bathroom. It’s just down the hallway. I’d be ever so grateful.”
The house was filled with a combination of Bauhaus furniture and museum-quality art: a polychrome wood Buddha, Mayan jade, medieval iron prickets for holding cannon-sized candles, and what looked like a section of a choir stall—with slim figures of robed men, their mouths open in song. Switching on a button in the bathroom, I successfully heated a huge towel until it was omelet-warm. By the time I returned to the living room, Bryce was a bit more composed. He submerged his face in the towel, then pressed it against his concave chest, against the crucifix. I hoped he wasn’t about to come on to me.
“My child was murdered.”
“She was so full of life, Genevieve.”
He hiccupped. “No, my child.”
When he said it, it barely registered, I was that dumbfounded: “Genevieve was pregnant with my child. She was carrying my child. We hadn’t planned it. It just happened. I was just thrilled, but Genevieve was…conflicted. She mentioned putting the baby up for adoption. She would never have aborted, of course.” He draped the hot towel around his neck. “It’s a child not a choice.”
Genevieve had been carrying his child when she was murdered. His child had been murdered too. As I tried to absorb this information, my eyes wandered around the room and came to focus on a Madonna holding the infant Jesus, a Gothic statue of cracked stone. “I’m so sorry.”
His sense of propriety—and heterosexuality?—returned, and he took a leather pillow from a corner of the sofa and deposited it in his lap so that it covered both his briefs and his chest.
“Of course I could have killed Zack Meecham. I was mad with jealousy. I mean I’m a little long in the tooth—thirty-eight—to be dating a college girl, but Genevieve liked older men. She was susceptible to father figures.” He attempted to get up but couldn’t summon the equilibrium. Instead, he fell back, hugged the pillow in a paternal fashion, and again began crying.
“Would you like some coffee?”
“No, water, without flavoring. Just Poland Spring water. It’s in the refrigerator, by the pitcher of iced tea.”
He was ordered, organized, as one would expect of a researcher. The refrigerator might have been located in an upscale South End restaurant; it was crammed with roast beef and Cornish hens, all sorts of sauces for pasta labeled in Tupperware, bunches of white asparagus, trays of new potatoes, a plate of tarts, a bowl of mousse, a box of macaroons with its cover ajar, a pitcher of iced tea, and, yes, spring water. I found glasses for both of us in a cherry cabinet next to a window containing herbs sprouting from small ceramic pots.
“Wonderful, wonderful.” Bryce drank the water and revived gradually. Then he tucked the pillow back in its customary place on the sofa. “The staff at Mingo House, do they believe the accounts about the monstrance?”
That was so far from my thoughts that I asked, “What?”
“A monstrance is a container for holding the host for adoration before communion.” His pedantry and pretensions, once banished by the liquor, were reactivating.
“I know what a monstrance is.”
“Did they mention the monstrance at Mingo House?”
“You mean the ecclesiastical silver some Mingo supposedly smuggled out of England? When King Charles the First was deposed?”
For the first time this evening Bryce Rossi seemed sincerely pleased.
“I thought that was just a legend.”
“So do most scholars. But Genevieve was convinced that the monstrance—and the rest of the silver—existed. Exists.”
Was that the subject of the school project she’d wanted to show me on the evening I’d found her murdered?
His voice grew hard as cloisonné: “You’ve thought of something. What is it?”
I wouldn’t tell him, of course. “Genevieve was a bit of a romantic, don’t you think? I mean, she had that cameo fetish. She’d hit the thrift shops and antique
The house was filled with a combination of Bauhaus furniture and museum-quality art: a polychrome wood Buddha, Mayan jade, medieval iron prickets for holding cannon-sized candles, and what looked like a section of a choir stall—with slim figures of robed men, their mouths open in song. Switching on a button in the bathroom, I successfully heated a huge towel until it was omelet-warm. By the time I returned to the living room, Bryce was a bit more composed. He submerged his face in the towel, then pressed it against his concave chest, against the crucifix. I hoped he wasn’t about to come on to me.
“My child was murdered.”
“She was so full of life, Genevieve.”
He hiccupped. “No, my child.”
When he said it, it barely registered, I was that dumbfounded: “Genevieve was pregnant with my child. She was carrying my child. We hadn’t planned it. It just happened. I was just thrilled, but Genevieve was…conflicted. She mentioned putting the baby up for adoption. She would never have aborted, of course.” He draped the hot towel around his neck. “It’s a child not a choice.”
Genevieve had been carrying his child when she was murdered. His child had been murdered too. As I tried to absorb this information, my eyes wandered around the room and came to focus on a Madonna holding the infant Jesus, a Gothic statue of cracked stone. “I’m so sorry.”
His sense of propriety—and heterosexuality?—returned, and he took a leather pillow from a corner of the sofa and deposited it in his lap so that it covered both his briefs and his chest.
“Of course I could have killed Zack Meecham. I was mad with jealousy. I mean I’m a little long in the tooth—thirty-eight—to be dating a college girl, but Genevieve liked older men. She was susceptible to father figures.” He attempted to get up but couldn’t summon the equilibrium. Instead, he fell back, hugged the pillow in a paternal fashion, and again began crying.
“Would you like some coffee?”
“No, water, without flavoring. Just Poland Spring water. It’s in the refrigerator, by the pitcher of iced tea.”
He was ordered, organized, as one would expect of a researcher. The refrigerator might have been located in an upscale South End restaurant; it was crammed with roast beef and Cornish hens, all sorts of sauces for pasta labeled in Tupperware, bunches of white asparagus, trays of new potatoes, a plate of tarts, a bowl of mousse, a box of macaroons with its cover ajar, a pitcher of iced tea, and, yes, spring water. I found glasses for both of us in a cherry cabinet next to a window containing herbs sprouting from small ceramic pots.
“Wonderful, wonderful.” Bryce drank the water and revived gradually. Then he tucked the pillow back in its customary place on the sofa. “The staff at Mingo House, do they believe the accounts about the monstrance?”
That was so far from my thoughts that I asked, “What?”
“A monstrance is a container for holding the host for adoration before communion.” His pedantry and pretensions, once banished by the liquor, were reactivating.
“I know what a monstrance is.”
“Did they mention the monstrance at Mingo House?”
“You mean the ecclesiastical silver some Mingo supposedly smuggled out of England? When King Charles the First was deposed?”
For the first time this evening Bryce Rossi seemed sincerely pleased.
“I thought that was just a legend.”
“So do most scholars. But Genevieve was convinced that the monstrance—and the rest of the silver—existed. Exists.”
Was that the subject of the school project she’d wanted to show me on the evening I’d found her murdered?
His voice grew hard as cloisonné: “You’ve thought of something. What is it?”
I wouldn’t tell him, of course. “Genevieve was a bit of a romantic, don’t you think? I mean, she had that cameo fetish. She’d hit the thrift shops and antique
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