Too Many Murders(74)
“A Russian boyfriend in 1944, huh? An immigrant?”
“Why not? From what I know and have seen of Dr. Davenport, she likes secretiveness. Conversing in a foreign language would have been just her ticket.”
“According to the milkman, he had pals.”
“That’s not uncommon, Carmine. Immigrants with poor command of English tend to clump together. Where is this place?”
“An outer suburb of Boston.”
“Then presumably there would have been work.”
“In 1944? Scads of it.”
Okay, so she spoke Russian, Carmine decided, going back to the Smith years. Shawcross’s money must have come in handy. The formal exchange program hadn’t yet found its feet, but the students were encouraged to broaden their experience as well as their education by going elsewhere for two semesters, fall and spring, in their junior year. In 1947 the twenty-year-old Erica asked if she could attend the London School of Economics, provided her courses there were accredited toward her degree. And so off to London she went. Her brilliance and dedication at the L.S.E. never faltered; while other students stumbled at the strangeness of different routines, attitudes and customs, Erica Davenport fitted into her new environment faultlessly. She managed to acquire a few friends, go to parties, even have several love affairs with men generally held unattainable.
Having concluded her studies at the close of the academic year, she spent the summer of 1948 exploring the Continent; her canceled passport showed entry and exit stamps for France, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece. She traveled second-class and unaccompanied, explaining to those who asked that the solitude was good for her soul. When she touched base in London between trips, she inflicted color slide shows on her L.S.E. circle, one of whom complained that the scenery was gorgeous, but where were the people?
“I am not insensitive enough to photograph people going about their usual existence as if they were freaks!” she had said, annoyed. “If their costumes are alien to us, to them they are what everyone wears.”
“Then pay them to have their pictures taken,” someone said. “You’re a rich American, you can afford the dollar.”
“What, and drag them down to our level? That’s disgusting!”
Well, well! Carmine fingered this statement as if the paper were coated in gold. Once upon a time you had passions, Erica! Strong, ineradicable passions. Ideals too.
The law degree from Harvard and the doctorate from Chubb produced nothing new; the only thing about Erica Davenport’s second twenty years that he found intriguing was how immobile they were. After that three-month orgy of sampling Europe’s charms, she never went back, and that was strange. In his experience people always tried to recapture the joys and flings of youth, especially when they involved junkets to Europe. She hadn’t gone to West Germany and she had steered clear of Cyprus and Trieste; she had caught a ferry from Brindisi to Patras, thus avoiding any chance of encountering Yugoslavia. Was the visa situation that bad in 1948, before the cold war heated up?
“Delia!” he hollered. “I’m going to Cornucopia!”
“How good’s your Russian?” he asked Dr. Erica Davenport bluntly. “The Russian boyfriend hone your grammar too?”
“Oh, you are a busy boy!” she said, tapping the end of a gold pencil on her desk.
“It can’t be a secret. It’s in your FBI file.”
“Am I to infer that you believe the FBI have cleared me of suspicion in their espionage investigation?” she asked coolly.
“The FBI is the FBI, a law unto itself. In my eyes it does not clear you of suspicion,” Carmine said.
“I had a Russian boyfriend in my teens, I admit, and I happen to pick up languages very easily. A Smith professor gave me a special course in Russian grammar and literature out of sheer gratification at finding someone interested. I also toyed with the idea of going into the State Department as a diplomat. Satisfied?”
“How much of this does the FBI know?”
“Clever Captain Delmonico! You know I didn’t mention the boyfriend, yet you knew about him. Someone in the FBI slipped.”
“Bigger organization, more chance of slips.” He tilted his head and considered her. “What happened to the passion?”
“Excuse me?”
“The passion. At twenty you were full of it.”
Her smile resembled a sneer. “I don’t think so.”
“I do, and you’ll never convince me otherwise. Your aspirations for humanity burned your brain like red-hot pokers. You were going to change the world. Instead, you joined it.”