McNally's Caper (16 page)

“Hi, darling,” I said. “How’s by you?”

Her smile grew. “Hello, Archy,” she said. “Gee, I’m glad to see you. Did you hear what happened to granddad? He’s dead.”

“I know,” I said, flopping down beside her. “It’s awful and I feel very bad about it. Don’t you?”

“Oh yes,” she said sadly. “He was very nice to me. Sort of like very cool, you know, but nice.”

“Sure he was,” I said. “A nice man. You know what I think you should do, Lucy?”

“What?”

“Write a poem about him.”

She brightened. “Hey,” she said, “that’s a good idea. What kind of a poem?”

“That’s up to you,” I told her. “How you felt about him and how sorry you are that he’s gone.”

She nodded. “I’ll do it,” she said determinedly. “I’ll write it tomorrow or maybe even tonight before I go to bed. Archy, do you know more keen poems?”

“Of course I do,” I said. “How about this one?”

I recited the verse beginning “As I was going up the stair/I met a man who wasn’t there.”

When I finished she hugged her ribs and rocked with merriment. “That’s neat,” she said. “I love it.”

“So do we all,” I said and took her little hand in my paw. “Lucy, about your grandpop, try not to cry too much or too long.”

“I didn’t,” she said, lying bravely. “I don’t cry anymore. I told you that.”

“You did but I’m not sure it’s right
never
to cry. Sometimes it’s best. Then you feel better afterward.”

She looked at me dubiously. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“Do you ever cry?”

“Not often,” I said, “but occasionally. It does help.”

She considered that a moment. Then: “I guess,” she said, sighing. “I know grown-ups cry. I saw Nora and she couldn’t stop. But it wasn’t about my grandfather dying. She was having a fight with Tony. They’re always fighting.”

I was dreadfully tempted to ask her about what but I refrained. I must emphasize again that never did I attempt to pump this child. I have, now and then, acted ignobly in my life but I draw the line at interrogating an innocent as young as Lucy.

“I don’t know what it’s about,” she said, answering my unspoken question. “They’re always fighting. I hate it when people fight, don’t you?”

“I certainly do.”

“Everyone in our house is always fighting,” she went on. “Like Fern and Sheila. And my mother and my aunt. Fighting all the time. I wish they’d stop. It scares me.”

“Lucy, you and I will never fight, will we?”

“Well, I should hope not,” she burst out indignantly. “Because we’re friends and friends never fight, do they?”

“Never,” I assured her. “They may argue but they don’t fight.”

“Of course not,” she said. “That would be silly because then they wouldn’t be friends anymore.”

What a wise child she was! I released her hand and rose to my feet. Is it a sign of aging when rising becomes much more of an effort than sitting? I reckon gravity is the final victor.

“Lucy,” I said, “I’ve enjoyed talking to you, and when you finish your poem about your grandfather I hope you’ll let me read it.”

“Okay,” she said cheerfully. “I love you, Archy.”

So artless it made the old ticker skip a beat.

“And I love you, sweetheart,” I vowed and meant it.

I wandered back to the main house, doing some heavy cogitating on what Lucy had said. All those fights. Mrs. Nora Bledsoe and son Anthony. Fern and Sheila: maid versus maid. And Sylvia against Geraldine. Of course it was possible that what Lucy, in youthful trepidation, described as “fights” were merely noisy and brief disagreements, soon forgotten. But I didn’t think so. I was beginning to believe the Forsythe household was riven and the fault lines ran deep.

I used the phone in the library to call Sgt. Rogoff. He was as grouchy as he had been the last time we conversed.

“Will you do me a favor, Al?” I asked.

“Why the hell should I?” he demanded. “No one does me any—including you.”

“I’m doing you one now,” I said. “Run a trace on a lad named Timothy Cussack. Two s’s in the last name. He works on a horse farm owned by the Forsythes out in Wellington. He used to be a polo player and now he trains jumpers.”

“Interesting—but not very. Why should I check up on this guy?”

“Because he lives in the same apartment Rufino Diaz occupies at the Michelangelo Motel.”

I waited patiently until Al’s silence came to an end. “Now that
is
interesting,” he said finally. “All right, I’ll sniff him out. Local, national, or worldwide?”

“Local,” I said. “For starters. You’ll let me know?”

