What with one thing and another, he was late meeting Desdemona in Malvolio’s.
“Sorry,” he said, sliding into the booth opposite her. “You now have a preview of what life is like when your boyfriend is a cop. Scads of missed appointments, a lot of dinners gone cold. I’m glad you’re not a cook. Eating out is the best alternative, and nowhere better than Malvolio’s, a cop diner. They’ll doggy-bag anything from a whole meal to one spoonfull of apple pie the minute someone raps on the window.”
“I quite like a cop boyfriend,” she said, smiling. “I’ve ordered, but asked Luigi to hold off for a while. You’re far too generous, never letting me pay at least my share of the bill.”
“In my family, a man who let a woman pay would be lynched.”
“You look as if you’ve had rather a good day for a change.”
“Yes, I found out bunches of things. Trouble is, I think that they’re all red herrings. Still, it’s fun finding out.” He reached across the table to take her hand, turned it over. “It’s fun finding out about you too.”
She squeezed his fingers. “Ditto, Carmine.”
“In spite of this terrible case, Desdemona, my life has improved over the last days. You’re a part of it, lovely lady.”
No one had ever called her a lovely lady before; she felt a rush of confused gratification flood through her, went a bright red, didn’t know where to look.
Six years ago in Lincoln she had thought herself in love with a wonderful man, a doctor; until, passing his door, she heard his voice through it.
“Who, Desperate Desdemona? My dear chap, the ugly ones are always so grateful that they’re well worth wooing. They make good mothers, and one never has to worry about the milkman, does one? After all, one doesn’t gaze at the mantelpiece while one is poking the fire, so I shall marry Desdemona. Our children will be clever into the bargain. Also tall.”
She had started making plans to emigrate the very next day, vowing to herself that she would never again lay herself open to that kind of pragmatic cruelty.
Now, thanks to a faceless monster, here she was living with Carmine in his apartment and perhaps taking it for granted that he loved her the way she loved him. Words were cheap – hadn’t the Lincoln doctor proved that? How much of what he had said to her originated in his job, his protectiveness, his shock at what had almost happened to her? Oh, please, Carmine, don’t let me down!
Chapter 25
Friday, February 25th, 1966
Day Thirty since Faith Khouri’s abduction would arrive in one week’s time, and no one, including Carmine, had reason to believe that they stood a better chance now to prevent another murder than they had four months ago. When had any other case gone on so long in the face of so much manpower, so many precautions, warnings, such statewide publicity?
They had agreed that the general procedure would be the same: every suspect in the state would be placed under round-the-clock surveillance from Monday, February twenty-eighth, until Friday, March fourth. That encompassed the thirty-two Holloman suspects. Their act had become tighter, more seamless; in the case of Professor Bob Smith, for instance, Marsh Manor’s deplorable security would be offset by four teams of watchers from the Bridgeport police. Unless he targeted a victim in Bridgeport, the Prof would have to swim the Housatonic River if he headed east, or evade six roadblocks if he headed west. That represented the greatest difference between last month’s plan and this new one: squad cars and uniforms as well as plain clothes and unmarkeds, and roadblocks everywhere. They had agreed at a statewide meeting that if the Ghosts were caught at a roadblock before they had a chance to abduct, then so be it. Any known suspect in a roadblock situation meant a large red mark in the record and concentrated surveillance. If that meant February/March was a bust for the Ghosts, then March/April would see new police methods and possible suspects.
Carmine himself had decided not to man a watch; it wasn’t likely that the beginning of March would see zero Fahrenheit temperatures, so he was better off somewhere in clear radio contact with everyone else, and with a gigantic map of Connecticut pinned to a wall at his elbow. Two consecutive Ghost strikes in the far east suggested that this time the Ghosts would head north or west or southwest. The Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island state police had agreed to patrol their Connecticut borders thicker than flies on a carcass. It was war to the teeth.
Thinking more of an evening with Desdemona than about a case grown so stale it was wearisome, late that afternoon Carmine took the Ponsonby case files back to Caterby Street.
“Do you still have unclaimed personal property going back to 1930?” he asked the Ph.D. half of the archive duo; the peon half was nowhere to be seen. Nor was the police pickup. And damn, he hadn’t remembered to tell Silvestri what was going on out here.
“We should have personal property going back to Paul Revere’s hat,” she said sarcastically, not amused that he had filched her files, nor worried at her own absence last Monday.
“These two murder victims,” he said, waving the very thin and unnamed file under her nose. “I want to see their personal effects.”
She yawned, examined her nails, glanced at the clock. “I’m afraid you’ve left your run too late, Lieutenant. It’s five and the place is closed for the day. Come back tomorrow, we’re open.”
Tomorrow Silvestri was going to have the whole tale, but why not give the bitch a sleepless night before the axe fell? “Then I suggest,” he said pleasantly, “that first thing in the morning you get your peon to use his pickup legally by delivering the box of personal effects to Lieutenant Carmine Delmonico at the County Services building. If the requested box isn’t delivered, my niece Gina will wind up sitting at your desk. She’s eager for a county job in an out-of-the-way corner because she needs to study. She wants to join the FBI, but it’s one helluva hard entrance exam for a woman.”
Chapter 26
Sunday, February 27th, 1966
At 11 A.M. on the Sunday before surveillance was due to begin Carmine walked into the police part of the County Services building feeling lonely, restless and tense.
Lonely because last Friday night Desdemona had announced that if the weekend was anything like bearable, she was hiking the Appalachian Trail right up on the Massachusetts border. Since he loved her presence in his bed, this took him aback; nor would she listen to his protests about wasting a squad car getting her there and back again. It worried him that his expectations from this relationship were so different from those he had felt with Sandra. Albeit incongruous in both roles, she had been wife and mother, tucked into a special compartment he never bothered to open while he was on the job. Whereas Desdemona hovered somewhere in his mind all the time, and it had nothing to do with the part she played in his case. Simply, he actively looked forward to his time with her. Maybe it was an age thing: still in his twenties when he had met Sandra, into his early forties when he met Desdemona. As a parent he hadn’t worked out too well, but as a husband he had been far worse. Yet he knew that the answer for Desdemona wasn’t as lover. Marriage, it had to be marriage. Only did she want marriage? He plain didn’t know. Hiking the Appalachian Trail seemed to argue that her need of him wasn’t in the same league as his of her. Yet she was so loving when they were together, and she hadn’t at any time reproached him for neglecting her in favor of his work. Oh, Desdemona, don’t let me down! Stay with me, cleave to me!
Restless because Desdemona’s desertion had left him with two days to fill in and no one to fill them in with; Silvestri had forbidden him to poke his nose into any case other than the Ghosts, with the single exception of the racial situation if it exploded. And now, with a reasonably fine, above-freezing Sunday, was Mohammed el Nesr busy? Not busy demonstrating or rallying, at any rate. His quiescence was no mystery. Like Carmine, Mohammed was waiting for the Ghosts to abduct another victim this week, freshen up pain and indignation. The big rally would go on next Sunday, for sure. Taking desperately needed cops away from the Ghosts. A pain in the ass, but good strategy on Mohammed’s part.