The Prodigal Son (39 page)

“That was imprudent,” Delia said.

“John didn’t think so, and Jim’s reaction bore him out. Jim felt like the head of a little club, I guess — he always loved anything to do with secret societies and — not the underworld, but nether worlds. Once John knew, he treated Jim like a god, a superman, you know what I mean.”

“Were there any suspicious deaths at Caltech?” Delia asked.

“Two. A shooting and a road accident. I only suspected because John was more transparent, he gave things away.”

“He was lucky to survive,” said Carmine.

“No, he was never in danger from Jim back then, but Jim did think it was time to sever the connection.”

“Did they keep in touch?”

“Occasionally, but they never saw each other until John came to visit the Tunbulls. Whatever conversation they had while Jim walked John to his car that night he came to see us on State Street I don’t know, but suddenly Jim couldn’t be sure his secrets were safe. I saw it coming, but the only thing I could do was report the missing tetrodotoxin. I would never have betrayed Jim, though subconsciously I must have known that reporting the loss would turn the police spotlight on Jim. Then his betrayal broke all the ties, from body to mind to soul.”

“Were the murders in Chicago?” Delia asked.

“I imagine so, but I wasn’t privy to them in any way.”

“Can you throw any light on John Hall’s breakdown after you and Jim left L.A.?” Delia asked.

“He was depressed, but some Frankenstein of a psychiatrist gave him ECT — electroshock therapy. Barbaric! It destroyed a lot of neurones,” said Millie the neuroscientist. “Years went by before he recovered enough to do more than cling to Wendover Hall. Though, as I’ve said, he and Jim corresponded sporadically.”

“So you knew your husband had stolen your poison to murder people,” Carmine said.

Again Millie twisted, shrank. “No, I didn’t think that at first! I thought he stole it to use in his own work — he was forever doing that to me.” Her eyes blazed blue fire. “That’s
really why I decided to teach him a lesson by reporting the loss. Jim would be forced to admit he’d stolen from his own wife.” Her shoulders slumped. “Then John died, and the next day Tinkerman died. I understood that Jim had taken the tetrodotoxin to commit murder, and I was caught.”

“You’re contradicting yourself a little, Millie,” Delia said. “Did you report the loss of the poison to deter your husband from stealing your work or doing murder?”

“I’m not sure!” she cried. “How can I be sure? I haven’t been in my right mind since I saw that baby, I’m just a mass of conflicting feelings and — and — I don’t know,
rage
! He cheated on me! From my fifteenth birthday I gave him everything, and he couldn’t even keep it in his pants!”

“Let’s have a coffee break,” said Carmine.

He spent it pacing the courtyard, tormented by almost as many conflicting emotions as Millie Hunter said she suffered. Something was wrong, and he could at least put his finger on what it was: Millie as of unsound mind wasn’t ringing true. Or was that his own cynicism trying to cancel out family connections? Murder when of unsound mind did happen, even in a small city like Holloman, but its perpetrators in his experience were right out of it, no one could doubt disturbed sanity. With Millie, that wasn’t so. Most of what she said contained logic rather than disordered thought patterns, so what it boiled down to was ungovernable rage. And was ungovernable rage evidence of an unsound mind?

He returned to the interview room to take a different tack.

“Tell me everything you know or guess about the reasons why Dr. Tinkerman had to die,” he said to Millie.

She embarked on a logical explanation. “Tinkerman had made a fetish out of studying
A Helical God
, and extended his study to Jim’s two earlier books, as well as all his published papers. He concluded that Jim hadn’t written
A Helical God
at all, and wrote an essay for splashy publication that discussed the book, comparing its style to every other thing Jim had written. He proved the book wasn’t Jim’s, and he would have been believed.”

“Is that where Edith Tinkerman comes in?” Delia asked.

“Yes. She found her husband’s essay and a covering letter addressed to Jim. With them were pages and pages of his notes. Tinkerman was the kind of man who liked to rub salt into people’s wounds, so he was sending Jim a copy of the essay. When Mrs. Tinkerman saw the letter addressed to Jim, she called him. He killed her and took the essay, which hadn’t been submitted for publication yet. The .22 went into Long Island Sound.”

“So the threat of exposure wasn’t a contributing factor to Tinkerman’s murder?” Carmine asked.

“No. Jim knew enough to understand that Tinkerman wouldn’t rest until he’d destroyed Jim’s career, he died for that alone rather than specifics,” Millie said.

“You speak as if he confided in you,” Delia said.

“He didn’t need to. I was Jim’s other half — his wife, his friend, his lover for nearly nineteen years. I loved him, and
every person who died had tried to ruin him. Killing for Jim was an act of desperation. I was his for better or for worse, as our marriage vows said, and I would have protected him to my grave.” Her voice changed, became high and shrill. “Then I saw his child, the child he never gave me permission to have. And suddenly my love turned to hate. He took my youth as if it counted for nothing. He adamantly refused to have children during the years when we should have been having them. Then after denying me, he informed me that Davina —
Davina
— thought I should have a child. He spoke to me like a king to a subject. To me, his wife!”

“Millie, it is very possible that Jim didn’t father Alexis Tunbull,” Carmine said.

“Yes, he did,” she said scornfully. “The moment I saw that baby, I knew everything.”

A futile line of questioning: Millie wouldn’t back down.

“Who wrote
A Helical God
?” he asked.

