McNally's Folly

by Lawrence Sanders

  “Accident, according to your boss.”

  “Either way, sir, I hope Mrs. Marsden gets back real soon.”

  SEVENTEEN

  THE PELICAN CLUB WAS practically empty except for a few stragglers who had lingered over their lunches. Mr. Pettibone was sitting on a bar stool studying the latest stock quotes and Priscilla, looking ravishing in a red frock that resembled a sarong with shoulder straps, was setting the tables. “You’re too early for dinner and too late for lunch,” she informed us. “Take your pick but take your leave.”

  “Lunch is served till three,” I told her. “It’s a house rule.” I steered Al to my favorite corner table and Priscilla reluctantly followed us.

  “They broke a few rules at your fancy ball last night, Mr. Director, unless a ‘suspicious death’ is what’s happening on the ocean side of the A1A.”

  “Suspicious death?” I said. “Where did you hear that?”

  “It came over the local Miami TV channel on a newsbreak about an hour ago. My first society party and I knocked ’em dead with my presence.” Like Connie, Priscilla was perturbed by the news of Richard Holmes’s unnatural death and her glib chatter did little to hide it. “I see you’re tight with the fuzz. Is that for protection or is he going to give you the third degree over your victuals?”

  “I thought I saw you in that sea of faces last night,” Al said. “What’s your role?”

  “I know I saw you, Sergeant, and I was going to be makeup artist to the stars,” Priscilla answered.

  “What do you mean was?” I broke in.

  “I take it the show will go dark before we have a chance to turn on the lights,” Priscilla explained.

  “Sorry, but you take it wrong,” I said. “The show will go on and I hope you’re still on board, Pris.”

  “Is the widow still on board?”

  “She is. The old gal is made of true grit,” I told her.

  “Or there’s less to her grief than meets the eye,” Priscilla observed. “I’d say the play is jinxed, so I’ll have to reconsider your offer.”

  “I doubt if Henry Lee Wilson will back out,” I teased.

  “I don’t need to powder his nose to keep him interested. Now what are you having? It’s one minute before three, so make it snappy.”

  When lunching with Al Rogoff we didn’t have to look at the menu to place our order. Burgers, medium rare, along with Leroy’s fries, which are made by peeling and slicing potatoes, not reaching into the freezer, and two drafts. “Could Leroy put together a mixed green salad to go with that?” I ask Priscilla.

  “With Thousand Island dressing,” Al added.

  Watching Priscilla’s trim stern withdrawing, Al observed, “You know, Archy. She’s got a point there.”

  “I would say she has several points, Al.”

  “More curves than points, pal, but that’s not what I mean. She said the actress dame might not be as upset over her husband’s death as she pretends to be and now you tell me that she ain’t dropping out of the show. Seems odd to me.”

  I nodded in agreement. “Ouspenskaya is advising her to stick with it. He predicts a new career for the lady.”

  “At her age?”

  “Jessica Tandy got her Oscar when she was eighty,” I informed Al.

  “Has this Desdemona ever won an Oscar?”

  “No, Al. Her appeal was more to the eye than the ear.”

  “What’s in it for Ouspenskaya if the show doesn’t get canceled?” Al asked.

  “I had the same thought. I think he doesn’t want to see Desdemona fly back to California with her husband in an urn. There are also several other ladies, including Lady Cynthia, who are with the show and all of them are Ouspenskaya’s faithful followers. Why break up the gang? Besides, Desdemona still hasn’t found her lost work of art. She’s a cash cow.” Before I had a chance to withdraw the unfortunate analogy, Priscilla brought us our brews in pilsners, each with a perfect two-inch topping of white froth.

  “Here’s mud in your eye,” Al said, hoisting the glass with a beefy paw. One sip and the pilsner was half empty—or half full if you happen to be an optimist. I’m a firm believer in Murphy’s Law. Anything that can go wrong, will. For those who disagree I have two words: Titanic and Hindenburg.

  “I think Ouspenskaya told Desdemona about the phone call he got from her husband, threatening to stop financing Desdemona’s patronage.”

