Too Many Murders by Colleen McCullough Page A

home and put the sheet back in his crib, and checked up on Mom. She was still asleep. Only she wasn’t, was she, sir? She was dead too.”
    “Yes, since before your first visit,” Carmine said. “What did you do when you reached your own bedroom?”
    “Tried to clean up the bathroom floor, then got into bed and went to sleep. I was whacked.”
    No qualms of conscience, thought Carmine. Nor may there ever be. Though he’s a smart kid. If his father finds him the right lawyer, he’ll prove a good student. By the time the social workers get to him, he’ll be oozing penitence, and by the time the courts get to him, he’ll have developed all the necessary memory lapses.
    But what fools indeed these parents were! Which one was so frugal that no housekeeper was hired after Jimmy was born? If ever a woman had needed a full-time housekeeper, it was Mrs. Cathy Cartwright. They could afford the expense, in spite of three sets of Dormer Day School fees.

“It would never have happened if the mother hadn’t been overwhelmed,” Carmine said to Patrick. “Why do I feel the parsimonious one is Gerald Cartwright? Though Cathy must have been spineless where he was concerned, not to insist on help.”
    “It also would never have happened if the mother hadn’t been dead,” said Patrick, arranging instruments on a cart.
    “True. What set the kid off was the smell of shit—an indication that Cathy had already been dead for several hours when Grant went to find her, probably sometime after four. I knew he was concealing something when he didn’t admit to going in search of his mother, because all kids go in search of Mom if they’ve thrown up, especially if they’ve missed the toilet. I didn’t expect a confession of murder, but that fits too. The father is selfish and career-oriented, which has led to his spending a great deal of his time away from home, and the mother had suddenly been inflicted with a super-demanding child after waiting hand and foot on her first three. Poor little Jimmy was the inadvertent cause of much hatred and resentment.”
    “Well, Jimmy’s murder at least might have been averted if the parents had been more aware of how their older children felt, but what about the mother’s murder?” Patrick asked.
    “A different horse entirely. Thus far, no leads whatsoever. Gerald Cartwright may be unpardonably selfish, but he’s not an unfaithful husband or a bad provider. When he’s staying at the French restaurant in upstate New York, he’s surrounded by family—hers as well ashis. He’s regarded as a model husband, an image he took some pains to reinforce. As for Cathy herself—ask me where she’d find the time for extramarital affairs with four kids, and the youngest with Down’s syndrome?” Carmine scowled.
    “Did she get out at all?”
    “Very occasionally, according to Gerald, who likes a social life. They’d go to plays trying out at the Schumann, to movies that got good reviews, charity dinners, country club events. If the chef threw a tantrum and Gerald was called away, he insisted that Cathy go on her own. Probably not as bad as it sounds—they’re well known, she’d meet up with friends. The last time she got out was a solo expedition to a Maxwell Foundation charity banquet, something she didn’t want to miss because the Maxwells give generously to handicapped children’s research. I got all that at great length from Gerald, who managed to keep his act together if he could hug a cushion.” Carmine poured himself fresh coffee. “Any other news on the pathology front, Patsy?”
    “The poisoning cases are all in,” Patrick said, but not in triumphant tones. “Peter Norton was dispatched with enough strychnine to kill a horse. It was in the orange juice. His blood revealed no other toxic tampering over a longer period of time, which tends to support Mrs. Norton’s likely innocence, as does the choice of poison. It’s a strong-stomached poisoner who can administer something as