McNally's luck (33 page)

Father and I were silent. Rogoff was correct. Irma Gloriana had concocted a defense that just might work. If she told her story to judge and jury with all the sincere forcefulness of which I knew she was capable, she had a better than fifty-fifty chance of strolling out of the courtroom a free woman with no worries other than how long it might take to probate Roderick's will and collect his millions.

"It stinks," I said wrathfully and stood to refill our glasses.

"Counselor," Rogoff said, "isn't it true that under Florida law a murderer can't inherit anything from the victim?"

Father nodded. "Anyone who unlawfully and intentionally kills or participates in procuring the death of a decedent is not entitled to any benefits from the decedent's estate whatsoever."

"Then somehow," Al said determinedly, "I don't know how, but somehow I'm going to nail that lady. She's guilty as hell, and I don't want to see her getting one thin dime."

As I had listened to all the foregoing, my originally dim vision that had gained an outline and then taken on substance now suddenly snapped into sharp focus, and I knew it was time to display the McNally genius. If, in what follows, you feel I acted like a hambone, you must realize it was my Big Dramatic Moment. I could not let it pass without exhibiting my histrionic gifts, inherited, no doubt, from my grandfather, the famed burlesque comic.

I was still standing and addressed both men. "There is something you should know," I said portentously, "and I believe it may help the cause of justice. Otto didn't kill Lydia Gillsworth. And Irma didn't. Roderick murdered his wife."

Their jaws didn't sag, but Rogoff spluttered brandy and father looked at me sadly as if he finally realized his Number One (and only) son had gone completely bonkers.

"Impossible, Archy," he said hoarsely. "You and I sat in this room and heard Roderick talk to his wife. She was alive when he left here."

I made a great pretense of looking at my watch. "Damn!" I said. "It's getting late, and I promised

Binky Watrous I'd call. May I use your phone, father?"

He glared at me. "You wish to make a personal call at this moment? Can't it wait?"

"No, sir," I said. "It's important."

"Very well," he said huffily. "Make it short."

I used the phone on his desk, punched out a number, waited half a mo.

"Binky?" I said. "Archy McNally here. How are you feeling? Glad to hear it. Listen, how about dinner tomorrow night at the Pelican Club. Great! About eightish? Good-o. See you then, Binky."

I hung up and turned to the others. "Who did I just speak to?" I asked them.

They looked at each other, silent a moment, then Rogoff said, "All right, I'll play your little game. You talked to a guy named Binky."

"Binky Watrous is in Portofino," I said gently. "He's been there for the past two weeks and expects to stay another two. I was talking to a dead phone."

They caught it immediately, of course. The sergeant smote his forehead with a palm, then rose and began to walk in agitated circles. "Snookered," he said, his voice a gargle. My father groaned once, then shook his head in wonderment-at his own credulity, I suspect.

"Father," I said, "you and I didn't hear Roderick speak to his wife; we heard him talking, and that's all we heard. We just assumed his wife was alive and conversing with him."

He sighed heavily. "All my professional life I've sought never to assume anything, and yet I allowed myself to be deceived by Gillsworth. The man was a consummate actor."

"He had to be," I pointed out. "His fate depended on it. I reckon he killed his wife about an hour before he showed up here. He deliberately murdered her so he could inherit her wealth and marry Irma, just as the sergeant suggested. He set the grandfather clock an hour ahead and pushed it over to stop it. Then he put on fresh clothes and came to our house."

"Wait a minute," Rogoff said, sitting down again. "If you've got it right, then Lydia arrived home an hour before Roderick told you she did. But Irma Gloriana told me that Lydia had stayed late at the seance."

"That's easy," I said. "Irma lied to you. She was setting up an alibi for Roderick. And her price for lying was the holographic will. She made him pay in advance."

"Yes," my father said, "that's credible."

Rogoff swore a horrible oath. "I suspected that guy from the start," he said wrathfully. "The spouse is always the first choice in a homicide case. But I couldn't get around that phone call he made from here. How did you get on to the dead phone trick, Archy?"

"I really don't know," I confessed. "Maybe it's because I'm such a scamster myself-only when the occasion demands it, you understand."

