Mystery

“Ah, there’s a big game on, but Tom wanted to watch the news.”

Tom shushed them. Foxhall Edwardes’ sister, a short, dark, overweight woman missing several teeth who spoke in the old native manner, was condemning the way the police had handled her brother’s arrest. “Them had no need to kill he. Him-him was being deep scared, bad. Foxy would be talking with police, them no want talk, them want he dead. Foxy him be doing some badness, but him not being bad in himself. Him and him’s da were close, and when him’s da dies, him-him rob store. Tore he up inside, can you be feeling this? Time has been served. Out of jail three days only, him be seeing police with guns, him thinks they be go putting him-him back there. Fox him no be killing any bodies any time, but police be putting finger on him-him, be saying you our man. Him convenient I am being protest this-this.”

“I came down to see if I can make lunch for anybody.” Gloria touched the pearls at her neck.

Victor stood up quickly. “I’ll give you a hand.”

He put his arm around her waist and walked her toward the door.

“Don’t you love the way they talk?” Gloria said. “ ‘Him and him’s da.’ If it was a girl they’d say ‘her and her’s da.’ ” She giggled, and Tom heard one of the central sounds of his life, the hysteria capering beneath her brittle exterior.

Now Captain Fulton Bishop faced a press conference staged in the full congratulatory official manner, from behind a desk in a flag-filled reception room at Armory Place. Captain Bishop’s smooth, suntanned head, as hard and expressionless as a knuckle, tilted toward the bank of microphones. “Of course his sister is distressed, but it would be unwise to take her allegations for anything more than the emotional outburst they are. We gave Mr. Edwardes ample opportunity to surrender. As you know, the suspect chose to respond with fire, and seriously injured the two brave men who were the first to see him.”

“The two officers were injured inside the house?” asked a reporter.

“That is correct. The suspect admitted them to the house for the express purpose of killing them behind closed doors. He was not aware that backup teams had been ordered to the area.”

“Backup teams were ordered before the first shots?”

“This was a dangerous criminal. I wanted my men to have all the protection they could have. No more questions.”

Captain Bishop stood up and turned away from the table in a bubble of noise, but a shouted question reached him.

“What can you tell us about the disappearance of Minister Hasselgard?”

He turned back to the crowd of reporters and leaned over the microphones. Harsh white light bounced off the top of his smooth head. He paused a moment before speaking. “That matter is under full investigation. There will be a full disclosure of the results of that investigation in a matter of days.” He paused again, and cleared his throat. “Let me say this. Certain matters in the Finance Ministry have recently come to light. If you ask me, Hasselgard wasn’t washed off that boat—he jumped off it.”

He straightened up into a roar of questions and smoothed his necktie over his shirt. “I would like to thank someone,” he said, shouting to be heard over their questions. “Some good citizen wrote to me with information that led indirectly to the solution of Miss Hasselgard’s murder. Whoever you are, I think you are watching me at this minute. I would like you to make yourself known to me or anyone here at Armory Place, so that we can demonstrate our gratitude for your assistance.” He marched away from the table, ignoring the shouts of the reporters.

Setting out sandwiches and bowls of soup on the little breakfast table in the kitchen, Gloria reminded Tom of a glamorous mother in a television commercial. She smiled at him, her eyes bright with the effort to demonstrate how good she was being. “I’ll leave some food in the refrigerator for you tonight, Tom, but here’s something nice to tide you over. We’re going out tonight, you know.”

Then he understood—she had dressed for the dinner party as soon as she got out of bed. He sat down and ate. During lunch his father several times said how tasty the soup was, how much he enjoyed the sandwiches. It was a great lunch. Wasn’t it a great lunch, Tom?

“Now they’re claiming that Hasselgard drowned himself,” Tom said. “They’re going to announce that he was stealing from the treasury. If someone hadn’t written to the police, none of this would have happened. If the police had never gotten that letter—”

“They would have nailed him anyway,” his father broke in. “Hasselgard came too far too fast. Now drop the subject.”

He was talking to Tom but watching Gloria, who had raised her sandwich halfway to her mouth, shuddered, and lowered it again to her plate. She looked up, but she did not see them. “ ‘Her and her’s da,’ the servants used to say. Because there were just the two of us in this house.”