Read Online The Gorgon Festival by John Boyd - Free Book Online Page B

dancer getting ready to jump, I shiver… Imagine, my own husband… Joe, do you love your wife?”
    “Not too often,” Cabroni admitted. “Having three children took the prance out of her.”
    “Ration her, Joe. Once every other Tuesday might do it. Strew a few photographs around of Greek statues, without fig leaves, and don’t lose patience. It took me five years with Alex, then, suddenly last Sunday, wham!”
    She came around the bar and perched on the stool beside him. She wore a peasant blouse and her eyes glowed with intellectual fire which suggested to Cabroni that Ester might yield to a commonsense approach.
    “Ester, a girl with your resources should spread it around. How would California and Arizona feel if all the water in Lake Meade was cornered by Las Vegas? You’re too much woman for one…”
    A peculiar squeal sounded from the front porch, and Ester shot from the stool, clearing the split-level into the living room with a gazelle’s leap. Cabroni turned back to his drink on the bar, thinking a little sadly how love fled.
    Arm in arm, husband and wife advanced across the living room and Cabroni, turning, could see that Ward was prancing tonight. He envied the couple their domestic bliss. No doubt about it, there was something captivating about Ward’s walk. He envied Ward for it, envied him for Ester, and as they tippy-toed down into the dining room, Cabroni’s envy died in self-revulsion as he caught himself almost envying Ester.
    Ward was more open, attentive, alert than he had been when Cabroni saw him last. The hand he extended in greeting matched Cabroni’s in its grip. Murder sometimes did this to a man, Cabroni knew, by releasing his aggressions and frustrations.
    “I’m glad to see you and Ester patch up your little misunderstanding, Joe.”
    “I’m not here to patch up misunderstandings,” Cabroni said formally. “Doctor Ruth Gordon has been missing since Saturday night.”
    “You were supposed to be up there, Saturday night, pruning roses.” Ester said.
    “I talked to her last Wednesday,” Ward blurted.
    “Were there any witnesses?” Cabroni asked.
    “Not to a telephone conversation,” Ward answered, catching himself.
    “Doctor Ward, she was last seen alive on Saturday night.” Cabroni stressed the “alive.”
    “I know,” Ward said. “I left my gear in her bathtub.”
    “What were you doing in her bathtub?” Ester asked.
    “That’s what I’m here to interrogate him about,” Cabroni said.
    “I was treating her for arthritis,” Ward said to Ester.
    “She’s believed to be murdered,” Cabroni said.
    “By whom?”
    “For the record, there are no suspects, yet.”
    “I mean, who believes she was murdered?”
    “I do,” Ester almost screamed. “I believe you did it to her in the bathtub and she drowned.”
    Moaning, Ester staggered back and fell into an overstuffed chair.
    “The official theory holds she was electrocuted,” Cabroni said.
    “Control yourself, Ester.” Ward turned to his stricken wife. “Joe’s from homicide and he takes murder seriously… Joe, that’s my gear in her bathtub, almost three hundred dollars’ worth. And if you haven’t found Ruth’s body, she isn’t dead.”
    “A corpse is no longer needed to establish the corpus delicti,” Cabroni said.
    “I told you you’d been practicing,” Ester sobbed. “I had faith in you, Alexander Ward.”
    “Ester, please,” Ward squatted before her, “you’ve got every reason to trust me that I’ve got to trust you. Why should I practice on a seventy-year-old woman when the campus is full of co-eds?”
    “Because it’s furtive, that’s why. Sex is no fun unless it’s furtive.”
    He leaned forward and kissed her, and Cabroni noticed an immediate change in the tempo of her sobs as Ward turned and looked up at the detective.
    “Joe, I’m worried about Ruth, but I can explain the electrodes. Let’s go up there.”
    Cabroni considered the request. Ward was putting on an act that