  “Before we go into that, Archy, tell me how this Ouspenskaya knew about the poison.”

  “I wish I could. All I know is what Connie told me this morning.” Here I repeated, almost verbatim, Connie’s words.

  “And you’re sure about the times of those calls?”

  “Positive,” I answered. “The nine o’clock call is a matter of electronic verification, not someone’s word. You think the guy has a shill at the station?”

  Al shook his head. “Check this out, Archy. The medical examiner got in about eight this morning. He went to work and reported the results of his autopsy to us at nine, just about the time the actress was giving her statement to the press outside the station house.”

  That not only gave me pause, it also did permanent damage to what was left of my sanity, leaving me bothered and bewildered if not bewitched. “Are you saying Ouspenskaya knew about the poison before the police?”

  “Just about,” Al said. “So maybe he is psychic. It ain’t impossible.”

  It was more bravado than confidence that had me saying, “Or he helped Holmes meet his maker.”

  “And then announced it the next morning?”

  “The guy is nervy, Al. Was the arsenic in the wine?”

  “Who knows? It was in Richard Holmes, that’s for sure. They say the stuff is quick-acting and the wine was the last thing he downed before he expired, right? Hence, we go by the theory that it was in the wine.”

  Priscilla arrived with our mixed greens in a huge teak salad bowl, two salad plates and a bottle of Kraft’s Thousand Island dressing. Leroy usually disguises his store-bought dressings in a store-bought cruet but I guess latecomers should be happy with what they get.

  Priscilla put three shakers on our table, announcing, “Salt, pepper, arsenic,” and fled.

  “Some sense of humor,” Al griped.

  I helped myself to the greens before Al got his hands on the bottle of dressing and deluged our salad. “Where does one get arsenic, Al?”

  “Where do kids get assault weapons to take out their history class? It’s a controlled substance but so is marijuana. It’s in rat poison and products sold to clean out wasp nests and things like that.”

  In spite of the subject matter I applied a few dabs of dressing to my salad and dug in, not realizing how hungry I was until I did so. Pop dressings, like pop music, are irresistible.

  “I’m more interested in how it got in the victim’s glass than in how the murderer came to possess it,” Al continued.

  “So you think it was murder?”

  “What do you think, pal?”

  “I agree.”

  “And you think Ouspenskaya is suspect numero uno?” Al finished the salad on his plate and I told him to take what was left in the bowl and he did. Al Rogoff is not shy.

  “Look at it this way,” I said. “Holmes hires me to prove Ouspenskaya is a phony and expose him. Ouspenskaya is aware of this for reasons I have yet to learn. Next, Holmes calls Ouspenskaya yesterday morning and tells him he will no longer finance his wife’s quest for a can of film some joker claims to possess.”

  “So he knocks off Holmes with poison,” Al picked up my story, “and then he calls Lady Cynthia the next morning to tell her all about it. You have to do better than that, pal. And how did he get the arsenic in Holmes’s glass? According to Lady Cynthia and Desdemona Darling, Ouspenskaya was nowhere near Holmes when they passed out the wine.”

  Priscilla was once again upon us with our order of burgers and fries and a bonus helping of kosher dills and pickled cherry peppers. I asked her to bring us two more drafts.
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  “Did they say who was near Holmes?” I asked.

  Al put down the ketchup long enough to dig a crumpled piece of paper out of his pants pocket. “Your friend Binky. Your girl, Connie. Some guy named Joe Anderson. Elizabeth Fitzwilliams and a Buzz Carr. They were in the front row of spectators, along with the victim.”

  That tallied with my list except for Buzz, but he had been up front with Lady Cynthia along with Binky, Connie and Joe, so it was only natural that he ended up in the front row and you didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that Fitz was there because Buzz was there. “Did Lady Cynthia tell you she served Holmes the wine?”

  “She did, but how do you know?”

  “Joe Anderson told me. He was standing next to Holmes. He’s our mail person at McNally and Son, in case you don’t know.”

  “Don’t tell me he’s in your show, too?”

  “He plays the old codger the ladies try to poison. How’s that for a plot?”

