Sins of the Flesh

by Colleen McCullough

  “We ought to tape this and make it official,” Rha said, his gentle face sadder, his eyes bright with unshed tears, “but I am so big, and I believe interrogation rooms are tiny. We have a recording studio here—could we use that, with your own people manning the machines and perhaps even some drinkable coffee?”

  “I’ll check with the captain” was as far as Abe would go; the answer turned up in the person of the captain, and Delia armed with notebooks, files, pens, pencils.

  Neither man was insensitive enough to attempt to treat Delia as the dear friend she was, Carmine noted, nor to attempt to drop her hints as to what they would like her or dislike her to do: indications that they genuinely knew nothing of what had gone on at Little Busquash?

  “The studio’s ideal,” Carmine said after closely inspecting it. “Room for all of us to sit inside comfortably, plenty of microphones, and, so Charlie Watts informs me, an electronic hook-up to rival anyone’s.” His white teeth flashed. “In fact, it’s technically much better than anything in County Services. Charlie and Ed can man the recording booth alone.”

  It didn’t take long to set up; things probably didn’t if Captain Delmonico were in command, Rufus thought. Rufus sat next to Rha, and facing Delia, on the timer and taking the notes. Oh, poor little baby! He tried to send her a telepathic message, and—she got it! Her eyes met his, wrenched with pain, and fell.

  “Before we get the signal to start, Captain, how is Case?” Rha asked. “Is there any chance he might live?”

  “Professor Jim Pendleton says there’s a chance, and he’s a world authority on anorexia nervosa. Same kind of thing, different path and radically different cause, of course, but starvation is starvation. Case had fresh, clean water to drink, so his kidneys haven’t packed up yet, the Prof says. Oh, he’ll never be the same strong, perfectly healthy young man he was—organs and systems heal, but there are scars, and they don’t. Because of the water, he may have continued to survive for another week or ten days. As it is, he couldn’t be in better hands.”

  “I don’t understand how you discovered what was going on when we’ve been right next door and not suspected it,” Rha said.

  “The model who wears your bridal gowns saw his dog—Pedro. At six in the morning, yesterday, so you told Delia, Mr. Ingham. She recognized the dog’s significance. After that, things were easy,” Carmine said. “The dog could smell his master. That meant Case was still alive, and that meant straight to Judge Thwaites. He won’t issue a warrant unless he can see a genuine need for it. Today, he saw the need.”

  “What’s happened to the dog?” Rufus asked.

  “Pedro’s in Holloman Hospital Animal Care, being well fed and pampered. He’s already been taken to see his master several times,” said Abe. “Strictly speaking, dogs are forbidden visitors for human patients, but the rules have been slightly relaxed for Pedro, who’s disinfected regularly.”

  “Poor Pedro!” said Delia, sighing. “Unless they’re water retrievers, dogs loathe being bathed.”

  Carmine had had enough. “Okay, are we ready to record?”

  “Roger!” came from the control booth.

  “Then let’s roll. Mr. Tanais, your full name and any other names by which you are known? Please spell them.”

  “My professional name is Rha Tanais”—he spelled it—“and my given birth name is Herbert Ramsbottom”—he spelled it. “I was born on November second of 1929, at Busquash Manor.”

  “You have a sister?”

  “Yes, I have one sister, Ivy Ramsbottom. She was born at Busquash Manor on December fifth, 1910.”

  “One moment, please” Delia interjected. “1910? You said 1910?”

  “That can’t be right, sir. 1910 would make the lady almost sixty years old,” Carmine said.

  “Yes, Ivy is almost sixty. She’s a youthful looking woman anyway, but she’s also had a series of face lifts and other kinds of plastic surgery.”

  “Then you lied to me when we talked some days ago. You gave her a birth date of 1920, the year Antonio III died.”

  Rha shrugged. “Needs must when the devil drives, Captain. You have to take our word for it whichever date we give, because Ivor Ramsbottom never registered Ivy’s birth. She’s a non-citizen.”

  “Were you lying when you described your and Ivy’s mother as a simpleton?”

