McNally's Folly

by Lawrence Sanders

Then I dressed for cocktails and dinner with the family. Always a safe bet and never a tab.

  Nice to have you with us,” Father said, serving our martinis.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Oh, Archy,” Mother gushed, her face flushed with excitement, “that man’s death at Lady Cynthia’s was all the talk at our C.A.S. meeting this afternoon. They all saw your picture in the newspaper, trying to resuscitate him. I was quite the star.”

  The C.A.S. is the Current Affairs Society, of which Mother is a faithful member. They meet once a month and listen to a lecture by experts on such diverse subjects as global warming, political unrest in Tibet and the joys, trials and tribulations of same sex parenting. Mother is the group’s former sergeant-at-arms.

  “They said,” Mother continued, “that he was poisoned and your father tells me this is true.”

  “I’m afraid it is, Mother,” I said.

  “How terrible,” she lamented. “This sort of thing never happened in what I like to think of as the good old days, when you and your sister were just children. The whole world has gone crazy.”

  “Have you heard anything new?” Father asked me.

  “I spoke with my police contact, Sergeant Rogoff, but he didn’t have much to add to what we already know. And I called James Ventura, as you requested, sir. I’m seeing him tomorrow.”

  “Good,” Father said. “I’ll fill you in on what Saul Hastings had to say later. Right now I think we should engage in happy talk to go along with our happy hour.” As always, Father wanted to protect Mother and the serenity of our household from the more tumultuous aspects of our business. For this I admired him.

  “Cheers,” Mother cried and I seconded the motion.

  When we went downstairs to dinner we discovered that Ursi had prepared my favorite mixed grill (lamb chops, tournedos, medallions of veal), accompanied with julienne vegetables and crispy roast potatoes. Father produced a fine red Bordeaux for the menfolk and Mother, as usual, stuck with her sauterne. We ended the repast with Black Forest cake and coffee.

  Mother and Father settled in front of the television and I climbed the stairs to my room to work out a rehearsal schedule, pour myself a marc and light my third English Oval of the day—but who’s counting?

  Jinxed. Priscilla had said our play was jinxed and I couldn’t stop the word from running amok in my head as I took the first step in getting Arsenic and Old Lace on the boards.

  EIGHTEEN

  JAMES VENTURA WAS A man who had made his fortune early enough to retire to Palm Beach in what he probably considered his middle age, although I doubted he knew many men who were a hundred. His physical appearance made it clear that he could still partake in a bracing game of golf or tennis and, having met Hanna, I knew he was virile enough to enjoy the pleasures of a wife just past the legal age of consent.

  There were now silver threads among the black hair and a decided thickening about the waist, but the configuration of his dark good looks made him immediately recognizable as William’s father. He wore a lightweight gray business suit and the traditional blue and red silk rep tie. “I appreciate your taking the time to see me, Archy,” he said, extending his hand as the maître d’ seated me at his table. “I hope this is not inconvenient, but I find the food better than the club’s and the diners less inquisitive.”

  James Ventura didn’t mention the club at which he found the cuisine lacking and a glance around the room told me the indifferent diners were the regulars on the New York/Palm Beach circuit who made the society columns as well as the front pages of the dailies in both venues. Besides the landed aristocracy of our classless society I spotted titans of industry, politics and letters. The women, wives or powers in their own right, were perfectly coiffured, perfectly haute coutured and painfully thin. In effect, my host was telling me that he was a small fish in a big pond and the sharks had better things to be agog over than the sight of James Ventura lunching with a Palm Beach denizen noted for resolving embarrassing problems with a minimum amount of stress and strain on the aggrieved. Ventura would be amazed to know how many of our luncheon companions had availed themselves of my unique services.

  “The pleasure is mine, especially if you’re treating,” I said with a smile on my face and a song in my heart. Hey, I wasn’t kidding and the man knew it.

  “No bull. I like that,” Ventura complimented.

