“Lieutenant! Sir! Please, I beg of you, don’t tell anyone! My partnership in New York City is almost set, but if they find out about this, I’ll lose it!” he cried.
His mind full of Ruth and Hilda, their constant sacrifices for this big, spoiled baby, Carmine shook the grip off savagely.
“Don’t touch me, you selfish fuck! I don’t give a shit about your precious practice in New York, but I happen to like your mother and your wife. You don’t deserve either of them! I won’t mention this to anyone, but you can’t be stupid enough to think that Miss Tamara Vilich will be so charitable, surely! You’ll dump her, no matter how fantastic the kinky sex with her is, and she’ll retaliate like any other scorned woman. By tomorrow everyone who matters to you will know. Your professor, mother, wife, and the New York bunch.”
Kyneton sagged, looked around vainly for a chair, hung on to a case of swabs instead. “Oh, Jesus, Jesus, I’m ruined!”
“Straighten up, Kyneton, for God’s sake!” Carmine snapped. “You’re not ruined – yet. Find someone to do your next operation, send your wife home, and follow her. Once you’ve gotten her and your mother to yourself, confess. Go down on your knees and beg forgiveness. Swear never to do it again. And don’t hold anything back. You’re a sweet-talking con merchant, you’ll bring them round. But God help you if you don’t treat those two women right in future, hear me? I’m not charging you with anything at the moment, but don’t think I can’t find something to charge you with if I want, and I’ll be keeping my eye on you: for however many years I’m a cop. One last thing. Next time you shop at Brooks Brothers, buy your mother and wife something nice at Bonwit’s.”
Did the bastard listen? Yes, but only to what he divined would save him. “None of that helps me with the partnership.”
“Sure it does! Provided your mother and wife stand by you. Between the three of you, you can make Tamara Vilich sound like a frustrated woman telling a whole mess of lies.”
The cog wheels were clunking around; Kyneton brightened visibly. “Yes, yes, I see what you mean! That’s how to do it!”
A moment later, Carmine was alone. Keith Kyneton had raced off to mend his fences without a word of thanks.
“And just what,” demanded an irate female voice, “do you think you’re doing in here?”
Carmine flapped his impressive gold badge at the nurse, who looked ready to call hospital security.
“I’m doing penance, ma’am,” he said. “Terrible penance.”
The world when covered with fresh snow was so beautiful; as soon as he shed his outdoor layers Carmine turned one of his easy chairs to face the huge window that looked out across the harbor, and switched off all the interior lights. The strident yellow of highway illuminations offended him, but washed across sheets of snow it was softer, more golden. The ice was beginning to creep out from the eastern shore, though the wharves were still a black vacancy chipped by sparkles; too much wind for long, rippling reflections. No car ferries now until May.
What was he going to do about Desdemona? All his overtures had been repulsed, all his notes of apology returned unopened, thrust under his door. To this moment he didn’t honestly know why she had been so mortally offended, so unrelenting – sure, he had over-stepped the mark, but didn’t everyone sometimes have words, not see eye to eye? Something to do with her pride, but just what escaped him. That barrier different nationalities could erect, too high to see over. Was it his remark about buying a new dress occasionally, or simply that he’d dared to query her behavior? Had he made her feel unfeminine, or grotesque, or – or -
“I give up,” he said, leaned his chin on his hand, and tried to think about the Ghost. That was his new name for the Monster, who had nothing in common with popular conceptions of monsters. He was a ghost.
Chapter 17
Wednesday, January 19th, 1966
“I’m going for a walk, dear,” Maurice Finch said to Catherine as he got up from the breakfast table. “I don’t feel much like going in to work today, but I’ll think about it while I walk.”
“Sure, you do that,” his wife said, glancing through the window at the outside thermometer. “It’s fifteen below, so dress warm – and if you do decide to go to work, start the car on your way back.” He seemed, she felt, considerably more cheerful these days, and she knew why. Kurt Schiller had returned to the Hug and approached Maurie to assure him that their quarrel had not been the cause of his suicide attempt. Apparently the love of his life had thrown him over for someone else. The Nazi schmuck (Catherine’s opinion of Schiller hadn’t budged) didn’t go into details, but she supposed that men who liked men were as vulnerable as men who liked women; some floozie – what did the sex of the floozie matter? – had gotten tired of being adored, needed someone with a new approach and maybe a bigger bank balance.
She watched Maurie from the window as he scrunched off down the frozen path that led to his apple orchard, always his favorite place. They were old trees, had never been pruned to keep the fruit pickably low, but in spring that made them a soaring froth of white blossoms that took the breath away, and in fall they were smothered with glossy red globes like Christmas tree decorations. Several years ago Maurie had been inspired to train some of their branches into arches; the old wood had creaked in protest, but Maurie did it so gently and slowly that now the spaces between the trees were like the aisles in a cathedral.
He disappeared; she went to wash the dishes.
Then came a high, horrifying shriek. A plate crashed to the floor in shards as Catherine grabbed a coat and ran for dear life. Her slippered feet slid and skidded on the ice, but somehow she kept her balance. Another shriek! Not even feeling the 17°F temperature, she raced faster.
Maurie was standing by the wonderful dry stone wall encircling his orchard, staring over it at something glittering on the bank of iron-hard snow that had piled against it during the last blizzard.
One glance, and she led him away, back to the warmth of the kitchen, back to sanity. Back to where she could call the police.
Carmine and Patrick stood where Maurice Finch had, since his feet had obliterated any other footprints that might have been there before his – highly unlikely, both men felt.
Margaretta Bewlee was in one piece apart from her head, which wasn’t anywhere to be found. Against the stark whiteness her dark chocolate skin was even darker, the pink of palms and soles of feet echoing the color of the dress she wore: a confection of pink lace embroidered all over with sparkling rhinestones. It was short enough to see the crotch of a pair of pink silk panties, ominously stained.
“Jesus, everything’s different!” Patrick said.
“I’ll see you in the morgue,” Carmine said, turning away. “If I stay here, I’ll retard your progress.”
He went inside to where the Finches huddled together at their breakfast table, a bottle of Manischevitz wine before them.
“Why me?” Finch asked, face ghastly.
“Have some more wine, Dr. Finch. And if we knew why you, we might have a chance to catch this bastard. May I sit down?”
“Sit, sit!” Catherine gasped, indicating an unused glass. “Have some, you need it too.”
Though he didn’t care for sweet wine, the Manischevitz did help; Carmine put his glass down and looked at Catherine. “Did you hear anything during the night, Mrs. Finch? It’s snapped so cold that everything makes a noise.”
“Not a thing, Lieutenant. Maurie put peat moss and mulch in his mushroom tunnel for a while after he came home yesterday, but we were in bed by ten and slept through until six this morning.”
“Mushroom tunnel?” Carmine asked.