On, Off

by Colleen McCullough

  She heaved a huge sigh of satisfaction. “I’ve just realized that I’m not in danger anymore.” A tinge of anxiety crept into her voice. “Am I?”

  “The danger’s over, I’d bet my career on it. But there’s no point in looking for a new apartment. I’m not letting you leave this one. Sin is in.”

  “The trouble is,” he said to her as they lay in bed, “that so much of it remains a mystery. I doubt Ponsonby would ever have talked, but when he died all hope of that died too. Wesley le Clerc! Tomorrow’s problem.”

  “You mean Leonard Ponsonby’s murder? The identity of the woman and child with the face?” He had told her everything.

  “Yes. And who dug the tunnel, and how did Ponsonby ever get all that gear into his killing premises, from a generator to a bank vault door? Who did the plumbing? A major job! The floor of the place is thirty feet below ground. Most house basements are damp at ten, fifteen feet, but this is as dry as an old bone. The county engineers are fascinated, looking very forward to tracing his drains.”

  “And do you think that Claire is the second Ghost?”

  “ ‘Think’ isn’t the right word. My gut says she is, my mind says she can’t be.” He sighed. “If she is the second Ghost, she has managed to get away clean.”

  “Never mind,” she soothed, stroking his hair. “At least the murders are at an end. No more abducted girls. Claire couldn’t do it on her own, she’s female and grossly handicapped. So count your blessings, Carmine.”

  “Count my stupidity, you mean. I’ve bungled this case from start to finish.”

  “Only because it’s a new sort of crime committed by a new sort of criminal, my love. You’re an extremely competent, highly intelligent policeman. Regard the Ponsonby case as a new learning experience. The next time things will go better for you.”

  He shuddered. “If I have my druthers, Desdemona, there will be no next time. The Ghosts are a one-off.”

  She said no more, just wondered.

  Chapter 29

  Friday, March 11th, 1966

  It took just over a week for Patrick, Paul and Luke to go through everything that the Ponsonby killing premises had to offer, from operating table to bathroom. The final report from Patrick and his forensics team pointed out very clearly that it was just as well they had caught a naked Charles Ponsonby bending over a naked abducted girl tied to a bed rigged for torture.

  “The place was cleaner than Lady Macbeth. His fingerprints everywhere, yes, but it’s his place underneath his house, so why not? But of blood, body fluids, shreds of flesh or human hairs — no scintilla, iota or anything else microscopically small. As for Claire, no fingerprints, even on the lever behind the stove.”

  They had pieced Ponsonby’s cleaning techniques together, staggered at the amount of work involved, the obsessiveness. A medical man, he knew that heat fixed blood and tissue, so the hose he used first and the water blaster he followed that with were fed by cold water; the talisman alcove was sealed off by a steel slider. When every surface was dry again, he steam blasted it. Finally he wiped everything down with ether. His surgical instruments, the meat hook and its hoist, and the penis sheaths were soaked in a blood-dissolving solution before being subjected to the rest of the treatments. They were also autoclaved.

  When the room yielded nothing, they started on the drains with a compressor-driven vacuum, which sucked water containing no organic matter. Backwashing didn’t work, leading the county engineers to think that the effluent was not deposited in a septic tank. Ponsonby had his outlet in an underground stream, of which there were many in the neighborhood. Their sole remaining hope was to dig down to his pipes and follow them.

  The moment the county engineers began to excavate her garden for no better reason than flogging an already dead horse, Claire Ponsonby took out a lien against willful destruction of her property, and respectfully petitioned the court to grant a blind woman permission to live in said property without perpetual and extremely distressing harassment by the Holloman police and their allies. Given that Charles Ponsonby had been positively identified as the Connecticut Monster and that nothing going on at 6 Ponsonby Lane was necessary to produce further evidence of this, Miss Ponsonby had had enough.

  “The well is bottomless and the pump chugs out three horses,” said the chief county engineer, thwarted and angry. “Since there’s a twenty-acre deer park as well as five-acre house lots, the water table is high and local consumption low. You haven’t gotten any organic matter because the bastard must have put thousands and thousands of gallons down after every killing. The residue is on the bottom of Long Island Sound. And shit, what does it matter? He’s dead. Close the case, Lieutenant, before that nasty bitch starts suing you personally.”

