Too Many Murders

by Colleen McCullough

  Danny Marciano was down, clutching at his left arm, but Carmine and Silvestri were already too near for a long rifle, clumsy at close distance.

  The sniper got off one last shot, useless, but no one heard the rifle, drowned in the much louder report of two revolvers as Carmine and Silvestri fired together, and again, and a third time. The smaller branches heaved and crackled as a limp body hurtled through them to lie motionless on the ground.

  Sirens were wailing, flashing lights showing eerily on South Green Street; someone with a walkie-talkie must have radioed in almost as soon as Carmine moved.

  “He’s dead,” Carmine said. “That’s a pity.”

  “We couldn’t risk the kids,” Silvestri panted.

  “Jesus, the gall!” Carmine looked up at Silvestri from a crouch. “How’s Danny? We need to cordon this off, John, right now, so get it done.”

  Off came the silver-encrusted jacket; Carmine flung it to one side and knelt to examine his quarry. A total stranger, which was a disappointment: in his early forties, fit and trim in a brown sweat suit, his face streaked with brown greasepaint that would have made him all but invisible high in a coppery tree.

  Silvestri returned. “Danny’s okay—winged, but the bullet missed anything vital. Who is the bastard?”

  “No one we know.”

  “Who did he mean to kill?”

  “My guess is M.M. ahead of the Mayor, but probably as many on the dais as he had time to take out.” Carmine picked up the rifle, anchored by a lanyard to the assassin, who was too well versed in his job to let it accidentally fall. “A Remington .308 chambering five rounds. New firearm, I’ve never seen one.”

  “Marine issue this year.” Silvestri followed such things. “How dare he?” The Commissioner swelled with a terrifying rage, his lips peeled back to bare his teeth. “How dare anyone do this in my town? My town! Our kids were here—our kids! Someone is shitting all over us, someone who can get hold of a new weapon!”

  “Someone we have to stop,” Carmine said. “One thing I can tell you, John—I’ll never bitch about this uniform again. My collar was giving me hell, so I was moving my head around. A ray of sun sneaked through the leaves and hit the lens of his sight just as I stretched my neck. I saw a flash, then another. It reminded me of a situation I had once at Fort Bragg. Know what? Danny’s always at me to switch to an automatic, but if I hadn’t been packing a long-barreled revolver—and the same for you!—we’d never have gotten the motherfucker.”

  “Yeah, right, Carmine,” Silvestri said, thumping him on the back in what looked to Channel Six like a congratulatory gesture. “But Danny’s right, snipers aside, and we won’t get another of them. Time to go automatic.” He sighed regretfully.

  “There’s nothing more we can learn here,” the Commissioner went on. “Let’s check out the turkeys in this shoot and make sure no one’s hurt.”

  Dignity was sorely wounded, but nothing else except Henry Howard’s Tudor bonnet, which was used as a vomit bowl by several grateful men. The probable primary target, Mawson MacIntosh, was too enraged to think of his dignity or his skin. He stalked over to Silvestri and Carmine with the kind of look on his face that had congressional committees shivering well before his tongue cut them to ribbons. The only person he was known to be afraid of was God.

  “What is the world coming to, gentlemen?” he demanded, his eyes snapping fury. “There were children here!”

  “I’m sure you won’t feel like saying yes, M.M., but have dinner with me tonight at Sea Foam and I’ll tell you a long story,” Silvestri said. “Seven o’clock, no wives, and I don’t give a flying fuck about security clearances!”

  The President of Chubb exchanged his furious look for a triumphant one. “I know enough to realize I don’t know nearly enough,” he said. “I’ll be there, John. And I want it all.”

  “You’ll get it all.”

  Carmine suppressed a sigh. Whatever Special Agent Ted Kelly and various heads of various departments in Washington might say, once Holloman felt itself invaded, the ranks closed against all outsiders. Even Hartford tended to leave Holloman alone.

  And it was such a beautiful day, he thought as he walked back to Cedar Street and County Services, where the first thing he would have to do was lodge his sidearm with the duty sergeant. Just as well it hadn’t been a prolonged shootout; he didn’t carry spare rounds in a dress uniform. This hadn’t been a nasty case in that respect, either. His wife and son had suffered, but no one had tried to gun him down, even including on the Green this morning. Too insignificant a target? Well, Mr. Ulysses, you keep on thinking that way.

