“That’s a plausible theory.”
“We can’t trace the item unless we have its label or some other piece to trace back to a manufacturer, but there may be another way. Maybe something could appear in the newspaper.”
“I don’t think we want the killer to know he’s leaking feathers everywhere. He’s sure to get rid of the item in question.”
“I agree. But that doesn’t preclude your getting one of your journalist sources to run some trumped-up little feature about the eider duck and its prized down, and how items filled with it are so expensive that they’ve become a hot commodity for thieves. Maybe this could be-tied in with the ski season or something.”
“What? In hopes someone out there will call and say that his car was broken into and his down-filled jacket was stolen?”
“Yes. If the reporter quotes some detective who supposedly has been assigned to the thefts; this gives readers someone they can call. You know, people read a story and say ‘The same thing happened to me.’ Their impulse is to help. They warn to feels important. So they pick up the phone”.
“I’ll have to give it some thought.”
‘Admittedly it’s a long shot.”
We began walking to the door. “I spoke briefly with Michele before leaving the Homestead,” Wesley said. “She and Lucy have already been conferring. Michele says your niece is quite frightening.”
“She’s been a holy terror since the day she was born”
He smiled. “Michele didn’t mean it like that: She says that Lucy’s intellect is frightening.”
“Sometimes I worry that it’s too much wattage for such a fragile vessel.”
“I’m not certain she’s all that fragile. Remember, I just spent the better part of two days with her. I’m very impressed with Lucy on many fronts.”
“Don’t you go trying to recruit her for the Bureau.”
“I’ll wait until she finishes college` That will take her, what? All of a year?”
Lucy did not emerge from my study, until Wesley had driven off and I was carrying our glasses into the kitchen.
“Did you enjoy yourself?” I asked her.
“Well, I hear you got along famously with the Wesleys.”
I turned off the faucet and sat at the, table where I’d left my legal pad.
“They’re nice people.” “
Rumor has it they think you’re nice, too.”
She opened the refrigerator door and idly stared; inside. “Why was Pete here earlier?”
It seemed odd to hear Marino referred to by his first name. I supposed he and Lucy had moved from a state of cold war to détente when he had taken her shooting”
“What makes you think he was here?” I asked.
“I smelled cigarettes when I came in the house. I assume he was here unless you’re smoking again.”
She shut the refrigerator door and came over to the table.
“I’m not smoking again, and Marino was here briefly.”
“What did he want?”
“He wanted to ask me a lot of questions,” I said.
“About what?”
“Why do you need to know the details?”
Her eyes moved from my face to the stack of financial files to the legal pad filled with my indecipherable penmanship. “It doesn’t matter why since you obviously don’t want to tell me.”
“It’s complicated, Lucy.”
“You always say something’s complicated when you want to shut me out,” she said as she turned and walked away.
I felt as if my world were falling apart, the people in it scattering like dry seeds in the wind. When I watched parents with their children, I marveled over the gracefulness of their interactions and secretly feared I lacked an instinct that couldn’t be learned: I found my niece in my study sitting before the computer. Columns of numbers combined with letters of the alphabet were on the screen, and embedded here and there were fragments of what I assumed were data. She was making computations with a pencil on graph paper, and did not look up as I moved next to her.
“Lucy, your mother has had many men in and out of your house; and I am well aware of how that has made you feel. But this is not your house and I am not your mother. It is not necessary for you to feel threatened by my male colleagues and friends. It is not necessary for you to constantly be looking for evidence that some man was here, and it is unfounded for you to be suspicious of my relationship with Marino or Wesley or anyone else.”