  “It’s a total mystery, Patsy,” Carmine said to his cousin.

  “Tell me something I don’t already know.”

  “Obviously Chuck was wiry and strong, but he never struck me as an athlete, and his Hug colleagues were convinced he couldn’t change the washer on a tap. Yet what we found is marvelously constructed out of expensive materials. Who the hell put in a terrazzo floor and isn’t owning up to it now that the secret’s out? Ditto the plumbing? No one’s reported a missing plumber or terrazzo worker since the war!” Carmine ground his teeth. “The family has no money, we know that. Claire and Chuck lived so well that they must have spent every cent he earned. And yet there’s two hundred grand’s worth of labor and material down in the ground. Damnit, no one admits to having sold them the linen or the plastic liquid for the heads!”

  “To quote the county engineer, what does it matter, Carmine? Ponsonby is dead and it’s time to close the case,” Patrick said, patting Carmine’s shoulder. “Why give yourself a coronary over a dead man? Think of Desdemona instead. When’s the wedding?”

  “You don’t like her, Patsy, do you?”

  The blue eyes dimmed but refused to look away. “Past tense might be more accurate. I didn’t like her in the beginning — too strange, too foreign, too aloof. But she’s different these days. I hope to come to love her as well as like her.”

  “You’re not alone. Your mom and mine are shivering in their shoes. Oh, they gush enthusiastically, but I’m not a detective for no reason. It’s a façade to mask apprehension.”

  “Made worse because she’s noticeably taller than you are,” said Patrick, laughing. “Moms and aunts and sisters hate that. You see, they were hoping that the second Mrs. Delmonico would be a nice Italian girl from East Holloman. But you’re not attracted to nice girls, Italian or otherwise. And I much prefer Desdemona to Sandra. Desdemona has brains.”

  “They last longer than faces or figures.”

  The case was officially closed that afternoon. Once the Medical Examiner’s report was filed the Holloman Police Department was obliged to admit that it could find no evidence to implicate Claire Ponsonby in the murders. If Carmine had had the time he might have gone to Silvestri and asked to reopen the murder of Leonard Ponsonby and the woman and child in 1930, but crime waits for no man, especially a detective. Two weeks after Charles Ponsonby was shot dead, a drug case was occupying all of Carmine’s attention. Back on familiar ground! Criminals he knew were guilty, his wits engaged in gathering the evidence to bring them to justice.

  Chapter 30

  Monday, March 28th, 1966

  The axe fell on the Hughlings Jackson Center for Neurological Research at the end of March.

  When the Board of Governors convened in the Hug boardroom at 10 A.M., all the Governors were present except Professor Robert Mordent Smith, who had been discharged from Marsh Manor two weeks before, but wouldn’t emerge from his basement and its trains. An embarrassment for Roger Parson Junior, who hated to think that his judgement of Bob Smith had been so erroneous.

  “As the business director, Miss Dupre, please take a seat,” Parson said briskly, then looked at Tamara quizzically. “Miss Vilich, are you up to taking minutes?”

  A legitimate question, as this Miss Vilich didn�
�t resemble the woman whom the Parson Governors had known before today. Her light had gone out, so Richard Spaight fancied.

  “Yes, Mr. Parson,” Tamara said tonelessly.

  President Mawson MacIntosh already knew what Dean Wilbur Dowling only suspected; however, the one’s certain knowledge and the other’s strong suspicion produced contented faces and relaxed bodies. Chubb University was going to inherit the Hug, so much was certain, together with a huge amount of money that wouldn’t be devoted to neurological research.

  Half glasses perched on his thin blade of a nose, Roger Parson Junior proceeded to read out the legal opinion that had rendered his late lamented uncle’s last will and testament null and void in respect of the trust fund that financed the Hug. It took forty-five minutes to read something drier than dust in the Sahara, but those forced to listen did so with expressions of alert and eager interest save for Richard Spaight, upon whom the most wearisome aspects of the affair would devolve. He swung his chair to face the window and watched two tugs escort a large oil tanker to its berth at the new hydrocarbons reservoir complex at the foot of Oak Street.

