The Fitzgerald Ruse

by Mark de Castrique

  “Did your brother lose a lot?”

  “No. Hugh didn’t have that kind of money. He was a lawyer and helped support Mother and me. Our father had died in a railroad accident when I was thirteen. Hugh saw what the Depression had done to this town. Even my high school had to close for awhile.”

  The boiling kettle cut off and Mrs. Barkley poured the hot water over three teabags dangling in the pot.

  “The tourists still came,” I said.

  “Yes. But their money stayed in New York and Chicago banks. Development stopped. Hugh said Roosevelt used the crisis to grab power. Then he recognized the government of those Russian Communists and turned our country away from God.”

  The woman was zoning out again. I wondered if Detective Newland would have any better luck getting a coherent statement.

  “What does that have to do with F. Scott Fitzgerald?”

  She looked at me with surprise. “Everything. Hugh said Mr. Fitzgerald had defined an age and maybe he could be enlisted to bring the country to its senses.”

  I began to see a glimmer of logic in her rambling. “Your brother wanted you to spy on Fitzgerald? Get something to use against him?”

  “No,” she said sharply. “Hugh wanted to know what he was thinking. Mr. Fitzgerald would leave papers out in his room or keep talking with guests when I was present. I told Hugh I thought he didn’t care much about politics one way or the other. Then partway through the summer, Mr. Fitzgerald checked out. I think he went back to see Zelda in Baltimore or to New York. I cleaned his room and found a large envelope that had fallen behind his bed. It was filled with manuscript pages. There was no address on the envelope, so I didn’t know if he meant to mail it or used it to keep the pages together.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I took it to Hugh. I expected him to read it and give it back.” She took two cups and saucers from a shelf and poured from the pot. “Let’s sit down.”

  I took the unwanted tea without protest and joined her at the table where yesterday she’d studied my palm. At least there were no loose leaves to read at the bottom of my cup.

  “Your brother didn’t return it, did he?”

  “No,” she whispered. “I begged him to, but Hugh said if it was that important, then Mr. Fitzgerald wouldn’t have left it. He said it was a story, and just because Mr. Fitzgerald didn’t want it, didn’t mean it wouldn’t be valuable some day.”

  “You must have gotten it back if it went into your lockbox.”

  She took a sip of tea and then hesitated before speaking. “That was Hugh. He kept a safe-deposit box under my name. There were some financial difficulties at the time and he didn’t want his name to appear.”

  “Then why didn’t you give the envelope back?”

  “Because Hugh kept the key. When Mr. Fitzgerald returned in a few weeks, he asked if I’d found any papers in his room. I had to say no or he would have thought I was a thief.”

  He would have been right, I thought. “And this all happened in the summer of 1935?”

  “Yes. Mr. Fitzgerald shed himself of the Texas woman. He moved in and out of the Grove Park a couple times. The next summer he returned and put Zelda in Highlands Hospital. I was courting my husband Terrence by then and working a different part of the Grove Park.”

  “What did your husband do?”

  “He was an accountant. I met him through Hugh.”

  I thought about Ethel Barkley’s net worth. “He must have been a good one.”

  “He was smart. In the forties, we bought a little place on Sunset Mountain close to the Grove Park. When I sold it two years ago, I couldn’t believe the price.”

  “And you have other investments, I’m sure.”

  She shook her head. “No. But the house brought enough that I can stay here the rest of my days.” She turned up her palm. “Even my lifeline doesn’t go on forever.”

  I was confused. How much money had her house brought? “Mr. Tennant at the bank told me he could find a better rate of return on your CDs.”

  Her expression darkened. “Mr. Tennant should mind his own affairs. That’s money in trust, not mine.” She looked away and I barely heard her whisper, “Has the time come?”

  “Mrs. Barkley, you said they never came. Who are they?”

  She kept silent.

  “Were they friends of your brother?”

  “I’ll know them when the time comes.”

  There was that phrase again: when the time comes.

  “Mrs. Barkley, you told me you’re ninety and your lifeline doesn’t go on forever. What will happen to the trust and your lockbox when you’re gone?”

