The Prodigal Son (32 page)

“Abe?” Carmine asked.

“Davina says that she told Uda to get rid of everything, but Uda says she wanted to hang onto everything as proof of their
story, so decided each of the three items would fit inside a gouache paint tube. As a graphic artist, Davina has literally many dozens of gouache colors, a minimum of six tubes per color. The tubes are lead crimped at the bottom, it’s possible to open them there without cutting them down. That’s what Uda did. She squeezed the paint out, rinsed them, and hid each item in a tube.”

“But they wouldn’t be the same shape as real ones,” Liam objected, marooned on the West Coast during the search.

“Every single tube is a little different,” Abe said patiently. “Lumpy, bumpy — lead paint tubes aren’t sleek. It was weight gave them away, not appearance.”

“And that’s it,” said Delia. “One sister, Davina, wanted to get rid of the evidence, while the other sister, Uda, thought it better to secret the evidence in case it might be needed.”

“Davina was right,” Tony said. “If they’d gotten rid of the stuff, we’d be up that creek.”

“And they would be suspect forever after,” Carmine said. “Uda’s way means it’s out in the open and in a court of law.”

“I wish I knew better why John Hall had to die,” Liam said, looking worn from his flight, but wide awake.

“Complex, Liam. Old times, old sins, old jealousies.”

“So who
did
kill Emily?” Donny demanded.

“Davina,” Carmine said. “She’s a formidable woman, as only some refugee women can be. What the Savoviches endured in their own country, what they had to do to get out of it, probably beggars imagination. And Davina looks after her own. Uda, baby Alexis, and Max. Emily was a danger to
her in some way, maybe unconnected to recent events. Davina is quite capable of using the turmoil provoked by John Hall’s murder to eliminate a perpetual burr under her saddle in Emily. Therefore we set that crime aside. The evidence as to its perpetrators deflects us from our real purpose.”

Carmine lifted his rump from the table and began to pace. “That takes care of the three known tetrodotoxin murders, leaving us with the shooting of Mrs. Edith Tinkerman. The perpetrator knew he couldn’t let her live, but he didn’t want to kill her either. So, we can assume at her request, he visited her in the evening of last Monday, January thirteen, and had a drink with her — after he learned what she wanted to see him about. Obviously, the papers in Tinkerman’s secret drawer. Seconal is bitter, so it must have been a highly flavored drink. Or he may have given her a capsule to swallow with some tall tale as to why she should. Whatever. Then he left her to go to sleep, which she did still sitting at Tinkerman’s desk. Our killer didn’t return until around nine on Tuesday morning, bold as brass, entered her home, and shot her KGB style. All of which says that he hated having to kill her, but wasn’t a bit afraid of being caught in the act.”

“If it’s Hunter, how the hell did he escape attention?” Tony asked. “I’m still racking my brains about that, Carmine.”

“It’s winter. People are wrapped up. The wind had a chill factor that morning, and how much do you notice between your house and your car?” Abe asked. “The ambient temperature was 27°F in Busquash, and the chill factor brought it down into the teens. I can understand why no one noticed
Hunter, Carmine, but what I can’t understand is how his ancient Chevy clunker wasn’t noticed — in
Busquash
? People in Busquash don’t drive clunkers, even high school kids.”

“He wasn’t driving a clunker,” Carmine said. “That’s why he couldn’t sneak back earlier to kill her. He had to borrow a car from someone who owned a good-looking vehicle, and he couldn’t do that until the person came into work. Say, eight a.m., eager to start this new project Dr. Hunter was giving him.”

“Then when we find out who loaned Hunter the car, we’ve got him!” Liam said triumphantly.

“I don’t think Hunter asked permission. He must know where his staff keep their car keys. He just borrowed the ones he wanted, and returned them later. If he was caught, he had a story ready — but he wasn’t,” Carmine said.

“And we won’t find any fingerprints or his favorite sweet wrappers in the car,” said Delia. She looked at Carmine very directly and severely. “You’re sure it’s Jim Hunter, Chief?”

“Yes. I’ve never gotten away from him. No one else fits the bill, folks. The Savovich women? Not enough know-how. I believe Hunter persuaded John Hall to show him the back of his neck
before
they went onto the study. Oh, Jeez, there’s something nasty crawling up your neck, John! John’s head goes right down, which means he can’t see anything Hunter is doing. Out comes the syringe, Hunter lifts the skin with the tip of the needle, and slides the tip sideways, not down. Just a couple of drops under the skin. The poison takes longer to reach the vertebral artery — twenty-five minutes, say, rather than ten.”