“Don’t I always?”

“No,” I said, and he was laughing when we hung up. That was a plus.

I was feeling better too and I didn’t know why; I hadn’t really learned anything meaningful that morning except that cornflakes with milk and sliced bananas followed by a filet of pickled herring with onions does not constitute the most felicitous breakfast combo. But I seemed to be recovering and went out to my car whistling, the McNally juices once again at tsunami strength.

I found Anthony Bledsoe wiping the hood of my Miata with a shammy.

“Hey,” I said, “you don’t have to do that. I appreciate the attention but the baby just had a bath.”

“I can see,” he said. “But while you were inside a gull hit the target.”

“In that case,” I said, “keep swabbing. Do you mind if I call you Tony?”

“Why should I mind?” he said, that note of surliness creeping back into his voice. “Everyone else does.”

“Just to make us even,” I told him, “everyone calls me Archy. Is it a deal?”

“I guess,” he said.

I was trying to charm the fellow and obviously making little progress. He seemed in a constant state of resentment and I hadn’t a clue to the reason. Envy, I supposed, or jealousy—or both. Whatever was gnawing at him appeared perpetual; I had never seen him lighthearted or flashing a “What, me worry?” grin. Condemned to the doldrums, this chap.

I thought him reasonably handsome. Not a young Clark Gable, you understand, but with a brooding intensity I imagined would be attractive to women. The odd thing was that his rather heavy, squarish features reminded me of someone and I could not think of whom. Not a movie star, not a public figure, but someone with whom I was familiar. I gave up trying to identify the resemblance.

“A bad week, Tony?” I suggested.

He finished polishing and stood back to examine his handiwork. “Bad enough,” he said. “The old man was king around here, and now with the prince taking over no one knows what’s going to happen. Like today is supposed to be my day off but the new boss said No. Everything is all screwed up.”

His words were innocent enough but there was venom in his voice.

“Surely your job is secure,” I said.

“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe not. I don’t give a damn. Believe me, I’m not going to be a gofer all my life.”

“Tony,” I said gently, “I think you’re more than a gofer for the Forsythe family.”

His laugh was sarcastic: a contemptuous laugh. But whether the contempt was for me, his employers, or himself, I could not tell.

“If you leave the Forsythes,” I said, “what will you do?”

He stared at me. “I’ll live,” he said, and trudged back to the house.

“Thank you for the cleaning job,” I called after him, and he gave me a casual wave of his hand without turning around.

A very troubled young man, I reckoned, beginning to believe everyone in that wealthy and idiosyncratic household was troubled.

I was granted added evidence of that a moment later. I started to pull out of the driveway and then stopped to allow entrance of a new Ford Taurus Wagon, pearly blue. It halted and Mrs. Constance Forsythe emerged. She slammed the door and the Taurus backed onto Ocean Boulevard, but not before I recognized the driver—Timothy Cussack.

Mrs. Forsythe came over to my Miata and I climbed out. We shook hands.

“I’d like to express the sympathy of—” I started, but she waved my sympathy aside.

“Understood,” she said, “and appreciated. It’s a downer, I admit, but I’m not about to do the sackcloth-and-ashes bit. No one will do it for me when I croak.”

I tried not to be but I was amused by her sangfroid.

“What the hell,” she continued, “life goes on. At least mine does, thank God. Hey, want to come back in the house for an early pick-thee-up?”

“Thank you,” I said, “but I’ll take a raincheck. I have a heavy lunch date awaiting.”

She looked at me speculatively, head to toe and back again. “Yes,” she said with a roguish smile, “I can imagine. Like the girlies, do you, Archy?”

“I enjoy feminine companionship,” I admitted.

“And I’ll bet they enjoy yours,” she said. “And why not? What other pleasures does life have to offer—except horses, of course.”

This feisty woman never ceased to amaze and I wondered how she had ever brought herself to marry such a hidebound man as Griswold Forsythe II. But maybe she had developed her forthright persona
after
marriage—perhaps as a reaction to finding herself wedded to a stick. There will be no extra charge for that Jungian analysis.

She was wearing jodhpurs and the badly stained bush jacket. Her face was free of makeup and she seemed to flaunt her wrinkles. Her hair was a mess and I guessed she had her last manicure shortly after the Korean War.

