“I think so.”
“You’re not. You were hurt, bad, but it’s just a matter of getting better now.”
“I hope so.”
“I’d tell you straight, Mama.”
“I know.”
“But that wasn’t what you wanted me to talk to Dad about—that you loved him in case you didn’t make it.”
“It wasn’t?”
“No.”
“Remind me, Nicole.”
“I need you to tell me, Mom—to remember it yourself.”
Her mother ran her fingers lightly over the ugly scab on her forehead and scowled. Was she struggling to recall what she’d said, or did she know full well and did not want to admit it?
“It was important to you, Mom. I told you it could wait, and you said it couldn’t. You made me promise I’d ask him about it.”
Her mother nodded. “And did you?”
“Did I what, promise or—?”
“Did you talk to him?”
“Not yet, Mom. I wanted to be sure you weren’t just confused because of your meds or all you’d been through.”
Her mother grew fidgety, wouldn’t meet Nicole’s gaze, and busied herself reaching for the bouquet. “So lovely,” she said.
“Mama …”
“Um-hm.”
“Do you still want me to talk to Dad about something? Anything?”
She nodded.
“You do?”
“I do.”
“About what? Tell me.”
“I already told you.”
“Last night you told me?”
Her mother nodded again.
And Nicole heard her father and Detective Wojciechowski at the door.
CHAPTER 62
The Palace, Shinar
The stargazers bowed when the king’s wife entered the court, but she stared—visibly puzzled at the man hidden in a hooded cape standing with a servant woman holding a baby.
Nimrod had not only not stood when Ninlila arrived, but he also did not even acknowledge her. Despite that she was dressed in elaborate regalia and even wore a jewel-studded crown, she had never been referred to as the queen of the realm. Terah attributed this to Nimrod/Amraphel’s vanity. Apparently he feared even his own wife’s designs on succeeding him.
Ninlila carried his scepter, which he reached for without looking at her. Pressing it to the floor, he repositioned himself and draped one leg over the arm on the throne. A favorite pose of the king, the slouch elevated the hem of his robe and exposed nearly the full length of one thigh. Terah had long wanted to caution him against such a casual appearance, but he himself had been tasked with imprisoning other advisers who dared critique the king. Nimrod would do what he wished, which, of course, was his right.
Ninlila stood with her arm over the back of the throne, appearing expectant, perhaps perplexed at having been summoned.
“Terah, approach,” the king said.
Terah laid a hand gently on Yadidatum’s shoulder. She trembled, but thankfully Mutuum’s baby remained asleep. “Stay one step behind me, but do not hide yourself from the throne.”
“I am about to faint, master,” she squeaked.
“Do this for your son. You must not fail.”
Terah leaned heavily on his crutch to take as much weight as possible off the mutilated ankle on the long walk to the base of the steps leading to the throne. He swung his free hand more than normal to give him the most speed of which he was capable, but each step stabbed with such pain that he had to fight to keep from moaning aloud.
When Terah lost sight of Yadidatum in his peripheral vision, he turned to find her lagging ten feet behind. “Stay with me!” he hissed, painfully slowing. But when she caught up, he noticed Ninlila whispering to the king and the stargazers scowling.
“Relax,” Nimrod said dismissively. “I have permitted this.” The stargazers whispered to each other until the king shouted, “Enough! Silence!”
Terah reached the steps, and when Yadidatum arrived beside him, he whispered, “Stay where you were.” She took one step back.
Nimrod smiled. “Terah, remove your hood.”
All on the podium seemed to recoil at the sight, but Nimrod appeared to take it in stride. “I trust you don’t feel as bad as you look, my friend.”
“I have seen my reflection, my lord, and I doubt anyone has ever felt as bad as I look.”
“Well said. But this too shall pass. Please, introduce your guests.”
“Great King, I am proud to present to you my wife Belessunu’s midwife, Yadidatum, and our son, Amraphel.”
Yadidatum shakily held the baby out. The stargazers looked horrified.
The king let his scepter fall, swung his leg down from the arm of the chair, and sat forward, elbows on his knees. The clank of the scepter made the baby start, but Yadidatum gathered him back into her chest and quieted him.
“You have named him after me, Terah? I’m touched!”
“My wife’s idea,” Terah said, fighting to maintain his composure. He looked to Yadidatum, who nodded.
“Ninlila,” Nimrod said, “fetch the child for me and let us rejoice over how the gods have blessed my chief officer and his wife.”
But as Ninlila moved to descend the steps, Yadidatum started up to meet her.
“Do not ascend, woman!” the head stargazer roared as the rest appeared ready to flee. The shout so startled the midwife that she nearly tumbled backward, and Terah reached to steady her. That put pressure on his bad ankle and he cried out in pain, grabbing the crutch with both hands to keep from falling.
The baby erupted into frantic wailing, clearly frustrating the king. Ikuppi quickly explained, “Woman, you are in court only by imperial consent, but no commoner, let alone a servant, has ever mounted the royal podium.”
“I beg your forgiveness, Highness!” Yadidatum said.
“Just quiet the child,” Nimrod said, waving.
