“Who is heading the investigation?” asked M.M.
“For want of someone better, sir, at present I am, but that could change. There are so many different police departments involved, you see.”
“Do you want the job, Carmine?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then I shall call the Governor,” said M.M., positive of his power, and why not?
“Would it help if Parson Products offered a large reward?” asked Richard Spaight. “Half a million? A million?”
Carmine blanched. “No, Mr. Spaight, anything but! For one thing, it would focus press attention on the Hug, and for another, massive rewards only make the police’s task harder. They bring every cuckoo and zealot out of the woodwork, and while I can’t say a reward wouldn’t produce a good lead, the chances are so slight that following up thousands and thousands of reports would tax police reserves beyond endurance for the sake of a carload of nothing. If we continue to get nowhere, then maybe twenty-five thousand in reward money could be offered. Take my word for it, that’s plenty.”
“Then,” said Roger Parson Junior, getting up and heading for the coffee, “I suggest we adjourn until Lieutenant Delmonico can give us some new developments. Professor Smith, you and your people must give the Lieutenant complete co-operation.” He started to pour into a cup and stopped, aghast. “The coffee’s not made! I need a coffee!”
While the Prof fluttered about apologizing and explaining that Miss Vilich normally dealt with the coffee toward the end of the meeting, Carmine switched the several percolators on and bit into an apple Danish. M.M. was right. Delicious.
Before Carmine left his office that afternoon, Commissioner John Silvestri barreled through the door to tell him that word had come from Hartford that there was to be a special police task force operating out of Holloman, as Holloman had the best police laboratories in the state. Lieutenant Carmine Delmonico was appointed to head the special task force.
“Budget, unlimited,” said Silvestri, looking even more like a large black cat than usual, “and ask for any cops you want from anywhere in the state.”
Thank you, M.M., said Carmine to himself. I have a virtual carte blanche, but I’m willing to bet my badge that the press will know everything before I leave this office. Once the public servants get in on the act, tongues are bound to wag. As for the Governor – multiple murders, especially of admirable citizens, add up to political odium.
To Silvestri he said, “I’ll visit every police department in the state personally to brief them, but for the moment I’m happy to keep the special task force to me, Patrick, Abe and Corey.”
Chapter 5
Wednesday, October 20th, 1965
Two weeks had gone by since the discovery of Mercedes Alvarez in the Hug dead animal refrigerator, and the tide of news items in the newspapers and on TV and radio had begun to ebb in an informational vacuum. Not a whisper of incineration had leaked, which amazed the special task force. Apparently pressure from on high by all kinds of influential and political people had suppressed this as too sensitive, too nightmarishly disturbing. Of course the Caribbean factor had been harped on remorselessly. The number of victims had been set at eleven; no case prior to Rosita Esperanza in January of 1964 had come to light, including in any other state of the Union. Of course the killer had been given a nickname by the press: he was the Connecticut Monster.
Hug existence was no longer just a matter of a minor triumph in the behavior of potassium ions through the neuronal cell membrane, or a major triumph when Eustace had a focal temporal lobe seizure upon a tickling electrical stimulation of his ulnar nerve. Now Hug existence was fraught with tensions that exhibited themselves in sideways glances, statements cut off in mid-utterance, uneasy avoidance of the subject never far from any Hugger mind. One small comfort: the cops seemed to have given up visiting, even Lieutenant Delmonico, who for eight days had haunted every floor.
The cracks that were appearing in the Hug’s social structure mostly radiated from the figure of Dr. Kurt Schiller.
“Stay away from me, you Nazi cur!” Dr. Maurice Finch shouted at Schiller when he came enquiring about a tissue sample.
“Yes, you are allowed to call me names,” Schiller retorted, gasping, “but I dare not retaliate, here among American Jews!”
“If I had my way, you’d be deported!” Finch said, snarling.
“You cannot blame a whole nation for the crimes of a few,” Schiller persisted, face white, fists clenched.
“Who says I can’t? You were all guilty!”
Charles Ponsonby broke it up, took Schiller by the arm and escorted him to his own domain.
“I have done nothing – nothing!” Schiller cried. “How do we know – really know! – that the body was cut up to be incinerated? It is gossip, wicked gossip! I have done nothing!”
“My dear Kurt, Maurie’s reaction is understandable,” Charles said. “He had cousins who went to the ovens at Auschwitz, so the very thought of incineration is – well, profoundly disturbing to him. I also understand that it isn’t easy to be on the receiving end of his emotions. The best thing you can do is keep out of his way until things die down. They will, they always do. For you’re quite correct – it’s just gossip. The police haven’t told us a thing. Keep your chin up, Kurt – be a man!” This last was said with an inflection that caused Schiller to put his head in his hands and weep bitterly.
“Gossip,” said Ponsonby to himself as he returned to his lab, “is like garlic. A good servant, a bad master.”
Finch wasn’t the only one who used Schiller as his butt for frustrations. Sonia Liebman ostentatiously withdrew from his vicinity whenever she encountered him; Hilda Silverman suddenly mislaid his journals and articles; Marvin, Betty and Hank lost his samples and inked swastikas on the rats whose brains would go to pathology.
Finally Schiller went to the Prof to tender his resignation, only to have it refused.
“I can’t possibly accept it, Kurt,” said Smith, whose hair seemed to grow whiter every day. “We’re under police observation, we can’t change staff. Besides, if you left now, it would be in a cloud of suspicion. Grit your teeth and get through this, just like the rest of us.”
“But I’ve had it up to here with gritting my teeth,” he said to Tamara after the devastated Schiller had gone. “Oh, Tamara, why did it have to happen to us?”
“If I knew that, Bob, I’d try to fix it,” she said, settled him in his chair more comfortably and gave him a draft of Dr. Nur Chandra’s paper to read, the one that coolly and clinically went into the details of Eustace’s incredible seizure.
When she returned to her own office she found Desdemona Dupre there, but not waiting where anyone else would have. That English bitch was unashamedly scanning the contents of Tamara’s cluttered desk!
“Have you seen my wages sheet, Vilich?”
The corner of a highly confidential handwritten communication was poking out from under a sheaf of rough-draft dictation she had transcribed from the Prof; Tamara leaped to shove Desdemona away.
“Don’t you dare look through my papers, Dupre!”
“I was simply fascinated by the chaos you work in,” Desdemona drawled. “No wonder you couldn’t administer this place. You couldn’t organize a booze-up in a brewery.”
“Why don’t you go fuck yourself? One thing for sure, you’re too ugly to get a man to fuck you!”
Up went Desdemona’s rather invisible brows. “There are worse fates than to die wondering,” she said, smiling, “but luckily some men like scaling Mount Everest.” Her eyes followed Tamara’s red-varnished nails as their hands shuffled the papers, tucked the vital sheet out of sight. “A love letter?” she asked.