  In fact I was feeling rather frisky in my olive green three-button job and black knit tie. It was an outfit I had put together for attending church with those who bore me. I was drawn to the services by the full-figured contralto in the choir whom I was seeing on the side. When she married a naval aviator and moved to Pensacola my faith ebbed. I resurrected the olive green job (no pun intended, please) in honor of today’s lunch.

  At that moment two Bloody Marys in crystal stem glasses were placed in front of us. “I ordered them,” Ventura said, “and told them to bring ’em when you arrived. The tomato juice and fruit make it healthy and save the trouble of ordering an appetizer. Shouldn’t overdo at lunch unless you’re a construction worker, which my father was before he bought the outfit. Cheers.”

  “Cheers,” I said to the control freak, for that’s just what James Ventura was, but with a decided difference from your run-of-the-mill control freak—he didn’t try to hide the fact. James Ventura was most likely a second-generation American born on the wrong side of the tracks whose father ended up owning the company that had hired him to pour cement. Rags to riches; an American romance as opposed to an American tragedy. I must remember to tell Sofia Richmond that the Ventura money didn’t come from Wall Street but from building streets. That aside, it was as good a Bloody Mary as our Mr. Pettibone could conjure up and probably would have been my choice of cocktail.

  “Do I have to tell you who recommended you, Archy?” he wanted to know.

  “No, you don’t, and I’d rather you didn’t. Discreet is not our middle name, James, it’s our first name.”

  “That’s why I came to you. Too bad about Holmes. They say it was poison. What do you think?”

  If we were playing word association on a shrink’s couch I would say I was recommended to him by Richard Holmes. “If the police say he died of arsenic poisoning I think he died of arsenic poisoning. They don’t mince words. What do you know about it?”

  He almost dropped the glass he had just lowered from his lips. “Me? I don’t know a thing. What do you know? You were right there, giving the guy first aid.”

  “They say a picture is worth a thousand words. In this case, all of them wrong. I was merely feeling for his pulse, which I didn’t find. I know as much as your wife and son, James. They were both there.”

  “Today’s papers say it might be an accident. Contaminated glass. It’s possible, I guess.”

  “They say with Jesus all things are possible.”

  It took him a minute to respond and when he did he chuckled loud enough to draw the attention of several sharks and their sharkettes. Two things one must never do in fine restaurants is laugh too loud or eat too much.

  “You know my wife, Archy.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “I had the pleasure of lunching with her at your home. I went to see her to learn more about our celebrity of the week, Serge Ouspenskaya. Like you said, James, no bull. Your wife’s diamond clip was the launching pad for Ouspenskaya’s career and both she and Holmes’s wife are under the man’s spell. I think Richard Holmes came to you for a firsthand account of the lost and found diamond clip, trying to find a flaw in the story, and you discussed the psychic and Holmes told you he had engaged me to investigate the man. Right so far?”

  The maître d’ was upon us offering menus, which Ventura waved away. “The lemon sole, poached, with a salad and vinaigrette dressing. You can bring the bread and butter with the meal.”

  Like it or not, I was going to have the lemon sole, poached. Fortunately, I liked it. And I had been wondering where our bread and butter was and now I knew. James didn’t lik
e nibbling before his meal, therefore neither did I. How did Hanna cope with the man and why did she? The money, to be sure. What fools these mortals be, as Puck had proclaimed one midsummer’s night.

  “Do you drink wine?” Ventura asked.

  “Indeed, I do,” I told him.

  “Bring us a nice white,” he told the maître d’.

  “Make that a nice côtes de Provence, whatever year you have in the cellar,” I got in before the man escaped and returned with something outrageously expensive and not worth the cork that contained it.

  “You know about wine, Archy,” he said, seemingly pleased that I did.

  “I know a little bit about a lot of things, James...”

  “And nothing about Serge Ouspenskaya,” he cut in. “You’re correct. Holmes told me he had hired you and the night before he died he told me you had turned up nothing on the guy to date.”

  We had finished our drinks and obviously were going to go dry until the wine got here. The ice water before me looked tempting but I feared it would rust my windpipe. “Do you want me to continue my investigation of Ouspenskaya, James? Pick up where Holmes left off?” Maybe I could add to the meager advance Richard Holmes had given me. The pater would be proud. Alas, it was not to be.

