McNally's luck (27 page)

"Yep," she said, fishing in the hip pocket of her overalls. "I'm glad you reminded me; I thought you might want it for your files. Don't forget to call me tomorrow, sweet."

She handed me a folded envelope, kissed my cheek, and hopped into her dinky car. I waved as she drove away. Then I unfolded the envelope, took out the letter, and read it in the bright sunlight. It was coldly phrased and stated pretty much what Connie had already told me. There were no surprises.

But what shocked was that it had an even right-hand margin and had obviously been written on the same word processor as the Gillsworth letters and Peaches' ransom notes.

I went back into the Pelican Club and used the public phone in the rear of the bar area. I called Al Rogoff but he wasn't in his office, and they refused to tell me where he was. On a hunch, I then phoned Roderick Gillsworth's home and got results.

"Sergeant Rogoff," he said.

"McNally," I said. "You're still there? What on earth are you doing?"

"Reading poetry."

"Gillsworth's? Awful dreck, isn't it?"

"Oh, I don't know," Al said. "Erotic stuff."

"You've got to be kidding," I said. "Gillsworth's poetry is about as erotic as the Corn Laws of England. Which book of his are you reading?"

"I'm not reading a book. I'm going through unpublished poems I found in a locked drawer in his desk. I picked the lock. A piece of cheese. Inside was a file of finished poems. They're dated and all appear to have been written in the past six months or so. And I'm telling you they're hot stuff."

I was flabbergasted. "I don't dig that at all," I told Al. "I've dipped into some of his published things, and believe me they're dull, dull, dull."

"Well, the stuff I've been reading is steamy enough to add a new chapter to Psychopathia Sexu-alis. Maybe he decided to change his style."

"Maybe," I said. "We can talk about that later. Right now I've got something more important."

I told him how the Glorianas were selling psychic profiles by mail, how I tried to prove it a scam by having Consuela Garcia send in a trumped-up letter from a nonexistent woman, how Hertha rejected the fake application, and how her missive was identical in format to the Gillsworth-Willigan letters.

"That does it," Rogoff said decisively. "I'll send the rookie to the Glorianas' office to see if he can confirm that they own a Smith Corona word processor. And instead of one undercover cop, I'll plant a couple, man and woman, out at the Jo-Jean Motel and put round-the-clock surveillance on Cabin Four. And if the brass will give me the warm bodies, I'll stake out the Glorianas' apartment."

"That should do it," I said. "Al, Frank Gloriana carries a gun. Lydia Gillsworth told me."

"Thanks for the tip. Tell me, Archy, how do you figure the medium knew the letter you sent her was a phony?"

"I don't know," I said. "I just don't know."

I went back to the bar to sign the tab for lunch.

"Mr. Pettibone," I said abruptly, "do you believe in ghosts?"

He stared at me a moment through his square specs. "Why, yes, Mr. McNally," he said finally. "As a matter of fact, I do."

"Surely not the Halloween variety," I said. "The kind who wear white sheets and go 'Whooo! Whooo!' "

"Well, perhaps not those," he admitted. "But I do believe some of the departed return as spirits and are able to communicate with the living."

I had always considered the Pelican Club's major-domo to be the most practical and realistic of men, so it was startling to learn he accepted the existence of disembodied beings. "Have you ever spoken to the spirit of a deceased person?" I asked him.

"I have indeed, Mr. McNally," he said readily. "As you know, I am an active investor in the stock market. On several occasions the spirit of Mr. Bernard Baruch, the successful financier, has appeared to me. We meet on a park bench and he gives me advice on which stocks to buy and what to sell."

"And do you follow the ghost's advice?"

"Frequently."

"Do you win or lose?"

"Invariably I profit. But Mr. Baruch's spirit has a tendency to sell too soon."

"Thank you for the information, Mr. Pettibone," I said gravely and left him a handsome tip.

I drove home, garaged the Miata, and entered the house through the kitchen. Ursi and Jamie Olson were both working on a rack of lamb dinner we were to have that evening. They looked up as I came in.

"Ursi," I said without preamble, "do you believe in ghosts?"

