McNally's Folly

by Lawrence Sanders

  A good guess, I thought, or the guy did a bit of research. With a lady boasting a public record as long as Desdemona Darling’s, he probably picked up enough info to make her believe he had spent the last fifty years in her boudoir.

  “He charges five hundred bucks a session, Archy, and my wife has him on our weekly payroll.”

  “Did it ever occur to you, or Mrs. Holmes, that the threat is a paper tiger? I mean, how do you know he actually owns a print of the infamous one-reeler?”

  “Because of how the letters are signed,” Holmes said.

  “And how are they signed, sir?”

  “Kirk.”

  “And does Mrs. Holmes know who Kirk is, sir?”

  “Sure. He’s the cameraman who photographed the one-reeler.”

  TWO

  IT WAS TIME TO collect on the lunch I had so generously advanced Connie a few days earlier. If Serge Ouspenskaya was the current rage of Palm Beach society, Connie could fill me in on all the vital statistics. Connie labors as social secretary to Lady Cynthia Horowitz, Palm Beach’s hostess with the mostest. In that capacity, Connie was a one-woman FBI, CIA and yenta who kept an ear to our sandy ground and an eye on those who trod it. She was as vital to my line of work as Tonto was to the Lone Ranger’s.

  Not being the cad I pretend to be, or would like to be, I am not smitten with Connie for purely commercial reasons. She is the one steady love of my life and we have been dating for lo these many years, a relationship I prefer to marriage. However, whenever Connie plays bridesmaid to one of her numerous cousins, she never misses the opportunity to lament, “Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.” Therefore, when I was godfather to my sister’s boy, Darcy, I loudly proclaimed, “Always a godfather, never a god.” Connie, alas, did not appreciate the witticism.

  I called Connie and, happily, she was free for lunch. I told her I would pick her up at high noon and rode down to petty cash to collect on my expenses. Whoever christened that department must have had a precognition of my weekly reparation at the time. I retrieved my Miata from our underground garage, waved a farewell to Herb, our security person, and was off on the first lap of the case I would label in my journal as “Serge the Seer.” And, were I a seer, I would have driven right back to the McNally Building and hid in my cubbyhole until the future bode more auspiciously.

  Lady C, who got her title from her last husband—she had had six and the other five left her nothing but money—lived on ten acres of prime Ocean Boulevard real estate in a faux antebellum mansion that had me humming the theme from Gone with the Wind every time I rode up the drive to collect Connie.

  Getting into the Miata, Connie gave me a peck on the cheek before complaining, “Long time, no see.”

  “We had lunch last Tuesday,” I reminded her.

  “And this is this Tuesday. So where have you been for the week that was?”

  “I’m a working man, Connie, remember?”

  “Just make sure that what you’re working on doesn’t wear high heels and a little something from Victoria’s Secret.”

  “I know a drag queen in West Palm who fits that description.”

  This got a laugh from my good-natured significant other and a pat on my thigh. “It’s been a long time since you’ve been to my place for dinner and...”

  “You miss Archy’s arroz con pollo?” I teased. Connie is more at home with a computer than in the kitchen, so I prepare the meal when invited to dine at Chez Garcia. The arroz con pollo is my specialty.

  “If that’s what they’re calling it these days, I miss it.”

  “Why, you naughty lady,” I scolded.

  Connie is no more than sixty-two inches high and blessed with a generously curvaceous figure. She sports a year-round tan and usually lets her long, glossy black hair float free. In a string bikini the lady is more impressive than the Pyramids. Today she wore a white silk shirt and white denim jeans, neither of which contained a ripple or a wrinkle. We have an open relationship, Connie and I, which works fine until I look at another woman, at which time Connie asks me if I have a burning ambition to be a male soprano. I sometimes think she’s serious.

  There was a goodly crowd at the Pelican Club’s bar as attended to by Simon Pettibone, bartender and major-domo, but surprisingly few members seated in the dining area. Connie and I commandeered our favorite corner table and Priscilla, Simon’s daughter, strutted over to take our order. “Hello, beauty and the beast,” she welcomed us.

  “You can be fired, young lady,” I answered.

  “If I go so does the rest of the family,” Priscilla countered.

