.

sounded desolate.

      The ambulance arrived three minutes from Desdemona’s call, bearing resuscitation equipment and a physician’s associate.

      “His airway’s still patent,” Patrick said, slipping a bent, hard plastic tube into Tinkerman’s mouth. “Everything’s paralyzed, but I was lucky. I’m in the trachea. I can bag breathe him and keep oxygen flowing into his lungs, but he can’t expand them himself, not one millimetre. The chest wall and the diaphragm are totally nerveless.” Again Patrick turned to Millie. “Is he conscious? He seems to be.”

      “Higher cerebral fuction isn’t affected, so—yes, he’s conscious. He’ll remain conscious. Watch what you say.” She pushed in beside him and took one hand. “Dr. Tinkerman, don’t be afraid. We’re getting lots of air to your lungs, and we’re taking you to the hospital by ambulance right now. You just hang on and pray—we’ll get you through.” She got up. “Like that, Dad. He’s terrified.”

      By the time the ambulance screamed into the Holloman Hospital E.R., Head Scholar Thomas Tarleton Tinkerman was dead. The tiny muscles that fed vital substances to his internal organs and pumped the waste products out had succumbed to the poison. Fully conscious and in complete awareness of his imminent death, not able to speak or even move his eyelids, Tinkerman was pronounced dead when awareness left his gaze: to Carmine, who had seen many men die, it always looked like literal lights out. One moment something was there in the eyes; the next moment, it was gone.

      The body was expedited to the morgue at the express command of the Medical Examiner, but the syringe containing a blood sample beat the corpse by an hour and a half. Paul Bachman had sent a technician on a motor cycle to Ivy Hall to collect it. On analysis it revealed the dwindling metabolites of tetrodotoxin. No one knew its half life, so the dosage was at best a guess.

      “It would seem to me,” said Patrick, “that Dr. Tinkerman received more of the toxin than John Hall. There’s a fresh puncture wound on the back of his neck to the left side of the spinal column, so I’m assuming it was injected. Not enough gastric symptoms for ingestion, and death was too swift. About ten minutes from the onset of noticeable symptoms. Had the blood been examined for toxins at the usual pace, it would have metabolized to nothing before any screen for neurotoxins was suggested. The cause of death, while highly suspect, would have been a mystery. The same can be said for John Hall, though we were slower, the traces fewer.”

      Carmine sighed. “So Abe gets John Hall and I get Dr. Tinkerman. Thomas Tarleton Tinkerman—a poseur, hence the fancy middle name, Tarleton. Tinkerman wouldn’t have suited the ideas our Head Scholar had about himself. He was a conceited man.” He had removed his bow tie and opened the collar of his shirt, and looked more comfortable.

      They were sitting in Patrick’s office with a pot of his excellent coffee; Delia, Nick, Buzz, Donny and four uniforms were at Ivy Hall taking down names, addresses, phone numbers and brief statements, and Delia had already confiscated the table plans. There was no point in asking Judge Thwaites for a warrant to search any persons present; he was as cross as only he could be when things did not go to plan—and especially when he’d been kicked off the head table to make room for that kiss-ass mediocrity, Mayor Nathan Winthrop. It would be many weeks before the Judge forgave anyone present at the banquet, even if for no greater crime than witnessing his humiliation. If John Silvestri refused to beard him, no one could.

      “So someone is going to waltz out of Ivy Hall with a home-made injection apparatus in his pocket,” mourned Patrick.

      “Not necessarily,” Carmine said. “How many people know Doug Thwaites as well as we do, huh? Depending who the guilty party is, the gear might be in a trash can. Delia’s got it under full control, the trash cans are sequestered under guard along with the rest of Ivy Hall. For this kind of case, we’re limited in manpower, so the forensic search of Ivy Hall may be postponed a little.”

      “Delia is going to wind up Commissioner,” Patrick said.

      Carmine flashed him a grin, but refrained from taking the bait. “I’m hoping the injection apparatus has been abandoned,” he said. “There won’t be any more injection murders, I’d be willing to bet on that. Or any more murders at all. So why keep the device? It’s not a hypodermic and syringe in the formal sense, is it? Couldn’t have been done in either case—too public, and you can’t make giving an injection look like anything else. I see something no bigger than one of Desdemona’s thimbles, though what can replace a piston-plunger is beyond me. A very short, fine gauge hypodermic he had to have, but attached to something other than a syringe. A man would hardly feel the prick, especially if it were accompanied by a comradely slap. Look at snakes and spiders. They have a reservoir for the venom and a channel down the back of a tooth or a tube through the middle of a fang.”

      “You really do believe he expected to get away with it!” Patrick said, astonished.

      “What poisoner doesn’t? This is one cocksure bastard, Patsy. I had a funny feeling tonight, so I watched Tinkerman closely, but I can’t remember anyone’s acting suspiciously. Bede and his bathroom runs! He had the right of it.”

      Suddenly Patrick looked his full fifty-eight years. “Oh, cuz, I give up!” he cried. “I’m going home to Nessie and a sleeping pill. Otherwise I won’t be worth a hill of beans in the morning. I am to recuse myself completely?”

      “Yes, Patsy,” Carmine said gently.

      “Keep me in the loop?”

      “I can’t. Think what ammunition we’d be handing to a defense attorney. You have to stay right out and right away.”

      Desdemona had despaired of a back massage and gone to bed, from which Carmine hauled her out and subjected her to fifteen minutes of pain from sheer guilt.

      “Feel any better?” he asked at the end of it.

      “Not at the moment, you sadist,” she said grumpily, then relented. “But I will tomorrow, dear love, and that’s the most important thing. If caterers have extra cushions for the shorties, why don’t they have a couple of chairs with the legs sawn off for the giants like me and Manny Mayhew?”

      “Because people are allowed to be five-foot-nothing, but not way over six feet,” said Carmine, smiling. He pushed a stray wisp of hair behind her ear, then leaned forward and kissed her. “Come on, my divine giantess, I’ll get you into bed with the pillows packed how you like them.”

      “Is it Millie’s poison?” she asked, settling with a sigh of bliss; only Carmine knew how to get the pillows right.

      “I’m afraid so.”

      “It isn’t fair, Carmine. After all the years of struggle, she and Jim have to go through this?”

      “Looks that way, but it’s early days. Close your eyes.”

      He wasn’t long out of bed himself, thankful that Patrick had folded and his sergeants had gone home at Delia’s command—how exactly had she assumed command?

      SUNDAY, JANUARY 5, 1969

      They met in Carmine’s office at ten in the morning; no need yet to annoy wives with early Sunday starts, and the singles liked a sleep-in quite as much as the marrieds.

      Abe, Carmine reflected as he gazed at his oldest and loyalest colleague, was settling into his lieutenant’s authority as quietly as he did everything, but there was a new smoothness and placidity in his face, caused by an extraordinary piece of good fortune. The German chemicals giant Fahlendorf Farben had awarded his two sons full scholarships to the colleges of their choice when they reached college age, to be ongoing as far as doctoral programs. For the father of two very bright boys, a huge relief; saving college fees kept parents poor. The grant had arisen out of Abe’s own police work; forbidden to accept a posted reward, Abe had declined it. So Fahlendorf Farben had given scholarships to his boys, signed, sealed, the money already invested.

      Abe always worked with Liam Connor and Tony Cerutti, his personal team.

      Liam