Trophies (42 page)

The back door slammed.

"Wait!" Sherlock yelled.

I froze, halfway up. He was right: a slamming
door did not automatically mean the danger was past. Seemingly
uncaring, Sherlock bounded down the stairs and leapt over the
banister at the bottom, cutting off the turn and slamming into the
far wall. I scrambled up and followed. He ricocheted out of the
hall into the kitchen, .45 in front of him like a shield.

The kitchen was empty. We sprinted together
for the back door. This time Glendower had taken the time to lock
it behind him and I scrambled for my kit. Finally I threw the door
open. But the backyard, again, was empty.

I ran to the fence on one side, Sherlock to
the other. We both scrambled up. No need for cover; Glendower had
nothing to gain, and his life to lose, by sticking around for a
shootout.

"There." Sherlock didn't yell.

I swiveled on the fence in time to watch a
dark sedan, not an Impala but still full-sized, slip quietly down
the street. Even in the dark I could see that it leaned to the left
side of the road.

A moment later a green Taurus followed. It
was Patricia's car. Theresa was driving.

It was time to go on the offensive.

eight years earlier

I began drinking more heavily after Mum's
death and finally turned my thoughts to the dim and depressing
future. Father, although the holder of some minor title he'd
received from his father, was not magnificently wealthy and
anything I received upon his passing wasn't likely to support my
current lifestyle at Boston waterfront prices. Besides, it was more
a probability than a possibility he'd disinherited me entirely,
although no one saw fit to make the specifics of that clear to me
and I at least had the sense not to ask. And although Aunt Edith
continued gifting me an allowance without comment, that was
beginning to grate. I loved my aunt and my gratitude toward her was
monumental, but finally, at the age of twenty, I realized I
couldn't continue on this self-chosen and self-destructive path
with her money, particularly as she didn't approve thereof.

I'd always hated money and ignored it
whenever possible. It took me twenty years to realize I could
afford to hate it because I'd always had it.

No matter how capable my skills, I was
reluctant to actually steal for profit. There was within my
admittedly still-juvenile mind a notion planted by Uncle Hubert
during our brief two years together — the belief that stealing for
gain was shameful, a Philistine thing to do, and I certainly did
not consider my snobbish self one of the Great Unwashed. But, over
the finest swill my aunt's allowance could buy, I admitted my
options were minimal and not likely to expand. One: I could revamp
my lifestyle to fit within my anticipated income, which I was
loathe to do. Two: I could return to school and learn a mundane
profession which I was willing to practice, which concept also did
not thrill me. Three: I could practice the trade I already knew and
supplement my allowance with the fruits of my own illegal labor,
which option as a testament to Uncle Hubert enraptured me least of
all.

Next Tuesday I swallowed my arrogance, took
my choices to Aunt Edith, and laid them out on the tea table before
her. For half an hour she sat on the long white sofa and said
nothing, simply sipped her tea and nibbled her cake and let me
rattle on, as I lamented the horrors of the material world and the
lack of dignity inherent in earning a living.

She hadn't changed her china set. It was the
same rosy cup and saucer with the gold rims she had held during our
first tea together, when we had formed our pact behind Father's
confused and helpless back. The cut roses that day were yellow and
red, branches of privet with shiny green leaves and spikes of tiny
white blooms scattered in the bouquet and adding a sweet, home-like
scent to the roses' untamed power. The
Wall Street Journal,
folded open to the stocks section, rested between the silver vase
and the cordless telephone, and it was that sight that reminded me
Aunt Edith lived in the world of money and made it her own. I felt
myself redden at the obviousness that had so eluded me, and
prepared myself for one of her sly digs.

But she looked down into her cup, as if
reading the tea leaves. Her expression didn't change. "Are you
certain you wish to hear my opinion?"

I should have known she'd have something wise
to suggest. I set my own saucer on the table and leaned back on the
short white sofa, not bothering to hide the hope her quiet
statement built within me. "You're leading me, Aunt Edith. Just out
with it, all right?"