“Was that Tim Cussack driving the Taurus?” I asked.

“Sure it was,” she said. “My right-hand man. I don’t know what I’d do without him. Timmy makes me feel young again. He’s such a scamp I’ve just got to love him.”

I thought her praise somewhat effusive and, coming from a new widow, in questionable taste. But I knew better than to expect tender feelings from this bumptious lady. I don’t know why, but every time I saw her I thought of Teddy Roosevelt waving a saber and shouting, “Charge!”

I was about to make my farewell when she stepped closer to me and clamped a heavy hand on my arm.

“My son tells me you’re to continue cataloging the library.”

“Those were my instructions.”

“It makes sense,” she said. “We’ll probably sell off all those old books. Did Griswold tell you anything else?”

She spoke very intently, her uninhibited brashness suddenly gone. I found the abrupt change startling. And her question posed a kind of Hobson’s choice. Griswold III had told me to scratch my investigation into the thefts, but I didn’t know if he had revealed that to his mother. I wanted to respect his confidence, but if Mrs. Forsythe
was
aware of it, I didn’t wish to appear a barefaced liar. And so, as usual, I temporized.

“Griswold said merely that I was to confine my activities to cataloging the library.”

There was no mistaking her relief. Her grip on my arm fell away, her smile was huge, and her hearty manner was reborn.

“And so you shall!” she cried, clapping me on the shoulder. “Why, you’ve practically become a member of the family.”

Mother of pearl! I prayed. Save me from that!

She gave me a final blow on the clavicle and strode to the house. I watched her go, convinced now that she knew I had been assigned to investigate the disappearance of Forsythe valuables and was delighted to learn my inquiry had come to an end.

I believe it was at that precise moment that I began to get a glimmer of what was going on in the Forsythe booby hatch. And Connie Garcia had called these people dull! Au contraire, dear Connie. They made the Jukes Family look like saints.

It was all ludicrous, of course, except that a woman had been half-strangled and a man totally. I found it difficult to snicker.

D
ID YOU EVER SEE
one of those old movie melodramas about life on a daily newspaper? The star reporter was usually played by Lee Tracy, and he’d come rushing into the newsroom, press pass tucked into the band of his fedora, and scream, “Stop the presses! I’ve got a yarn that’s going to tear this town wide open!”

I now have a similarly dramatic announcement to make: On that particular Monday I skipped lunch. Yes, I did. The continued shrinkage of the waistbands of my slacks alarmed me and I was determined to regain the Apollo-like physique that had formerly been the envy of my compadres and had elicited whistles from female construction workers.

So upon arriving home I marched resolutely past the kitchen and went directly to my quarters, manfully ignoring the excruciating pangs of hunger. It was my intention to work on my journal for as long as it took to bring my record of the Forsythe case up-to-the-minute.

Instead, I found myself seated behind my desk, feet up, staring blankly into space while I pondered an oddity that puzzled me. I had already established the fact that Anthony Bledsoe and Timothy Cussack were pals. And I had noted—as I am sure you did too—that both lads took Monday as their day off. I had decided to look into that coincidence to determine if the two spent the day together and, if so, what their activities might include.

But on that Monday Tony Bledsoe was working, apparently at the command of Griswold III. That was understandable; the new lord of the manor wished to assert his authority immediately. But Tim Cussack was also working on that Monday. At least he was chauffeuring Mrs. Constance, and she had been dressed as if she had just come from the Trojan Stables.

It was a minor mystery, I admit, but I found it perplexing. I could think of a dozen innocent explanations for Cussack being busy on a Monday, driving his employer hither and yon. But I could devise a dozen other scenarios not quite as innocent.

Obviously I had insufficient information at the moment to come to any reasonable conclusion, so I put that riddle aside for the nonce and ruminated on another enigma that had been stirring in that bowl of tapioca I call my brain. It concerned what Connie Garcia had told me was related to her by Lady Cynthia Horowitz; to wit, years and years ago Griswold Forsythe II had been the subject of Palm Beach gossip that Lady C. found difficult to believe.

It was a very small nugget indeed, and even if I was able to assay it I had no insane hope it would prove to be the “smoking gun” that would solve all the Forsythe mysteries in one swell foop. But it would certainly do no harm to attempt to learn more, and so I phoned Lady Horowitz.