  “Not me, Archy. I have no beef with the guy. Look, he did find that clip that set me back a few bucks and if he amuses the ladies, why not?”

  “You have no problem paying for his consultations at five hundred bucks a consult?” I insisted.

  “I have no problem because I won’t let Hanna have one. Too bad Holmes didn’t do the same with his wife but when you’re married to a famous actress I guess you don’t make the rules. No, Archy, my problem is not with Ouspenskaya’s sittings. It’s when he cancels them that has me worried.”

  On that interesting note the busperson wheeled over the tripod holding a bucket of ice in which our wine was chilling and deposited two wineglasses on our table. The waiter right behind him did the decanting as we watched in silence, and when done he poured a dollop into Ventura’s glass. Ventura sipped and nodded his pleasure, which I found amusing, and then my glass was filled. “Cent’anni,” I toasted.

  “You know Italian, too.”

  “As I told you, I know a little bit about a lot of things but I don’t know anything about canceled séances and I’m all ears. Why should they bother you, James?”

  The poached sole arrived with a salad that looked as if the Romaine and Boston Bibb leaves were picked an hour ago and chilled in vinaigrette dew. I tend to babble in the tongue of P. Shelley when good food is served as a feast to the eye as well as the belly, as it should be, and as was our lunch.

  “Hanna goes to all of them when she’s invited, which is often, thanks to the diamond clip. She’s a one-woman press agent for the guy. She went to one last week. I think it was Wednesday night, at Fanny Seymour’s place. You know Fanny and Ed Seymour? Hanna and Fanny run around together.”

  I assumed that Fanny Seymour was the woman I had seen with Hanna the day I cased Ouspenskaya’s office. She was at Lady C’s party, too, and now I knew why. If I wasn’t mistaken her husband was a member of my cast. I told this to James Ventura.

  “Hanna got home after midnight,” James went on. “The next day at the club I heard some women talking about Ouspenskaya. One of them said she had been invited to a sitting last night but it was canceled. So where was Hanna?”

  “Did you question your wife?”

  “No. I gave her the benefit of the doubt. My doubt that the woman I heard had the date right. Or maybe she was talking about another psychic—the town is full of them, and I wasn’t listening that carefully. I’m not a suspicious man, Archy. Don’t trouble trouble before trouble troubles you is how I see it.”

  “And it did?”

  He put down his fork. “She went to another sitting two nights ago. That Lolly Spindrift was there. I know because he wrote it up in his column yesterday and listed all the guests. Hanna was not among them. That’s when I came to see you.”

  The meal was as superb as the conversation was dispiriting. The waiter refilled our glasses. When he withdrew I asked, “Do you want me to find out where your wife was on those occasions?”

  Looking down at his plate he answered, “Yes.”

  “Why don’t you ask her? There could be a logical explanation for this.”

  “Give me two for instances, Archy.”

  I thought about this while sampling my second glass of wine. It was as good as the first, but I couldn’t come up with even one for instance.

  “I’m waiting,” Ventura said.

  “I don’t like domestic cases, James.” And neither did the police. Al Rogoff says that when called on a domestic squabble the couple kiss and make up six times out of ten and then threaten to sue the police for breaking and entering. And I rather liked Hanna. Based on our no bull understanding, I boldly asked, “Do you think she’s seeing another man?”

  “I would be lying if I said it didn’t cross my mind.”

  The busperson approached to clear away our lunch, eliciting a pause in our discussion. I imagine those who serve are used to the conversations interruptus their presence evokes. Our waiter, once again, was on the busperson’s tail and asked if we wanted to see the dessert menu. I was delighted to learn we would.

  “I ask,” I said when we were once again alone, “because I must tell you that your son makes it a point of telling anyone who cares to listen...”