“I did,” said Millie. “When the idea occurred to me, I knew that Jim had no gift for expressing his thoughts on paper. Well, biochemists don’t really need to be able to write, it’s jargon combined with basic English. Whereas I can write, and I have a more metaphysical mind than Jim. I sat down at our typewriter and pounded it out in six weeks. Four more drafts, and it was finished. It had to be published as Jim’s book — who would take it seriously if it were known to have been written by a kewpie doll? If it hadn’t been for carrying the additional work load, I would have enjoyed the experience.”

“You realize you can’t profit from it now?” Delia asked.

Millie looked stunned. “Why?”

“No murderer can profit from murder. Jim’s royalties will go to his family, I imagine.”

“Those bastards?” Millie asked incredulously. “They dropped Jim like a hot potato when he took up with me!”

“It’s the law, Millie,” said Delia. “You’re guilty.”

“Jim was guilty,” said Millie, tight-lipped. “He killed three times to profit from his royalties. I killed out of my mind.”

“That’s for a court to establish,” Delia persisted.

“I must be found guilty,” Millie said, “and I am not guilty. Killing is not in me. I’m one of Jim’s victims.” She began to weep, her hands threshing. “Stop, please stop! No more!”

Carmine terminated the interview at once.

“Was that real, or feigned?” he asked Delia once Millie was gone, still weeping.

“I wish I knew, chief, but I don’t. She’s not a killer.”

“I agree. Desdemona called her an abused wife, and a small number of them do reach a breaking point that sees them do murder. No, what I wish I knew was how long this alternative has been in her mind. The single day between setting eyes on Alexis Tunbull and the book launch, or extending back at least to the beginning of last year, when Jim and Davina were cementing a friendship?” Carmine grimaced. “Did she snap, or did she plan?”

“Unsound mind or premeditation? I don’t know,” Delia said.

“It’s going to be up to a jury to decide.”

That morning saw two other developments. Millie was denied bail pending psychiatric examination, and a slavering Anthony Bera appeared to offer Millie his services.

“I can’t afford you, Mr Bera,” said Millie flatly.

“For now, let it be
pro bono
. If things go well, Dr. Hunter, and you are found of unsound mind when you shot your husband, you will enjoy a very large income from royalties. I would then send in a bill for my customary fee,” Bera said crisply.

“You look a little like Captain Carmine Delmonico.”

“A compliment. He’s a handsome man. Will you accept my offer, Dr. Hunter?”

“Yes. I don’t see why Jim’s ungrateful family should reap the rewards of a book I happened to write.” She looked satisfied. “I can prove I wrote
A Helical God
, and I have Dr. Tinkerman’s essay proving that Jim didn’t. Jim took the papers when he shot Mrs. Tinkerman, but he didn’t destroy them.”

“Am I able to lay my hands on these documents?”

“Yes.” She pushed a card across the table. “Give this to Pedro Gomez, who has a convenience store on the corner of State and Caterby. He’ll give you a manuscript box.”

“Excellent,” said Bera on a purr. He extracted a notepad from his briefcase. “Now, Millie, I am going to put you through a worse interrogation than the Holloman PD.”

“You should know,” Millie said, eyes tearing, “that a few days before I shot Jim, I received the worst news any woman of
child-bearing age can receive. From my gynecologist, Dr. Benjamin Solomon. The details are horrible.” She wiped her eyes.

Bera stiffened, his dark eyes gleaming. “Ah! Naturally I need a detailed explanation, my dear, but that’s no hurry. Just take your time … in full, Dr. Hunter.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

C
OLLEEN
M
C
C
ULLOUGH
was born in Australia. A neurophysiologist, she worked in Australia and the U.K. before joining the department of Neurology at the Yale University School of Internal Medicine, where she remained for ten years.

Publication of
The Thorn Birds
, her second novel, in 1977, saw the end of her scientific career. She moved to Norfolk Island in the South Pacific, where she lives with her husband, Ric Robinson.

OTHER BOOKS BY COLLEEN McCULLOUGH

Tim

The Thorn Birds

An Indecent Obsession

A Creed for the Third Millennium

The Ladies of Missalonghi

THE MASTERS OF ROME SERIES

The First Man in Rome

The Grass Crown

Fortune’s Favorites

Caesar’s Women

Caesar: Let the Dice Fly

The October Horse

Antony & Cleopatra

The Song of Troy

Roden Cutler, V.C.
(biography)

Morgan’s Run

The Touch

Angel Puss

The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet

Life Without the Boring Bits

THE CARMINE DELMONICO SERIES

On, Off

Too Many Murders

Naked Cruelty

COPYRIGHT

HarperCollins
Publishers

First published in Australia in 2012
This edition published in 2012
by HarperCollins
Publishers
Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au

Copyright © Colleen McCullough 2012

The right of Colleen McCullough to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her under the
Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000
.

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the
Copyright Act 1968
, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

HarperCollins
Publishers
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street, Sydney NSW 2000, Australia
31 View Road, Glenfield, Auckland 0627, New Zealand
A 53, Sector 57, Noida, UP, India
77–85 Fulham Palace Road, London, W6 8JB, United Kingdom
2 Bloor Street East, 20th floor, Toronto, Ontario M4W 1A8, Canada
10 East 53rd Street, New York NY 10022, USA

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

McCullough, Colleen, 1937-

The prodigal son: a Carmine Delmonico novel / Colleen McCullough.

ISBN: 978 0 7322 9323 9 (pbk.)

ISBN: 978 0 7304 9402 7 (epub)

A823.3

Cover design by HarperCollins Design Studio
Cover image by Wally Gobetz