  “Like Hamlet, Archy. A play within a play. But that’s a good piece of info. The ladies didn’t know exactly who was standing where.”

  “The girl, Fitzwilliams, was standing on Holmes’s other side. They call her Fitz, by the way.”

  “And you saw the ladies pour the wine?”

  “Like everyone else, I was watching them, Al, but I wasn’t scrutinizing them. I’m sure you remember the patio was in semidarkness thanks to those lanterns, but even with that disadvantage someone would have noticed if either of them had deliberately emptied a vial of poison into one of the glasses. And how could they know which glass Holmes would take? They put four or five glasses on their trays and moved out into the crowd. People picked their own glass, they weren’t told which one to take.”

  “If we put Ouspenskaya on a back burner and forget about how the arsenic got in that glass, who else do you think had it in for Holmes?” Al proposed.

  It didn’t take me a nanosecond to respond, “Desdemona Darling, because Holmes threatened to cut off her cash flow. Then there’s Buzz Carr. He’s counting on the show to help his nonexistent career and he’s currently shacked up with Lady Cynthia, who’s the driving force behind this season’s community theater. He would want to protect Ouspenskaya to keep his patron and the show’s star happy. But he’s a long shot, Al. The guy is a hustler but I don’t think he’d have the nerve to say boo to a goose.”

  Al polished off the last of his fries and forked up a cherry pepper. “Suppose the wrong guy got the right glass. Who else in that crowd was carrying baggage?”

  “Who wasn’t? And you’re going to love this, Al. Low sex in high society. Buzz is getting it off with Fitz so Lady C would not lose sleep if Fitz suddenly vanished. Vance Tremaine is also sniffing after Fitz and his wife doesn’t like it. William Ventura is also hot for Fitz and Arnie Turnbolt is hot for William.”

  “Poor Fitz,” Al mumbled.

  “If you saw her, Al, you’d join the bread line. Did I mention that Hanna Ventura and her stepson, William, are usually at each other’s throats and that Buzz used to live on Phil Meecham’s yacht before Lady C lured him into her nest?”

  “You’ve got more going on backstage than onstage,” Al said, spearing a pickle with his fork.

  “It’s not unusual for a theatrical company,” I informed him. “It keeps them on their toes like in the ballet.”

  Al produced a toothpick and began chomping on it. Gauche, but it was preferable to the butt of a used cigar. This, incidentally, triggered a craving for a cigarette but I had left my box of English Ovals in the Miata. “You have no idea how Ouspenskaya knows what he knows?” Al mused.

  “My theory is that he operates with a network of spies who report to him, like gossip columnists use stringers and press agents.”

  Al responded to this with a wave of his toothpick. “He arrived in town a few months ago. Are you saying he came with his own network of spies? Forget it, pal.”

  I would be happy to forget it if I had another theory to go on. “How are the police going to proceed on this one?” I probed, hoping for some inside poop.

  “We’re going to begin by questioning everyone who was on the scene when Holmes was done in. You’re on the list, pal, so don’t leave town.”

  “You have my word. And I think you should know that Lady Cynthia is issuing a press release saying she and Desdemona think the poison got into Holmes’s glass by accident. An unsterilized glass supplied by the caterer.”

  Rather than laugh, Al said, “You know what, Archy? After hashing out everything we know about this case, that could be the most plausible explanation.”

  I drove the Miata directly home and, yes, I lit an English Oval along the way. Once in my penthouse lodgings, I dialed the number Mrs. Trelawney had given me to contact James Ventura. A very efficient secretary told me I had reached the offices of Ventura Enterprises. That could mean it was anything from a booking parlor to the home-away-from-home of a millionaire who liked to get away from home. When I gave her my name I was immediately connected to James Ventura.

  “My father said you wanted to see me, sir.”

  “I do, but I’m not looking for a part in your show,” he assured me.

  I like a man with a sense of humor to equal my own. “All the roles are spoken for, sir, and both your wife and your son portray policemen.”

  “Does that mean Hanna can’t show her legs?” he laughed.

  Neither can your son, I wanted to answer, but I didn’t want to test the limits of Ventura’s sense of humor. “We’ll see what we can do about that. How may I help you, sir?”