“You’re right, Carmine,” Abe said. “Once you take the study out of the equation, it becomes anyone’s poison. Hunter could have drawn John aside for a private talk, taken him into another room, or just let it happen right there in the open. He seems to have the luck of the devil, or however you want to put it, because no one ever
sees
him! People remember Hunter having an animated conversation with Davina that occupied that space of time, but people’s memories are notorious. It’s equally possible that he had more than enough time and privacy for an injection.”

“What it boils down to is Hunter’s word. Millie was with the women in the drawing room — and so, Davina insists, was she.” Carmine huffed in exasperation. “The animated conversation with Jim must have happened, but when? We don’t even have a reliable time line for tetrodotoxin, largely represented in the literature by one paper from a couple of guys at Duke who isolated it in 1964. Tetrodotoxin is more of a novelty than a significant substance that’s going to break down biochemical barriers.”

“And we haven’t a damned thing to connect Hunter to the B-12 ampoules,” Buzz said gloomily.

“So what do you intend to do, Carmine?” Delia asked.

“For the moment, nothing. We close the case down and wait. I’ve already asked the slow-grinding wheels of justice if they could see their way clear to trying Uda Savovich fairly quickly — it would be good to get that out of the way.”

“I made a terrible mistake, charging her,” Abe said.

“I fail to see how or where, Abe,” Carmine said gently.

“I should have charged both the Savovich Sisters with conspiracy to murder.”

“Horrie Pinnerton’s not the D.A. for that alternative.”

“I guess so.”

“Do you intend to let Hunter think he’s gotten away with it, or are you going to tell him what we suspect?” Abe asked.

“I’m going to inform Hunter that we know the truth, for one very good reason — I want no more murders.”

“May we listen?” Tony asked.

“On the other side of the glass, yes.”

“When?” Tony asked.

“Two p.m. today.”

The group dispersed; no one had wanted to discuss Millie.

Jim Hunter appeared at County Services promptly. Divested of his winter gear, he was revealed in chinos, a white silk shirt open at the neck, and a new grey buttoned sweater. He was looking as he always did — supremely confident, extremely competent, and the eyes held no fear whatsoever. Arresting in any face, Delia thought as she and Abe assumed their positions one to either side of the tape recorder. By now Hunter knew all of them, could greet them by name; he took his interviewee’s chair, a comfortable one, as if attending a professional seminar at which he would chair the panels.

“This is going on the record, Dr. Hunter,” Carmine said after the formalities were announced for the tape’s sake, “but I want you to know that my chief reason for arranging this
meeting is to prevent more murders. You may speak at any time, of course, but you are not required to speak, and I must warn you that if the interview yields criminal fruit, it may be used against you in a court of law. Therefore you are entitled to have a lawyer present. Do you want a lawyer?”

“No,” Jim Hunter said steadily, after a pause. “I will make no incriminating statements, I can assure you.”

“Very well, let us proceed.”

Carmine led him through the murders of John Hall, Thomas Tarleton Tinkerman and Edith Tinkerman with every deduction and enlightenment their work had unearthed; police skill should have surprised him, but if it did, he gave no indication of it. He simply listened as if hearing a diverting, entertaining story about someone he didn’t know.

At the end of it amber eyes locked with green, an exchange of glances between two equals. Jim Hunter was a genius and Carmine Delmonico was not, but on this battlefield the advantages of Jim’s superior intellect were cancelled out by Carmine’s experience and doggedness.

“I know you committed these murders, Dr. Hunter,” Carmine said steadily, “but I don’t have physical evidence to back that knowledge. Therefore on the surface it looks like you’ve gotten away with three counts of murder — John Hall, Thomas Tinkerman and his wife, Edith. All three were committed to safeguard the success of a book you have written, entitled
A Helical God
. Your wife, Dr. Millicent Hunter, made your poison as a legitimate part of her research, and you stole the considerable amount left over. Investigations indicate that
Dr. Millicent Hunter is not involved in your plots and schemes. Like Mrs. Tinkerman her role is that of a vector.”

“Your prejudice is remarkable,” Jim Hunter said.

“Elucidate, Doctor,” said Carmine, maintaining his calm.