  She set her cup on her saucer. “My son and nephew will take it, and I don’t know what to tell them. Hugh didn’t say.” Her tears started again. “But I don’t want Mr. Fitzgerald’s papers found as part of my property. You’ve got to get them back to their rightful owner.”

  “Did anyone else know about them? Your children?”

  She shook her head. “Terrence and I had a boy and a girl. Sarah died when she was ten. Polio. One of the last cases before that Dr. Salk invented the vaccine. My son Terry’s retired in Charlotte. We wanted more children, but my husband was killed in a car wreck.”

  “Did your brother have children?”

  “Only one son. He’s four years younger than Terry. My brother didn’t marry till he was over forty. Hewitt was born during the war.”

  I felt a tingle down my spine. “Hewitt?”

  “Yes. But Hugh couldn’t have told him anything. He died before his child was born.”

  “Was your brother named Hugh Donaldson?”

  She smiled. “You know about him?”

  A knock came from the door. Detective Newland must have arrived.

  Ethel Barkley glanced over her shoulder and then back to me. She lowered her voice. “Was this a test?”

  Chapter Nine

  I went with Ethel Barkley to her apartment door. Detective Newland and another officer he introduced as Tuck Efird stood on the threshold. Efird looked to be in his late thirties, a good twenty years Newland’s junior.

  “How long have you been here, Sam?” Newland asked.

  “Long enough to tell Mrs. Barkley about the theft of her property and that she needs to cooperate in any way she can.”

  “And I certainly will,” she exclaimed. “Terrible about that woman. Just terrible.” She stepped back to give the two men room to enter. “Would you gentlemen like tea?”

  “No, thank you,” they replied in unison.

  “Fine. It’ll just take a minute.”

  I winked at Newland. “Wash your hands.”

  He wasn’t amused. “I think we’re going to have to compare notes on this one.”

  “Yeah. She’s a live one all right. I’ll be at my office.” Then the thought struck me. “Am I okay to return?”

  Newland nodded. “Crime lab went over everything. Tape might still be up, but you’re clear to enter. If you notice something any of us missed, call me.”

  I shook his hand. “Thanks. We’ll catch up later.” As I stepped into the hall, I called, “Goodbye, Mrs. Barkley. I’ll be in touch.” I didn’t wait for a response. She was Newland’s problem now.

  I glanced at my wristwatch. Five after eight. Newland had gotten there earlier than he said. I wasn’t planning on being at the office until nine, and the strange conversation with Ethel Barkley had been unsettling. The woman couldn’t be dismissed as a nutcase, but just when I thought she was making sense, she would fly off on some tangent. What was history and what was delusion? The oldest and possibly sharpest mind in the building might help me navigate through her maze of fact and fantasy.

  A plaque on the door read “The Mayor.” I knocked below it.

  “Come in,” said a familiar, raspy voice.

  Harry Young sat in his customary spot on his sofa with his wheelchair parked close at hand and his crutches within reach. Young in name only, Harry approached his one-hundred-and-a-half birthd
ay next month. At his age, he’d reverted to a preschooler’s arithmetic when birthdays are proudly calculated in fractions.

  Like me, Harry had lost a leg—the right one in a bear trap when he was twelve. Eighty-eight and a half years later, his ancient skin had grown so thin he could no longer wear a prosthesis, and he hobbled around his apartment as best he could. But his mind was as sharp as a new razor, a database of Asheville’s history that Nakayla and I’d already drawn upon to discover her sister’s killer.

  Harry looked up from his morning paper. From the shake of his head, I knew he’d read about Amanda Whitfield’s murder.

  “What happened, Sam?” He patted the cushion beside him, inviting me to sit.

  I shook his thin, dry hand and then twisted against the armrest to face him. “We don’t know. She must have interrupted someone who was searching our new office. The police have determined that the cleaning crew came through about seven-thirty. I returned around eight-thirty. The medical examiner’s report won’t be completed for a day or two, but preliminary indications suggest she was killed shortly after eight. That matches the schedule of her rounds.”

