"It's 'sleeping dogs lie.' But I see your point." Mike chuckled softly. "Not that they'd really have much to worry about. No jury in Grantville would convict Denise of murder. Hell, not even manslaughter. Not after what Holloway did before he beat it out of town, and not after what her father did at the synagogue. But she's only sixteen, and the kind of kid who takes it for granted that her relationship with the authorities will always be a contentious one."
He closed his eyes for a moment, thinking.
"And no one in the leadership of the Committees of Correspondence knows anything," he mused. "Like everyone else, they're assuming that the killings were carried out by one or another of the anti-Semitic outfits."
"Exactly." Nasi chuckled also, much less softly than Mike had done. "It's amusing, in a way. Ducos' people did their job too well. By keeping their own role hidden and using anti-Semites and other fanatics as their . . . ah, forward men?"
"Front men."
"Yes, front men. By doing so, they completely failed in their ultimate aim. I doubt if there is a single sane person in the Germanies who suspects Cardinal Richelieu of the deed. Instead, everyone is blaming our homegrown reactionaries—who were actually not much more than patsies themselves."
"Vicious, stinking, filthy patsies," said Mike, re-opening his eyes. "And soon to be very dead patsies, many of them. And good riddance."
He sat up straight. "All right, Francisco. We'll do it. Is Gretchen back in Magdeburg yet?"
"She's supposed to arrive tomorrow."
"Fine. Pass the word quietly to Spartacus that I'll want a private meeting—very private—with the two of them, as soon as she returns. Um. Better include Gunther Achterhof in the invitation also. For something like this, it'd be pointless not to involve him from the start."
Nasi nodded. "And which of the lists do you want me to have ready for them?"
"All of them," said Mike grimly.
Nasi's eyebrows went up. "You are certain?"
Mike nodded. "Yes, I am. Every last scrap of information you've put together on the USE's anti-Semitic outfits."
"You understand that means, essentially, every extremist reactionary group in the nation? In the nature of things, anti-Semitism is their common coinage even if most of them don't actually do much about it."
"Yes, I understand. Ask me if I care. We'll use the vicious murder of a nice old man by Huguenot fanatics to rid the Germanies of a plague that's been a problem for centuries in this universe and, in at least one other universe, produced a nightmare. Set up the meeting, Francisco."
Chapter 66
Grantville
Missy lay in Ron's arms, shuddering, her face down on his shoulder. "What in hell was that?"
Ron stroked her hair, then started rubbing the back of her neck. "You came. All the way. Not because we were doing it, or even anywhere close. Not even heavy petting. Not even really making out. Just lying here with all our clothes on the way we always do—well, mostly do, kissing and hugging, and wanting. Damn it, Missy. We're so ready for prime time that it isn't even funny any more."
She left her face right where it was and nodded.
He slipped his hand between her sweater and her blouse. His knee came up between her legs. Then he realized something.
"Where's the accessory? Want to get it?"
"It's prom night. I loaned it to Gertrude, just in case."
He thought about that a minute. "I take it that's not an open invitation to further advances. 'Greater love hath no woman' than to take a risk for the sake of her 'kid sister.' Because she loves her."
"I . . ."
"What?"
"After I gave it to Gertrude, I went and saw Kortney. And she. She said to tell you."
Missy stopped.
"Tell me what, Miss Missy?"
She had her face buried all the way in his sweater. He pushed her chin up.
"That it's the biggest sponge she could squeeze in the way things are so you'll have to be careful not to poke it through the cervix because they're a pain to get out all in one piece and don't do any good anyhow unless they stay on this side. And I'm to come back and get a bigger one next week, if . . . if it turns out not to be a one time thing."
Her face went right back down into his sweater. What little skin he could see around the edges of her hair was beet red.
Any guy who would hang around a girl for six months waiting for her to agree to do it and only want to do it once would have to be some kind of pathological . . . Normal guys didn't wait that long in hopes of a one night stand. But he'd never exactly said anything about long-term. Long range. Whatever. They'd talked about everything else on earth, but when it came to sex, all they'd ever said was, "No way, not now." And it was Missy who kept saying that.