  “You can start by calling me James, but never Jim or Jimmy.”

  “James it is. How may I help you, James?”

  “Nothing I can discuss on the phone, I’m afraid. Are you free for lunch tomorrow?”

  “I can make myself free,” I said, implying that I had a lunch date I would have to break.

  “Good. What about the Amaranth at one?”

  The Amaranth is this season’s “in” restaurant. Even more “in” than when it was called the Arcadia last season. It seemed James liked to travel first class and who was I not to go along for the ride? I’ve been known to wear white tie and tails to Burger King so putting together a costume for Amaranth did not dismay me in the least. “I’ll be there, James.”

  According to Hanna, young William was a loose cannon with a short fuse. I was certain the boy was the reason I’d be making my debut at the Amaranth.

  Then I called Kate Mulligan and got her answering machine. “I’m out for the evening. Please leave a message and I’ll return your call in the morning. Thank you.” Was I the first Lothario to get the telephonic equivalent of the cold shoulder? If so, I wouldn’t be the last. I did not leave a message.

  To give a boost to my ego I donned a pair of cerise Speedos with a matching terry cardigan and stepped into a pair of espadrilles just for the hell of it. One of the advantages of this outfit was that it instantly stopped traffic on the A1A, making for a safe passage from shore to sea. I had my swim, one mile north, one mile back, and returned to my room to enter the latest developments on “Serge the Seer” in my journal.

  The man professed to be in constant touch with those who had crossed over but the last thing I had anticipated when I took this case was to witness one making the crossing—least of all my own client. Pseudo psychics and bogus fortune-tellers seldom, if ever, resort to violence when working a scam. Their art is to foster confidence in the credulous, bilk the mark and exit, leaving behind a few bruised egos now poorer but wiser for their brief encounter with the hereafter. Ouspenskaya had the most obvious reason for doing in Richard Holmes but both his profession’s modus operandi and his lack of opportunity logically ruled him out as the heavy.

  But was he connected with the murder of Richard Holmes? That is, if Ouspenskaya had not arrived on our island this season, and Desdemona and Richard Holmes had, would Holmes be alive today? How did the arsenic get into that glass and why did Holmes take the tainted
glass off Lady Cynthia’s tray? You would have to be a magician to do the former and a psychic to know the latter. And I was right back to square one.

  I recalled Desdemona Darling’s party and found myself once again looking through that kaleidoscopic sea of humanity. Richard Holmes shoving Ouspenskaya away from DeeDee as William Ventura looked on with glee. Penny Tremaine crashing the party and confronting Vance and Fitz; Phil Meecham arguing with Buzz Carr and cursing Arnie Turnbolt when he tried to break it up. I knew the picture wasn’t complete the minute I finished my mental sketch but I could not compute the missing element. Experience had taught me that the more I rummaged around my memory, the more nonplussed I would become. So I let it go and turned my thoughts to matters more ethereal but not less pressing.

  The sun was setting, the surf was rising, and I celebrated the passage of Helios and the rise of Luna by lighting my second English Oval of the day and brooding over life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—my life, my liberty and my happiness. An evensong for Archibald McNally. Twilight had this effect on me. So did a case in which my prey eluded me in every encounter.

  I blew smoke rings at the moisture spots on my ceiling (courtesy of the leaky roof) and reflected on the sudden death of Richard Holmes. This encouraged me to reaffirm my resolve never to take a world full of pestilence, violence and happenstance seriously. I would continue to drink every drink and grab every bit of pleasure as if it were the last. However, the certitude left me feeling like the woman of song, Rose of Washington Square, who had no future but oh what a past. At moments like this, I felt that the answer to all life’s mysteries, including Ouspenskaya’s parlor tricks, was as obvious as my puss in a mirror. So why did I draw a blank at every turn?

  Should I re-call Kate and leave a reconciliatory message? Should I call Connie and see if she was free this evening? I ended up calling Binky Watrous and telling him to assemble the cast tomorrow night to receive their rehearsal instructions.

  “Where?” asked Binky.

  “Call the Creative Director and ask her,” answered I.