Naked Cruelty. Colleen McCullough

if the culprits are simple vandals, they didn’t break anything.”

      “Nor do I, frankly. Yes, I have to notify the police.”

      Her phone rang; Hank answered it, growing stiffer by the second. When he put the receiver down he stared at Amanda in a new horror.

      “You wouldn’t read about it, the Third Holloman Bank has been robbed. Looks like the Vandal was more than a vandal. Will you be all right until I can get Miss—Mrs.—Boyce here?”

      “Yes, Hank, I’m over the worst. You go. I’ll call Marcia—she’s Miss Boyce—myself. I’m okay, truly.”

      Only when Hank was gone did Winston make his presence felt with a long, highly displeased meow.

      Amanda gasped. “Winston! And Frankie! Where are you?”

      A growl in what sounded like a very big cat’s throat took Amanda’s eyes to a filing cabinet tucked in a corner; it didn’t meet the wall, which was on an angle, and two pairs of eyes stared at her reproachfully. But they wouldn’t come when she called—they were as upset as she was, obviously—so she had to go to them and remove their body harnesses; they walked on leashes with her to and from the car every day she opened her shop.

      Winston, which had paws the size of a lion’s, it seemed to people meeting it, promptly took its twenty pounds to the top of the filing cabinet and hunched there, a magnificent marmalade in color, with unusual green eyes. The dog, which most people judged a pit bull and steered a wide berth around, was black-and-white, its ugly white head adorned with a black ring around its right eye. In actual fact Frankie was a gentle soul utterly dominated by the cat, to which it was passionately attached. Both animals were males, and both castrated.

      At the end of a ten-minute sulk, the cat gave the dog its permission to go to Amanda, who clutched at its muscular back as if to a lifeline. What had happened? Who hated her enough to do this? The stench turned her stomach, but she couldn’t leave until the police came, and even then, she needed Marcia to drive her home, not trusting her own ability.

      Two patrol cops arrived first: Sergeant Ike Masotti and his long-time partner, Muley Evans. Though Amanda couldn’t know it, she had drawn the best team on patrol in the Holloman PD.

      “Weird,” said Ike to Muley after a cruise through the shop, “really weird, Muley. It’s not kids.”

      “Nope,” said Muley, who knew his place: agree with Ike.

      “You got any enemies, Miss Warburton?” Ike asked.

      “None that I know of, officer.”

      “It might be the glass. Some guys are kinky enough to see a shop full of glass as their ma’s cabinet full of best glass and china, and maybe they hate their ma, but they’re too afraid of her to break anything—just dirty it,” said Ike.

      “Right,” said Muley.

      “Only thing is, how does it fit in with the bank burglary?” Ike asked Muley. “Fifty thousand smackeroonies! He just picked ’em up and left. Locked the place behind him. Reactivated the alarm. Want to know what I think, Muley?”

      “Yep.”

      “Two different crims. The guy that did this and the guy that did the bank are not the same guy.”

      “Uhuh,” said Muley noncommittally.

      “I like your animals, Miss Warburton,” said Ike, approaching Frankie fearlessly. “What a great dog!” He pulled its ears and it groaned in ecstasy. He examined its collar and disc. “Your name Frankie, huh? Who’s Mister Huffy over there?”

      “Winston,” said Amanda, who liked Ike Masotti a lot.

      At which moment Sergeant Morty Jones came through the back door, reeking so strongly of booze that the two patrolmen exchanged a significant glance.

      “Taft High kids,” he said after inspecting the premises.

      “You’re wrong, Morty,” Ike said. “A bunch of kids go to all this trouble? Never happen. They’d get their fun breaking glass, not covering stuff in filth. Did anyone else get vandalized?”

      “Not according to Mr. Murray,” said Amanda.

      “Then this is a personal vendetta, right, Muley?”

      “Right.”

      “In your ear it is, Ike,” said the detective, turning for the back door and freedom; the smell didn’t help his nausea.

      “I’ll write my report as I see it, Morty.”

      “You can write it as the devil sees it, Ike. Mine is going to say Taft High kids.” On that note, and with a curt nod to Amanda, witness to the entire conversation, Morty Jones left.

      “The detective goes, we gotta go, Miss Warburton. Sorry,” said Ike in genuine regret. “You gonna be okay here alone?”

      “Yes, I’m fine.”

      “That’s one real nice lady,” Ike said in the service corridor. “Why did we have to get Morty Jones? That was fresh booze on his breath, Muley, not last night’s. If the Commissioner gets a sniff, Morty’s out, and Ava wouldn’t like that. I heard she’s making sheep’s eyes at young Joey Donaldson in Communications.”

      “I heard that too,” said Muley, and offered a comment of his own. “We ain’t snitches, Ike, but one day someone’s gonna tell the Commissioner Morty’s drinking on the job.”

      “The worst of it is that I remember Morty before he went upstairs to Detectives and Larry Pisano. He was a good cop,” said Ike. “It’s Ava. How could she be stupid enough to tell Morty he didn’t father his kids? I mean, he loves them! Who fathered them isn’t the point. They’re Morty’s kids. I curse that woman, I curse her!”

      “May she rot in hell,” said Muley.

      Thus Carmine didn’t get a full report on the vandalism at the Glass Teddy Bear or the theft of $50,000 from the Third Holloman Bank. Despite the demands of the Dodo, both cases would have interested him.

      Steaming, Helen MacIntosh went off to Hartford on that same Tuesday, October 1, in time to join Abe, Liam and Tony for breakfast in their motel; this was one case would not permit a commute, Abe announced, which didn’t please the owner of a Lamborghini. Perhaps, she thought, speeding up I-91, I shouldn’t have called Lieutenant Abe Goldberg ahead of time to ask for tips and a detailed description of what to expect, but how many women will there be? According to Goldberg, just me. He was curt and unforthcoming— I’d find out when I got to Hartford, why waste his time? He treated me like shit, the scrawny little guy—how did he ever make it into the cops at his size? Well, Lieutenant Abraham Goldberg, you are about to find out that no one from the wrong side of the tracks—or the right side!—treats a MacIntosh like shit. I will make your life such a misery that you’ll send me back to Holloman, where I can do the job I’m suited to do—catch the Dodo.

      Marcia Boyce drove Amanda Warburton home, Frankie and Winston, on their leashes, sitting royally in the back seat of Marcia’s Cadillac. Luckily Marcia knew Amanda’s pets quite well enough to know that there would be no “accidents” en route.

      Amanda and Marcia loved their condominiums, which were on the eighth floor just below the penthouse, and filled it entirely. They had bought off the plans, which had enabled them to custom-design their kitchens and bathrooms, an en suite bathroom for each bedroom, plus a guest toilet in the foyer. What luxury! What vindication!

      As if all that were not enough, no sooner was the block of soaring glass up and its occupants moved in than the residents of Busquash, horrified at how it altered the antique patina of their world, fired the town Elders and put an iron-clad ordinance on the books that forbade the erection of anything over two storeys or modern in appearance. As the condos were dream apartments, they zoomed in value at once. What had cost a hundred thousand was now worth a million—and rising.

      Marcia fixed a pot of English Breakfast