"We were used," my father said angrily. "Roderick Gillsworth used us."

"That's right, sir," I agreed. "His attorney and his attorney's son-perfect witnesses to confirm his alibi. We were an important part of his plot."

Rogoff had been reflecting on my reconstruction of the murder. "Hold on," he said suddenly. "You say Roderick killed his wife and then changed his clothes. I'll buy that because his clean duds helped convince me he was innocent. But what did he do with the bloodstained clothes? We searched his entire house the moment we got there. No bloody clothes. He didn't have time to burn them or dump them somewhere. So what did he do with them?"

I didn't know then and if I live a millennium I don't think I'll ever know why I said what I did.

"Caprice!" I almost shouted. "Did you search Lydia's car, Al?"

He stared at me. "I told you I felt the engine block to test the heat, and I stuck my head inside the car to see how long the air conditioning had been off. But I didn't search the trunk." He stood up abruptly. "I think I'll do it right now. I've still got the keys to the house and garage. It's just possible. ."

"I'll come along," I said.

"May I join you?" my father asked.

Al pulled on his slicker and went out to his pickup. I took my big multicolored umbrella. My father donned his rain jacket. He and I ran out to the Lexus, and we followed Rogoffs truck southward to the Gillsworth home. We went slowly, for the roads were hubcap deep, and the rain showed no sign of lessening.

We pulled into the Gillsworth driveway, got out, and I opened my umbrella. Before it became soaked through, the sergeant had unlocked the garage door and lifted it up. We all crowded in, and Al switched on the light. The gray Bentley nestled close to the white Caprice. There was something ineffably sad about those two silent, empty cars, their owners slain.

Rogoff examined the lock on the trunk of the Caprice. "I can't pick that," he said. "This calls for surgery."

He went out to his pickup and came back with a two-foot crowbar. "Look the other way, gents," he said with heavy jocularity. "Then you can't testify against me." But we watched as, with some difficulty, he jammed the wedge end into the trunk's seal and then leaned all his weight onto the crowbar. The lock popped with a screech of metal. Al lifted the lid and we all pressed close.

It was in plain sight alongside the spare: a blue plastic garbage bag.

"Bingo," Rogoff said softly.

He used the crowbar to pry open the mouth of the bag, then hooked out the contents. We saw skivvies, T-shirt, khaki slacks. And a wadded pair of latex gloves. Everything was darkly blotched with blood.

"He didn't wear much," I observed.

"Did you expect him to put on soup and fish to snuff his wife?" Al said. "It's plenty." He closed the trunk lid with the bag of clothing inside. "I'll use the phone in the house. I need lab technicians on this stuff. I think it'll rgake the case."

"Sure it will," I said. "The clothes will be identified as Roderick's from the laundrymarks, and the blood will be identified as Lydia's. The holographic will and those letters he wrote to Irma will establish motive. Hertha Gloriana told me that Roderick came to the office frequently, and he and Frank would go into a back room to confer. Frank will probably testify that Roderick composed and mailed the threatening letters to his wife. You've got a strong case, Al."

"I concur," my father said. "I believe that when presented with the evidence Archy detailed, the court will make a determination that Roderick Gillsworth murdered his wife. Congratulations, sergeant. You get your wish."

Al was puzzled. "What wish?"

"You didn't want Irma Gloriana to get one thin dime. If it's determined that Roderick did indeed kill his wife, then he is not entitled to any benefits from her estate. And so, even if Irma manages to go free, she will inherit nothing from Roderick."

The sergeant walked out of the garage and turned his face up to the streaming heavens.

"Thank you, God," he said.

I have frequently heard northerners denigrate South Florida because, they say, we have no seasons, meaning there are no radical weather changes from January through December. Actually, Palm Beach has two: the in season and the off-season. Many of our citizens are in residence only from October through May. Then, to escape summer heat and humidity and avoid hurricanes, they scatter to their villas in Antibes, Monte Carlo, St. Tropez, and the Costa del Sol.

But some of us, gainfully employed or not, are content to enjoy the island year-round. I will not claim Palm Beach is a paradise, but it does have its unique charms. Where else in the world would a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow be dropped in the ocean to provide an artificial reef for fish?