She examined me in that level disconcerting
way of hers, without compassion but also without judgment. I waited
in vain for her usual smile. Her hair had greyed since we first sat
down to tea together, but its overall color was still black and her
facial skin remained smooth and wrinkle-free. The light from the
big bay windows behind her haloed her chignon and fell between us
like a barrier, and I wasn't certain what mode of transport could
cross it.

"You've been very quiet since your mother's
death." Her voice was gentler than before. "You've never spoken of
it."

I froze, astonished. There were some subjects
Aunt Edith and I simply never discussed, or hadn't until that
moment, and heading that list was my family. We had ignored their
very existence since the day I'd told her I never wanted to see
them again, and this violation of our treaty seemed an unforgivable
invasion of my privacy, a betrayal of a significant trust. For the
first time in years I wondered what really was in her garret.

I admit I had to swallow a spot of tea and
temper prior to attempting an answer. "I didn't realize there was
anything to discuss."

The skin about her eyes tightened and her
lips thinned. But she said nothing, merely nibbled a bite of carrot
cake. It was all so terribly civilized. I wanted to laugh aloud and
for some reason I couldn't in the slightest understand, I suddenly
wanted to weep.

Into this charged silence she said, "Perhaps
a few years in the Army might give you time to think."

I took her broadside without flinching. After
all, it was a possibility I hadn't considered. Admittedly, my
immediate reaction to the notion of rigid discipline was closer to
mal de mer
than relief. But at least the outrage fractured
the lump that had grown in my throat.

To give myself a bit of time to think, I rose
and crossed to the far wall, beyond the sideboard, where their
wedding photograph hung askew. It often did, but for some reason I
couldn't stand for that photo to be off kilter. I straightened it
just to be doing something, and that's when an evil little plan hit
me. She'd broached our agreement; I determined her mistake would
not be repeated.

"You never did tell me of him, you know."

My back was to her, so I suppose her mistake
was natural.

"Dear old Hubert?" Her voice was as
astonished as I'd felt earlier, as if I'd inquired about living on
the moon. "What do you wish to know?"

I turned from the photo. She'd slewed about
on the sofa to follow my progress across the parlor, and the light
from the south-facing bay windows fell across her face. Her
confusion was mirrored in her eyes. Her head tilted above her tea
cup and a single vertical line split her high forehead.

"Not Uncle Hubert," I said. "The friend who
gave you those picks so many years ago."

The silence between us was deeper this time,
the anger no longer merely my own. She set down her saucer, cup
trembling within.

"What shall you do with yourself,
Charles?"

I ignored the question and persisted. "What
was his name, that old friend? It was an odd gift, you know, not
the sort of thing normally passed around at Christmas."

For a minute longer she paused. Something
haunted touched her face but vanished before I could identify the
root emotion, or even determine whether it was positive or
otherwise. She tucked her legs in a graceful elegant gesture that
never failed to catch even her offended nephew's attention and
looked past me toward the windows, to the blowing roses and
hawthorns beyond, as if something wild and forbidden awaited her
somewhere out there. For just a moment the magic again touched her
face, and only then did I realize how heavy she had seemed
before.

"Basil Glendower." Her face softened as she
said the name. "I'm uncertain where he was truly from or even if he
has truly died, as he was an habitual liar." She cocked her head
slightly. "Perhaps, if you return to the islands, you might find
out for me."

It was unspoken that she herself would not
return, that possibly she could not. That concept we did not bother
to broach. And suddenly I felt overwhelming shame at bullying this
tiny, graceful, private woman who had been more to me than my own
mother ever wished to be. In that moment, I knew Aunt Edith was as
trapped in Cambridge as if she was locked into a cage, and the only
way she'd ever be free was if I flew for her.

And she had answered my question. I bullied
her, although I swore to myself years ago I'd not follow in the
footsteps of the class bullies, promised myself I'd be nothing like
William or Father. She looked beyond my hypocrisy and saw into the
needs of my heart, just as she'd looked beyond me to the window and
seen something wild that wasn't truly there, that for her would
never be there again.

