The previous chapter stopped in the middle of a conversation between Brew and Ginny, which narrowed the suspects down to the School Board office. Brew begins this chapter summing up, in his mind, the reasons against kidnapping: 1) no ransom demand, and 2) the all-knowing Manolo doesn’t know any drug pusher involved in prostituting young girls. Brew’s intuitive conclusion is that the culprit is someone acting on hate. But he has given up on his own methods and is going along with Ginny’s logical approach, so he doesn’t mention hate to Ginny.
This will seem like a digression: I am reminded here of Dorothy Sayers’ GAUDY NIGHT. The heroine of GAUDY NIGHT, Harriet, is a mystery writer whose characters act mathematically according to the needs of the plot. The hero, Lord Peter, tells her that one of her characters is acting so illogically he can’t believe in it. He says Harriet needs to come up with some twisted emotional reason for her Wilfred to act as he does. Lord Peter would be able to believe Wilfred's neurotic suspicions if he had an understanding of the character’s inner psychology.
There was a reason for my digression: SRD does not make the mistake Harriet was making. Yes, Brew should have mentioned his idea to Ginny, about the motive for the kidnapping being hate. But SRD has just spent chapters establishing, psychologically, why Brew doesn’t trust his own ideas. Real people act this way.
SRD isn’t letting us forget the basics of Brew’s condition. After a night spentBrew wrote:The sense that we were finally getting somewhere made me feel a little better about Alathea, but it didn’t do much for my opinion of myself.
Brewdreaming about amber
and goes back to meet Ginny at her office. Ginny has confirmed that Paul Stretto did call the police commissioner, and the commissioner really did build a fire under Detective Acton. So it is unlikely that either Stretto or Acton are the kidnapper, in spite of the months they spent oblivious to or neglecting the crimes.ignored the dry wish for alcohol in my mouth
Ginny has hired another P.I., Lawrence Smithsonian (a name indicating his firm establishment in the moneyed community), to track the finances of all their suspects. A very practical thing to do, except that Ginny is going to be paying for Smithsonian’s services out of her own pocket. Who would have thought it would cause such an emotional interlude? Overcome with gratitude,
Oh! Brew’s secret love for Ginny isn’t so secret after all. It turns out they have an understanding.Brew wrote:I got up, went over to her. Cupped her head with both my hands and kissed her on the mouth.
She didn’t kiss me back. She just sat there and took it. When I stopped, she looked at me like the barrel of a gun and said, “The next time you do that, you better mean it.”
Oh, Brew, you dummy! Actually, I wouldn’t expect a drunk to articulate those words: “I wasn’t worth it.” IMO, it would be too true an expression of his state of mind for a drunk to be able to face it.Brew wrote:What she had in mind was something even more serious than the way I felt about her. We’d been through it before. She wanted me to quit drinking. Completely. Forever.
That was something I couldn’t do. I wasn’t worth it.
So they go back to practicalities. Ginny has made an arrangement for them to see a member of the School Board, Dr. Camilla Sandoval. They find Dr. Sandoval in the old section of town, where she cares for the extreme poor. Dr. Sandoval gives them her opinions of the Board members and office people. I don’t know about other readers, but I instinctively found her believable. So did Brew. Dr. Sandoval’s description of Budget Vice-President Martha Scurvey includes the fact that she wasn’t on the School Board when the kidnappings started, so she is eliminated as a suspect. The rest are still on the list. Ginny wants to put pressure on them and get the criminal to move and maybe make a mistake.
By now Brew is in a depression. This kind of investigation is uncongenial to him. He grumps at Ginny about being useless, and Ginny manages not to lose her temper at him. A true achievement, given what the day has been like so far. I think both Brew and the investigation would be going better if Brew were answering to his intuition, but he isn’t on speaking terms with himself at the moment.