  “No, that was true. Our father had”—Rha drew a quavering breath—“peculiar tastes, Captain. I gave you a second false date, as it happens. Ivor was hired as chauffeur in 1903, not in 1909. By 1909 he was in complete control of everything, including Antonio III. Except in the matter of the money. That, he could never manage to get his hands on.” Rha shifted his body in his chair restlessly, then turned to look at Rufus. “You tell them, Rufus. I—am—tired.”

  “The one who could tell you most is Ivy,” Rufus said in level tones, one hand on Rha’s, “but she won’t. Not now, poor thing. Of the three of us, she suffered by far the worst—we were too young, and what we know comes from her. Ivor started sexually molesting her when she was six years old, and by the time she had her first period, she’d been raped a hundred times or more. Ivor was a monster who didn’t look like a monster. He looked like an angel, heaven come down to earth.”

  “Ivor was the Un Known?” Abe asked.

  “Yes. That portrait was his, except that Ivor had blue eyes, and we thought that the man in the painting had black eyes. So we gave him a different title—No One.”

  “Was he involved with Dr. Nell Carantonio?” Carmine asked.

  “Who wasn’t he involved with? Yes, he was her lover, but he wanted to marry her to get his hands on her money. She refused.”

  “Was he aware of the laws for bigamy?” Liam asked. “Unless his children’s mother was already dead?”

  “No, she was still alive when Dr. Nell disappeared.”

  “Was he married to your mother, Mr. Tanais?” Delia asked.

  “There was a wedding certificate saying he married Uta Lindstrom in Wisconsin in 1910,” said Rha. “Ivy told us he had to marry her—she was pregnant.”

  “Rha has the certificate,” Rufus said, “though Ivy never understood why he never harmed or killed Uta. As far as Rha and I could reason it out, Ivor just liked tormenting and killing the people in his life.”

  “Including Dr. Nell?” Carmine asked.

  “Oh, yes!” Rufus shivered. “That was diabolical. She was terrified of small spaces and feared death by drowning.”

  “What happened to her, Rufus?”

  “Ivor locked her in a tightly lidded steel trunk, put heavy chains around it, put it in a dinghy and rowed out of the Inlet one night. Then he tipped the trunk into the water. It sank like a stone,” Rufus whispered, looking sick. “She was seven months’ pregnant, but she wouldn’t marry him.”

  “When did he meet Fenella?” Carmine asked.

  “She was a child,” Rha said, looking like death. “You don’t know our worst secret, but we have to tell you. We just ask that it not be spread far and wide. If it were, nothing of benefit to anyone could come out of it. Rufus and I are half brothers. Ivor Ramsbottom fathered both of us at much the same moment in time, since we were born within an hour of each other. No one can possibly know how it feels to live in a body half of whose chromosomes belonged to a devil enslaved by cruelty and murder. But we know how it feels. Every morning the first thing we remember is that our father was a Caligula. And we shoulder the burden of that knowledge, desperately trying to prove that mere chromosomes do not make the man, that our mothers gave us true goodness. Not for anything would we have betrayed Ivy had we known, if only because we know what her life has been like.” Rha sat up, eyes stern. “We do not apologize for misleading you. Sometimes family wins.”

  “But you’ll never reproduce,” Carmine said.

  “Vasectomized as soon as it became available, just to be completely sure,” Rufus said.

  “What happened to Ivor?” Liam asked.

  “Ivy killed him in 1934, when it became
obvious that he was wearing Fenella down. Looking back on it, we suppose too that she did the math and realized Ivor would soon start molesting Rha and me,” Rufus said. “Yet one more debt we owe Ivy. No matter what crimes she committed, she’s a good person at heart.”

  “Was the padded cellar there then?” Carmine asked.

  “No, but the cellar itself was. Antonio III had grown fed up with his staff stealing the contents of his wine cellar, and built a new one attached to Little Busquash. No one got past Ivor, who, whatever else he was, was not a drinker. Ivy lured Ivor to the cellar on some pretext—it was empty at the time, between Fenella’s gyrations and Prohibition’s dying throes. Ivy stunned him and then took the elevator back upstairs and locked it. She told Fenella that Ivor had grown tired of waiting for his money and skipped town for parts unknown. When Ivor had been in the cellar two months she went down into it again, gave him ether, and castrated him. Then she left him to die. Rha and I were old enough to remember Fenella constantly weeping while Ivy chanted like a Greek chorus that he was gone for good.”

