McNally's Trial

by Lawrence Sanders

  “Yes,” he said finally. “Once she remarked that Oliver was the apple of his mother’s eye and the lemon of his father’s. That’s not bad, is it, Archy?”

  “No, not bad.”

  He snapped his fingers. “Something else. I almost forgot. There was a small party at the Whitcombs’ last night. Well, it wasn’t really a party. More like a gathering. Maybe six or seven people. Oliver wasn’t there, but Ernie Gorton showed up. Stayed a few hours. Very friendly. Talked to everyone.”

  “Uh-huh. Was Rhoda present?”

  “No, she didn’t show up. Mitzi says Rhoda has her own business now. She even has a fax machine.”

  “Will wonders never cease?”

  “Anyway, after everyone left, Mitzi and I were alone and she told me Gorton had offered her a job.”

  I roused. “What kind of a job?”

  “She didn’t tell me, but she said the salary was stupendous. That was her word: stupendous.”

  “Binky, did you get the feeling Mitzi was interested in working for Ernest Gorton?”

  “Oh yes. Definitely. She was charged. She said Gorton has deep pockets. Deeper than her husband’s.”

  “That I can believe,” I said. “And then what happened?”

  He looked at me, puzzled. “When?”

  “When you and Mitzi were alone in the Whitcombs’ home and she told you about Gorton’s job offer.”

  “Oh. Well, then we went skinny-dipping. No, that’s not strictly accurate. She did, in the pool behind their house, but I didn’t. To tell you the truth, I had consumed a number of brandy stingers and feared if I entered the pool, clothed or unclothed, I would immediately sink to the bottom without the strength to rise.”

  “You must eat your oatmeal,” I admonished. “So what did you do?”

  “Just lolled on a lounge and watched her. There was a full moon and I had a terrible desire to howl. Mitzi really is an excitement, Archy. If I was loaded I’d plead with her to dump Oliver and share a glorious future with me.”

  “Very poetic,” I said. “But the lady has a bottom-line mentality?”

  “What a bottom,” he said dreamily. “What a line. Archy, tell me something honestly. Do you think I’ve been doing okay in the discreet inquiry business?”

  “Your efforts have exceeded my expectations,” I assured him—a valid statement since my expectations had been nil.

  He left my office a much jauntier lad than when he entered. You may think it was a silly conversation, but amidst all that dross I spotted a few sparklers confirming my theory about Oliver Whitcomb’s activities and a few that were to prove of some significance in solving the riddle of Ernest Gorton’s despicable schemes.

  The brief encounter with Binky elevated the McNally spirits and I was in a hemidemisemi ebullient mood, thinking the day was starting out splendidly, when everything turned drear. It began with a phone call from Sgt. Al Rogoff.

  “I’m at home,” he said. “Kling is here. Can you come over?”

  His numb voice alarmed me. “Something wrong, Al?”

  “Yeah. The Lauderdale cops fished a floater from the Intracoastal last night. Rhoda Flembaugh. Shot once through the back of the head. An assassination.”

  I closed my eyes. I tasted dust. “All right,” I said faintly. “I’ll be right there.”

  I drove slowly and carefully. (I always do that after hearing of a sudden, violent death.) When I arrived at Rogoff’s I found the two officers seated at the round oak table working on mugs of black coffee. I was offered a cup but politely declined. I know how Al makes coffee: boil a pan of water, throw in a handful of coarsely ground beans, let the mixture boil until it’s the color of tar. The taste? “Battery acid” springs immediately to mind.

  “Tell Kling about your meeting with Flembaugh yesterday,” the sergeant said. “I’ve already told him, but maybe you can add something.”

  The FBI man turned those black sunglasses to me, and obediently I recited everything I could recall of my conversation with Rhoda. I added that I was convinced Gorton had sicced her on me in an effort to halt my investigation into his connection with the Whitcomb Funeral Homes.

  “I hope the fact that I rejected her advances had nothing to do with her demise,” I said—anxiously, I admit.

  The Special Agent spoke for the first time since I had entered. He had not granted me even a “Hello” or a “Hi.”

  “No,” he said, “don’t blame yourself. I triggered the kill. What I figure happened was this: Rogoff told me the trucks of the Cleo Hauling Service were registered to Gorton’s playmate. Late yesterday I looked her up and tossed a few hardballs. I got nothing from her. A squirrelly broad but smart enough to keep her mouth shut. We’re checking the phone logs, but I’m guessing the moment I was out of her place she called Gorton and told him the Feds had been around asking about his trucks. He didn’t like that and so he had her put down just to make sure she’d never spill.”

  “He did it?” I asked.

  “Not personally,” Kling said. “This is one careful shtarker. He doesn’t do the heavy work himself. He knows plenty of crazy dopers who’ll pop someone for fifty bucks. Meanwhile he’s miles away when it happens.”

  “When did it happen?” I asked.

  “We’re waiting for the ME’s estimate. Probably around midnight, give or take.”

  “Then you’re right,” I said. “Gorton was miles away. At a party at Oliver Whitcomb’s home in Boca.”

