McNally's Trial (6 page)

He shook his head. “Haven’t the slightest, old boy.”

“Nor do I,” I admitted. “And there’s no point in worrying about it until we get more information from Sunny Fogarty. Let’s go home.”

“Banzai!” he cried. “There’s a rerun
of Invasion of the Body Snatchers
on the tube at four o’clock. I don’t want to miss it.”

“Very fitting,” I said approvingly. “Maybe it’ll yield a clue to what’s going on at Whitcomb.”

That evening I brooded in my den, staring at the journal notes I had jotted. The entire mishmash seemed to me
Much Ado About Nothing.
But then, I reflected, if there was chicanery afoot, it might be
As You Like It
to the perpetrator. In either case, it was a comedy, was it not?

I recalled the pater’s admonition to go through the motions but not spend too much time on the Whitcomb affair. I had already disobeyed him and knew I would continue. I was hooked by the puzzle.

Sgt. Al Rogoff of the Palm Beach Police Department—my friend and sometimes collaborator—constantly complains that I overuse the adjective “intriguing.” I suppose I do, but I cannot think of a better word to describe Whitcomb’s increased revenue from the departed and deported.

If the truth be told—a painful necessity—I am a nosy bloke. I do like to stick my schnozz in other people’s business and learn what’s going on. It’s a grievous sin, I admit, but more fun than Chinese checkers and also, on occasion, a good deal more dangerous.

Nothing of any great consequence occurred on Tuesday morning except that I had blueberry pancakes for breakfast. The afternoon was similarly uneventful. I did have my quadriga washed and its gullet filled. But other than that, the day was without excitement.

I finished my two-mile wallow in a placid sea and returned home to dress for the Whitcomb party. It was still warmish in South Florida and I decided on a white dinner jacket: a costume my father insists makes me look like the headwaiter at a Miami stone crab restaurant.

We all gathered for a cocktail before setting out for the bash. Hizzoner was wearing his rather rusty black tuxedo with a pleated white shirt (wing collar) and onyx studs. Of course his cummerbund and tie were black, and the bow was hand-tied. He considered pretied bows a portent of the decline of Western Civilization.

I must confess he looked rather regal in his formal attire, not at all like a mustachioed penguin. But mother was the star. She was absolutely smashing in a long brocaded gown and carried an aqua satin minaudière. Her white curls were a halo and she wore a three-strand, choker of pink pearls. Momsy has a natural high color and that evening she positively glowed: a teenager ready for the prom.

We emptied the martini pitcher and trooped downstairs, laughing for no particular reason. Ursi and Jamie Olson came from the kitchen to tell us how magnificent we all looked and to wish us a wonderful evening.

Father drove his big Lexus with mother sitting alongside him. I followed in my flaming scooter, feeling like the skipper of a dinghy trailing the QE2. I think we were all stimulated by the prospect of attending a lavish and crowded revel. The social season in Palm Beach was just getting under way. This was the first big party and offered an opportunity to shed the doldrums of a too long and too hot summer.

I know I was convinced it was going to be a glorious rollick during which I would meet The Girl of My Dreams (Clara Bow) and be universally admired for my skill in executing the Charleston. I would forget about whatever nonsense was transpiring at Whitcomb Funeral Homes and spend a rompish night obeying Herrick’s command: “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.” That was my firm intention.

One never knows, do one?

T
HE HOME OF SARAH
and Horace, the senior Whitcombs, was a palazzo on North Lake Way. It was an aging edifice somewhat lacking in charm. The most amazing feature was the vegetation. I mean, the lot had to be almost two acres and looked like an arboretum with hedges fifteen feet high. You could hardly
see
the house until you were standing at the front door.

Valet parking had been provided; we surrendered our vehicles and stepped up to a portico topped by a wrought-iron balcony. Awaiting my arrival was Signore Binky Watrous, the tyro Mike Hammer. I blinked when I saw his costume.

The idiot was sockless and wearing white mocs, white trousers, and a white shirt with a cascade of ruffles. Worse, his jacket, cummerbund, and bow tie were red checkered linen, looking as if they had been made from the tablecloth of a cheap Neapolitan restaurant. He should have been carrying an empty Chianti bottle wrapped in raffia with a candle stub stuck in its mouth.