“If I am considered the author of these crimes, how do I figure any larger in your suspicions than my wife? As publication of my book benefits my wife as much as it does me, the motive you impute to me is just as valid for my wife. Millie and I are an identical number, you can’t separate us by a plus here and a minus there.” The eyes mocked. “Is this Jim Hunter being clever, or Jim Hunter pointing out that if he’s guilty, so is his wife? Or maybe this is Jim Hunter showing you the error of your ways, pointing out to you that if his wife is innocent, so too might he be innocent.”

The three detectives listened impassively; beneath their united front, they writhed. Jim Hunter was giving them a preview of his defense were he to be arrested and charged: Millie, he would allege, was an accessory, and just as guilty.

“I fail to see how Dr. Millicent Hunter can be implicated in the murder of Edith Tinkerman,” Delia said. “She was teaching a class from eight on the morning of Mrs. Tinkerman’s death, with ten witnesses to confirm it. No tetrodotoxin was employed, and thus far we have failed to locate the weapon.”

“Listen to yourself, Sergeant!” Hunter exclaimed. “To my listening ears, the word that stands out is ‘failed’— and yes, you have failed. You searched our apartment, my laboratory and my wife’s laboratory, but could find no evidence
either
of us is
implicated.” He made a sweeping gesture with one huge hand. “I am tired of this inquisition, and I resent it! Either charge me with some crime, or allow me to leave.”

Abe switched the tape recorder off. “Thank you, Doctor. You’re quite free to leave.”

“That was interesting,” said Carmine after Jim Hunter had departed radiating an air of victory.

“I didn’t think he’d counter with Millie,” Abe said.

“It’s superficially brilliant,” Delia said, “but actually anything but clever. He’s thrown down the gauntlet — charge him with the murders, and he’ll implicate Millie. If nothing else, it indicates that you, Abe and the Commissioner have been right about her all along — she’s as innocent as a babe.”

“We didn’t throw the fear of Hell into him,” Abe said.

“That’s impossible, but he does know he’s skating on thin ice. Hunter has the God complex, like a lot of guys whose job or brain or talents put them way up in the stratosphere,” Carmine said. “He adores to be adored. Millie is his high priestess, a role the years have cemented, but even she can be sacrificed if it becomes necessary. If it’s done nothing else, this interview has demonstrated that Millie isn’t privy to all of Hunter’s heart, and far from privy to the greater part of his mind. Jim Hunter owns himself whole and entire.”

Abe looked bewildered. “You know, they call me the master of secret compartments,” he said, “but that man is composed of secret compartments — and in layers, yet. He’s as cold as an Alaskan winter.”

“I’m upstairs to Silvestri,” said Carmine.

Carmine’s report didn’t improve Silvestri’s mood. “We’re beaten,” he said.

“Short of a confession, yes, and I can assure you that Dr. Jim Hunter will never confess. He won’t even trip himself up on a verbal indiscretion.”

“Millie’s living with a killer.”

“That she is, but she’s safe, John. Hunter needs her to sustain his credibility. He’s fully aware that her death would be one too many.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Think of Millie in relation to Jim Hunter in the same way as Uda Savovich is to Davina Tunbull. Jim Hunter’s colossal ego needs a selfless slave to minister to it, and Jim Hunter’s crimes need an element of doubt only Millie can provide.”

“Yes, I see your argument about Jim Hunter’s reasons for wanting to keep Millie alive,” the Commissioner said, looking mulish, “but what isn’t so obvious is the answer to the question East Holloman’s been asking itself for the last eighteen years — what if Millie falls out of love with Jim?”

Carmine’s breath caught. “Don’t even say it! No,” he said, confidence growing as he spoke, “that won’t happen now they’re out of the rat-infested dumps and into a nice house in a nice neighborhood. I gather Millie’s anxious to start her family, and judging from what that did to Desdemona at much the same age, she won’t have time to fall out of love. She’ll be too busy discovering that kids are much harder to manage than quiet, obedient laboratories. I’m delighted for her.”

“I would be, if I didn’t know Jim is a killer.”

“Be rational, John! Hunter’s not a pathological killer — killing doesn’t assuage a craving in his psyche. Had the Parsons not trodden on M.M.’s toes, and M.M. not trodden back, Tinkerman would never have become Head Scholar of C.U.P., and Hunter would have continued to be nothing more and nothing less than a genius biochemist. He killed to achieve his ends, not for sexual jollies.”