At County Services they split up. Armed with details supplied by the head accountant, horrified at violence in the world of numbers, Abe and Corey went to the dead man’s apartment. Carmine, a ferocious look on his face, walked up to the autopsy room, unaware that people who saw him scattered.
“Joshua Butler, single, aged thirty-five,” said Patsy, who had the stripped body on his table already. “He’s one of those poor souls with a congenital pituitary syndrome that prevented hormonal maturity. His testes are undescended, he has no body hair, and he has the penis of a prepubescent boy. I doubt he could sustain an erection, let alone ejaculate motile sperm. So if he’s Bianca Tolano’s murderer, the rape was all done with an object, probably the bottle before he broke it. He didn’t act in a frenzy, as you remember—he cleaned up too well. The short leg is due to a break that was disgracefully treated at some time during childhood. I doubt a doctor saw it at all. I’ll find what I’m looking for inside the cranium, when I see the base of the brain and the pituitary. Histology will be very important. He might be a situs inversus as well—heart on the right side, some other organs reversed too. Cause of death? I’ve not changed my mind. It’s cyanide.”
Carmine sighed. “He could never have installed that bear trap in Evan Pugh’s closet,” he said. “I know strength can’t always be equated with size or even muscularity, but this guy is definitely a ninety-pound weakling. I’m right, aren’t I?”
“Yes,” said Patsy, itching to get on with his examination. It wasn’t every day that he saw a body like this.
So somewhere, Carmine thought, leaving Patsy to it, there is an exceedingly artful dodger capable of impersonating a runt like Joshua Butler. And capable of igniting a fire inside Joshua Butler hot enough to drive him to murder.
Not five minutes later Patsy called him.
“Carmine, the cause of death is definitely cyanide, but I don’t think it was murder. I found a capsule inside his mouth made of very thin plastic, and shreds of the plastic around his teeth. He committed suicide.”
“That makes sense,” said Carmine, beyond amazement. “Just like Dr. Goebbels, except that he wouldn’t have any kids.”
“Be of good cheer!” said Delia, trying comfort. “At least you’re chipping away at them. Bianca Tolano is sorted out.”
“Huh!” Carmine grunted. “All it goes to show is that if you turn over enough stones, you’re bound to find something horrible. We’re down to four that have real answers to our questions.”
“Go home,” Delia said sternly. “You need a dose of Julian.”
A dose of Julian did help, but then Myron ruined Carmine’s well-being by turning up on his doorstep angry enough to adopt a fighting stance. Carmine took one look and broke into fits of laughter.
“Myron, you dodo!” he said, throwing an arm around his friend’s shoulder and forcing him inside. “You look like a whippet squaring off against a Great Dane!”
Myron’s umbrage lasted a few more seconds, then he gave in. “At least you called me a whippet,” he said then. “I can count myself lucky I guess that you didn’t call me a chihuahua.”
“No,” said Carmine, rolling his eyes at Desdemona, “you’re not yappy. On the other hand, you’re not big enough to be a greyhound, though you do have a lot of the breed in you. Have a drink and tell me what’s bothering you.”
“Your—your persecution of Erica, that’s what’s bothering me! Why are you picking on her?”
“I am not picking on her, Myron.” Some women! he thought to himself. Why do some women always sweet-talk a poor, hapless schmo into fighting their battles for them? “She can’t have her cake and eat it too. Cornucopia is in a lot of trouble, and she is now el supremo—or la suprema. You’re a businessman, you know that kind of power has a price tag. If Erica can’t stand the heat, she’d better get out of the kitchen.”
The mood had utterly vanished; Myron could never sustain rage against a beloved friend, especially when his position was untenable. “Oh, Carmine,” he wailed, “how did I wind up in the middle? I love the girl and I hate to see her badgered, but she made me promise I’d try to get you to ease up on her.” He looked doleful. “But I can’t, can I? You’re not a Great Dane, you’re a bulldog.”
“This conversation’s gotten far too doggy.” Carmine handed him a Scotch. “Has it occurred to you that Erica is petrified at being handed Cornucopia? I don’t think she expected it, and I do think she’s afraid she won’t make the grade.”