She rocked the baby, holding him close, but it took several minutes to calm him. Ninlila finally took him, but Terah thought she looked as if she were extracting something from a tar pit. When she handed the baby to her husband, the stargazers stepped back as if petrified.
Nimrod looked surprisingly comfortable with the boy, cradling him and smiling. “My namesake,” he said.
But as soon as the baby fussed again, Nimrod gave him back to Ninlila. She approached the steps, reaching him out to the midwife. “No,” the king said. “I believe Terah offers this child as a gift to the throne.”
The head stargazer stepped to the king, keeping a wide berth between himself and the king’s wife. He whispered desperately in Nimrod’s ear. The king nodded and dismissed him, and the man ushered his fellow soothsayers out.
“Am I not right, Terah?” Nimrod said. “You present your son as an offering?”
“I—I serve at your pleasure, my King,” Terah said, trying to sound stunned.
“What does this mean?” Yadidatum said.
Nimrod glared. “It is none of your concern, midwife.”
“He’s giving you this child!”
Terah held up a hand. “Yadidatum, difficult as this is, everything I have belongs to my sovereign.”
“But what will become of him?”
Ikuppi interrupted, “The king does not answer to us, woman, and certainly not to you.”
“I don’t mind, guard,” Nimrod said. “It is a fair question. Amraphel will be afforded whatever he deserves from the dominion.”
“Why were those men so afraid of him?”
“Yadidatum!” Ikuppi shouted.
Nimrod smiled again. “I’ll have to ask them, won’t I? And now you are dismissed. Terah, you may share the good news with your wife and pass along my deepest gratitude.”
“I don’t understand!” Yadidatum said.
“I said you were dismissed, servant.”
“The parents of this child must surrender him to you?” she cried as Ninlila carried the baby away.
The king stood, and Ik
uppi rushed to hand him his scepter. “They named him after me, woman. They do this willingly.”
“They?” the midwife spat. “The mother of this child does not even know—”
“Think of your own son,” Terah whispered. He turned to the king. “Belessunu may indeed be distraught over this. She might even leave me.”
“This is not right!” Yadidatum yelled. “Master, I thought you merely wanted me to—”
Suddenly Ikuppi was at her side. “Do not make things worse,” he said. “Give this up and I will take you to see your son.”
She fell silent.
“Terah,” Nimrod said, “should your wife unwisely punish you for this selfless show of loyalty, I will make available to you your choice of companions from throughout the kingdom—perhaps even your insolent midwife.”
CHAPTER 63
Eleven West
“Well, Detective,” Nicole’s mother said, “I have an alarm clock set at six every morning.”
“Okay, so your alarm goes off Friday and—”
“Oh, no, sir. My alarm hasn’t gone off in, what, thirty years?”
“So you’re one a those who wakes up before the alarm goes off …”
“Every time.”
“And yesterday?”
“I was up about ten minutes early.
“So by the time I’ve got my walking suit on, the coffeemaker I set the night before has done its job. I don’t like to eat before I walk, so I have my QT.”
“Your …?”
“My quiet time. I pray, read my Bible, sometimes a devotional.”
“You do this every day?”
She nodded.
“So lemme back up. Your walkin’ suit?”
“A burgundy sweat suit kind of a thing, except I don’t walk fast enough to sweat. I’m not working out per se, just getting in my walk. I don’t rush. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I have a mile-and-a-half route. Tuesdays and Thursdays I do three miles. Take my time. And take weekends off.”
“But the short route every other day …”
“Right. I’ve always liked the housekeeper to come by eight, and I never know how long it’s going to take me. I stop at Schnell’s at the corner and bring home a bagel. You just never know when the bakery is going to be busy.”
“Know if they got a CCTV camera?”
“No idea,” her mother said.
“They do,” Ben said. “Every shop in the neighborhood does.”
“So yesterday,” Wojciechowski said, “you’re out walking by …”
“Between six twenty and six thirty.”
“So you get to Schnell’s when?”
“Between seven thirty and seven forty-five. They were busy, so I stood in line for a while. But still I wound up talking to one of the girls for several minutes, maybe ten. Then I had to get going to make sure I let Teodora in. Yesterday was the end of only her second week with us, so her sixth time cleaning.”
“And there’s enough for her to do three times a week in an apartment with just two people?”
Nicole’s mother looked sheepish. “It’s too big a place for us, and ‘apartment’ doesn’t do it justice. The kitchen and the bathrooms get most of the attention, but she gets to the whole place every week.”
“And you got back in time to let her in?”
“In plenty of time, actually. She arrived right at eight if I recall.”
“No one followed you, looked out of place, made you uncomfortable?”
Nicole’s mother shook her head. “Everybody knows me. Watches for me. You don’t get much of that in New York anymore. We’re blessed.”
“And yet here we are,” the detective said. “Anything unusual about the housekeeper yesterday?”
“No. I’ve always found it amusing that she seems overdressed for our weather, but she’s new to the US, doesn’t have much.”
“Overdressed?”
Nicole’s mother shrugged. “She dresses as I would in the dead of winter. We’re just starting to get a little nip in the air in the mornings and when the sun goes down. But she wears a parka, boots. Carries her work shoes in a bag, changes when she gets to our place.”