  Brother Leroy was our chef and mother Jasmine was our den mother. Without the Pettibones the Pelican would cease to fly.

  “Is that a threat?” I asked.

  “No, Mr. Legree, it’s a promise.”

  “Pay him no mind, Pris,” Connie intervened, “and tell us what delights Leroy has in store for us this afternoon.”

  The day’s special was our favorite grilled grouper sandwich on Italian ciabatta with spicy sweet potato fries and homemade ketchup. This came with a salad of Bibb lettuce, avocado slices, paper-thin slices of red onion and a sun-dried tomato vinaigrette. When Leroy was on, he was on, and when he was off not even little Oliver would have asked for more.

  We ordered vodka gimlets to start and when they arrived I asked Connie what she knew about Serge Ouspenskaya. “Did you get me here to gaze into my eyes or pump me for information?”

  “To gaze into your eyes, of course. But in order to write this off as a business lunch I have to pump you while I gaze.”

  “Did it ever occur to you not to write off at least one of our lunches?”

  As a matter of fact, it had not, but intent on remaining a tenor I didn’t tell her this. Instead I waxed romantically, “You’re all in white today, Connie, just like a bride.”

  “Why Archy, whatever made you think of that?”

  And I learned all I wanted to know about Serge Ouspenskaya.

  Lady Cynthia had treated Palm Beach’s elite to a “who-done-it?” extravaganza just before the holiday season. She hired a theatrical agency in Miami to orchestrate the morbid gala wherein one of the guests is selected to be the murder victim, another designated the murderer. The rest of the crew have to figure out who-done-it, how-done-it and when-done-it. It’s the kind of fete very popular on mystery cruises and hotels that offer solve-it-yourself weekends.

  To gild the lily, as is Lady C’s wont, she decided to hire a seer, allow him to exchange a few words with all the guests and then have him write the names of the victim and the murderer on a piece of paper based on his “reading” of those assembled. The paper would be put into an envelope, sealed and opened after the lesser folks had a chance to solve the crime without divine intervention. Ouspenskaya was the chosen psychic.

  “How did Lady C come to choose Ouspenskaya?” I asked Connie.

  “That’s the weird part of the story, Archy. He chose us.”

  “How so?”

  “Madame decided on the psychic show one day and the next day Ouspenskaya called us. This is not hearsay. I took the call. He introduced himself and said he was calling in answer to Lady Cynthia’s need. I asked him how he knew what Lady Cynthia needed and he laughed and said, ‘Because I’m psychic, of course.’ ”

  “This is on the level, Connie?”

  “Would I lie to the man I love?”

  Love and marriage weigh heavily on Connie Garcia’s mind and Mr. Pettibone’s vodka gimlets only added fuel to the fire. I now nursed mine, fearing that if I ordered another Connie would be asking me to name the day.

  “Naturally, Lady C spread the story up and down Ocean Boulevard, more to drum up advance hype for her party than to further Ouspenskaya’s career.”

  “And did he name the victim and the murderer?”

  Connie raised her hand as if I had asked her to take an oath and said, “He did. Right down to the nitty-gritty of the bizarre plot.”

  Anyone with two brain cells t
hat mesh would have then stated, “Lady C must have told the agency what she was up to and they could have hired Ouspenskaya as an extra added attraction to dazzle Madame and her guests. They had Ouspenskaya call and then they gave him all the information he needed to solve the crime they had set up.”

  Finishing her drink, Connie answered, “Anyone with two brain cells that mesh would have thought of that.”

  Pereant, inquit, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt. Loosely translated, “A pox on those who have uttered our words before us.” The arrival of our food precluded me from having to order two more gimlets, but I did ask Priscilla to bring us two lagers, which Mr. Pettibone keeps on tap and draws with the pomp and circumstance of a true artist. Then we both dug into our meal with gusto. I once told Connie I liked women with hearty appetites and she’s never forgotten it.

  “Everyone had a good time and Madame picked up the tab,” Connie continued with her tale of Lady C’s mystery shindig, “and if the agency had supplied Ouspenskaya on the sly we just accepted it as a perk.” Connie forked a spicy fry before going on. “But there’s more to the story.”

