McNally's Caper (18 page)

But when I went upstairs to resume scribbling in my journal I was faced once again with the puzzle of those unconnected dots. I did not despair of eventually finding the solution, mind you, but at the moment I felt I was sans paddle and up the famous creek.

But the travails of that confusing day had not ended. I received a phone call around nine thirty.

“This is Geraldine Forsythe,” she said crisply. “I must see you at once.”

S
HE CAME FOR ME
in an oldish Buick sedan I presumed was her personal car. It was, in fact, so old that it had a bench seat up front with an armrest that could be lowered from the middle of the back to form two quasi bucket seats. When I climbed into the passenger side Geraldine flipped up the armrest so there was no divider between us. It was, well, um, uh, cozy.

We exchanged brief greetings and without another word she headed out of the McNally driveway and turned south on Ocean Boulevard. She made no mention of our destination.

“Miami?” I inquired pleasantly.

“Anywhere,” she said. “I have to talk to you privately and this seemed the best way. Have you done anything about my missing jewelry?”

“No significant progress,” I reported. “Your father’s death has complicated things. I am sure you and everyone else in your household has been questioned by the police.”

“Endlessly,” she said gloomily.

“Of course. Which temporarily puts your personal problem on the back burner.”

“But you’re not forgetting about it, are you, Archy?” She sounded desperate.

“No way,” I assured her. “I promised you I’d do what I can and so I shall.”

“Good,” she said. “Because another of my lovely things has been stolen. A necklace of gold rose petals. I wanted to wear it last night and it was gone.”

“Expensive?” I asked.

“About five thousand. But it meant a great deal more than that to me. It was a birthday gift from my father years and years ago, and now it’s gone.”

“What a shame,” I said. “Where was it kept?”

“In its original velvet case hidden under lingerie in the top drawer of my dresser. The case was still there but it was empty.”

“Not a very secure place to keep a five-thousand-dollar necklace,” I remarked.

“What do you expect me to do?” she said angrily. “Put all my jewelry in a safe deposit box?”

I swung sideways to look at her. She was wearing a black silk jumpsuit, zippered to the chin, and she appeared to be under considerable tension. She was gripping the wheel tightly, leaning forward, her formidable jaw clenched. If she was gritting her teeth I wouldn’t have been a bit surprised.

We drove in silence until we were south of Manalapan. Traffic was light, the night cloudy. A hard onshore wind was kicking up whitecaps on the sea, and far out I could see the twinkling lights of fishing boats and the blaze of a cruise ship. Nothing seriously amiss with that scene but I would have much preferred being home, enjoying a small marc and listing to Sarah Vaughan singing “Lost in the Stars.”

Gerry abruptly made a wild and totally unexpected U-turn, pulled into a parking space on the corniche, and braked so violently that I was thrown forward against my seat belt.

“Hey,” I said in mild protest.

She killed the engine and snapped off the lights. Then she grabbed my arm. “It’s my sister-in-law,” she said fiercely. “I know it is. You believe me, don’t you, Archy? She’s giving that bum all my lovely jewelry.”

“Timothy Cussack?”

She nodded.

“Gerry,” I said as gently as I could, “you may be correct but you have no real evidence, do you?”

“But I know how to get it,” she said eagerly. “I’ll bet if you search his apartment you’ll find my things. Maybe not all of them because he’s probably sold some by now. But I’m sure you’ll find enough to prove what I’m saying is true.”

“And how do you suggest I search his apartment? Break into the place? I don’t even know where he lives.”

“Suite 309 at the Michelangelo Motel in West Palm,” she said rapidly. “And you won’t have to break in because I have the key.”

She dug in the pocket of her jumpsuit and handed me a key slipped onto a large paper clip.

“How do you happen to have this?” I asked.

“From when Tim and I were going together. Then we broke up but I never gave back the key. Will you do it for me, Archy? You’ll find my things, I know you will.”

“And if I do? What will you do then?”

“Go to the police,” she said promptly. “Report what’s been happening and have them arrest Sylvia and Tim for stealing.”

It was, I reflected mournfully, Looney Tunes time and I had a starring role.

“You will do it for me, won’t you, Archy?” she repeated in a breathy voice and pressed closer, lifting her face.

