Naked Cruelty

by Colleen McCullough

“Unless you want them, Miss Boyce, they go to the pound.”

  “Oh, no! That’s awful!”

  “The solution rests with you.”

  “I can’t possibly take them! Amanda managed fine because she could take them to work with her, but I can’t possibly do that. I’d come home to find that Winston had shredded my best upholstery and Frankie had torn the drapes down.”

  “Do they do that to Miss Warburton?”

  “No, they like her. Would you believe that Amanda trained Winston to perch on the toilet to go for his number ones and number twos? Frankie wees in the shower stall and does his number twos on newspaper. Amanda was a very patient person.”

  He kept Marcia Boyce a little longer, but learned nothing new that wasn’t connected with penumbras. The Warburton twins had chameleon penumbras, never the same color for more than a day at a time, and Carmine’s penumbra was amber with a purple edge.

  After Miss Boyce departed a little unsteadily for her own apartment on the same floor, all Carmine had to do was wait for the guy from the pound. He arrived fifteen minutes later, a small animal carrying cage in either hand, and a hollow pipe ending in a rope noose tucked in his belt.

  Frankie and Winston took one smell and retreated behind Carmine, the dog growling, the cat hissing.

  “You never said the dog’s a pit bull, Captain!” the pound guy said in horror.

  “He only looks. For a dog, he’s a pussycat.”

  Out came the rod. The noose, as Carmine knew, could be loosened or tightened once slipped over the animal’s head; with visions of the insult to these sheltered, much-loved house pets chasing through his mind, Carmine stood watching as the pound guy decided to start with Winston.

  “Your cats is worse,” the guy said, preparing his noose. “Your cats got your four sets of claws and your teeth. Your dogs just have your teeth, even your pit bulls.”

  Ten minutes later the cat was behind a credenza and the dog vigorously defending it.

  “Fuck off,” said Carmine tiredly, “and take your gallows with you. Leave the cages. I’ll deal with the animals myself.”

  It was too much. He had made up his mind as the pound guy fruitlessly pursued the gigantic marmalade cat. Amanda Warburton had been a thoroughly nice woman whose life, cruelly shortened, had seen more unhappiness than bliss, and he had liked her. Now she was dead, and no one wanted her beloved animals. The pound? That couldn’t be allowed to happen. Like a totally innocent man thrown without warning into an overcrowded jail cell.

  “Butter! Grandmother Cerutti always used butter,” he said, going to the refrigerator.

  Diet margarine. No, grandmother Cerutti wouldn’t have had it in her house. So he went down to the corner store, run by two young Nepalese, for a stick of butter. Their cold storage wasn’t very efficient, so he didn’t have to hang around too long waiting for the stick to soften.

  “Come on, Winston,” he said to the cat, which had emerged, “I won’t let anyone hurt you. Butter sticks, not gallows sticks.”

  It lay upside down on his knees and allowed its paws to be buttered, then walked into its cage when he lifted the door. The dog was just as easy. What was it with the pound guy?

  The cages went on the Fairlane’s back seat; Frankie and Winston took a ride in a car that smelled of babies, detectives and assorted evidence.

  When he marched into Desdemona’s work room carrying two animal cages, she gaped.

  “Two fully house trained, adult pets,” he said in tones that indicated he wasn’t prepared to concede the tip of his finger. “They belonged to a very nice lady who was murdered last night, and there’s no one to take them except the pound. It’s time Julian learned that he can’t pull a cat’s tail without getting scratched, and the dog’s loyal. They are now members of the Delmonico family.”

  Desdemona shut her mouth. “Um—am I allowed to ask their names, sir?”

  He laughed, hugged her. “The cat is Winston. He sits on the toilet to piss. The dog is Frankie. He goes in a shower stall, but if we have a flap cut in the back door, they’ll probably prefer to go outside except in snowstorms. I buttered their paws, so they can’t go home.”

  Desdemona was on hands and knees, opening cages. “Oh, how lovely! Prunella was just saying we should go to the pound for an adult animal as a house pet—puppies and kittens behave like the babies they are, adults are better. Did you bring them food? Does the cat drink milk?”

