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Too Many Murders(18)

By:Colleen McCullough


“Poison is a woman’s weapon,” said Patrick.

“Usually, yes, but not always. What makes you think this is not a female poisoner?”

“That window of opportunity. Literally, as the juice could only be seen through the kitchen window, but not reached through it. Seizing an opportunity on the spur of the moment isn’t very female, yet that’s what this killer had to do. See the juice, go in the back door, add a hefty dose of strychnine to the glass, then leave. What if someone had come downstairs? He’d have been discovered, so he must have had a convincing story ready. No, this poisoner is a man.”

“Chauvinist,” Carmine said slyly. “What about Dean Denbigh?”

“Oh, that one’s up for grabs—and you know it! Potassium cyanide crystals mixed with jasmine tea leaves inside a perfect bag in turn enclosed inside a hermetically sealed paper packet that my technicians are willing to swear in court was opened only once—by Dean Denbigh himself. And the tea bag is machine stitched, not stapled—stitched only once, those swearing technicians again. All four of the students invited to his klatch were men.”

“While Dr. Pauline Denbigh the wife held her own klatch around the corner in her study,” Carmine said with a grin. “Her guests were all women.”

“‘Klatch’ is disrespectful,” Patrick said solemnly. “Granted, you can’t very well call morning coffee a soiree, yet I gather the function operated rather like one—poetry read out, and so forth.”

“It should really be matinee, but that’s taken. How about a matutinal recitation?”

“Spot on, Carruthers! Your Limey wife is showing.”

“But you like her better now, Patsy, don’t you?” Carmine asked anxiously.

“Of course I do! She’s ideal for you, and that alone makes me love her. I guess it was being towered over that set me against her, and that snooty Limey thing. But now I know she’s brave, and gallant, and very smart. She’s also sexy,” Patrick said, still trying to mend his fences. Carmine’s doubts were receding, but it was still a conversation they had from time to time. The trouble was, Patrick hadn’t read the signals correctly, hadn’t known just how deep Carmine’s feelings for the lady were. If he had, he would never have breathed a disparaging word about her. And Sandra she wasn’t, thank God.

“Anything else in Denbigh’s blood?” Carmine asked.

“Nothing.”

“What about Desmond Skeps?”

Patrick’s face lit up. “Oh, he’s a doozy, Carmine! He had no long-term drugs or toxins in his blood, but he got a cocktail the day he died.”

“Day?” Carmine asked, frowning.

“Yes, I think the process started well before the sun went down—maybe as early as four in the afternoon, when he took a glass of single-malt Scotch laced with chloral hydrate. While he was out, the killer put a Luer-Lok IV needle in his left intercubital fossa and taped it down. It stayed until he was dead.”

“The same technique as Mrs. Cartwright?”

“Superficially. The similarity ended with the introduction of the IV. Mrs. Cartwright was killed as soon as the needle was in the vein, but that wasn’t Skeps’s fate. He was intubated and given a medical curare that enabled the killer to inflict painful bodily harm on the poor bastard, too immobilized to fight back. He was bag-breathed, but if it was attached to a respirator I don’t know. The torture was burns, mostly, but never severe enough to interrupt pain pathways to the brain—he felt it all, believe me! That says the killer must have some medical knowledge. Third-degree burns aren’t felt; the pain pathways have been destroyed too.”

“The instrument of torture?”

“Some kind of soldering iron is my guess—a red-hot tip that could be manipulated. He even wrote Skeps’s name on his belly, after a sloppy dry shave of the body hair that left the skin grazed and raw. I photographed it extensively. Wouldn’t it be interesting to nail the sucker on a handwriting analysis?”

“Pipe dreams, Patsy.”

“While the curare was still concentrated enough to sustain the paralysis, the killer injected Skeps with a small amount of something dilute but caustic. The pain must have been terrible.”

“Jesus, Patsy,” Carmine said, “whoever murdered Skeps hated him! The only other victim of outright torture was the rape case, Bianca Tolano.”

“At some stage,” Patrick went on, “the killer brought Skeps out of his curare paralysis. The airway was removed and Skeps was bound at the wrists and ankles with single-strand steel wire about an eighth of an inch in diameter, tight enough that it would have hurt atrociously to struggle. Yet he struggled! The wire ate into his flesh, though the areas are too bony for deep penetration.” Patrick ceased, and looked enquiring.