So Lady Cynthia Horowitz's Fourth of July party was attended by more than a hundred distinguished permanent residents, most of whom knew each other and were linked by their off-season loyalty to this spit of sand that could be submerged by a thirty-foot storm surge.

It was a black-tie affair, and the ladies welcomed the opportunity to step out of their old tennis togs and into new evening gowns purchased at designer boutiques on Worth Avenue. I had never seen such a profusion of billowing summer silks, and the rainbow of sequins out-glittered the stars.

It was a stupendous bash that was talked about for weeks afterward. In the pool area behind the Horowitz mansion, three service bars had been set up, a six-piece dance band played, and the buffet tables were so heavily laden with exotic (and sclerotic) viands that they were not groaning boards; they whimpered.

This extravaganza had been planned and was overseen by Consuela Garcia, Lady C.'s social secretary, and shortly after the McNally family arrived, I deserted my parents, grabbed a Bellini from the nearest bar, and went looking for Connie. Tucked into the pocket of my dinner jacket was the tennis bracelet. It was, I had decided, a night to make amends.

I found her reading the riot act to the caterer who apparently had failed to provide Amaretto-flavored gateau as promised. I waited until Connie's tirade was completed, and the poor fellow had slunk away in disgrace, his professional competence belittled and his ancestry questioned. Then I approached.

Connie looked absolutely stunning. She was wearing a silver tank dress of metallic knit, and with her long black hair and glorious suntan she presented a vision that made me question my own sanity for giving other women even a glance.

The glance she gave me I can only describe as scathing.

"I do not wish to speak to you," she said coldly.

"Connie, I-"

"Never once did you call."

"Connie, I-"

"You didn't care if I was alive or dead."

"Connie, I-"

"I never want to see you again. Never, never, never!"

"Connie, ai-yi-yi!" I cried. I plucked the gift-wrapped package from my pocket and held it out to her, speaking earnestly and rapidly to forestall interruption. "Nothing you can say to me is worse than what I've told myself. I have acted in a cruel, heartless fashion, and I am ashamed of it. I want you to have this. I know it won't make up for my atrocious conduct, but it is a small symbol of the way I truly feel about you."

She accepted the gift gingerly, looking at me with a slight softening. Then: "This isn't going to make everything right between us. You know that, don't you?"

"Of course," I said. "It is intended as a plea to let me prove to you, by my future actions, how sincerely I regret my past neglect and my resolve to treat you henceforth with the respect and love you so richly deserve. Open it."

She tore the wrapping away, lifted the lid and tissue paper. I saw her lustrous eyes widen. She was so overwhelmed she lapsed into her mother tongue.

"Por Dios!" she shouted. "Magnifico!"

A warm abrazo was my reward.

She insisted on wearing the bracelet immediately.

It needed adjustment, but she pushed it up almost to her elbow and vowed she would never remove it. Never, never, never!

Then we discussed plans. She would have to remain after the fireworks display, scheduled for midnight. In fact, her presence was required until most of the guests had departed and the debris cleaned up.

"I probably won't be able to get away until two in the morning," she said. "Can you wait for me, Archy?"

"I can," I said. "Gladly. But I fear I won't be able to resist those pitchers of Bellinis. By two a.m. I may be comatose."

"We can't have that," she said. "Tonight I want you alert and loving and in full possession of your powers. Suppose.we do this: I'll give you my house keys, and you go to my place whenever you like and wait for me. You can even take a nap if you want to. I'll be along as soon as I can get away."

So that's what we did. I left the party, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, even before the fireworks started. I drove to Connie's condo in a high-rise.facing Lake Worth. The balcony of her apartment, on the fourteenth floor, overlooked the lake and provided a fine view of the Flagler Memorial Bridge and all the yacht clubs and marinas on the far shore.

I made myself at home, for I had been there many times before and knew where she kept the Absolut-in the freezer. I went out onto the balcony with a small vodka and watched fireworks being lofted from West Palm Beach. I knew I had a few hours before Connie arrived, and I vowed to drink moderately and stay sober.