  “Water and canned stuff. I brought what Miss Warburton had in her cupboard. It will cost a bit more to feed us, but two animals will be a help in occupying the kids.”

  And that, he thought as he returned to County Services with two empty animal cages, was well done; he didn’t even grudge filling out the form that enabled him to commandeer a uniform to drop the cages at the pound, way out of town.

  “The half yard blunt instrument revealed nothing except scalp secretions from Hank Murray and hair lacquer from Amanda Warburton. However, when the killer used it on Miss Warburton, it was a gentle tap to stun. Murray got the full force of a very strong man—massive internal hemorrhages,” said Patrick O’Donnell. “I think he was prepared to encounter Amanda, but Hank came as a surprise. He didn’t really care how Hank died as long as he did. Amanda’s death was planned, I believe. A hunting knife sharpened to split a hair used when the head and neck were up but not stretched—if the neck is stretched by pulling the head way back, the carotid arteries are hard to get at. Most of the traction occurred after he’d done the cutting, to direct the blood spray well away from himself.”

  “How did he move the glass teddy bear? Any ideas?”

  “First off, he was alone. Paul went over the shop and the back room minutely, and there are no signs of an accomplice. One set of footprints in the shop carpet—size tens or thereabouts, but no chance of a sole pattern or a full outline. From the solid tire tracks, he used an upright dolly to move the bear, which means he’s very strong physically. Of course the dolly might have had a platform raised and lowered by an electric motor—that would help him move the bear off the window shelf on to the dolly. But think of the gall, Carmine! The bear must have been out of the window, wrapped and on its dolly before Amanda and Hank appeared at ten-thirty. Security everywhere!”

  “Luck. I also think that he should have put a notice in the window saying the bear had gone for repairs,” said Carmine. “Though his luck is phenomenal, as Delia rightly pointed out.”

  “He hadn’t gotten as far as moving the bear out of the premises,” Patrick said. “In the back room the dolly tracks travel clear of the blood even when that necessitated a slight detour. What might have happened if he’d run into a guard?”

  “Dressed all in black? A shot between the eyes from a .22 with a silencer. Or he might have been in coveralls by then, had a sheaf of papers, and bluffed his way past the guard.”

  Something in his voice made Patrick look up quickly, to meet innocent yellow-brown eyes. “Any other questions?”

  “No.” Carmine glanced at his watch. “I have to see the Warburton twins and break the news.”

  “Do me a favor, Carmine?”

  “Anything, Patsy.”

  “Before you let the Warburtons loose in the glass shop, how about sending Helen up there to have a really good look at the contents? She was the one spotted the value of the glass teddy bear, and I notice she seems to have an eye for glass art.”

  “Good idea. I’ll do that.”

  Helen was waiting in his team’s room, looking flustered and upset. “I wish you’d pulled me out of my teaching session!” she greeted him. “I missed it, I missed it!”

  “There are times, Miss MacIntosh, when you remind me of my least favorite queen, Marie Antoinette. You can’t always have what you want, and Judge Thwaites for one would agree with me. His time is more valuable than yours, little though you may care to hear that. Don’t grumble, and bear his crotche
ts with a good grace. I understand that you feel a special interest in Miss Warburton, but you can still do her a big favor.”

  “Yes, yes, anything!” Helen cried eagerly, the crux of Carmine’s homily scarcely impinging.

  “Go out to the Busquash Mall and examine the glass shop with a very sharp eye,” Carmine said. “I want to know if anything else is missing, down to the last china-headed pin or glass tear drop. Don’t miss a thing.”

  “Yes, Captain.” She was on her feet. “Where are Delia and Nick going?”

  “Through Hank Murray’s office and apartment. You stick to the glass shop—is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.” And she was gone.

  The Glass Teddy Bear had emotional connotations for Helen that even Carmine, so perceptive, had not really grasped. It was the workplace of a woman who had become a genuine friend, and genuine friendships were scarce in Helen’s world, for she had as yet not formed one properly—who was real, who was not? Amanda, she had divined, was a woman who hadn’t had things easy: sweet but iron-hard. They had looked at each other, and clicked.