  “We could, of course, simply absorb the hundred-fifty million capital of the fund plus its accrued interest into our holdings,” Parson said at the conclusion of his peroration, “but such would not have been William Parson’s wish — of that we, his nephews and great-nephews, are very sure.”

  Ha ha ha, thought M.M., like hell you didn’t want to absorb the lot! But you dropped the idea after I said Chubb would sue. The best you can do is snaffle the accrued interest, which in itself will make a nice, plump addition to Parson Products.

  “We therefore propose that half of the capital be deeded to the Chubb Medical School in order to fund the ongoing career of the Hughlings Jackson Center in whatever guise it will assume. The building and its land will be deeded to Chubb University. And the other half of the capital will go to Chubb University to fund major infrastructure of whatever kind the university’s board of governors decides. Provided that each infrastructural item bears William Parson’s name.”

  Oh, yummy! was written all over Dean Dowling’s face, whereasM.M.’s face remained complacently impassive. Dean Dowling was contemplating the Hug’s transformation into a center for research on the organic psychoses. He had tried to persuade Miss Claire Ponsonby to donate her deceased brother’s brain for research, and had been politely refused. Now there was a psychotic brain! Not that he had expected to see any gross anatomical changes, but he had hoped for localized atrophy in the prefrontal cortex or some aberration in the corpus striatum. Even a little astrocytoma.

  Mawson MacIntosh’s thoughts revolved around the nature of the buildings that would bear William Parson’s name. One of them had to be an art gallery, even if it remained empty until the last of the Parsons was dead. May that day come soon!

  “Miss Dupre,” Roger Parson Junior was saying, “it will be your duty to circulate this official letter” — he pushed it across the table — “among all members of the Hughlings Jackson Center, staff and faculty. Closure will be Friday, April twenty-ninth. All the equipment and furniture will be disposed of as the Dean of Medicine desires. Except, that is, for selected items that will be donated to the Holloman County Medical Examiner’s laboratories as a token of our appreciation. One of the selected items will be the new electron microscope. I had a chat, you see, with the Governor of Connecticut, who told me how important — and underfunded — the science of forensic medicine has become.”

  No, no, no! thought Dean Dowling. That microscope is mine!

  “I am assured by President MacIntosh,” Roger Parson Junior droned on, “that all members who wish to stay may stay. However, salaries and wages will be reassessed commensurate with standard medical school fiscal policy. Faculty members wishing to stay will be put under Professor Frank Watson. For those who do not wish to stay, Miss Dupre, you will arrange redundancy packages incorporating one year’s salary or wages plus all pension contributions.”

  He cleared his throat, settled his glasses more comfortably. “There are two exceptions to this ruling. One is Professor Bob Smith, who, alas, is not well enough to resume medical practice of any kind. Since his contribution over the sixteen years of his administration has been formidable, we have arranged that he be compensated in the manner prescribed herein.” Another sheet of paper was thrust at Desdemona. “The second exception is you yourself, Miss Dupre. Unfortunately the position of business director will cease, and I am led to understand from President MacIntosh that it will be impossible to find you an equivalent position within the university. Therefore we have agreed that your own redundancy package will consist of what is listed in here.” A third piece of paper.

  Desdemona took a peek. Two years’ salary plus all pension contributions. If she married and quit working altogether and income-averaged, she’d do quite well.

  “Tamara, turn the coffee pots on,” she said.

  “I give Dean Dowling two years to ruin the place,” she said to Carmine that evening. “He’s too much a psychiatrist and too little a neurologist to get the best out of a well-run research unit. All the nuttier varieties of researcher will fool him. Tell Patrick not to be bashful about equipment, Carmine. Grab it while the going’s good.”

  “He’ll kiss your hands and feet, Desdemona.”