I don’t know what it’s termed in these hyperkinetic days but it used to be called smooching or necking, and I hadn’t indulged in such amorous and ultimately frustrating behavior since I was a lustful and frantic teenager. And limped home simultaneously exhilarated and disappointed. Ah, the joys and pains of youth!

Our juvenile grappling became so de trop that I had to interrupt a soulful kiss long enough to giggle.

“Why are you laughing?” Gerry demanded.

“Because I’m so happy,” I lied valiantly, and she accepted that.

Eventually she apparently felt she had bestowed a sufficient reward for suborning a criminal act (breaking and entering) and pulled away from me, raising her zipper to its original position.

“Wasn’t that nice?” she whispered.

“Sublime,” I said, thinking my granddaddy, Ready Freddy McNally, a famous second banana on the old Minsky burlesque circuit, would have been proud of me.

Having accomplished what she had set out to do, she drove me home and dumped me—just like that. I felt like Passion’s Plaything.

“I expect you to do what you promised,” she said firmly before departing.

“Of course,” I said and watched her drive away, more convinced than ever that the entire world had gone bonkers—including, I am sure you will not be shocked to learn, me. Because I had every intention of doing exactly what Geraldine Forsythe had requested: entering Timothy Cussack’s apartment and searching for items Gerry had told me were stolen.

It would be illegal and I am ordinarily a law-abiding cuss, except when circumstances dictate otherwise. But later that night, snug in my chambers, a tot of marc in my fist and a tape of the Divine Sarah playing softly, I stared at the key to the Cussack-Diaz motel apartment lying on my desk blotter and realized a surreptitious break-in represented a risk I need not take.

There was a way of gaining entry to Suite 309 at the Michelangelo that held little danger of my being nabbed for committing a felony. I must tell you from the start that the caper I planned was not honorable, chivalrous, or estimable in any way, shape, or form. But my motive, I assure you, was irreproachable: I wanted justice to triumph. And if, in the process, I profited personally—well, that was just honey on the croissant, was it not?

I retired to my trundle trying to recall who it was who said morality is merely a matter of time and geography. I swear it wasn’t me.

I might still be sleeping to this day, a mod Rip Van Winkle, if I hadn’t been awakened by a phone call on Tuesday morning. I glanced bleary-eyed at my bedside clock and saw it was close to nine thirty.

“What’s
with
you?” Sgt. Al Rogoff groused. “Don’t you ever get up?”

“Actually,” I said, yawning, “I’ve been awake for hours, just lying in the sack quietly contemplating.”

“Uh-huh,” Al said. “And I’ve been sitting in my squad car doing macramé. Are you conscious now?”

“Of course I’m conscious,” I said indignantly. “What’s up?”

“Not you,” he said. “That’s for sure. About that guy you wanted me to trace—Timothy Cussack...”

“He has a record?” I asked eagerly.

“A sheet as long as a piano roll. The thing that grabs me is that it starts out with penny-ante things like shoplifting and committing a public nuisance.”

“Such as?”

“Peeing in the middle of Worth Avenue. Then he graduates to slightly heavier stuff like writing bad checks and attempted fraud. And finally to robbery and felonious assault.”

“Has he ever done time?”

“Not a day. Made restitution, paid fines, or drew short-term probation. Two things that get me: One, his cons show a steady progression from minor to major. And two, he’s got a lot of pals in high places who wrote letters to the court saying he’s just a naughty, high-spirited lad and please go easy on him. That’s understandable if he was a good polo player running with the richniks.”

“Al, did you find anything that ties him to the Forsythes?”

“Nope. Except that, like you said, he shares a motel apartment with the Forsythes’ gardener.”

“
As
you said,” I admonished him. “Not ‘like you said.’ ”

“Thank you, professor. It’s a treat having my grammar corrected so early in the morning. Have you got more on Cussack?”

“Nothing conclusive,” I said, “but I’m working on it.”

“I’ll just bet you are. And if you dig up something juicy I’ll be the first to know—right?”

“You can count on it,” I told him.

His reply is unprintable.

I rose and moved somnambulistically through my morning routine. Cussack’s record of illegal activities seemed to confirm Geraldine Forsythe’s accusations—but then things are not always what they seem, are they? All of which lent added importance to the caper I had devised.