I suppose my shame showed in my
expression.

"What shall you do, Charles." This time, it
was not a question.

I returned to the sofa and lifted my cup. The
tea was cold but still quite good. "I shall go into the Army for a
few years, I suppose."

current time

Theresa telephoned at five that morning with
the whereabouts of Glendower's lair in the North End. She was
fairly certain she hadn't been spotted tailing him.

"Or if he did see me," she said, through the
speaker phone and into the kitchen, "then he's a cool customer,
'cause he didn't let on at all."

Sherlock slugged coffee wholesale; after the
previous night's shootout, we all did. "He is a cool customer. Hang
tight, Theresa, and don't let him slip away. Sooner or later he'll
go out. When he does, call us." He glanced at me. "We want to
search his flat, too."

"Perhaps a bit more politely than he searched
mine," I said.

"Right," Lindsay said.

After we hung up, Lindsay and Patricia
returned to sorting banking records in the dining room; Patty
seemed obsessed with discovering the limits of Aunt Edith's
perfidy. Caren turned to Sherlock and me, leaning side by side over
the butcher block table with coffee cups raised. Her eyes were
somber, even embarrassed when she looked at me, and she played with
her own mug rather than drink from it.

"You know," she said, "in Edith's financial
records we've found payment details from six different people so
far, but none from Glendower. What on earth made you two think he
was the killer and not, say, Professor Rainwater? After all, any
blackmail victim would have motive to kill Edith."

I waited for Sherlock to field her question.
But he just kept sipping coffee, giving me the game. Well, I
suppose I owed him that much, at least, after he took point in the
firefight — although, of course, I'd never admit it.

"Mostly it was the Browning."

She tilted her head. "Which one: the one we
found in the garret, or the one mentioned in the police ballistics
report?"

"That fact, actually." When she only tilted
her head further — as clear a cue as Wingate's raised eyebrows — I
elaborated. "Although Browning's an American company, those pistols
were made in Belgium. They just weren't popular in this country,
not with such a small bore as seven point six five. This is Dirty
Harry country, where three fifty-sevens and Colt forty-fives reign,
and even a nine millimeter is considered rather sissy. Finding two
small-bore Belgian Brownings in the same place, well, that just
screamed out a connection between what's in Aunt Edith's garret and
the gun that killed her."

Her eyes crinkled. "Perhaps to someone who
knows guns."

I shrugged. "And the scrapbook about
Glendower and the burglaries was found with the Browning in the
steamer trunk. Although we have no evidence the two pistols are a
matched set, it's a possibility. We do know both were manufactured
in 1929, between the two World Wars. That means the killer's a
collector or he's owned it for so long, it wasn't old when he
purchased it."

Sherlock finally stirred. "Something else to
consider is that a blackmail victim doesn't have all that much cash
to spare. If he's going to buy a pistol to kill someone, he ain't
gonna bother getting something with historical value because he's
going to toss it in the river afterwards. He's gonna buy a cheap
Saturday Night Special and be done with it." He reached again for
the urn. "So we knew it wasn't one of the blackmail victims, which
is why I haven't bothered looking any of them up. We knew it wasn't
any of the family, because then Trés would have been finished off,
not left alive to finger the person who shot him." He topped up my
cup, too, and glanced at Caren. "You done?"

She covered her mug with one hand. "So the
only person left—"

"—is Glendower or someone whose name we
hadn't come across yet. And with only rumors of his suicide, rather
than real facts, I got suspicious." Sherlock closed his eyes over
his mug and inhaled. "Damn, it's gonna be a long day. I am getting
too old for this nonsense."

I stared at him in shock, then grabbed my mug
and left. He needed time with the psychiatrist more than I did.
Besides, I wanted to sort through more mental baggage. So I took my
fresh cup and my backpack to the garret: it seemed an appropriate
place for trawling one's subconscious.