McNally's Caper (14 page)

“Uh-huh,” I said. “And did your father tell you who the thief was?”

He turned his head to look out over the ocean. “No,” he said, “he wouldn’t reveal it.”

He was a very unskilled liar. If he had stopped there I might have been inclined to believe him, but he continued to embellish his yarn.

“I begged him to tell me who it was,” he went on, “but he refused. He just kept repeating the robberies would end and you could stop your search. Of course I expect McNally and Son to bill us for the time you’ve put in.”

“Of course,” I said.

By the time we climbed that stairway to Ocean Boulevard, Griswold III was tottering. He finally made it to the Rolls in the McNally driveway and grabbed a door handle for support. Oh, how I enjoyed his discomfort!

“So you’ll wind up your investigation, Archy?” he asked anxiously.

I nodded and didn’t even murmur, “When shrimp fly.”

“Good,” he said, whipping out a handkerchief to swab his dripping face. “But I do want you to continue cataloging the library. After the estate is settled I plan to sell off all those moldy books. Maybe turn the library into a billiard room. That would be jolly, don’t you think?”

“Oh yes,” I said. “Jolly.”

He gave me a damp hand to shake and then he drove away. I stood there a few moments considering what he had told me.

I did not believe it was wholly a falsehood. I thought Griswold II had actually made those inquiries the night before he was murdered (he had told me he intended to), and I reckoned his son had talked to him later as he had claimed. How else could Griswold III learn I had been employed to investigate the thefts?

But I definitely did not trust him when he said his father refused to identify the thief. Why did he lie about that? The natural assumption would be that he lied because he himself was the crook. But I found that difficult to accept. I thought him a twit but not a larcenist. Which left only one other possibility: he was lying to protect someone else. But whom?

That puzzle continued to excite the McNally neurons during the cocktail hour, dinner, and after I ascended to my belfry to bring my journal up-to-date. My labors were interrupted by a phone call. Sgt. Al Rogoff was abrupt.

“You got anything?” he demanded.

“
Nada
,” I said. “You?”

“Zilch. The alibis of the son and clerk hold up. Griswold Three was at his dentist and the clerk was eating a tuna salad at Ta-boo. No one in the building saw the proverbial stranger lurking about. I figure it was family, servants, or friends who did the dirty deed.”

“I agree. Or their accomplices. What about the missing wallet?”

“Oh yeah, he had one. Black calfskin with gold corners. He usually carried a couple of hundred cash and his credit cards.”

“Where do you go from here, Al?”

“Out to the Forsythe place tomorrow for a day of talking to the screwballs. I’m looking forward to that. I also look forward to root canal work. I wish you’d come up with a lead, old buddy.”

“So do I,” I said. “But do not fear; McNally is here.”

“Stuff it,” he said and hung up.

I sat at my desk in a broody mood. But I was not thinking of the skimpy information Al Rogoff had just revealed; I was reviewing my afternoon meeting with Griswold the Third and wondering why I had an antsy feeling that I was missing something.

It took a small marc to identify the reason for my unease. The son apparently had an intimate conversation with his father on Tuesday night. But he made no mention that daddy had said anything about the threatening note he had received. Which meant the senior hadn’t told the junior, or he had and Griswold III was deliberately concealing his knowledge.

I was in the midst of these gloomy musings when I received my second phone call. Sylvia Forsythe. I repeated the McNallys’ condolences on the death of her father-in-law.

“Thanks, Archy,” she said. “I really liked the old fart.”

I did not feel that expressed sincere grief but I said nothing.

“Listen, boy,” she said, “you promised me a feed. Hubby dearest is lunching with your father tomorrow, so how about it?”

I was more dismayed than shocked. “Surely the family is in mourning,” I said.

“The family may be,” she said, “but I’m not. Where can we meet?”

Ticklish. Definitely ticklish. I didn’t wish to offend hubby dearest but neither did I want to reject overtures from one of the personae of this drama—comedy—farce—tragedy—soap opera—whatever.

“The Pelican Club,” I suggested, and gave her instructions on how to find it. “Twelve thirty? How does that suit you?”

“It suits, it suits!” she cried merrily. “See you there, darling!”

