“She reminds me of Erica Davenport,” said Abe thoughtfully.
“What?”
“Well, she does!” Abe prepared to defend an untenable position. “I can see Dr. Davenport at that age, with her summa cum laude degree and the whole world in front of her. She’s an icicle now, but I bet she wasn’t back then. I bet she wasn’t man-hungry either. Too ambitious. Just like Bianca.”
“Now why didn’t I see that?” Carmine asked slowly. “I spent half of yesterday afternoon looking at Erica Davenport’s FBI file, and failed to see it. Bianca was a surrogate Erica.”
“Jesus, this case gets screwier by the minute!” Abe cried.
“Think about it!” Carmine said eagerly. “If Bianca is a surrogate Erica, it puts her murder in perspective. The random element is disappearing. They are all related somehow! We can rule out Erica Davenport. The biggest question I have about her now is whether Bianca’s murder removes her from danger.”
“There haven’t been any more murders,” Corey said.
“Where do we go from here?” Abe asked.
“You guys concentrate on Peter Norton,” Carmine said, tone brisk. “I’m finding it harder and harder to believe that window-of-opportunity garbage. What if Mrs. Norton had been meaning to kill her husband for some time, and was manipulated into doing the deed on April third? If she’s guilty, then she had to get the strychnine somewhere, and maybe that’s the connection to our mastermind. I want both of you lifting up the flagstones on Mrs. Norton’s buried past. A boyfriend? I doubt it, but it has to be excluded. Is she in debt? Jewels? Furs? Clothes? Gambling? Is she bored with her life as Mrs. Small City Banker? She’s plump, but not unattractive. Look behind every blade of grass, guys. I want to know where this murder belongs.”
Which left him time for lunch at Malvolio’s with Myron, who looked careworn.
“Is she leaning too hard?” Carmine asked, sliding into the booth, his smile disarming the question’s intrusive side.
“Not as much since I advised her to let S.S. Cornucopia sail under its own steam. I should have seen that for myself.”
“You’re the ham in the sandwich.” Carmine turned to the waitress. “I’ll have a lettuce, tomato, cucumber and celery salad with oil-and-vinegar dressing, Minnie, and crackers on the side.” He looked from Minnie to Myron suspiciously. “So what’s the big deal about that?”
Minnie melted away; Myron shrugged. “For you, Carmine, it’s horrific. What happened to the Thousand Island dressing? The hard rolls? The butter?”
“If you’d been eating dinner at my place, Myron, you’d know.” Carmine sipped black, sugarless coffee. “My wife has turned into one of the world’s great chefs, so either I eat rabbit food for lunch, or no lunch at all. Otherwise I’ll turn into the Goodyear blimp.”
“Holy Moses! What gives with the murders?”
“We’re making progress. How much has Erica told you about her childhood and young womanhood?”
“More than she told Desmond Skeps, I think. She conned all the Cornucopia executives out of self-preservation, but she came clean to me when I asked her. Depression children had a hard time, Carmine.”
“Don’t tell me, I was one. My father was lucky, he kept his job, but his wages had to be spread around the family some. East Holloman was one of the first districts to improve, so by 1935 things were looking up again. St. Bernard’s high school was underpopulated. We got a lot of teacher time.”
“I never felt it,” Myron confessed. “The movie industry did well, so did my pop.”
“It was a crazy decade.” Carmine munched through his salad as if he was enjoying it. “How do you think Erica wound up the person she is now, Myron?”
“I have no idea, and she won’t tell me.”
“Has she ever mentioned what she did in Europe while she tripped around there in the summer of 1948?”
“I didn’t even know she went to Europe, just about London.”
“It’s in her FBI file, and it might answer a lot.”
“I won’t spy for you, Carmine.”
“Nor would I ask you, but spying is already a part of this case. Someone at Cornucopia is selling secrets to the Reds, and Erica is a strong suspect.”
Myron had gone chalk white. His fork fell onto his plate with a clatter. “Oh, God, that’s awful!”
“It’s also classified information. You can’t tell anyone, Myron, though you can tell Erica. She knows all about Ulysses.”
“Ulysses is the spy?”