  “How long was Ivor in the cellar?” Abe asked.

  “Until the gun emplacements on Busquash Point were poured in 1942,” Rha said. “By then he was bare bones and Fenella ill. Ivy tipped him into the six-yard concrete mixer. No one even noticed.”

  Rha and Rufus were both looking better, as if sharing the secret of their paternity had lifted a gigantic weight from them.

  I wonder, thought Carmine, whether we have the whole story now, or if they’re still hiding the finishing touches? But that didn’t grieve him; what did were the innocent lives ruined by forces beyond their control—by the power of a parent. A parent!

  Two hours later, Carmine called a halt. Nothing further had come out, nor would continuing the process produce results. Denying any complicity, Rha and Rufus stuck to their story. More important, they hadn’t tripped themselves up in any detail.

  Ivy Ramsbottom, they learned on their return to County Services, was in the lone woman’s detention cell, and refusing to apply for bail. The bed was too short and narrow for her, and another was being located; Anthony Bera had paid a visit to see his client in an interview room, and there was nothing else in the report.

  Delia had elected to remain at Busquash Manor with Rha and Rufus, unsure what to do or say, but inwardly convinced that she still owed them more than a police presence. She had, besides, one vital question to ask, a question that couldn’t be asked in front of a half dozen instinctively turned off cops.

  “How much home life did you have after Ivor died?” was her opening gambit, delivered over a cup of tea and little cakes.

  Rha had lapsed into an anxious silence; very worried for Ivy, she guessed accurately. But Rufus, for some reason, wasn’t nearly as concerned; he had a kind of forethought Rha lacked, so why wasn’t he more upset?

  His carefully painted eyes gleamed, their expression an odd mixture of contentment and—sorrow? “Good for the first eight years,” he said. “Fenella kept us at home, and while she wasn’t a motherly person, she cared a lot for us. We were looked after.”

  “Then you were sent to boarding school?”

  “Yes. A very good one. It was hell.”

  “Why, Rufus?”

  He laughed. “Oh, come, Delia! Look at us now, and imagine what we looked like at twelve.”

  “Different.”

  “That’s putting it mildly.”

  “Were you preyed upon? Molested?”

  “No. Oh, that was looming, but we scotched it by blatantly advertising our preference for each other, and increasing our eccentricities. Everyone from the headmaster down decided to leave us alone in our own little world,” Rufus said.

  “Yes, yes, yes!” Delia cried, beaming. “I’m right!”

  “I wondered where this atypical third-degree was going! Right about what, Delia?”

  “You and Rha are brothers, not lovers. You’ve never been lovers, have you?”

  Shocked out of his reverie, Rha stared; Rufus prolonged his laugh. “Bull’s eye!”

  “I think I see your motives, but tell me anyway.”

  “Gays are accepted in artistry, theater and fashion,” Rha said, breaking his silence. “As boys, Rufus was too pretty and I was too ugly-ungainly. School was a crucible that we survived by living on our wits. We never hinted that we were brothers, and never told anyone we had been raised together. Whatever our chromosomal inheritance is, sex was rather left out of the mix. Rufus and I are neither homo nor heterosexual. We’re asexual.” He heaved one of his huge sighs. “It’s so comfortable, Delia!”

  “Indeed it is,” said Rufus.

  “I think Captain Delmonico knows,” Delia said.

  “He’s a very smart cop,” Rha said. “Oh, poor Ivy!”

  All her theories confirmed, Delia led the conversation away from Ivy. Rha and Rufus had weathered all else; in time, they would also weather Ivy.

  MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1969, LABOR DAY

  Carmine drove to Delia’s condo for dinner, even gladder of the company than the thought of good, home-cooked food; he had been promised potato pancakes for starters and a main course of Lancashire Hotpot, whatever that was. Nothing good for either arteries or figure, knowing Delia, but dining at Delia’s was a rare occurrence, and he was keeping fit. Frankie came with him; Winston preferred to lounge at home.

  “Do you think we’ll ever get the Busquash Manor bunch to tell the same story twice in a row?” he asked, crunching his way through a delicious little pancake and washing it down with a gulp of icy beer.

