“Thank God it hasn’t leaked that everyone sitting there is dead. Don’t worry, Carmine, I’ll make it sound routine as well as vital,” Silvestri promised.
He was as good as his word, but no one emerged from the woodwork, as he put it himself.
“Thwarted,” said Delia.
“Stymied,” said Abe.
“Fucked,” said Corey.
None of which made Carmine any easier to live with, Desdemona reflected as the fourth week of investigations wore on. So she tried to cheer him with tasty meals and as much exposure to Julian as possible. This latter was helped by the case’s inertia, as a thwarted, stymied, fucked Carmine was home much earlier than a busy, productive one.
Though Julian was not yet six months old, she wanted another baby as soon as possible, believing that siblings closest in age stood a better chance of getting on together. It was a fallacy, her mother-in-law kept telling her, but Desdemona could be very stubborn, and in this case, she was. So the arrival of her period cast her into a bleak mood that exasperated Emilia Delmonico into a rare burst of temper.
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself!” Emilia snapped. “Take the baby for a walk and soak up some sun. He’s a Thanksgiving Day baby, he’s never felt a warm sun. Now it’s high spring, and a beautiful day outside. Enjoy it!”
“But I want to make a bearnaise sauce,” Desdemona objected.
“Carmine would eat steak with no sauce at all. Now go!”
“I feel like an afternoon in my kitchen.”
“You need to get out of your kitchen more often! What do you want, a fat Carmine with heart disease?”
“No, of course not, but—”
“But me no buts! Put Julian in the stroller and go for a walk, Desdemona.”
“He’s too young for the stroller.”
“Hogwash! He sits up straight and holds his head up fine. It’s good exercise for both of you. Now go! Go!”
Since Carmine had fitted the stroller with straps, Desdemona ran out of arguments. Taking care that Julian was able to lie back if he felt sleepy, his mother set off. Truth to tell, she admitted, their land was too steep for the buggy, and Julian in the stroller sat up looking around, alert and interested.
After a tour of East Circle her despondency began to lift; she even felt kindly toward her know-it-all mother-in-law. It was indeed a beautiful day of cloudless sky and zephyr breeze; May would come in perfect. At the top of the long, snaky path that led from the street down to the house, Desdemona decided that today Julian should have his first cognizant sight of an expanse of blue water: the harbor, never busy enough to be foul with detritus.
Feeling her lungs open up, she pushed the stroller down past the house in the direction of their jetty and boat shed, rejoicing in the lush greenery all around her. The forsythia had done with blooming and now formed dense hedges, replaced along the water’s edge by salt-loving bushes. The property sat in a lee, and Connecticut was not usually hurricane country.
Where the wife of the previous owner had put a park bench, the view from the path to the water had been cleared. Desdemona sat and gazed down at her baby to see how he was faring. He was drinking it all in, eyes wide between their lush lashes, silent witness to Emilia’s wisdom. Yes, less time in the kitchen, more walking with Julian. She undid his straps and lifted him out to sit on her lap, her cheek against his curls, inhaling his sweet clean smell. My baby, my Julian!
The path here was sandy, and, true of many big people, Desdemona was light on her feet. Even after she and Julian sat, she made no sound, while he, a quiet child by nature, absorbed this new, wonderful experience. He will be a man of few words, she thought.
Perhaps two minutes went by before Desdemona realized that there was someone in the boat shed, moving things around; the water slapped and sloshed suddenly, as if greatly disturbed. As she turned her head to look, the door opened and a man came out. He was clad in woodsy camouflage and had pulled what she called a balaclava over his head, concealing all save his eyes and mouth under its khaki wool. In his right hand he held an automatic pistol, his demeanor that of someone who didn’t expect to be discovered, but was prepared.
With the baby, she would never make it up the hill, that was her immediate reaction. Even as she saw him, he saw her, and the gun came up. Sure of her, he took his time; he meant to get her with his first shot. Her wide blue eyes sought the apertures in the balaclava, gaze pleading for her child; she even extended the baby a little toward him, as if to show him the enormity of the crime he was about to commit. The gesture didn’t deflect him from his purpose, but moving the baby had spoiled his aim. He leveled the weapon again, going now for a head shot. That told the policeman’s wife all she needed to know: the man was an expert shot, he wouldn’t miss.