Dee-Dee … A cutthroat razor. Only a scalpel has that kind of edge apart from a razor, and even Patsy’s autopsy blades couldn’t inflict a wound like that on a standing woman by an assailant looking her in the face. It’s the way forefinger and thumb hold the junction of the razor’s shell and its—tang? Very close up, and very personal. Ulysses must have been drenched in Dee-Dee’s blood like a man under a running tap. He didn’t cut the carotid arteries until the jugular veins slowed to a trickle, then he got a second bath. Hate! This was done in absolute hatred fiercer by far than Desmond Skeps. Who escorted Dee-Dee to the banquet. That says Skeps knew why Ulysses hated Dee-Dee, even if Skeps didn’t know Ulysses was Ulysses. And what was it with Dee-Dee? She stood and took her death without a protest, according to Patsy. So she knew why Ulysses hated her, and admitted her guilt.
I wonder if he kept those blood-saturated clothes? If his hatred burned that hot, maybe he needed a souvenir. The razor? That, he will definitely have. Enshrined somewhere. Not as a remembrance. As an instrument of execution.
An image rose behind Carmine’s eyes so vividly that the hairs on his neck stood up. Jesus! I know where! I know where!
His steps slowed; he stopped, turned around and walked back to County Services at a steady pace, jubilation dying. Knowing was one thing; marshaling his forces to prove it was another. Doubting Doug would have reverted to normal; easier to get blood out of a stone than a warrant to search premises. Not that Ulysses would part with his mementos. In that respect there was no hurry. Strictly speaking, the urgency was not his affair, as it concerned the spy rather than the killer. Except that Carmine was an American patriot. It was his duty to foil the spy too.
By the time he gained his office his demeanor was as always. Delia, bursting on his gaze in green and orange paisley, gave him the kind of fright that only days ago would have provoked a smile. Today it was merely jarring.
“Abe’s down with Lancelot Sterling,” she said, “and Corey is skulking around the aerodrome. He said something about a new Lear jet, but I confess I was only half listening. I was on the phone to Desdemona.”
“I might have known,” he said, torn between an urge to tell Delia what was filling his mind and reluctance to burden her with his own frustrations.
“They’re safe here,” she said, smiling.
That decided him. “Sit down, Delia. I need to talk.”
By the end of it she looked horrified. Then she did a very un-Delia thing: she stroked his arm. “My dear Carmine, I fully comprehend your dilemma. But if Ulysses hated Dee-Dee with such passion, it must relate to some sort of ruination, and she must have been the instrument of it. I think it might pay me to make exhaustive enquiries into Dee-Dee’s background. That’s the trouble with prostitutes. No one bothers to look at them with a magnifying glass. Am I still empowered to act as a detective?”
“I haven’t rescinded the order, as you well know.”
“Then I’m going to see Dee-Dee’s pimp, her friends, enemies and acquaintances.” She paused, brows lifted. “It would be a lot easier if I had a badge,” she said.
“That far I won’t go, Delia. Don’t push your luck.”
The storm blew into Holloman on gale-force winds halfway through the night. Curled in bed with his front shielding Desdemona’s back, Carmine woke to the whipping roar of hard-driven rain on the windows, lifted his head to listen, then lay back with a sigh. No hope that this would last long enough to delay the Cornucopia expedition to Zurich. By afternoon the gale would be blown out.
“Mmf?” Desdemona asked.
Carmine cupped a breast. “Just the storm. Go back to sleep.”
“No damage, but the garden’s a mess,” Desdemona said the next morning, removing her rubber boots in the laundry. “I had high hopes for a weeping cherry, but a flying branch clobbered it. Too exposed to the elements, our dream home.”
“You can’t have it all, lovely lady.” Carmine shrugged his shoulders into his jacket and poked through the waterproofed coats hanging on pegs. “It’s going to rain all day, so don’t take Julian out. If you need groceries, call someone.”
A rather cold rain beating in his face, Carmine plodded up the path to their big garage, which had to be on East Circle itself and thus had no sheltered communication with the house, a good fifty feet lower. Inside the garage he shed his raincoat before climbing into the Fairlane; he’d park under the building and keep dry. As soon as he keyed the ignition he turned on the police radio and sat listening. Nothing much, just terse talk larded with the abstruse numbers and letters designed to keep police business the business of the police. If only it did! he thought as he rolled out into the aftermath of the night’s storm. Maybe I’ll take a detour and look at the Cornucopia jet. But I won’t announce my intention on the radio. Too many people make a hobby of tuning in, and they don’t need a radio shack.