  I told them what Binky Watrous had reported: Gorton had showed up, acted in a friendly manner, talked to several people.

  The FBI man sighed and removed his cheaters. His pale eyes looked infinitely weary. “Oh sure,” he said. “Setting up an alibi. That bastard doesn’t miss a trick.”

  “Something else happened at the party,” I said. “I may be imagining this but it makes a nasty kind of sense.”

  I related what Binky had told me of Gorton’s job offer to Mitzi Whitcomb at a “stupendous” salary.

  “If Gorton knew Rhoda Flembaugh was being taken out,” I argued, “he’d need a replacement, wouldn’t he? Someone to run his call girl ring in the Palm Beach area. Who better than Mitzi? She has a lot of moneyed contacts, many of them druggies. And Oliver, her husband, can’t object because Gorton has him by the short hairs.”

  The two officers looked at each other.

  “It listens,” Al Rogoff said.

  Kling nodded. “I’ll buy it,” he said. “I like it because it’s the way Gorton operates. He’s a businessman, an entrepreneur, one hell of a manager. He’s always planning, looking ahead, figuring angles and percentages. If he had gone legit he’d be a zillionaire today. Instead, he’s dead meat. He doesn’t know it yet but that’s what he is—dead meat.”

  Once again I was shocked by the venom in his voice. I think even Al Rogoff was made uncomfortable by his intensity. If Kling had obviously been a religious fanatic I would have assumed he considered himself God’s surrogate on earth. But in the absence of that motive I could only guess his passion sprang from professional hubris.

  I must admit the man frightened me. I don’t wish to imply he was irrational, a raving maniac, or anything like that. But he was suffering from a monomania so condensed it was consuming him. I was happy not to be the subject of his rabid vengefulness and wondered if Ernest Gorton knew he was the target of such an implacable nemesis.

  I asked him if he had learned the identity of the final consignees to whom the Cleo Hauling Service was delivering all those caskets.

  He donned his dark sunglasses again and paused a long moment. I think he was considering how much to reveal.

  “Preliminary stuff,” he said finally. “There was one drop at a Boston funeral home reported to have mob connections. Another delivery was made to a private home in Westchester County in New York. The owner is a wheeler-dealer with a lot of loot in offshore banks. We’re still working it, but so far there’s no pattern.”

  “Where do we go from here?” Rogoff said.

 
; “Since the Flembaugh woman got whacked,” Kling said, “we’ve put twenty-four-hour surveillance on Gorton’s warehouse. The phones there and in his home and office have been hung. But I don’t expect anything from that. The guy loves to use pay phones—and never the same one twice. A dummy he ain’t. You want a prediction?”

  Rogoff and I looked at him.

  “Why not,” Al said. “I even believe horoscopes.”

  “In the next two or three days the body of a young doper will be found in the Miami-Lauderdale area. Either he’ll have his throat cut or maybe a slug through the ear. The local cops will have no suspects and no motive.”

  “But you will?” I said.

  “Sure,” Kling said, almost cheerfully. “The corpse will be the guy who popped Rhoda Flembaugh. That’ll be Gorton’s work—cutting his link with her killer. I told you he’s a smart piece of dreck, didn’t I?”

  There didn’t seem anything more to be said, and after a few moments I departed even more depressed than when I had arrived. I gloomed we were all spinning our wheels while Gorton went his merry way, doing exactly what he had set out to do. In other words, we were playing a reactive role but that vile blackguard was calling the shots—literally and figuratively.

  In such a despondent mood I really had no choice but to drive directly to the Pelican Club, hoping to convert the McNally spirits from the torpid to the fizzy.

  I lunched alone at the bar. Priscilla brought me an excellent salad of shrimp and chicken with a few chunks of pepperoni tossed in to give it a kick. I also had toasted bagel chips and a few glasses of our house wine, a chardonnay that always reminded me of Fred Allen’s quip about the Italian winemaker who was fired for sitting down on the job.

  Lunch consumed, I discovered to my dismay that I had not yet achieved the verve I sought, and I knew the cause: I could not forget the cruel extinction of bubbleheaded Rhoda. A great brain she was not, but I didn’t believe there was malice in her. She was simply trying to survive and didn’t succeed. I could only hope she had been totally unaware of her impending doom and had gone to her death laughing.

  Musing on her sad fate, I went out to the parking area and discovered all four tires of my fire-engine-red Miata had been slashed. My poor baby was settled down on the tarmac like an exhausted bunny. It took only a sec for my bewilderment to become outrage. Then I may have uttered a mild expletive sotto voce.

  I was examining the damage when a scuzzy gink strolled over, hands thrust into the pockets of a polyester leisure suit I thought had been declared illegal in the 1960s. He had a coffin-shaped face and eyes that looked like rusted minié balls. I had never seen him before and devoutly hoped I would never see him again.

  “Took a hit, huh?” he said.

  I nodded.

  “Funny they should pick your heap out of all the cars parked here.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Funny.”

  “Maybe someone’s sending you a message,” he said with a ghastly smile. “Think about it.”