  So when she entered the shop she found it filled with echoes of someone undeservedly dead; Helen had to blink the tears away.

  Black shops were extremely rare, perhaps limited only to glass; the lighting, she realized now, was so cunning. Every spotlight or lamp fell upon a treasured piece, with the more economical lines clustered so that they blazed pinpoints of fire. On a slim black pedestal stood a magnificent prism; beside it was an atomizer of water that, squeezed, liberated a cloud of droplets that lit from within as a perfect rainbow. Gorgeous!

  The yard and the half yard beer tubes, so different in construction, sat above Lalique and Murano glass picture frames; an exquisite glass teaset, dazzlingly plain, sat in pride of place atop arrays of wine glasses, and a Baccarat crystal ball of solid glass spun the world upside down. How beautiful everything was! If the Warburton twins had a sale to close the shop down, she would be here to buy the prism and the crystal ball.

  But this was not doing her job, and she owed the dead woman her very best. Up and down Helen prowled, concentrating hard on the arrangements; what luck that she had paid for Dad’s urn and borne it away a week ago—why had she done that? Clairvoyance?

  The counter contained a shelf on which sat jewelry and tiny objects: animals the size of thumbnails, buttons, strings of crystal beads, some faceted, some round globes. Why the buttons in particular made her smile she didn’t know, except that some were suitable for the most ornate of wedding gowns, while others, austere enough to please monks, would look great on a man’s yachting jacket. Though the ones she liked best were dark blue glass on which were gold glass cameos of lions. I’ll be buying Kurt a set of those for Christmas, she made a mental note, and saw a choker of glass beads shading in color from pale pink to deep burgundy. Oh, how perfect for Mom, with her swanlike neck! So ideal! Scorpion hues for a Scorpion lady.

  No, no, this wasn’t doing the job!

  Back to the shelves, until finally she came to the paperweights, a wonderful collection. One beauty, she was horrified to see, had a label that said $5,000! And there, in the middle, was a vacant space. A space that, Helen was sure, Amanda would have filled immediately after its occupant had been sold.

  The insurance company was stringent and Amanda had obeyed their dictates. The paperweight display, thirty in all, was laid out in a plan. The missing one, she was bewildered to discover, wasn’t expensive at $300. Clear glass containing tiny trails of colored glass. According to its photograph, it looked like a map of some metropolitan subway system in a city that gave each route a different color.

  Had the killer broken it? Or did something about it appeal when others, far more valuable, didn’t?

  “Nothing else is missing,” she said to Carmine on Friday morning, giving her report.

  “But you think he took it,” Carmine said.

  “If he didn’t, Captain, then it was sold so late in the day that Miss Warburton didn’t replace it,” Helen said. “My hunch is that he’s responsible. I searched the storage drawers until I found an identical one, and left a receipt.” She reached into her capacious bag and withdrew it, put it on the table.

  “It looks like a 3-D map of a city subway.”

  “It does indeed,” Carmine said, picking it up. “Maybe it’s a dead ringer for his way home?”

  She looked shocked at the joke, but wisely held her tongue; the Captain could sometimes be facetious for no apparent reason. Best change the subject. “How did the twins take the news?”

  “About as I imagined. Squawks, shrieks, crocodile tears, a fit of hysterics from Gordie that Robbie dealt with by emptying a vase of dead daisies over his head. Underneath, gratification to find themselves Aunt Amanda’s heirs. I gave them the will, since she doesn’t seem to have employed a lawyer, wise woman. But when I told them about the glass teddy bear, they were as chagrined as astonished. If it comes to light, it belongs to Chubb. I’m picking they’ve rushed off with the will to see if they can challenge Chubb’s right to the pièce de resistance.”

  “I’ll back Chubb,” said Helen with a grin. “Though it’s irrelevant at the moment, sir, not so? First, get your teddy bear back, then worry about ownership.”

  “Exactly.”

  “What happened to her pets, Captain?”

  A peculiar look came over his face; Delia could have told her that it was embarrassment. “Er—well—er—I took them home for the kids. Mature, already house trained, you know.”