“Fetching?” he asked, smoothing the hideously wide lapels.

“I wish someone would,” I said. “Binky, where did you get that monstrosity?”

“I had it designed especially for me.”

“By whom—the ghost of Liberace? Here is your invitation. I suggest you precede me and for the remainder of the evening let’s pretend we are total strangers to each other.”

“You want me to ask questions?” he said eagerly. “You know, interrogate people? The old third degree.”

“By all means,” I said. “If you can find anyone willing to be seen conversing with Bozo the Clown.”

My parents had already entered. Binky went inside and I waited a few moments, mortified by the appearance of my henchman. He looked as if he’d be right at home on the stage of the Grand Ole Opry—playing a kazoo no doubt.

I walked through the open front door and surrendered my invitation to a uniformed flunky. I stood a moment to look about and then had to step out of the way as more guests continued to arrive. But the interior of that home was worth close inspection.

If the exterior had been charmless, the inside was something else again. Warm elegance is the only way I can describe it. High ceilings, museum-quality parquet floors, walls papered in an antique trompe l’oeil pattern, furnishings at once attractive and selected for comfort. There were some odd decorative touches that caught the eye: a marvelous model of the first motorcar (an 1886 Benz) in a glass display case; a mysterious Cycladic female figurine; a rattan fireplace screen mimicking a peacock’s tail.

There were at least a dozen guests waiting to be received. I took my place at the end of the line and waited patiently. I had expected to be greeted by Sarah and Horace Whitcomb plus son Oliver and daughter-in-law Mitzi. But as the line moved slowly forward I saw that only an oldish gentleman was shaking hands and alongside him, in a wheelchair, was a lady I presumed to be his spouse. There was nothing doddery about either. They spoke animatedly, laughed frequently, and obviously were enlivened by their roles as hosts for this crowded jollification.

“Horace Whitcomb,” he said, smiling and holding out a sinewy hand. “Thank you for coming.”

“Thank you for having me, sir,” I said, shaking that hard paw. “I’m Archy McNally, Prescott’s son.”

“Of course! So nice to meet you.”

“The honor is mine,” I said. “You have a lovely home, Mr. Whitcomb.”

He gave me a wry-crisp grin. “It’s really an ugly heap, isn’t it? My father tore a photo from a magazine and had the architect imitate it.”

“The exterior may be a bit awkward,” I admitted, “but the interior is a sheer delight.”

He was obviously pleased, a tall and slender man with the ramrod posture of a drill instructor. His fine hair was silvered and pale blue eyes were startling against suntanned skin. He had a scimitar nose and there was a network of laugh lines at the corners of his wide mouth. A genial patrician. And something majestic about him.

“That’s very kind of you,” he said. “Perhaps you and I might have a chat later.”

“I’d like that, sir.”

“Meanwhile I want you to meet my dear wife, Sarah, the lady responsible for the sheer delight you mentioned.”

He introduced us and went back to greeting arriving guests. I leaned over the wheelchair and gently pressed the frail hand offered me.

“How good of you to come,” she said in a wispy voice.

“My pleasure, ma’am,” I said. “I understand it’s your birthday.”

She nodded. “But I’m not counting,” she cautioned.

“I apologize for not bringing a gift.”

“Your presence is gift enough,” she said.

I suppose she had uttered that line fifty times during the evening, but I still thought it an extraordinarily gracious thing to say.

She seemed shrunken. The skin of her bare forearms was wrinkled as if she had once weighed many pounds more but the flesh had simply sloughed away. There was a waxen pallor beneath her makeup, and she wore a multicolored turban that covered her entire skull. I suspected she was undergoing chemotherapy and had lost her hair. But her spirit was undaunted.

“Are you married?” she asked me.

“No, ma’am, I am not.”

“Do you want to be?”

“No, ma’am, I do not.”

She laughed and reached up to pat my arm. “I don’t blame you one damned bit,” she said. “Well, you’re a handsome devil. Now go mingle and break a few hearts.”

“Before I do that,” I said, “I must tell you how much I admire the decor of your home. It’s just splendid.”

“Yes,” she said softly, “it
is
beautiful, isn’t it? This home has been my passion. I wanted everything to be perfect”

“You’ve succeeded brilliantly,” I assured her.