I hung up somewhat shaken. It is not that I object to or am frightened by forthright women—Connie Garcia is a paradigm of unambiguity—but let’s face it: this eager and apparently randy lady was the wife of a client of McNally & Son and possibly a suspect in an investigation of both robbery and homicide. A man would be a fool to become involved with a woman like that.

I’m a fool.

O
N FRIDAY MORNING I
yawned my way to work fashionably late (about ten thirty), having overslept and then pigged out on a breakfast of eggs scrambled with shallots and more buttered scones than I care to mention. I collapsed at my desk and decided to complete my larcenous expense account if only to delay wrestling with the puzzle of connecting all those unnumbered dots.

Shortly before noon I dropped my magnum opus on the desk of Ray Gelding, treasurer of McNally & Son. He inspected the total.

“You jest,” he said.

“You are fortunate,” I said loftily, “that I did not bill the company for job-related mental and emotional stress.”

“Mental I can believe,” he said. “You are obviously suffering.”

I withered him with a glance and went on my merry way.

I arrived at the Pelican Club in time to order refreshment at the bar before the arrival of Mrs. Sylvia Forsythe.

“Tonic with a twist, please, Mr. Pettibone,” I said.

He stared at me in astonishment. “Have you changed your religion, Mr. McNally?”

“
Mens sana in corpore sano
,” I told him. “Which freely translated means I do not wish to get tanked before the lady shows up.”

“Very wise,” he nodded approvingly, and served that noxious concoction.

Sylvia was only twenty minutes late and well worth the wait. She came floating into the club clad in a filmy jacket and Bermuda shorts of honey-colored silk. She had a presence. She had an attitude. And sixty years ago observers would have said she had
It.

I introduced her to Mr. Pettibone and she asked for a grasshopper, a drink I thought suited her nature famously. I drained my tonic and ordered a vodka-rocks which I suppose suited my nature as well.

“Have any trouble finding the place?” I asked her.

“Oh no,” she said. “I’ve been here before. A year ago, or perhaps it was more than that, Griswold and I had dinner with Geraldine and Tim Cussack, and we stopped here for a nightcap.”

“Tim Cussack?” I said, feigning surprise. (I’m a topnotch feigner.) “He and Geraldine were dating?”

“For a while,” she said. “Hot and heavy. Then he dumped her or she dumped him; I never did get it straight. I thought you knew.”

I was saved from replying when our drinks were set before us and we both sipped.

“Yummy,” Sylvia said. “Fattening, I expect, but who cares?”

“Surely you don’t have a weight problem.”

“Not me,” she said. “I can eat anything.”

It was the kind of comment that invited a ribald response but I resisted. “Tell me,” I said, “how is your daughter reacting to her grandfather’s death?”

“All right, I guess. Lucy lives in a world all her own. Sometime it’s hard to know what she’s thinking or what she’s feeling.”

“A deep child,” I observed. “Charming and deep.”

“I suppose,” she said and took another gulp of her syrup. “She was an unplanned child, you know, and perhaps she senses it.”

That was not a revelation I cared to hear. “Why don’t we go into the dining room,” I suggested. “In another half-hour it may be mobbed.”

It was already crowded, but Priscilla found us a table for two. Not the one, I was gratified to note, that was favored by Connie Garcia. Sylvia and I decided on a salad of Florida lobster, which unfortunately have no claws, the poor dears. We also ordered a basket of garlic bread and a bottle of sauvignon blanc.

“On a diet?” Priscilla inquired.

“You know me, Pris,” I said, “lean and mean.”

She giggled. “Honey,” she said to Sylvia, “keep your eye on this cat. When he’s in his cups he’ll proposition the Goodyear blimp.”

She bopped away laughing and my companion said, “I gather you two are pals.”

“Long-standing,” I assured her.

“Keep it that way,” she advised. “Standing.”

I thought that a thigh-slapper and told her so.

“I do have a brain, you know,” she said. “But I don’t get much chance to use it.”

“Oh?” I said idly. “Why is that?”

“I’m sure you know what my husband is like,” she said. Then she paused and apparently decided not to detail his failings. “I just feel stifled,” she concluded.

“Where are you from, Sylvia? Not Florida, I presume.”

“You presume correctly. Milwaukee. I left because I wanted to see what the sun looked like.”

“And how did you meet Griswold?”

