Read Online The Love Potion Murders in the Museum of Man by Alfred Alcorn - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Alfred Alcorn
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spurious, that allows one to talk of prurient matters without the appearance of indulging in the prurience.
Diantha laughed one of her mother’s laughs, a bright, mischievous hiccup. “It sounds like a great way to go.”
“It wasn’t a pretty scene.”
“You were there? Afterward?” Her voice had a touch of awe to it.
“I looked at the crime scene photos. And the crime scene video.”
She bent to put a glass in the dishwasher with, I thought, an exaggerated motion. “So you really get into it.”
“I’m helping the police with inquiries, as the British put it, but not as a suspect. Not yet anyway.”
She beamed at me. “That is so cool.”
“That remains to be seen. I could just botch things up for them.”
“Now you’re the one underestimating yourself.”
I smiled. “What did you say before? It’s better than having other people do it for you.”
As we closed up the kitchen for the night, she took one of my hands in hers. “By the way … Dad … Do you mind if I call you Dad?”
“I’d be honored.”
“I want to thank you for taking such good care of Mom these last couple of years.” Her eyes were bright and dark with sincerity, establishing as much as the warmth of her hand the closeness she wanted to have with me.
“She has taken care of me, too, you know. She has made my life …” At which point, for the first time all evening, I had to stop and take a deep sigh.
But there remains a jagged, nagging note to this sad and yet curiously jubilant occasion that I have been skirting around throughout this account. In saying good night to Diantha in the hallway upstairs, I leaned down to give her a chaste peck on the cheek only to find myself kissed full on the lips with a sensuality the sensation of which I cannot quite shake. I found myself reeling down the hallway in a kind of sensual time warp, every nerve alive, my imagination full of conjurations, my pulse racing. Though nearly six decades along in life, I find myself still burdened with a persisting virility, as though marriage to Elsbeth has re-endowed me with the manly vigor of youth. I thought the momentary pulse of lust, distressing enough, would pass as I came to my senses. But it lingers and I find myself beset with images and forbidden desires.
It’s as though my dear Elsbeth, lying in our bedroom suffering through a drugged, fitful sleep, has become a ghost, replaced in life by Diantha, who is the very embodiment of her mother at a younger age. She has the same full-bodied figure, the same dark glowing eyes, the same pretty if somewhat blunt features, and even, at times, the same dark timbre of voice intimating the essential mischievousness of life.
I may, of course, be reading too much into the incident. For Diantha it was no doubt a kiss that got away. Or perhaps that’s the way people in show business comport themselves. Disport themselves more like it. Or perhaps she is needful of an affection that, under the right circumstances, can inflame one to more tangible desires. It may also be that the presence or probability of individual finality stirs us in ways that are only superficially grotesque. As Father O’Gould has reminded us on morethan one occasion, it is easy to forget what we are descended from.
Speaking of which, Malachy Morin accosted me in the Club at lunch on Friday and I couldn’t get away from him without agreeing to meet with him and “the big-money guys” from the Wainscott Office of Development. I do not consider myself a snob, but it seems to me the Club ought to be one of those places you can go to avoid people like Mr. Morin.
9
Although it is still early in the afternoon, I have closed the door and asked Doreen to hold my calls while I peck at these keys and at a crabmeat salad sandwich we had sent in. I usually don’t interrupt my workday to make entries into this subfile. But Lieutenant Tracy came in around eleven accompanied by Dr. P.M. Cutler, the Medical Examiner, and Dr. Arthur
Diantha laughed one of her mother’s laughs, a bright, mischievous hiccup. “It sounds like a great way to go.”
“It wasn’t a pretty scene.”
“You were there? Afterward?” Her voice had a touch of awe to it.
“I looked at the crime scene photos. And the crime scene video.”
She bent to put a glass in the dishwasher with, I thought, an exaggerated motion. “So you really get into it.”
“I’m helping the police with inquiries, as the British put it, but not as a suspect. Not yet anyway.”
She beamed at me. “That is so cool.”
“That remains to be seen. I could just botch things up for them.”
“Now you’re the one underestimating yourself.”
I smiled. “What did you say before? It’s better than having other people do it for you.”
As we closed up the kitchen for the night, she took one of my hands in hers. “By the way … Dad … Do you mind if I call you Dad?”
“I’d be honored.”
“I want to thank you for taking such good care of Mom these last couple of years.” Her eyes were bright and dark with sincerity, establishing as much as the warmth of her hand the closeness she wanted to have with me.
“She has taken care of me, too, you know. She has made my life …” At which point, for the first time all evening, I had to stop and take a deep sigh.
But there remains a jagged, nagging note to this sad and yet curiously jubilant occasion that I have been skirting around throughout this account. In saying good night to Diantha in the hallway upstairs, I leaned down to give her a chaste peck on the cheek only to find myself kissed full on the lips with a sensuality the sensation of which I cannot quite shake. I found myself reeling down the hallway in a kind of sensual time warp, every nerve alive, my imagination full of conjurations, my pulse racing. Though nearly six decades along in life, I find myself still burdened with a persisting virility, as though marriage to Elsbeth has re-endowed me with the manly vigor of youth. I thought the momentary pulse of lust, distressing enough, would pass as I came to my senses. But it lingers and I find myself beset with images and forbidden desires.
It’s as though my dear Elsbeth, lying in our bedroom suffering through a drugged, fitful sleep, has become a ghost, replaced in life by Diantha, who is the very embodiment of her mother at a younger age. She has the same full-bodied figure, the same dark glowing eyes, the same pretty if somewhat blunt features, and even, at times, the same dark timbre of voice intimating the essential mischievousness of life.
I may, of course, be reading too much into the incident. For Diantha it was no doubt a kiss that got away. Or perhaps that’s the way people in show business comport themselves. Disport themselves more like it. Or perhaps she is needful of an affection that, under the right circumstances, can inflame one to more tangible desires. It may also be that the presence or probability of individual finality stirs us in ways that are only superficially grotesque. As Father O’Gould has reminded us on morethan one occasion, it is easy to forget what we are descended from.
Speaking of which, Malachy Morin accosted me in the Club at lunch on Friday and I couldn’t get away from him without agreeing to meet with him and “the big-money guys” from the Wainscott Office of Development. I do not consider myself a snob, but it seems to me the Club ought to be one of those places you can go to avoid people like Mr. Morin.
9
Although it is still early in the afternoon, I have closed the door and asked Doreen to hold my calls while I peck at these keys and at a crabmeat salad sandwich we had sent in. I usually don’t interrupt my workday to make entries into this subfile. But Lieutenant Tracy came in around eleven accompanied by Dr. P.M. Cutler, the Medical Examiner, and Dr. Arthur
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