She looked longingly at the vast entrance hall, through the lofty archway to the living room. She seemed to be seeing things I had not yet viewed, things no one would ever see and love the way she did.

Her dim eyes glistened. “Thank you,” she said huskily. “Thank you so very, very much.”

I moved away to explore more of the Whitcomb mansion. There was a grand staircase leading to upper floors, but a velvet rope had been stretched to block use by the evening’s guests. I strolled to the enormous living room, pausing occasionally to exchange greetings with friends and acquaintances, kissing a few ladies’ hands because I was in a Continental mood. There was a bar set up along one wall, doing a brisk business.

A superb pine-paneled dining room accommodated the buffet boards presided over by the caterer and her crew. What a feast! I shall not detail the viands offered, in deference to calorie-obsessed readers. Well, just one: broiled chicken livers topped with squares of bacon and sharp cheddar.

The enormous dining table was still in place, surrounded by twenty chairs. Additional small tables and folding chairs, obviously rented, had been placed about so guests would not be forced to eat standing while balancing a full plate and a brimming glass. It was in this banquet hall I found the second of the three bars Sunny Fogarty had promised and ordered a double vodka gimlet, believing it would last me twice as long as a single. Silly boy.

Dancing space was provided in a smaller chamber that appeared to be an informal sitting and TV viewing room. Furniture and rugs had been removed, the planked floor waxed, and a trio tootled away in one corner, playing mostly show tunes and old favorites such as “Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny, Oh!” It was here I found my parents at the third bar, looking about amusedly while sipping what seemed to be Perrier with lime slices.

“Mrs. McNally,” I said, bowing, “may I have the pleasure of this dance?”

“Let me look at my card,” she said, then giggled.

We placed our drinks temporarily on the bar, and father smiled benignly as we went twirling away to the rhythm of “Try a Little Tenderness.” Mother is hardly a sylph but remarkably light on her feet, and I think we justly believed ourselves to be the most graceful couple on the floor.

The tune ended, we rejoined the squire at the bar.

“Well done,” he said as if delivering a judicial opinion. And then to mother: “The next dance is mine. Unless they play something too fast.”

Like “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top”? I wanted to ask—but didn’t of course.

I meandered back to the dining room, which I now thought of as Bulimia Heaven. It was beginning to fill with ravenous guests. I was about to join the famished throng at the buffet when I espied Sunny Fogarty standing alone at the bar. I observed her from afar and concluded she was a handsome woman. Not lovely, not beautiful, but
handsome.
There are fine degrees of female attractiveness, you know.

I moved to her side and she looked at me with a tight smile. “Good evening, Archy,” she said. “So glad you could make it.”

“Wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Thank you for the invitations.”

“I saw Binky,” she said. “Does he always dress like that?”

“Always,” I said sadly. “His sartorial sense is gravely retarded. He once wore spats over flip-flops to a beach barbecue.”

She laughed—which was a relief for she had seemed tense, almost angry.

“I met Sarah and Horace,” I told her. “Lovely people.”

“Yes, they are.”

“She’s quite ill?”

Sunny nodded.

“Cancer?”

She nodded again. “They said it was in remission, but it wasn’t.”

“I thought her a very brave lady.”

“An angel. She’s an angel.”

I said, “I was surprised that Oliver and his wife weren’t also receiving.”

Her bitterness returned. “So like them,” she said. “So selfish. To be late at his mother’s birthday party—that’s not forgivable. They arrived just a few minutes ago.”

“Perhaps they were unavoidably detained,” I suggested.

She looked at me but said nothing.

She was wearing a snazzy tuxedo suit: black satin-lapeled jacket and trousers with side satin stripes. No cummerbund, but she wore a poet shirt of pale pink silk with protruding cuffs of lace. Very debonair. Her only jewelry was a choker of diamonds. They appeared to be of two-carat size at least, and if they were genuine, which I believed they were, it was a costly bauble indeed.

“Sunny,” I said, “are you hungry?”

“I could eat,” she admitted.

“Suppose you grab us two places at a table and I’ll fetch us plates of cholesterol.”

“All right,” she agreed. “But please make mine finger food; I don’t feel like digging into the curried lamb on rice or the beef bourguignonne. While you’re gone, can I get you a drink?”