  Knowing I would hate myself in the morning, I blurted, “Anyone with two brain cells that mesh would know that.”

  Ignoring this, Connie went right on. “A week later, Mr. and Mrs. Fairhurst gave a charity ball for their beloved children’s hospital and, having heard of Ouspenskaya, thanks to the write-up Lolly Spindrift gave him in Lolly’s gossip rag, Mrs. Fairhurst hired Ouspenskaya to tell fortunes.”

  When the rich want to act like common folk and have a little fun, they do it in the name of charity. Hence we have Las Vegas Night balls, April in Paris balls, costume balls and come-as-your-favorite-mass-murderer balls. The gentry get to raise a little Cain while raising a lot of cash for worthy causes, charities being the rich folks’ excuse for conspicuous consumption.

  “And Ouspenskaya once again astounded his audience,” I surmised aloud.

  “Did he ever,” Connie said, dabbing at her lips with a paper napkin, the linen variety being unknown to the Pelican Club. “He told a woman that she was troubled over the loss of an expensive object. Amazed, the woman admitted she was, and the object in question was a diamond clip. Ouspenskaya told her she had forgotten to remove the clip from a dress she had placed on a pile destined for the Goodwill people. The woman went right home and guess what?”

  “I can’t imagine,” I said.

  “She came back to the party a half hour later waving the found piece of jewelry and kowtowing to Ouspenskaya as if he were the Wizard of Oz.”

  And that’s just what I was beginning to think Serge Ouspenskaya was—the quintessential Wizard of Oz. But without Toto to pull aside the curtain to reveal him for the charlatan he probably was, I would have to go it alone. My pooch, Hobo, wouldn’t leave his gabled doghouse long enough to assist me. “And a star was born,” I proclaimed.

  “Launched by Lady Cynthia Horowitz, who is poised for yet another launching before you can say abracadabra.”

  “Now what?”

  Hoisting her glass of lager in a mock toast, Connie laughed. “Buzz Carr, the aspiring actor. Remember him? It rhymes with star and don’t you forget it.”

  “I hope you don’t mean that muscle-brained delinquent.”

  “None other. And, Archy, does that boy have muscles in all the right places.”

  Why is it always embarrassing when a woman refers to a man’s sexual attractions, but never vice versa? Women’s libbers have a point, but don’t tell my pater I said that. Phrasing it as unkindly as possible, I asked, “Is she still shacking up with Phil Meecham’s ex?”

  “Really, Archy. Buzz is Madame’s protégé. And he was the ex-pilot of Phil Meecham’s yacht.”

  “The lady draws more protégés than a hole in a window screen draws flies. There was the tennis pro protégé, the golf pro protégé, the masseur, the mystic and the maniac. And need I remind you that all of Meecham’s pretty-boy employees are required to pull a double shift—pun intended. Good Lord, Connie, Buzz is twenty-five at most and Lady C is just shy of eighty.”

  Looking around the room furtively, Connie whispered, “The very mention of Lady C’s age could cost me my job, Archy—and she admits to seventy.”

  “Which makes her seventy-five.”

  “As long as she signs my weekly check, she’s seventy.”

  “And just how does she hope to make a thespian out of the ex-yachtsman?”

  “By buying him a theater. How else?”

  “What?”

  “Keep your shirt on, Archy. I’m exaggerating—but not much.” When gossiping about her lady boss, Connie is like a locomotive crawling out of the station, gradually accelerating to full speed. “Madame has become a major patron of our community theater. She wrote them a large check which got her elected Creative Director. This means she can decide on what play goes up next and who gets the leading roles, subject to approval by the board members.”

  “And if one of them gives her a thumbs-down, she’ll cut off the community theater like a disinherited black sheep,” I said with contempt. “What play does she have in mind?”

  “Arsenic and Old Lace,” Connie announced with glee.

  That was a revelation. The two old maids were the stars of the play but in the film version Cary Grant had all but chewed up the scenery as their adoring nephew. “Oh,” I groaned. It was me who had once said, begrudgingly to be sure, that in his yachting cap Buzz Carr resembled Cary Grant aboard the True Love, proving that Lady C didn’t have an original thought beneath her tinted locks.

