Too Many Murders(122)
Missing her unbearably, he turned away and went down to the kitchen, where his aunt had left a clam sauce for pasta. His mother was still too busy blaming herself for Desdemona’s peril to bother about cooking, but his sisters, aunts and cousins were making sure he didn’t starve. The door to Sophia’s tower led off the family sitting room, and was firmly shut; the owner of the eyrie was having a hard time of it in L.A., she informed her true father over the phone, as Myron was hovering on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Justifiably annoyed, Carmine had called him, abused him roundly for worrying a teenaged girl, and told him to snap out of it. Damn Erica Davenport! he thought for the hundredth time as he tipped fine fettuccine into a pan of boiling, salted water. She had cut a swath through the people he loved.
Voices sounded at the front door; a key turned in the lock. Carmine stood stock-still by the stove, the last of the fettuccine falling into the water of its own accord. Desdemona! That was Desdemona’s voice! But he couldn’t move to go to her, shock had nailed his feet to the floor.
“I might have known he’d still be at Cedar Street,” she was saying to someone, “and I’ll bet he forgot to shop.” Then, in a loud call, “Thank you, sir! I’ll be fine.” The taxi driver.
She forged into the kitchen like a battleship in full sail, Julian on her left arm, wearing slacks and a blouse creased from her journey, her face flushed, her eyes sparkling.
“Carmine!” she said, stopping in her own wake as she saw him. The wonderful smile transformed her plain face. “Dearest heart, you look like a fish in the bottom of a boat.”
He closed his mouth and enveloped her and the baby in his arms, his lashes wet as he searched for her lips and found them. Only Julian, squawking at being squashed, recalled them to the time and place. Carmine took his son and kissed him all over his face, something Julian loved; Desdemona moved to the stove.
“Pasta and clam sauce,” she said, peering into the bowl and the pan. “Aunt Maria, I’ll bet. There’s tons for two of us.” Then she took Julian from his father. “If you’ll excuse me, I intend to give him his dinner, then a bath, after which he goes sleepy-byes.”
“What about jet lag, kid?” Carmine asked the baby.
“Don’t worry about it,” Desdemona said. “I’ve deliberately kept him awake for hours and hours. The rest of first class was not amused.”
“How did you get from JFK?”
“Caught the Connecticut limousine. I wasn’t game to tell Myron that I was coming home. He wouldn’t understand.”
And off she went with Julian, talking some nonsense in his ear. All the ghosts had vanished.
“We didn’t find a thing in all that darkroom and radio gear,” Ted Kelly said gloomily. “Not a goddamn thing!”
“Did you really think you would?” Carmine asked, still wrapped in the bliss of having Desdemona and Julian home.
“I guess not, but it’s a disappointment all the same. I will admit, Carmine, that you and/or the Commissioner were pretty clever over the sniper on the Green,” Kelly said, a trifle grudgingly. “We could never find an excuse to search the Cornucopia Board’s homes. Though you’re skating on thin ice. Those guys have the money to take the County of Holloman all the way to the Supreme Court.”
“We’ve apologized for acting overhastily in the stress of the moment. Do you honestly think they will sue us, Ted?” Carmine asked, smiling.
“No. Too much public fuss. They’re petrified that someone will tell Ed Murrow about Ulysses.”
“So thought the Commissioner and/or I.”
“You’re a cunt, Delmonico.”
“Step outside.”
“I take it back. How come everybody knows about Ulysses?”
“Blame yourself. With your voice, you don’t need a megaphone, yet you will persist in having your meetings right here in a cop diner. The ears flap like Dumbo.”
“I hate small towns!”
“This is a small city, not a town.”
“Same difference. You all know too much about each other.”
“Switch from your turkey to your eagle hat for a moment. Is it true that the entire Cornucopia Board is flying to Zurich in an attempt to acquire some Swiss company that makes transistors?”
“Who’s your source?” Kelly demanded suspiciously.
“Erica Davenport’s ex-secretary, Richard Oakes, who is now demoted to working for Michael Donald Sykes, yet another unhappy victim of top management,” Carmine said, toying with a plain salad. “Oakes and I went for a stroll this morning along the banks of the Pequot, where our words floated away on the breeze and our only witnesses were a flock of gulls. We must be in for a storm.”