Nicole’s mother sipped her Coke and then her water. “Pleasant enough, but not a conversationalist. She understands me enough and I can understand her, but it’s rough.”
“Okay,” Wojciechowski said. “I already had someone interrogate your former housekeeper. Rock-solid alibi, but she didn’t deny why she got fired. Said she finally yielded to temptation and took some stuff. But somethin’s not adding up for me here with the new housekeeper. Ben, you said you heard from your assistant”—he thumbed back through his notebook—“Abigail Olsen, sometime after ten thirty p.m. in Paris, that your wife had been admitted to Sinai. So that was after four thirty p.m. here.”
“Right.”
“And the people at our 911 control center say the call came in from your home landline a little after four o’clock. The caller identified herself as the housekeeper. But she’s not the one who let in the EMTs.”
“No?” Nicole’s dad said.
“She was there and seemed distraught, they said, but on their way they had called the desk in the lobby of your building and told ’em they were gonna need access to your place to respond to an injury. When they got there, security let them in downstairs, rode up with ’em on an express elevator, and one of their guys was already in there with this Petrova woman.”
“Didn’t know that,” Nicole’s dad said.
“Neither did I,” her mother said. “I’m just grateful Teodora knew enough to call 911. But if she had just called the desk, they would have called it in.”
“But someone had to let her in,” Nicole’s dad said, “and if it wasn’t you, Ginny, it had to be security.”
“Anybody see my problem here?” Wojciechowski said.
“I do,” Nicole said. “What was Teodora doing there at that time of the day?”
CHAPTER 64
Shinar
“You’ll have to kill me first!” Yadidatum raged at the king.
Nimrod looked first to Ikuppi and then to Terah. “Does she know that can be arranged?”
“Forgive her, Oh Great King,” Terah said. “She takes great personal interest in the children she helps birth.”
When Ikuppi dragged her away, Terah found himself alone with the king in the echoing court. Nimrod’s voice came smooth and low. “You have been a loyal friend for lo these many decades, Terah. We have been through so much together.”
“True,” Terah said.
“But this, this gift of your firstborn, may be the greatest expression of devotion I have ever received.”
Terah bowed as low as he was able. “My lord,” he said.
“You know this makes moot your becoming my substitute king, for there will no longer remain a need to appease the gods. You have saved your own life.”
“At the expense of my son’s?”
Nimrod gazed at him. “You know what my wise men have told me? They informed me your son’s birth was imminent, and as always, they were right. But the stars revealed the child’s destiny. Were he allowed to live, he would eventually conspire to seize the throne.”
“They’re sure of this?”
“They know it, Terah! And that would make you the father of a king, having never been one yourself! The lunacy of it!”
Terah wanted to say that his son assuming the throne would mimic the way Nimrod himself had accomplished it. But he had no choice but to carry the subterfuge to its end. He had to appear conflicted, saddened, and yet blindly loyal. Clearly Nimrod had lost any respect he might have had for Terah, believing him so weak that he sacrificed his own son. But then Nimrod had never really respected him, had he? Terah was of a royal line, Nimrod a cursed one. When finally the gods blessed Terah with a son to carry on his lineage, the king demanded the child for his own purposes.
But Terah could compete at deceit.
“Take some time, Terah,” the king said. “
Prevail upon your wife to understand. I am only acting as the gods lead. They set the stars on their courses in the sky. My oracles have tested these things and are unanimous in their conclusion. You have done the right thing. She will come to see that.”
“I can only pray she will.”
“I am a benevolent and kind ruler. I would never go against the gods, and they know what’s best for you and for Belessunu. I believe they will reward you with another child, perhaps even a son who will not have designs on the throne.”
But if he did, you would kill him too. “Perhaps.”
“Return to my service when your wounds have healed, faithful servant. And report to me how things go with your wife.”
Terah tried to back all the way out of the court but found it awkward with the crutch. “You may turn!” Nimrod called out to him, leaving the throne. Though the king never looked back, Terah thanked him and bowed low before gingerly making his way out.
He repositioned his hood so the guards and other palace personnel would not be alarmed by his face. By now the rumors of why he was there had likely already spread. Some called out congratulations on the birth of his son, but he merely mumbled hurried thank-yous and kept moving.
Terah reached the dungeon in time to find Ikuppi standing behind Yadidatum as she pressed against the bars of her son’s cell. She wept as she tried to reassure him. Terah hobbled to her. “You nearly did enough to have me end the both of you!” he rasped.
“Three in one day?” she whimpered. “Would that be enough for you?”
“You can still save yourself.”
“And my son?”
The young man look gaunt, scared.
“You know there are no guarantees in here.”
“There had better be,” she said, “or I will not lie to Mutuum and his wife.”
“Keep your voice down, woman.”
“If you don’t swear my son will be spared, I will do no more of your bidding.”
Terah looked around to see who might be in earshot. Leaning on his crutch, he grabbed Yadidatum’s garment at the neck and pulled her close. The king he had faithfully served had deceived him in the worst way possible, but Terah’s revenge would not be complete unless his own deceit was accomplished in full.
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