After a lone and Spartan breakfast (OJ, toast, black coffee) I pointed the Miata northward to the Forsythe manse, beginning to have a few quivers of doubt if the action I planned would be as easy and rewarding as anticipated. But then I remembered Admiral Farragut’s famed command and the McNally chutzpah revived.

Sheila Hayworth opened the door for me and she looked uncommonly attractive. I thought she was wearing a trifle too much makeup for a servant in a house of mourning but, on occasion, I can be as blimpish as mein papa.

“Hi!” she said brightly. “Back on the job again?”

“You betcha,” I said. “Life goes on.”

“I hope so,” she said, looking at me with a smile I can only describe as inviting. “I could use a little life.”

“I’m sure you could, after the events of the past week. Sheila, you haven’t borrowed any books from the library, have you?”

“Not me,” she said. “I don’t read much except the tabs. Mostly I watch TV. But that can be a drag too.”

Again she smiled and now it was positively lubricious. At another time I would have been tempted to continue this suggestive chatter and discover where it might lead. But at the moment I had other devilry in mind.

“Must get to work,” I said briskly. “By the way, is Mrs. Sylvia at home? I must ask her about borrowed books.”

“Yeah, she’s here, playing her harpischord.”

“Harpsichord,” I corrected, thinking I was rapidly becoming a fusspot—and at such a tender age.

“Whatever,” Sheila said indifferently. “You know where her studio is?”

“I can find it. Thank you for your help. I hope to see more of you.”

“That’s up to you,” she said saucily, and I was glad to escape. I recalled those nude photos Griswold III had snapped, and I also recalled hearing that he once had eyes for Sheila until his father lowered the boom. I was beginning to believe that all the rumors about the Forsythes weren’t gossip, they were incontrovertible facts. It was just your average all-American, Norman Rockwell family. And I am Ethelred the Unready.

But I was ready enough when I paused outside the door of Sylvia’s studio. I could hear her plinking away on the harpsichord. It sounded like bored noodling to me and I hoped it was. I knocked and won a shouted, “Come in!”

I entered and received a sizzling welcome.

“Archy!” she yelped, leaped from the bench, and rushed forward to embrace me. “Where have you been? I thought you had forgotten all about me.”

“Not a chance,” I said, beginning to recite the playscript I had, in my own mind, entitled “Seductio Ad Absurdum.” “But because of Mr. Forsythe’s death I thought it better to stay out of the way for a while.”

“Oh pooh,” she said. “That’s ancient history.”

And so it was; the poor man had been deceased for almost a week.

“Sylvia, I stopped by hoping you might be able to join me for lunch.”

“Frabjous!” she cried. “And I want to eat in a diner. You know, one of those places made of shiny aluminum that looks like a railroad car.”

“I know exactly what you mean. I practically lived in diners during my undergraduate days.”

“Well, this morning when I woke up,” she rattled on, “the first thing I thought was that I simply
must
have meat loaf with mashed potatoes and gravy.”

“And peas.”

“Or pale string beans. And you got two slices of white Wonder bread with one small pat of soft butter.”

“Memories, memories,” I said. “And if you didn’t want the meat loaf there was always fried liver with bacon and onions, or corned beef and cabbage.”

“And a choice of desserts. Vanilla or chocolate ice cream, or lemon Jell-O.”

“Formica-topped tables,” I reminded her.

“With a paper lace doily under your plate.”

“And cutlery stamped U.S. Army,” I added, and we both burst out laughing. “Sylvia, every diner from New York to L.A. must have had the same menu. But where can we get food like that today?”

“A new diner opened up on Dixie Highway about a month ago. Lolly Spindrift wrote that it’s the new
in
place, a perfect replica of a vintage diner. Archy, can we have meat loaf for lunch?”

“Only if they have a crusty bottle of ketchup on every table.”

“You wait right here,” she said breathlessly. “I’ll go change and be right back.”

She hurried away leaving me to question why she would want to change; she had looked fetching in a linen shift in a yummy molasses shade. I wondered if she intended to dress in true diner fashion: a felt dirndl skirt decorated with a large appliquéd poodle (complete with chain) and a pink cardigan sweater set.

Sylvia came scampering back still wearing the molasses shift and I could only fantasize about the “changes” she had made. She asked that we drive in my Miata and I readily agreed. We left by the front door and found Anthony Bledsoe and Rufino Diaz standing in the driveway engaged in what appeared to be a very intent conversation.