  Harry licked his cracked lips and turned away. “As long as I’ve lived, the cruelty of human beings never ceases to amaze me.”

  We sat quietly for a few seconds as Harry must have let his thoughts wander back through his century. “And then,” he added, “I never cease to be amazed at our capacity for kindness. What a mixed-up species we are.”

  “You won’t get any argument from me.”

  The old man tapped the front page of his paper. “With this going on, why are you here?”

  I had to smile at his insightfulness. “I need your help, of course.”

  He pushed the paper aside and his eyes brightened. Nothing pleased Harry more than to feel useful. “I don’t know what I can do, but just tell me.”

  “This is between us. Don’t even tell Captain.”

  He nodded. “Mum’s the word.”

  “I’d been asked to bring the contents of a safe-deposit box to Ethel Barkley.”

  “Ethel? She tied up in this?”

  “I don’t know. The contents turned out to be a lockbox. I brought it back to my office, and it was the only thing taken.”

  “No fooling. Who’d be prying into Ethel’s belongings?”

  “We don’t know if anybody was. Her lockbox was the easiest and fastest thing to take. But we can’t ignore the possibility it was the target.”

  “Have you told her?” he asked.

  “Yes, and she’s talking to the police now.”

  “Well, what do you want from me?”

  I leaned closer. “Tell me about her. Can I believe what she tells me?”

  “Depends.” He chuckled. “Shortly after she came here, she read my palm. She said I’d live to be ninety-two. I laughed at her because I was ninety-eight.”

  “Ethel was right. You lived to be ninety-two.”

  Harry slapped his thigh. “By God, that I did. So maybe there’s more truth in what she says than I give her credit for.”

  “She told me she learned to read palms from a woman at the Grove Park Inn.”

  “No reason she’d make that up.” He looked down at his wrinkled hands. “Ethel sets a lot of stock by what she sees in these lines. And I remember the Grove Park used to have people whose job was to entertain the tourists.”

  “She said this woman’s name was Laura Guthrie and that she was F. Scott Fitzgerald’s secretary.”

  Harry scratched the side of his face. “I knew a Laura Hearne folks said knew Fitzgerald. I think she wrote something about him, but that was years ago.”

  “And Ethel worked at the Grove Park?”

  Harry shook his head. “I got no call to deny it. Back in the Depression, the hotels were about the only places offering good steady work.”

  I remembered Ethel Barkley’s remark about her brother’s perspective on Roosevelt and on Asheville’s hard times. “Did you know her brother, Hugh Donaldson?”

  “I knew of him.” He laughed. “We didn’t exactly run in the same circles. He was a lawyer and I worked in the Biltmore dairy, mostly looking at the south end of northbound cows.”

  “Seems like an attorney would be indistinguishable in that crowd. How come you remember him?”

  Harry straightened as if I’d offended his pride. “Just because I worked in a barn didn’t mean I couldn’t read the newspaper. Hugh Donaldson was a hotshot defense attorney and handled some of Asheville’s biggest cases.”

  “Really? His son’s a defense attorney.”

  Harry shrugged. “Don’t know nothing about the boy, but I guess he must be cut from the same cloth.”

  “Ethel said her brother was killed when his son was a baby.”

  “Yep. I recall that well enough. Car wreck. Hugh Donaldson and Terrence Barkley skidded off Macon in an ice storm. Both died instantly.”

  “Ethel’s brother and husband died in the same accident?”

  “Yep. Hell of a thing. A couple of days before Christmas. Must have been 1944, because the war was still going on. They’d been at a benefit for the Red Cross or something like that.”

  “In Macon, Georgia?”

  Harry squinted at me. “Georgia? No, Macon’s the road that runs up Sunset Mountain to the Grove Park Inn. Funny what you remember. The newspaper said their car wound up crashed against a tree just a block from Terrence Barkley’s house. Poor Ethel probably heard the crash.” He looked at his palms again. “What good’s all the tomfoolery of reading the future if you can’t see something like that coming?”

