Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 101, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 610 & 611, March 1993

Katherine wrote a feature on the Backsliding Miss Butterfingers, in the words of the header. The veteran reporter permitted herself some uncharacteristic forays into what made someone like Regina Fastnekker tick. Prison may not breed criminals, her argument ran, but it receives a criminal and releases him or her worse than he or she was before.

“Wouldn’t ‘he’ be sufficient?”

“I’ve told you of our manual of style?”

“Style is the man,” Emtee Dempsey purred. “Would you be allowed to write that?”

Katherine seemed to be blushing beneath her powdered cheeks. “ ‘Style is the woman’ is the way it will appear in my tomorrow’s article.”

“Et tu, Katherine? Didn’t Regina take credit for what she had done when she was arrested before?”

“She did.”

“And now she continues to deny what she is accused of?”

“ ‘I have not touched a bomb since I left prison.’ That’s it verbatim.”

“Gloves?”

“I thought of that. Something in the careful way she speaks suggested that I do. ‘As far as I know I have never been in the vicinity of an explosive device since leaving prison.’ ”

“What does she say about what Janet Layton told us?”

“She denies it.”

“How?”

“She says it is a lie.”

“Verbatim?”

“Verbatim.”

“Hmmm.”

The following morning when they were returning from St. Matthews on foot, creating a sensation, Emtee Dempsey suddenly stopped and clapped her hands.

“Of course!” she cried, and began to laugh. When she set off again, it was almost skippingly, and her great starched headdress waggled and shook. Joyce and Kim exchanged a look. The mind is a delicate thing.

Emtee Dempsey bounded up the porch steps and inside removed the shawl from her shoulders.

“First breakfast, then call Richard.”

“Why not ask him for breakfast?” Joyce said facetiously.

“No. Afterward. Let’s try for ten o’clock, and we want everyone here. The Laytons, Katherine, Regina Fastnekker, and of course Richard.”

“Regina Fastnekker is under arrest.”

“That is why we must convey the invitation through Richard.”

“He is not going to bring a mad bomber to the scene of the crime.”

“Nonsense. I’ll talk to him if necessary.”

“I’ll talk to her,” Richard said, “but it’s not necessary, it’s impossible, as in it necessarily can’t happen. I am not going to help her put on one of her amateur theatricals.”

“You have every reason to object,” Emtee Dempsey said, already on the phone in her study. “But wouldn’t you like to clear this matter up?”

“Only what is obscure can be cleared up. This is simple as sin. We have the one responsible for those bombings.”

“There’s where you’re wrong, Richard.”

“How in hell can you know that?”

“The provenance of my knowledge is elsewhere. I realized what had happened when we were returning from Mass less than an hour ago.”

“Not on your life, Sister Mary Teresa. And I mean it.”

With that outburst, Kim was sure the old nun had won. Richard had to bluster and fulminate but it was not in his nature to deny such a request. Too often in the past, as he would never admit, such a gathering at Walton Street had proved a breakthrough. When he did agree, it was on his own terms.

“I will be bringing her by,” he said, as if changing the subject. “I want her to see that upstairs bedroom and what’s left of the computer.”

“That’s a splendid idea. Ten o’clock would be best for us.”

Mr. Rush agreed to bring the Laytons, and wild horses could not have kept Katherine away.

8

Benjamin Rush introduced the Laytons to Sister Mary Teresa, who squeezed the grieving mother’s hand while Geoffrey Layton tried not to stare at the old nun’s habit. He looked around the room as if fearful of what signs of superstition he might find, but a man who could get used to the shrine in the hallway of his own house had little to fear on Walton Street. Katherine swept in, a glint in her eye. At the street door she’d whispered that she couldn’t wait to see how Emtee Dempsey broke the shell of Miss Butterfingers.

Kim said nothing. It was unnervingly clear that Emtee Dempsey meant to exonerate the convicted terrorist. Katherine might soon be witnessing the first public embarrassment of her old friend, rather than another triumph. Janet was in the kitchen talking with Joyce, so Kim answered the door when Richard arrived. Regina Fastnekker stood beside him, hands joined in front of her, linked with cuffs, but her expression was serene. Behind them were two of Richard’s colleagues, Gleason and O’Connell, shifting their weight and looking up and down the street. Kim stepped aside and they trooped in.

“Okay if we just go upstairs?”

“The others are in the living room.”

Richard ignored that and proceeded up the stairs with his prisoner. O’Connell leaned close to Kim. “Who’s here?”

“I’ll introduce you.”

Gleason tugged O’Connell’s arm and shook his head warningly. They would stay right where they were.

When Richard came into the living room, one hand on Regina’s elbow, he feigned surprise at the people gathered there.

“I’m here for an on-site inspection of the bombing,” he announced to the far wall.