  “The Commissioner will be lodging his .38 as soon as he comes in,” he said to Sergeant Tasco. “We don’t know whose round nailed the sniper, so both weapons will have to go to Ballistics for a test fire.”

  “Sure thing, Carmine.” Tasco looked a little stunned. “After all these years, the Commissioner finally used his old long-barreled .38! I didn’t know you packed a long barrel too.”

  “Better aim at a longer distance,” Carmine said. “Came in handy this morning.”

  “How close were you?”

  “About thirty yards.”

  “But the sniper was farther away than that by far!”

  “When under fire, Joey, run toward the guns, not away.”

  He went upstairs on foot, to find Delia had already put chairs out for the meeting sure to happen; she was composed and efficient, apparently taking the threat to her boss and her uncle in stride.

  Abe and Corey came in with the Commissioner; Carmine’s team were more rattled than Silvestri, who glanced at the wall where the wilted arum lily had hung.

  “Thank God you got rid of it,” he said to Carmine as he sat down. “Mickey has a weird sense of humor.”

  “I’m putting up pictures of Desdemona and Julian instead.”

  They were all seated, including Delia, but no one seemed to want to open proceedings.

  Silvestri spoke: “Is this a campaign of terror?”

  “Ulysses would like us to think so, sir,” Carmine said.

  “Are we any closer to catching the bastard? Do we even know who he is?”

  “The who is still in the wind,” Carmine said seriously. “I have vague ideas, but nothing strong enough to send my other suspects home yet. However, I do think we’re closer. Why? Because the evidence is mounting. How’s Danny?”

  “He can go home from the hospital in three or four days. Poor Netty’s the basket case.”

  Abe and Corey exchanged a glance not lost on Carmine; it said, as if spoken aloud, that Danny’s winged arm would save Bart Bartolomeo’s life. Simonetta had bigger things to discuss than Bart and a charity banquet.

  “I’m going to fill in M.M.,” the Commissioner said in his noarguments voice. “His security clearances are probably higher than the other President’s, but I don’t care anyway. Chubb is more important than Cornucopia in my book. It’s been around far longer and benefited the world one helluva lot more.”

  “Yes, sir, no one would deny that, or your decision to fill him in,” Carmine said patiently. “Among other things, two of our murders were committed inside Chubb colleges. Chubb’s under attack too. There is an element of terror involved, and that fact gladdens my heart. It says that Ulysses is very worried. He’s trying to send us in a dozen different directions at once, like racked-up balls on a pool table. Imagine the chaos if the sniper had picked off M.M., the Mayor, Hank Howard and however many more he managed to get before someone found out where he was roosting. Shots echo, the leaves would disperse the sound, and a good marksman with a Remington .308 would have kept on plugging away. We’d have been inundated with Staties, Feds, you name it. The place would have boiled over, and in the confusion Ulysses would have had time to smooth out the tracks Erica made him leave.”

  “May I ask a question?” Delia ventured.

  “Ask away,” Carmine said.

  “I gather you think the sniper was prepared to die. Does that mean
he’s a political assassin? A man prepared to die for an ideal? It does, doesn’t it?”

  “A question needing to be asked,” Carmine said. “However, I don’t believe the Reds are so swimming in assets that they can afford to sacrifice good men for relatively nothing. I think of them as pretty much like us—scratching to make ends meet. The USSR is rich, but the USA is richer. Cornucopia is yielding them secrets, admittedly, and items with military applications must be at the top of their wish list. But it’s my opinion that the whole operation is entirely at the discretion of Ulysses—that Moscow’s interest is insulated from the realities Ulysses is facing. Erica Davenport had to be Moscow’s mistake rather than the KGB’s, so you can bet those in Moscow responsible are busy covering their asses. It’s up to Ulysses to remedy Moscow’s blunder, he’s aware of that. From what I know about him, he’d use his black arts to search the market for a professional assassin, a man without political ideals of any kind.”

  “But to die?” Delia’s face paled under its makeup. “A professional assassin would want to live to enjoy spending his fee, which I imagine would be very large indeed.”

  “Delia’s right,” said Abe.