  I didn’t have an answer. But if Ethel Barkley had nearly five million dollars and a lockbox worth killing for, then someone had planned her future very well.

  I got up. “If you think of something about Ethel or her brother, would you let me know? No matter how insignificant it might seem to you.”

  “That’s all I do is sit and think. I could use a little action.”

  “Then keep an eye on Ethel. There’s something not right about her story.” Her words “They never came” resounded in my head. Who was she talking about and did Amanda Whitfield’s body mean someone had returned? Was the old lady in danger? “Harry, I don’t want you to breathe a word about the lockbox, but tell Captain that Ethel could be at risk.”

  “That true?” He frowned.

  “Yes, and until we find Amanda Whitfield’s killer, Captain should watch over her. He’s the one who had me see her in the first place, so he’ll not be surprised at the request.”

  Harry’s face brightened with a broad grin. “Captain’s the man for the job. I can help him organize it.”

  “Good. And you take care.”

  I left Harry energized with his task. The Golden Oaks residents would soon be taking strolls up and down Ethel Barkley’s hallway in seemingly natural wanderings.

  Somewhere my own security guard, Warrant Officer Calvin Stuart, should have his eye on me. I hoped he’d be as effective as Captain’s brigade.

  Nakayla and I had settled into our office conference positions, she on the sofa and I in an armchair. She listened to my recap of the conversations with Ethel Barkley and Harry Young without interrupting. When I finished, she sat quietly, her brow furrowed and her eyes locked on some image in her mind.

  “So, what do you think?” I asked.

  She cocked her head and gave me a critical appraisal. “You’ve spent fifteen minutes talking about Ethel Barkley’s lockbox and not one second about a man holding you at gunpoint. If your friend Calvin hadn’t shown up, Nathan and I could be planning your funeral.”

  “Maybe I don’t like to think about it.”

  “Maybe you’d better.”

  She was right, but I didn’t have any ideas as to how to pursue a faceless assailant who left no clues. My only threads came from Ethel Barkley and the names she had given—names of dead people. Tracking them would be an exhumation of information.

  “Did you see Calvin this morning?�
� she asked.

  “No. But that doesn’t mean anything. If he’s doing his job right, I won’t see him.”

  “How much are you going to tell Newland?”

  I’d been mulling that question since last night. “It’s nine-thirty. Nathan will be here at ten and I’ll give him the complete story. Newland and I need to compare notes on our conversations with Ethel Barkley, but I’ll honor Calvin’s request to omit him from any official report. Newland will be privy only to Calvin’s warning phone call.”

  Her mouth scrunched in disapproval. “You sure that’s a good idea?”

  “Newland has his plate full investigating Amanda Whitfield’s death, and I don’t think the Asheville Police Department is prepared to go up against covert-trained mercenaries.”

  “And you and Calvin are?” Her sarcasm left no doubt as to her opinion.

  “No. But we’ve got Nathan Armitage and a secret weapon.”

  “And what would that be?”

  I glanced around the room as if looking for eavesdroppers, and then I slid onto the sofa beside her. “You,” I whispered. I leaned in to give her a kiss, but she hopped up, leaving me smooching the air.

  “Then I’d better get to work researching the names Ethel Barkley gave you.” She stopped in her office doorway and turned around. “Don’t you think it’s odd that Ethel’s nephew is on our floor and the day we meet him, his aunt’s lockbox disappears?”

  “Yes, but he’s a lawyer and this building is crawling with them. I’m sure he didn’t see me bring the box up.”

  “Someone else could have told him,” Nakayla said.

  “Maybe. But then being on our floor would still be a coincidence.”

  Nakayla folded her arms across her chest. “Coincidence? Aren’t you the guy who told me a coincidence should always be the last explanation accepted?”

  I knew Nakayla didn’t like Hewitt Donaldson. I hadn’t dismissed him from my consideration, but the police had already taken his statement and would be checking his alibi. “The fact that he and Cory DeMille were still in the building works in their favor. I find it hard to believe they would calmly wait in their office for over an hour after committing a murder a few doors down the hall.”