don’t hope to solve the case on a piece of blotting paper, Carmine.”