Too Many Murders(107)

“That’s a real tragedy,” Carmine said.

“Yeah, poor old Fred.”


Strange pictures were forming in Carmine’s mind, but they wavered and quivered on the fringes of actual thought, like moving objects some sadistic ophthalmologist deliberately kept right on the margins of peripheral vision. They were there, but they were not there. Swing your head to focus on them, and they vanished—poof!

“Or am I going crazy?” he asked Desdemona, the scrambler on the phone engaged.

“No, dear heart, you’re stone cold sane,” she said. “I know the feeling. Oh, I miss you!” She paused, then added in a master stroke of guile, “So does Julian. He does, Carmine! Every time a man approaches with something like your gait, he starts jigging up and down—it’s adorable!”

“That’s an awful thing to say.”

“You have an idea who it is, don’t you?” she asked.

“No, that’s just it—I don’t. I should, yet I don’t.”

“Cheer up, it will come to you. Is the weather nice?”

He got his own back. “Perfect Connecticut spring days.”

“Guess what it’s doing here?”

“Raining. At fifty degrees of latitude, Desdemona, with a climate that mild, it has to rain a lot. It’s the Gulf Stream.”





When Simonetta Marciano barged into his office, Carmine was surprised at the intrusion, but not at the manner of it; Simonetta always barged, it was her nature. She had never grown out of the war-year 1940s, which had seen her greatest triumph, the marital catching of Major Danny Marciano, who had thus far escaped entrapment. Barely out of her teens, Simonetta had no use for the GIs in her own age group. She wanted a mature man who could keep her in good style from the beginning of their relationship. And, setting eyes on Major Marciano, Simonetta went after him with all the delicious ploys of youth, beauty, and high spirits. Now he was within a couple of years of retirement from the Holloman Police, while she was in her early forties.


Today she was clad in a button-down-the-front dress of pink with darker pink polka dots; it ended at her knees, displaying good legs in stockings with seams, and her shoes were pink kid with oldfashioned medium heels and bows on their fronts. Her dark hair was rolled back from her face in a continuous sausage, and on the back of her head she had pinned a huge pink satin bow. The fashion these days was for pink or brownish lipstick, but Simonetta wore brilliant red. All of which might have suggested to strangers that she was free with her favors, but they would have been mistaken. Simonetta was passionately devoted to her Danny and their four children; her baser qualities were all channeled into gossip, and there was nothing she didn’t know. She had feelers into the Mayor’s offices, Chubb, the clutter of departments that made up County Services, the Chamber of Commerce, the Knights of Columbus, Rotary, the Shriners, and many more places that might yield some juicy tidbit. Having Simonetta on your side, her husband joked, was like enjoying all the benefits of the Library of Congress without the hassle of borrowing.

“Hi,” said Carmine, coming to peck her rouged cheek and put her into a chair. “You look great, Netty.”

She preened. “Coming from you, that’s a compliment.”

“Coffee?”

“No, thanks, I can’t stay, I’m on my way to a women’s lib meeting in Buffo’s wine cellar.” She giggled. “Lunch and a good Italian red as well as lots of dirt.”

“I didn’t know you were a feminist, Netty.”

“I’m not,” she said, and snorted. “What I am into is equal pay for equal work.”

“How can I help?” Carmine asked, genuinely baffled.

“Oh, you can’t! I’m not here for that. I’m here because I remembered hearing Danny say you and yours were looking for people who attended the Maxwell Foundation banquet.”

“You were there yourself, Netty.”

“I was, at John’s table. None of us knew a thing about what you were looking for, I remember that.” She plunged off on an apparent tangent. “You know the Lovely Peace funeral home?”

“Who doesn’t? Bart must have buried half of East Holloman.”

“The half that matters, anyway.”

He was intrigued; this was typical Simonetta, a perfectionist at the art of gossip. Drop crumbs on the water and gather all the ducks, then produce your shotgun, that was Simonetta.

“He hasn’t been the same since Cora died,” Netty said.

“They were a devoted couple,” Carmine said gravely.

“Such a pity he didn’t have a son to take over the business! Daughters are well and good, but they never seem to want to follow in Pop’s footsteps.”