  “Indigestion?” Connie asked.

  “No,” I assured her. “I was just thinking that Madame is in a macabre mood this season. First a ‘who-done-it?’ party and now arsenic in the elderberry wine and bodies in the window seat.”

  Excited, Connie leaned toward me and gushed, “I bet you’ll never guess who’s going to play one of the old maids.”

  Having just come from a meeting with Richard Holmes and knowing what actress of the right vintage, was currently gracing our town, I didn’t have to be a psychic to make an educated guess. But Holmes had made me swear not to tell a soul, including and especially his wife, that I was investigating Ouspenskaya on his behest or that I had even talked with Holmes about his wife. When I answered, “Lady Cynthia herself,” I didn’t know that I was indeed poaching on Ouspenskaya’s turf.

  “Desdemona Darling,” Connie cried. “And I met her.”

  “No?” I articulated in awe. Buzz may look like Cary Grant, but when it comes to chewing the scenery, Archy has no equal.

  “It’s not for publication, which means not even Lolly knows, and if you breathe a word of this I’ll kill you, Archy McNally.”

  And if I breathe a word of something else, Holmes will kill me. But how long can I hold my breath before an acute lack of oxygen does me in? I found myself in a no-win situation, which is the plight of a discreet inquirer in a town where “show but don’t tell” is a practicing religion.

  “How did Madame snare Desdemona Darling?” I wanted to know.

  “Desdemona and her husband are here for the season and she and Lady C go back to the days before the big war. They both started out as models, you know.”

  Lady C was indeed a model. A unique one, so the story goes. She has a face that could scare the bejesus out of a voodoo witch doctor and a body that could safely be called the forerunner of Viagra.

  “So when Madame told Desdemona about her plans for Buzz,” Connie said, “Desdemona said she would be glad to lend her name to the project.”

  “Has Desdemona Darling met Buzz?” I asked, fearing the worst.

  “Oh, yes, Archy. That’s when she agreed to do the show.”

  I wondered if the board of the Palm Beach Community Theater was aware that those two muses of perpetuity—their patron and star—were hell-bent on turning Arsenic and Old Lace into Desire Under the Poincianas.

  I drove Connie back to Tara and then headed home. Our castle is a tall Tudor
ish affair on Ocean Boulevard with a leaky copper mansard roof. My suite is on the third floor, so I am the one blessed when the angels weep, as mother once explained rainy days to me when I was just a kid.

  I parked on the graveled turnaround in front of our three-car garage, careful not to block the entrance to the left-hand bay where my father always keeps his big Lexus. The middle space was occupied by an old, wood-paneled Ford station wagon, used mostly for shopping, including numerous trips to nurseries in search of yet another variety of begonia for mother’s garden. Hobo waddled over to give my trouser cuffs a sniff and, satisfied that I was a member of the household, he waddled back to his manse.

  The Ford was missing and I was hoping our housekeeper, Ursi, was out with mother and not Ursi’s husband, Jamie, who was our jack-of-all-trades houseman and the man I wanted to have a word with. If Connie was the doyen chronicler of Palm Beach society, Jamie Olson was her below-stairs counterpart. However, our Jamie was as communicative as Harpo Marx. But he had an encyclopedic knowledge of local scandals, past, present and about to occur. His informants were the Palm Beach servants, who enjoyed trading tidbits of gossip about those they served.

  I found our Swedish-born houseman seated in the kitchen, enjoying a mug of black coffee. “Jamie,” I said, taking a seat opposite him at the table, “have you heard of a psychic named Serge Ouspenskaya?”

  “Uh-huh,” he answered.

  “What do you hear?”

  “He might be the real thing.”

  Six words in a row. I was making progress. “Says who?”

  “Max.”

  “Who’s Max, Jamie?”

  “Mrs. Ventura’s gardener.”

  “Who’s Mrs. Ventura, Jamie?”

  “The lady who lost the diamond clip that Ouspenskaya found.”

  As you can see, talking to Jamie Olson is like playing a one-armed bandit. You have to feed it a lot to get back very little. Having been down this road before, I kept priming the pump.