Too Many Murders(73)

Sordid, thought Carmine, staring into space; however, it was a typical Thirties story, a decade of horror for people of all classes and all walks of life. Until then, men had found a job, a trade or a profession in their teens and expected to fill it until retirement. The Thirties destroyed permanency, for the Davenports among millions of others.

How the hell did she get to Smith? The answer to that lay in a statement from the widow of the principal of Erica’s last high school. It was barbed, bitter and biased, yes, but it also rang true. Lawrence Shawcross had seen beyond the painfully thin and immature body of Erica Davenport, seen beyond the sharp features of her face, seen beyond the cramped inexperience of her mind, and taken this child of brilliant promise in hand to see if he could breathe life into her. Though Marjorie Shawcross fought her coming with tooth and nail, Erica Davenport moved into the Shawcross house in September of 1942, when she was fifteen years old. The battle that ensued was a secret one, for if it became known that Shawcross’s wife was an unwilling participant, he would have lost his job, his reputation and his pension. So Mrs. Shawcross, caught, pretended she was delighted to do what she could for this child of brilliant promise. Erica had new clothes, was taught how to care for herself, eat daintily, use a napkin and all the right cutlery, speak clearly with good diction, and all the other things Lawrence Shawcross deemed vital if his Erica were to make her deserved mark on the world.

Teacher and pupil became lovers in 1944, when Erica was seventeen, according to Marjorie Shawcross. Frowning, Carmine considered it, and decided that while it was likely Erica had found a lover, he was not Lawrence Shawcross. One of the things this would-be Professor Higgins would have taught her was never to foul her own nest. And she, seizing on everything he said as gospel, would have seen the good sense of that advice immediately.

The straight As became A-pluses, but with the war ending and millions of servicemen coming home, Erica didn’t stand a chance of getting a place in a top university; it would have to be a women’s college. Despite a partial scholarship to Smith, things looked grim for Erica: extremely gifted students were a dime a dozen in 1945. And then, out of the blue, Lawrence Shawcross died. The cause of death was put down as a cerebral catastrophe by his doctor, treating him for high blood pressure. Mrs. Shawcross’s allegations of murder by Erica Davenport were dismissed as the ravings of a grief-stricken woman, though his will gave her some grounds—just not enough. The bulk of his estate went to his widow, but the sum of $50,000 went to Erica Davenport for her education and concomitant expenses.

Erica went to Smith and chose economics as her major, with high grades in mathematics, English literature, and… Russian? Did Smith even teach Russian?

Back he went to her childhood, cursing himself for skimming some of the statements. But no, he couldn’t find a single thing. Davenport had never been Davenski, so much seemed sure. On he waded through the various schools she had attended—no luck there either. What about the mysterious lover during her last year in high school? Papers went flying. Then he thought of Delia and called her in.

“You have a better eye for the written word than I do,” he said, handing her the years Erica had spent living with the Shawcrosses. “See if you can find any reference to a Russian or the Russian language.”

Off she trotted, while Carmine sat with mind buzzing. The FBI knew this particular quarry had learned Russian, which surely put her at the top of their Ulysses suspect list. So why hadn’t they told him? “Because,” he muttered to the empty room, “you are a provincial nonentity, a dumb dago cop in a pint-sized place full of eccentrics! Next time I’ll punch the cunt’s lights out, even if I have to grow wings!”

“No, no,” said Delia when she returned, “you do the man an injustice, Carmine. He did give you the file.”

“He thinks I’m too stupid to read.”

“Then that’s his mistake, isn’t it?” Having tidied the mess on his desk, she sat down and handed him the sheaf he had given her. “It’s a glancing reference only, by”—she giggled—“who else, the milkman. Now he’s genuinely stupid, and I’m sure you gained the impression that he had rather a crush on Erica. In amongst his ramblings about her boyfriends—I must digress and say that they seem without foundation, which may be why no one put a note beside the reference. Why do they ink out some words or phrases? Anyone can fill them in from imagination!”

“Get on with it, Delia!”

“Oh! Oh, yes, of course. One of her boyfriends talks gibberish, and she gibbers back. Here it is, and I quote: ‘He jabbers at her like he does with his pals, real quick.’ It could mean a fast talker, but if he jabbers at Erica, then she must understand the jabber and, by extrapolation, jabber back.”