  “What if this is his dream job?” Silvestri asked. “What if he’s got a family somewhere, and Ulysses offered him so much money that they’d be comfortable for the rest of their lives? Like, multimillions? If he’s not a political idealist, then that’s the only other reason I can think of that would tempt him to burn his boats and take the job. It must be part of his pact with Ulysses not to be taken alive, otherwise the whole fee wouldn’t be paid.”

  “That’s brilliant, sir!” Corey cried, the lieutenancy rising to the forefront of his mind. Not that his compliment was meant insincerely, just that under ordinary circumstances he would have said nothing. “A man might do it for his family.”

  “Snipers,” said Carmine, “are in a special category. They don’t see their prey close up after they’ve made a kill. All they see is a two-dimensional effigy in their sights, then a heap on the ground. Like a fighter pilot. It’s clean killing, in that you shouldn’t ever see the mess you’ve made. So I can understand how a man might become a professional sniper, yet still retain a part at least of his humanity.”

  “Well, the chaos never happened beyond whatever Channel Six can make of it,” Silvestri said, sighing. “Between now and two this afternoon I have to fabricate a convincing story for my interview with dear old Di of the Post and whatever lady shark is anchoring Six’s News at Six on Six. After Di, I have to face the out-of-town journalists. A crazy, huh?”

  “Someone with a grudge against Town and Gown,” Carmine said with a grin. “We’ll have to hope that we can put a name to him from his prints, but somehow I doubt his prints are on file with anyone. He’s a foreign national, probably from East Germany via Brazil or Argentina. I’d pull all the stops out, sir, give him any background you like, and say we’re not releasing his actual identity to protect the innocent.”

  The Commissioner got up, wincing. “I’m getting too old to play chasings across the Green,” he said with a grimace. “And I fired my sidearm at last! What a bummer.”

  “What happens now, Carmine?” Abe asked.

  “We go to Judge Thwaites and we ask for search warrants for the homes, other properties, and offices of Mr. Philip Smith, Mr. Gus Purvey, Mr. Fred Collins, Mr. Wal Grierson, and Mr. Lancelot Sterling,” Carmine said. “They have the money to pay five or ten million to a sniper. In one respect this morning’s fracas was a godsend—Doubting Doug will be so fired up he’d give us warrants for anyone except M.M. and Delia’s Uncle John.”

  “We don’t have the manpower,” Corey said, frowning. “If it’s to work, we have to hit them all at once. Why chickenfeed like Sterling, Carmine? He’s not a billionaire or anything like.”

  “By the pricking of my thumbs,” Carmine said. “He’s a sadist, which makes him interesting. As to the manpower, name me a better time to pull cops off ordinary duty than in the aftermath of a sniper attack. Various substances are being flushed down toilets, arsenals buried inside mattresses and walls, and every hood in Holloman has his head in the sand. That will go for Mohammed el Nesr and the Black Brigade too. We’ll fill the air with the sound of sirens, and everyone will think we’re on the trail of assassins.”

  “Offices first?” Abe asked.

  “No, homes first.”

  Face downcast, Delia started clearing the chairs away.

  “Delia, you get Wallace Grierson,” Carmine said. “You’ve already taken the Oath, now I hereby depute you as a detective sergeant in the Holloman Police Department. Grierson’s a waste of time, so you’ll be safe even if I can’t issue you with a sidearm. But the search has to be thorough. I don’t want any of the Cornucopia Board imagining that I’ve played favorites. Most of them have cabins in Maine—the Maine Staties can deal with them, with particular attention to barns, sheds and bear traps. I’ll call them while Tasco assembles the troops, who don’t have to know ahead of time what we’re up to.”

  Delia was in ecstasy, so much so that she didn’t even mind being palmed off on Wallace Grierson. “What do we look for, Carmine?” she asked, brown eyes as bright as a bird dog’s at the sight of the master’s shotgun.

  “Hobbies that don’t fit,” Carmine said instantly. “Most important, home darkrooms capable of color film development, enlarging, diminishing. A peculiar taste in books, such as Nazi Germany, Communism, Russia in all ideological guises, Mainland China. Also sciences at a higher level than we might expect. Abe, you get Lancelot Sterling because you have a knack for finding secret doors and compartments. I’m putting Larry Pisano on Gus Purvey. And you, Corey, get Fred Collins.”

