shortly, but first, I hoped Isabella was well enough for a brief visit. Alistair had mentioned by telephone that she was recuperating as well as could be expected from her gunshot wound.
A tall, severe woman with black hair pulled into a tight knot answered my knock.
“You are?” She regarded me with cold disapproval. No doubt she was the nurse attending Isabella.
I forced a pleasant smile. “Detective Simon Ziele. Is Mrs. Sinclair at home?”
She shook her head. “Mrs. Sinclair is not receiving company. The police already took her statement. Multiple times, despite her condition.” The nurse gave me a baleful look.
When I spoke again, my voice was authoritative. “Please give her my name. I’m not here on official business.”
She glared, but permitted me to enter. After disappearing a moment, she directed me to follow her into the front parlor room where Isabella waited.
Isabella brightened and greeted me with a warm smile. “It’s good to see you, Simon.” She sat on a small sofa under a quilt, looking thin and pale, surrounded by books, magazines, newspapers, and of course her dog. He wagged his tail when I approached but did not leave her side.
“You, too.” I took the chair opposite her, easing myself into it, for my own body was heavily bruised from Sunday night’s altercation. “You’re feeling better?”
“I am.” She wrinkled her nose. “I’ll be even more so when Nurse Cabot’s duties are finished. She’s competent, but too heavy-handed for my taste.” She regarded me solemnly. “How are you?”
“Good. I have a couple days off, now that this case is finished.”
That had been Mayor Fuller’s doing. His congratulations on a job well done had been exaggerated and insincere. But Joe had explained it, saying, “The mayor’s just relieved the case is solved, the killer wasn’t a local man, and we didn’t screw anything up.”
“I see our case made the news.” I picked up her copy of the Herald. The main headlines continued to focus on the mayoral election scandal, but at the bottom of the first page I read: LOOSE CANNON IN THE IVORY TOWER. The Times, resting on her coffee table, proclaimed, RENOWNED CRIMINAL LAW PROFESSOR HARBORS KILLER IN OWN RESEARCH LAB. The irony in the title did not escape me; the headline might have referred to Michael Fromley as easily as Horace Wood. I did not blame Alistair for misreading the danger Horace posed, but I had yet to forgive him his reckless behavior regarding Fromley. Alistair had brought Fromley to the research center knowing that he likely had blood on his hands. For Alistair to pretend otherwise was disingenuous. No matter how unreliable the evidence, Alistair had chosen to disregard it rather than investigate it. He had thought only of his own research goals and taken a risk—one that Horace and Fred had exploited for their own purposes.
I gave her a quizzical look. “How is Alistair taking all this?”
“You can ask him yourself.” Alistair flashed a wide smile as he walked into the room and greeted me. He leaned over and poked at the Herald in my hand with his index finger.
“A poor excuse for journalism, that’s what it is. The story is riddled with loose speculation and factual error.”
I looked more closely and saw what he meant. Dates, Fred’s name, and even Horace’s cause of death had been botched in the write-up. Alistair would no doubt obtain a retraction of the more egregious charges. But such a remedy, buried in the fine print on page twelve of tomorrow’s news, would do little good if enough damage were done today.
“Will the research center survive?” I asked, trying to gauge the extent of Alistair’s concern.
His response was edgy. “It remains to be seen; the decision depends on the Columbia trustees. Unfortunately, the papers are fascinated with the story, and they find new angles to explore every day.” He sighed deeply. “I suppose, while embarrassing for us, what they sensationalize is less damaging than it might be. After all, they could have dug up far worse had they stayed on Fromley’s trail. The accounting scandal and Horace’s suicide have made for more interesting news than speculation about whether a dead man did—or did not—have murder on his conscience.”
Alistair didn’t mention the rumors alleging he had curried judicial favor to secure a murderer’s release into his own custody. Fortunately for him, they had died a sudden death. Alistair made a few sizable political donations to the right people, they in turn had made the right phone calls, and Alistair’s suspected breach