  “That’s great, sir! What a relief! I’ve been racking my brains how I could talk my father into taking them, but now I don’t need to bother. I envy you.”

  This reception made Carmine feel much better, especially after a rather traumatic night with a howling dog and a puking cat. Desdemona had changed her mind and wanted them gone, but Prunella scorned such intolerance. In two or three days the worst would be over; the Delmonicos would wonder how they had ever gotten on without Frankie and Winston, said Prunella staunchly, then called the carpenter to make an animal flap in the back door. Maybe, thought Carmine with a faint ray of hope, Frankie and Winston would run away and his household could go back to normal. The worst of it was that he had been appointed cleaner-upper of cat vomit.

  ***

  When Robert and Gordon Warburton discovered that Amanda’s estate, even minus the glass teddy bear, was worth in excess of two million dollars, they were ecstatic. It didn’t hurt nearly as much when their lawyer, a sharp fellow, informed them that they could forget challenging Chubb for ownership of this museum piece that only Chubb could afford to house.

  “Where shall we live, dear one?” Gordie asked his brother. “Here, or in that divine apartment?”

  “Oh, here, beyond a shadow of a doubt,” Robbie said. “I’d hate not having a garden, and while we’ve improved this so much it would sell for a hundred thou, the apartment will sell at auction for ten times that. Cash in the bank! We need cash in the bank! If we sell the apartment, we can keep Amanda’s blue chip stocks, yet still have plenty of ready money to splash around. Our plans are forging ahead—who was to know that Amanda would contribute so much in death? We hoped for a donation, but—oh, it’s a wonderful, wonderful world!”

  “Death has always done well by us, sweetest,” Gordie said, smiling. “Look at Mommy.”

  “Thank you, I do not want to look at Mommy!”

  “I’m fed up with drawing and painting!” Gordie said suddenly.

  Robbie hastened to offer comfort. “There, there, twinnie my love, I know. Just remember that you’re the rock on which our enterprise stands. Do you want to leave no more durable epitaph on our tombstone than ‘The Acting Twins’? Well, do you?”

  “No,” Gordie admitted, but grudgingly. “On the other hand, I am fed up with drawing and painting!”

  “Oh, saints preserve me!” Robbie cried. He sat down beside Gordo
n and took his hands, chafing them. “Listen, my darling one, we can’t move on to the next phase until you’ve finished. I was not exaggerating, it’s your work will get us there, and it has to impress Captain Delmonico! How can it, if you won’t finish?”

  “He refused to show us the photographs of Amanda with her throat cut,” Gordie said sulkily.

  “I couldn’t push too hard, you know that! We need him! If he refuses a far greater request, we’re nonentities, has-beens—”

  “Would-be-if-we-could-bes,” Gordie said helpfully.

  “I do not need more synonyms!” Robert snapped. “Think of being immortal, Gordie! Of taking reality to a new height!”

  “Reality,” said Gordie, “can always be improved on.”

  The atmosphere in Carmine’s office on Monday, November 25, grew more anxious and tense with the arrival of each team member. By the time that Delia, the last, put her puce-pink and apple-green body on her chair, it seemed hard to breathe. They had all visited the premises over the weekend, astonished to find no Carmine; now, so close to the Dodo’s due date, he wasn’t here again!

  When he did arrive at a quarter after eight he looked well, rested, even cheerful.

  “You’ve had a good weekend,” Delia said accusingly.

  “A very good one. The two new family members have decided to settle in,” he said, “and it’s going to work better than I’d hoped.” He sighed, smiled. “Desdemona’s come around.”

  Nick stubbed out his fourth cigarette. “If we knew what you were talking about, Carmine, that would be a help.”

  “Oh! I took Miss Warburton’s pets home last Thursday, and we had a minor crisis that I was afraid might turn out major. But it didn’t. The dog fell in love with Desdemona, and you know what she’s like. About as much aggression as a caterpillar. Besides, she’s English and the English adore dogs.”

  Delia’s eyes were twinkling. “What happened to the cat?”

  “Attached itself to the real ruler of the house—Julian.”