  “Which leaves you with Phil Smith,” Abe said thoughtfully. “Any reason for that, Carmine?”

  “No, not really. Fred Collins smells the skunkiest, but I don’t want him spooked by getting our biggest cannon. As chief executive, Phil Smith will expect to get me.”

  “His wife is a seed,” Delia said, wrinkling her nose.

  “How do you mean, Delia?”

  “She says she’s a Sami Lapp, but I doubt it. Too much Tartar in her features. Her accent’s unusually thick for someone who’s spent most of her life in an English-speaking country. More the way a Chinese speaks English, if you know what I mean—the syntax and sounds of her native tongue are just too far from those of any Indo-Aryan language,” said Delia.

  “That’s right, you talked to her at Myron’s party,” Carmine said. “What did you think of her as a person?”

  “Oh, I liked her. I told you, she’s a seed.”

  Judge Thwaites having been very willing to issue warrants, Carmine began his searches at two in the afternoon. It was a coordinated operation, each team in place before all the homes were invaded simultaneously. Opposition was principally on account of each family’s ejection from their premises while the search went on, with the single exception of the head of the household. All the men were at home thanks to the sniper, who had frightened every woman in Holloman and its surrounds.

  Phil Smith lived quite a long way out, on a beautiful property nestled in the flank of North Rock where the basaltic outcrop had flung out a small canyon whose walls, decreasing in height, enclosed a large, classically Georgian house built of limestone. It stood in quite English gardens, replete with beds of flowers in full bloom and having a planned, Inigo Jones look to them from the placement of trees and bushes to fountains and statues. There was even a folly, Carmine discovered, a round, open temple of Ionic columns that held a table and chairs. It overlooked a small artificial lake on which white swans cruised gracefully and weeping willows fringed the far bank. No surprise then to see peacocks wandering, tails folded, to pick amid the grass for grubs and worms.

  Philip Smith was not amused, but, after perusing the warrant thoroughly, he asked his wife to wait in the folly while he escorted Carmine and his cops on their search. The servants—all Puerto Ricans, Carmine noted, who seemed inu
red to Smith’s arrogant treatment—were banished to their cars.

  Smith was clad in camelhair trousers, a fawn silk shirt and a fawn cashmere sweater: what the lord of the manor wears when he is at home, Carmine thought. His superbly barbered iron grey hair was swept back from his face without a parting, and his freshly shaven cheeks smelled faintly of some expensive cologne.

  “This is an unpardonable imposition,” he said, following Carmine into the house.

  “Under ordinary circumstances I’d agree with you, Mr. Smith, but after what happened on the Green this morning, I’m afraid the gloves are off,” Carmine said, gazing around a foyer that rose three storeys and was capped by a stained glass ceiling of blues, greens and whites—no red spectrum colors to conflict with the sky. The floor was filled travertine, the walls pale beige, and the art stunning. Whoever had done the decorating had not attempted to impart a baronial look—no suits of armor or crossed pikes. The staircase flared to the second floor, and repeated the pattern up to the third. A balustrade ran around the second and third floors where they abutted the soaring foyer. The Smiths’ taste in art was eclectic: old, Impressionist, modern, ultramodern, photography of a high order.

  “Okay, here we go,” he said to Smith. “Every painting has to come down, sir. Its back has to be inspected as well as the wall behind it. My men know to be careful, but do you want to stay and supervise, or would you prefer to go on with me?”

  “I’ll go on with you, Captain,” Smith said, lips thin.

  Carmine paid due attention to the various living rooms, but if Smith were Ulysses, he’d not use them for nefarious purposes apart from concealing something behind a painting. Each of them would have to be examined.

  The library was a room to strike envy into the heart of any reader, though Carmine decided that its owner was not a scholar by inclination. Many of the volumes were there for gilt-edged, leather-bound show: beautiful Victorian editions of sermons, outmoded scientific theories, classical literature from Greece and Rome. The shelves bearing colorful dust jackets of novels and nonfiction works were those Smith frequented. Innocuous stuff, from Zane Grey to movie star biographies. The safe, he soon discovered, was behind a section of assorted editions of the Britannica; the beaded walnut trim had worn where Smith’s hand triggered the lever.