  “He oughtn’t, it’s not my doing.” She sighed contentedly. “Anyway, your bride comes with a dowry. If you can afford to keep me and however many children you deem sufficient, then my dowry ought to buy us a really decent house. I love this apartment, but it’s not suitable for raising a family.”

  “No,” he said, taking her hands, “you keep your dowry for yourself. Then if you change your mind, you’ll have enough to go home to London. I’m not short of a buck, honest.”

  “Well,” she said, “then think about this, Carmine. When he read Roger Parson Junior’s circular, Addison Forbes went right off the deep end. Work under Frank Watson? He’d rather die of tertiary syphilis! He announced that he’s going to work with Nur Chandra at Harvard, but I would have thought that Harvard isn’t short of clinical neurologists, so I hope Addison isn’t holding his breath. The thing is, I love the Forbes house with a passion. If the Forbeses do move, I suppose it will sell for heaps of money, but do we have a financial hope of buying it? Do you rent, or do you own this?”

  “It’s a condo, I own it. I think we’ll be able to spring for the Forbes house, if you like it so much. The location is ideal — East Holloman, my family neighborhood. Try to like my family, Desdemona,” he pleaded. “My first wife thought they spied on her because Mom or Patsy’s mom or one of our sisters was always calling around. But it wasn’t that. Italian families are close knit.”

  Though she hadn’t really changed in appearance, somehow to Carmine she wasn’t as plain as she used to be. Not love blinding his eyes; love opening them was a better way to put it.

  “I’m rather shy,” she confessed, squeezing his fingers, “and that makes me seem snobby. I don’t think I’m going to have any trouble liking your family, Carmine. And one of the reasons why I’m so keen on the Forbes house is its tower. If Sophia ever wanted to come home, perhaps attend the Dormer Day School and then the bruited coeducational Chubb, it would make such super digs for her. From what you’ve told me, I think Sophia needs a real home, not Hampton Court Palace. If you don’t catch her now, in another year she’ll be skipping off to Haight-Ashbury.”

  Tears came into his eyes. “I don’t deserve you,” he said.

  “Rubbish, you must! People always get what they deserve.”

  Part Five

  Spring & Summer

  1966

  Chapter 31

  In the week that followed Wesley le Clerc’s indictment for the murder of Charles Ponsonby, the mood changed statewide, ardently fueled by television. Public indignation at the existence of a Connecticut Monster grew rather than died down; he was seen as proof of godlessness, decayed morals, absent ethics, a world gone insane
under the pressures of modernity, the avalanche of technology. The community was tolerating these genetic sports, allowing them to mature into a new kind of killer; yet no one grasped the fact that they presented as ordinary and law-abiding citizens. Or indeed that they were multiplying.

  Wesley had his wish: he had become a hero. Though a large percentage of his admirers were black, many were not, and all of them were convinced that Wesley le Clerc had delivered a justice beyond the ability of the Law. If the pro-white bias of the Law was already dead in some states and dying in others, that was sometimes hard to see. Far easier to see the families of a few of the Monster’s victims appear on a TV program to be asked questions that lacked morals, ethics or plain good manners: How did it feel to look at your daughter’s head encased in clear plastic? Did you cry? Did you faint? What do you think about Wesley le Clerc?

  Wesley had been charged with first-degree murder, the premeditated kind, and the only legal argument could be about that premeditation. Having put himself in the limelight, Wesley knew full well that in order to stay there, he had to go on trial. A plea of guilty meant that his only appearance in court would be for sentencing. Therefore he pleaded not guilty, and was remanded for trial without the granting of bail. Outside the court after this hearing, Wesley was accosted by a high-profile white lawyer who introduced himself as the leader of Wesley’s new defense team. A cluster of other white fatcat lawyers behind him were the rest of the team. To their horror, Wesley rejected them.

  “Fuck off and tell Mohammed el Nesr that I have seen the true light,” Wesley said. “I will do this the poor black trash way, with a lawyer assigned from the public defender’s office.” His hand indicated a young black man with a briefcase. A faint shadow of pain crossed his face, he sighed. “Could have been me in ten years’ time, but I have chosen my course.”