  “Rha and Rufus at least probably don’t even know the true story.” said Delia, looking out her huge plate-glass window at the pebbles of a suddenly deserted beach. Amazing, how summer literally packed up and departed on the last day of August! From now until November would be halcyon, with any luck they’d have a long and perfect Indian summer while the trees prepared themselves for winter hibernation in a blaze of colors.

  “Harkening back to Abe’s description of how Rha and Rufus reacted when they first saw Hank’s paintings of the Does, I’m inclined to think that on that day, and previous to it, they had absolutely no idea what their sister had done and was still doing,” Carmine said, a part of his thoughts on the West Coast with his wife and children. “The sight of the paintings knocked them—uh—sideways.”

  “For a row of shit-cans, you mean.”

  “Well, okay, yes. They hadn’t known a thing, then Abe woke them up in a hurry, and they were caught in the usual family trap. I guess, especially given the age difference, that Ivy was as close as they ever got to a mother. They’re screwy genes whichever way you look at it, though. What’s the opposite of an Oedipus complex?”

  “An Electra complex, though I can’t see it. Electra hounded her brother into killing her mother, she didn’t do it herself.”

  Carmine grinned. “And ain’t that just like a woman?”

  “If I didn’t know you were baiting me, Chief, I’d castrate you. Seriously, those two poor men are pure victims.”

  “That’s what I meant by screwy genes. I don’t think I’ll ever forget Rha’s explaining how it felt to wake up every day knowing that half of his genes came from a sadistic murderer of the worst kind, then spend all day doing something good while still carrying the burden of knowledge.”

  “I doubt they’ve ever harmed a fly,” Delia said gruffly.

  “Nor ever will. It’s the sorrow, Deels! The children do inherit the sins of their fathers, metaphorically anyway.”

  “I concede that, Carmine, but in the case of Rha and Rufus at any rate, one must say they’re heroes in the real sense.”

  “Interesting, that they decided not to reproduce.”

  “Inevitable, for heroes.”

  “The media are going to have a field day.”

  When the phone rang, Delia frowned—not Jess, oh, please, not Jess! Nothing had leaked to the media yet, so how—?

  Carmine transferred his attention to the window, where t
he dusk was closing in; a few powerful lights on Long Island shone across the waters of the Sound—a night ball game of some kind?

  “That was Corey Marshall,” she said, coming to sit down.

  He stared, astonished. “What did he want?”

  “He’s holding the fort for Fernando today. Ivy Ramsbottom managed to commit suicide this afternoon.”

  “Jesus!” On his feet, Carmine had already started to walk to the door when he balked, stopped. “Oh, Jesus!”

  “Sit down and have a real drink, Carmine,” Delia said, a glass in one hand, the bourbon bottle in the other. “There’s nothing you can do until tomorrow, Corey’s got it well in hand.”

  Carmine took the drink, a stiffer one than he liked. “How did she manage it?”

  “Said she was desperately tired and wanted to sleep. They had just found her a bed that fitted her—she’d passed an uncomfortable night on the one in the cell—so no one was surprised. Where she’d hidden the razor blade no one knows, because none was found on her at search, including full body. She changed into a nightgown, got under the covers, and asked to be tucked in. The woman uniform on duty obliged, turned off the overhead light, and sat in a corner with a table lamp, reading. Ivy cut both her wrists under the covers—the uniform never noticed any movement. Then she lay there and bled to death without a moan or a sigh—it must have been eerie. Apparently the uniform’s book was good, she didn’t go to the bed to investigate until she’d finished it some hours later. By then the mattress was soaked and the blood was dripping onto the floor. As you may imagine, all hell broke loose. The uniforms hate having women prisoners, they insist it means bad luck.”

  “It sure did for Ivy,” Carmine said with a sigh. “She was bound to do it, wasn’t she?”

  “Too proud not to,” Delia said.

  “And no field day for the media.”

  “For which, I’m sure, her brothers thank her.” Suddenly Delia looked inspired. “Her hair! I’ll bet the razor blade was tucked under a curl—she wears lacquer, so her hair feels stiff—who would notice? One looks for laces, sashes, belts.”