"I do, Mister Archy," she said at once. "I frequently speak to my dear departed mother. She's very happy."

"Uh-huh," I said and turned to Jamie. "And how about you?" I asked. "Do you believe in ghosts?"

"Some," he said.

That evening during the family cocktail hour I asked my mother the same question.

"Oh my, yes," she said airily. "I have never seen them myself, but I have been told by people whose opinion I respect that spirits do exist. Mercedes Blair's husband died last year, you know, and she says that ever since he passed, their house has been haunted by his ghost. She knows because she always finds the toilet seat up. No matter how many times she puts the cover down, she always finds the seat up when she returns. She says it must be her dead husband's spirit."

I looked to my father. His hirsute eyebrows were jiggling up and down, a sure sign that he was stifling his mirth. But when he spoke, his voice was gentle and measured.

"Mother," he said, "I would not accept the testimony of Mrs. Blair as proof positive of the existence of disembodied spirits. It's similar to saying, 'I saw a ghost last night. It ran down the alley and jumped over a fence. And if you don't believe me, there's the fence.' "

I asked: "Then you don't believe the spirits of the departed return to earth and communicate with the living?"

He answered carefully. "I think when people report seeing a ghost or talking to a spirit, they sincerely believe they are telling the truth. But I suggest what they are actually reporting is a dream, a fantasy, and the spirit they allegedly see is a memory, a very intense memory, of a loved one who is deceased."

"But what if the spirit they claim to see is a historical character, someone they couldn't possibly have known?"

"Then they are talking rubbish," my father said forthrightly. "Utter and complete rubbish."

I retired to my lair after dinner to add entries to my journal, which was beginning to rival the girth of War and Peace, and to sort out the day's confused impressions.

I consider myself a fairly lucid chap. Oh, I admit I might exhibit a few moments of pure lunacy now and then, but generally the McNally hooves are solidly planted on terra firma. But now I was faced with a mystery that baffled me. How did Hertha Gloriana know Connie's letter was a hoax? And how was the medium, speaking in the voice of Lydia Gillsworth, able to shriek "Caprice!" and identify a clue that had already intrigued Sgt. Al Rogoff?

It was possible that Hertha had a genuine psychic gift. But if you admitted the existence of such a specialized talent, then you had to allow that the actuality of spirits was also conceivable, communication with the dead tenable, and all the other phenomena of the psi factor similarly capable of realization, including ESP, psychokinesis, telepathy, precognition, and perhaps, eventually, discussing the International Monetary Fund with dolphins.

That afternoon I had discovered that several perfectly normal citizens believed in ghosts and by extension, I supposed, in other manifestations of the supernatural. Could they be right and my father's cogent disbelief wrong?

I went to bed that night and with my eyes firmly shut I willed with all my strength for the appearance of Carole Lombard's ghost.

She never showed up.

Like most people I consider Monday the first day of the week. It is actually the second, of course, but Sunday is usually observed as a day of rest, a faux holiday, a twenty-four-hour vacation to be devoted to worship, a big midday meal, and just lollygagging about and recharging one's batteries.

But that particular Sunday turned out to be something entirely different. It deepened my confusion and increased my suspicion that events were moving so swiftly it was impossible to cope. Men who have been in battle have described it to me as disorder in the nth degree. Before that Sunday concluded, I felt I deserved a combat ribbon.

It began when I overslept and went downstairs to find that my parents had already departed for church. And the Olsons had left for their church. So I fixed my own matutinal meal, succeeding in dropping a buttered English muffin onto the floor. But-ter-side down, inevitably-another puzzle I've never solved. I also knocked over a full cup of coffee. That brunch did not augur a successful Sabbath.

The phone rang as I was mopping up the spilt coffee and I really didn't want to answer, thinking it was sure to be calamitous news. But I girded my loins (how on earth does one gird a loin?) and picked up after the sixth ring.

"The McNally residence," I said.

"Archy?" Meg Trumble said. "Good morning!"

You could have knocked me over with a palm frond. "Good morning, Meg," I said. "What a pleasant surprise."

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"If you must know, I'm wiping up spilled coffee."