She smiled. “He picked me up. In the bar at an airline terminal. And they lived happily ever after. Only they didn’t.”

I was spared further disclosures by the serving of our salads and wine.

“I’ve got to get out,” she said, stabbing at her claw-less lobster as if it were her own malignant fate.

“Out of where?” I asked her. “And into what?”

“Out of the Forsythe crypt,” she said. “And into someplace open and airy and free.”

“Divorce?” I asked, not looking at her.

“Whatever it takes,” she said determinedly, exhibiting a steel spine in a velvet back. “Life is short, isn’t it?”

“Someone once said we must strive to die young at a very old age.”

She brightened. “That’s exactly right,” she said. “That’s how I feel and what I intend to do. This salad is scrumptious and I’d like another glass of wine, please.”

I poured. “Your husband is now a very wealthy man,” I mentioned casually.

“Yes,” she agreed, “and it does change things, doesn’t it? Before the old man died we were on a mingy allowance. But now hubby dearest is loaded in his own name, and I’ve got to plan.”

“What about Lucy?”

“She’ll have her own trust fund.”

“You’d be willing to give her up?”

“Yes, I would,” she said defiantly, staring at me. “It’s my life and I want to live it.”

“It may not prove to be more satisfying than what you have now.”

“I’m willing to risk it,” she said boldly. “Risk doesn’t scare me. Never has, never will.”

I had thought her an airhead but now I was getting a glimpse at the demons that drove her. It was True Confessions time and I wanted to hear more, but she put an end to it.

“Enough of this whining,” she said, pushing back her naked salad bowl. “Never complain and never explain—isn’t that the First Commandment?”

“For the haut monde.”

“That’s me. Now let’s talk about what we’re going to do this afternoon.”

I looked at her. “I assumed you’d want to return home. The funeral arrangements and all that.”

“Is that what you assumed?” she said. “Wrong!”

It wasn’t difficult to infer what she meant. And because mama didn’t raise her son to be an idiot, I could guess where we were heading. That prospect didn’t spook me. What I found worrisome was that Ms. Garcia would indubitably learn of my lunch with this attractive lady (Connie’s snitches were everywhere) and I didn’t wish to imagine her reaction. Violent, I had no doubt.

I signed 1’addition, we left the Pelican Club and, as expected, Sylvia Forsythe said, “Why don’t you follow me?”

“To Timbuktu?” I asked.

“Not quite that far. To a fun place. You like fun places, don’t you?”

I’m sure my grin was glassy. “Be lost without them,” I assured her.

It was the Michelangelo Motel, as anticipated. I had already decided the Cussack-Diaz suite in that elegant bagnio served as a trysting place for most of the Forsythe family and staff. A sort of home away from home. I could now understand how the mustachioed gardener could afford such costly digs. He was paying a monthly rental and in turn was collecting a daily rental—or at least a generous pourboire. A win-win arrangement.

There was absolutely no problem when we arrived. We sailed past the desk with scarcely a glance from the clerk on duty. Sylvia had a key to Suite 309, and I had a mad vision of that key hanging from a hook in the Forsythe pantry, available to any member of family or staff who suddenly fell victim to his or her carnal appetites and needed a cozy auditorium for an afternoon of giggles.

The two-bedroom apartment wasn’t quite as garish as I had imagined, but I would hardly call the decoration in subdued good taste. There were several colored prints of Florida beach scenes complete with palm trees and bikinied sun-freaks.

I spotted evidence of Timothy Cussack’s occupancy: polo mallets and boots tossed into a corner. But I saw no signs of Rufino Diaz’s presence; apparently he was more discreet. The suite boasted an enormous TV set equipped with a VCR. I suspected a library of porn videos might be available on request. I did not request.

“Who owns this place?” I asked Sylvia.

“A friend,” she said evenly, and then, “A glass of vino?” she inquired pleasantly as if she were welcoming a guest to her own home.

“That will do me fine,” I said.

She looked at me thoughtfully. “No,” she said, “I think brandy would be better.”

She marched into the kitchen, obviously familiar with the layout, and returned a few moments later with small snifters. She handed me one and I took a cautious sip.

“Calvados,” I pronounced.

“Close,” she said. “It’s an American applejack.”

“Vintage of last Tuesday?”

“Probably,” she said, shrugging. “But who cares?”