Too Many Murders(84)

“You don’t think that of Dee-Dee Hall?” Marciano asked.

“No, I think he killed her in person—why, I don’t know.”

“Okay, next phase?” Silvestri asked, parking his ashtray and its cigar under Danny’s nose.

“A general regrouping,” Carmine said, and sighed. “Oh, how I hate Cornucopia! But it’s back into the fray, guys.”

“Erica Davenport?” Corey asked hopefully.

“She’s involved, but she’s not the mastermind. I put her down as—” He broke off, frowning. No, he couldn’t mention Ulysses. “I put her down as a red herring.”

“That wasn’t what you were going to say,” Silvestri said as everyone filed out of his office.

“Well, I couldn’t say it! That’s why I hate Cornucopia—too many secrets.”


Myron was waiting in his office, eyeing it appreciatively.

“You could do with a coat of paint and some new furniture” was his opening remark. “But it sure beats the previous premises.”

His friend was turning into an old man almost overnight; the eyes were red-rimmed, the cheeks sunken, the mouth slack, and his perky, straight-backed posture had sagged.

“No one touches it until I’m on vacation,” Carmine said, seating himself behind his desk. “A mug of cop coffee?”

“No, thanks! I’d like to live to see a lunch menu.”

“What can I do you for, Myron?”

“I’m flying west this afternoon.”

“Not before due time, I would have said in the old days. Now”—Carmine shrugged—“that’s debatable. Does Erica know?”

“Yes.”

“Have you proposed to her yet?”

“No,” Myron said unhappily.

“Why not, if you love her?”

“That’s just it—I do love her! But I don’t think she loves me. At least, not the way Desdemona loves you.”

Carmine sighed. “Myron, you have to remember that Desdemona and I are a special case. We shared a common danger, and that tends to forge a special bond. We started out disliking each other—Jesus, you can’t look at us and wish for the same relationship! That’s sophomoric.”

Myron went scarlet, compressed his lips. “Well, okay, I admit that. But how do I get inside the defenses of a woman I know isn’t the cold WASP princess she pretends to be?”

“I can’t help you,” said Carmine, bewildered. “What makes you think I could?”

“Because when she speaks of you, she has strong feelings! If it weren’t for you, I’d genuinely believe she doesn’t own any.” He waved his hands about wildly. “No, she doesn’t have the hots for you, so don’t start looking for the fire escape! I thought that maybe you had a cop technique…” He trailed off miserably.

“And that wasn’t what you meant,” Carmine comforted. “All you really mean is that something about me gets under her defenses, and you’re hoping I know what it is. But I don’t, Myron. Even if I did, I wouldn’t pass it on. You can pull women effortlessly. You pulled her. And actually you’ve gotten under her defenses enough for her to have confided in you. No one at Cornucopia knows she’s not a cold WASP princess, whereas you do. I’d call that major progress.”

“It’s chickenfeed,” Myron said despondently. “She lets me make love to her—she initiated our first time, I didn’t—but she goes away somewhere, Carmine. ‘Lie on your back and think of England’ might have been written just for her, except it’s not England she thinks of.”

“That’s not you, Myron. That’s her,” said Carmine, dying for the conversation to be over. “If I were you, I’d go talk to Desdemona.”

But Myron shook his head emphatically. “No, it was hard enough talking to you.” He got to his feet. “Give my undying love to our daughter.”

“You should do that yourself.”

“I can’t. I need to get away from here as fast as I can.”

And he was gone. Carmine stood listening to the sound of his footsteps retreating down the hall, and prayed that his most beloved friend would chance upon a greener feminine field in his own purlieu.


“But I think you can rest easy about your mother,” he said to Sophia that evening. “Divorce is not in the cards.”

“Then I forgive him for going,” Sophia said magnanimously. “That icy bitch would kill him.”




When Carmine came in on that Friday, April twenty-first, at eight in the morning, Delia was waiting for him. It was clearly some kind of red-letter day for her; she had dressed in her smartest outfit, a combination of purple and orange that hurt the eyes unless, like Carmine’s, they were inured to her palette.