She laughed. "That doesn't sound like much fun. Archy, Hertha Gloriana is with me, and she'd like to speak to you."

"Sure," I said. "Put her on."

"No, no. Not on the telephone. Can you come over to my place?"

"Now?"

"Please. We're going to do some aerobics, and then we plan to go to the beach. Could you make it soon, Archy? It's important."

"All right," I said. "Half an hour or so."

The day was muddling up nicely, and as I spun the Miata toward Riviera Beach I didn't even want to imagine what lay ahead. I knew only that it would add to my flummoxization-and if there isn't such a word, there should be.

I walked into quite a scene for an early Sunday afternoon. The two women were wearing exercise costumes of skin-tight gleaming spandex; Meg in a cat-suit of silver and Hertha in a purple leotard and pink biking shorts. Apparently they had finished their workout, for both were sheened with sweat and still panting slightly. And they were sipping glasses of orange sludge.

"Carrot juice, Archy?" Meg asked.

I fought nausea valiantly. "Thank you, no," I replied. "I have no desire to see in the dark."

"A cold beer?"

"Thank you, yes."

Hertha patted the couch cushion beside her, and I sat there, a bit gingerly I admit. I had an uneasy feeling of having intruded into a ladies' locker room. I had been invited but couldn't rid myself of feeling an interloper.

Meg brought me a popped can of Bud Light, which I accepted gratefully.

"Hertha," she said commandingly, "tell him."

The medium turned to me. She seemed uncommonly attractive at that moment, her fair skin flushed from exercise and something in her eyes I had never seen before. It was more than happiness, I thought; it was triumph.

"It's about Peaches," she said to me. "I had another vision. Remember I told you I saw her in a plain room? It's in a small building, like a cabin. I think it may be at an old-fashioned motel."

I took a gulp of my beer. "That's interesting," I said. "Did you see where the motel is located?"

"I'm sure it's in the West Palm Beach area."

"Tell him what else you saw, Hertha," Meg ordered.

The medium hesitated a second. "Perhaps I shouldn't be revealing this," she said, "but it troubles me and you did ask for my help. I hope you will keep it confidential."

"Of course."

"I saw my husband, Frank, in the room with the cat."

The two women looked at me expectantly. That they were attempting to manipulate me I had no doubt. There was no alternative but to play along. I'm good at acting the simp; it just seems to come naturally.

"That is a shocker," I said. "What on earth do you suppose he was doing there?"

"I don't know," she wide-eyed me. "Do you suppose he had anything to do with the catnapping?"

The greatest actress since Duse.

"Why don't you ask him?" I suggested.

"I've got to be completely honest with you, Archy," she started-and my antennae stiffened. When people say that to you it's time to button your hip pocket to make certain your wallet is secure. "Frank has an awful temper," she went on. "I'm afraid of angering him. He can become quite physical."

"The brute beats her," Meg said wrathfully.

"Not exactly," Hertha said. "But he has struck me on occasion."

I was terribly tempted to remark that if she was truly a seeress she would foreknow the blows in time to duck. I said nothing of the sort of course. I said, "Dreadful."

"So you see I can't ask Frank about it," the medium said sorrowfully. "But I hope it may help you recover the cat."

"I'm sure it will," I said. "And I thank you for being so cooperative."

I finished my beer (sadly, only an 8-oz. can) and bid the ladies adieu. They were both looking at me thoughtfully when I left the apartment.

I drove home slowly, reflecting on what I had just been told. It was obvious the two women had compared notes, and Hertha now knew the original reason I had given her for wanting to find Peaches was false. She was aware the cat had been snatched and I had been employed to find it. That much was clear.

What wasn't quite so apparent was how she knew the missing feline was presently incarcerated in a motel cabin. Either she was telling the truth and had seen the cat and Frank in a psychic vision or she had overheard conversation at home revealing the cat's whereabouts and Frank's guilt.

But then I realized how she knew was unimportant. What was vital was that she was intent on implicating her husband. The story of the physical abuse she suffered at his hands might or might not be true. But I felt Hertha had a deeper motive for wanting her spouse apprehended and perhaps tucked away for an appreciable period in the clink.