  I was stopped with a wave of Ventura’s hand. “I know, Archy. I know,” he moaned. “William was very close to his mother and very unhappy when I married Hanna. It’s no secret that Hanna was part of William’s crowd down here and I think he was more embarrassed than angry over our May/December romance, and still is. I should toss him out but I can’t do that to my own son, and I should box his ears but he’s too old for that. I think it’s best to ignore him and let time pass. He’ll get over it.”

  Silence, if not denial, seemed to be Ventura’s way of dealing with the evils that beset the human race. I hated to buck the trend but felt I must. “I think you should simply ask Hanna where she was on the nights in question.”

  “It might prove awkward, Archy.”

  “Why?”

  “Suppose this thing is just a passing flirtation? Hanna is young and young girls are hopelessly romantic. The point is, I’m willing to forgive and forget if that’s all it is. A few clandestine meetings for the thrill of it and then it’s over. But if I confront her, and it’s nothing more than that, it will cause a rancor between us that will never heal. You see why I need your help?”

  I saw, but I still didn’t like it. What I didn’t see was the dessert menu. Before I had a chance to peruse the carte, Ventura signaled our waiter and ordered raspberry sorbet for two. It wasn’t my favorite but then I wasn’t paying the bill.

  “I thought you would be especially interested in helping me, Archy, because of Ouspenskaya.”

  “I don’t see the connection,” I said.

  “Both times Hanna lied, she was supposed to be with Ouspenskaya. Are other Palm Beach matrons using him as a beard, and does he know it?”

  The plot not only thickened, it damn near congealed. I took the case along with the raspberry sorbet—not very keen on either.

  When I got back to my office I called Lolly Spindrift. “You attended a séance with Ouspenskaya the other night and wrote about it, is that right?”

  “Right,” he said. “If you want to mix and mingle with the Palm Beach elite, that’s where you’ll find them. The man is what’s happening this season and my readers can’t get enough of him. I hear he’s booked weeks in advance. Are you still in hot pursuit?”

  “My ardor has cooled,” I fibbed, “and Ouspenskaya is not the reason for my query. I want to know if you left out anyone when reporting on the night’s participants.”

  “Many things are possible, Archy, but Lolly Spindrift forgetting to drop a name is not one of them. Why do you ask?”

&
nbsp; Lolly was no fool and I had to tread lightly with this one. “There’s a rumor making the rounds that a big pol attended a Palm Beach séance on the grounds of anonymity and I want to verify the story before I cast my next ballot. I don’t want this year’s budget determined by Abe Lincoln.” From small fibs, mighty prevarications grow.

  “Interesting. I’ll remember to keep my eyes peeled. Now tell Lolly who claimed to be there and wasn’t—and why?”

  “At least give me a gold star for trying, Lol.”

  “I’ll give you all the gold stars you want if you tell me the true reason for this call.”

  “Sorry, but I can’t.”

  “Has it got anything to do with Richard Holmes’s untimely demise?”

  “It does not, Lol. Cross my heart and hope to die,” I vowed without fear of reprisal.

  “Only the good die young, Archy. Are you buying the accident theory being put out by the Brewster sisters? Can you believe it? The pair announce taking over the parts of the fictitious poisoners, pour the wine and a gent drops dead. There’s been nothing like it in polite society since Lizzie Borden went ape with an ax. I can’t reach les girls for comment. What’s your take on it?”

  “I’m keeping an open mind, Lol, but I do have a nice item for you,” said the spider to the fly.

  “Really?” said the fly suspiciously. “Like what?”

  “The play will go on as scheduled.”

  He gave that some thought before asking, “With the cast as announced by Lady C on the fateful night?”

  “With nary one substitution,” I insisted. “Desdemona Darling is a trouper of the old school, Lol.”

  “She is a cow,” Lolly unkindly responded. “Can I confirm this with your Creative Director?” he wanted to know, hoping to get an exclusive with Lady C on Holmes’s death.

  “I’m the director. You can take my word that the show will go on with Desdemona Darling in the lead.”

  “It’s weird, Archy.”

  I could think of worse things to call it, but refrained. “We live in weird times, Lol, a time of sudden death and indecent romance, to coin a phrase.”