  He stalked away and swung aboard a black Harley that looked as big and menacing as a dreadnought. I watched him roar out of the parking lot. He wasn’t wearing a helmet and I wished him only the best—an uncontrollable skid, for instance.

  29.

  I SHALL NOT BORE you with a detailed account of my activities during the following afternoon hours; you might snooze. Suffice to say I returned to the Pelican Club and started feeding quarters into the public phone. I called a towing service, my garage in West Palm, a retailer of tires, a car rental agency, my insurance agent, and Sgt. Al Rogoff, who was incommunicable.

  All I can tell you is that I functioned in a practical manner and shortly after five o’clock that evening was heading homeward behind the wheel of a white Acura Legend. It was okay, but driving a closed car gave me a mild attack of claustrophobia after years spent in a top-down convertible with the wind uncombing my hair and the Florida sun giving nourishment to all those hungry squamous cells on my beak hoping to become malignant.

  I pulled into the graveled turnaround of the McNally faux Tudor yurt just as my father had garaged his Lexus and was heading for the back door, toting a bulging briefcase. He paused to watch me park and crawl out of the Acura. He gave me a bemused glance.

  “Changing your religion, Archy?” he asked.

  “Not by choice,” I said grumpily. “Sir, can you give me some time tonight after dinner?”

  “Regarding what?”

  “The Whitcomb investigation.”

  One of those tangled eyebrows slowly lifted. “Is that why you’re driving this vehicle?”

  “Yes, sir, the two are connected. Tangentially.”

  “Very well. I’ll see you in my study after dinner. Please try to make it short. I brought work home with me. Interesting case. Concerns an estate on conditional limitation. Do you know what that is?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Nor do I—exactly. Nor apparently does anyone—exactly. That’s what makes it interesting.”

  Which explains why, at about eight-thirty that evening, I was seated in the squire’s study, occupying a leather club chair facing his magisterial desk. He didn’t offer a postprandial glass of port or jigger of brandy and I was just as happy because I wanted to exhibit absolute lucidity—as likely a prospect as my becoming world champion of the clean and jerk.

  Ordinarily I do not give the boss progress reports during the course of my discreet inquiries. He is only interested in the final results. Also, I suspect, he would rather not know the details of my modi operandi, fearing they might be an affront to his hidebound code of ethics—which, of course, they would be.

  But there had been developments in the Whitcomb case of which he should be made cognizant since they involved legal problems he might be called upon to solve. Speaking rapidly, I delivered a precis of what had recently occurred, including my meetings with Horace and Oliver Whitcomb. Mon père listened to my recital without interrupting, but when I had concluded he began pelting me with questions.

  “Horace Whitcomb was aware of our investigation from the start?”

  “Yes, sir. He is an alert businessman with a sharp eye for details. It was he who first noticed the inexplicable revenue increase and asked Sunny Fogarty to request our assistance since he didn’t wish to distress his dying wife by a showdown with their son.”

  “And in the event of his mother’s death, Oliver hopes to inherit a controlling interest in Whitcomb Funeral Homes?”

  “I believe that’s his hope, father. It’s the reason why he’s been building up their cash reserves, so he can start his expansion program the moment he becomes the majority shareholder.”

  The sire looked at me strangely. I can only describe his expression as one of grim and sour amusement. I had the oddest notion he was about to reveal something that might turn the Whitcomb inquiry upside down. But apparently he thought better of it and returned to his interrogation.

  “And in his effort to increase Whitcomb’s cash balance, Oliver struck a deal with this gangster Gorton?”

  “That’s the way I see it, sir.”

  “An illegal activity?”

  “Undoubtedly.”

  “You feel Gorton is responsible for what happened to your car?”

  “I’m sure of it. He ordered the kneecapping of the Miata. It was a message to me to end my prying or risk a more violent response.”

  “I don’t like it,” father growled. “I don’t like it one bit. But Sergeant Rogoff and the FBI agent are in pursuit of Gorton. Is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. It’s their job, Archy, I strongly urge you to cease and desist from any further inquiries into the schemes of Ernest Gorton. Is that understood?”

  “Father, I can’t cease and desist. I’m already involved and can hardly send Gorton a letter of resignation. In addition, Sunny Fogarty is in danger. I could not endure seeing her suffer the same fate as Rhoda Flembaugh. I simply cannot wash my hands of the whole affair and stroll away.”<
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  I knew the pater was concerned for my personal safety and I appreciated that. But if he had his ethical code, I had mine. No way was I about to give up this chase. Succumb to the crude threats of a wannabe Alphonse Capone? I think not.

  The guv didn’t argue, knowing it would be fruitless. He said, “Do you have any idea of the exact nature of Gorton’s role in this matter? Why all those caskets are being shipped north?”

  “No, sir. No idea whatsoever. At the moment.”

  “Getting rid of the victims of gang killings?”

  “Possibly. I’m hoping the FBI investigation will give us a clearer picture of what’s going on.”

  “During your last conversation with Horace Whitcomb,” he said, switching gears on me, “did he agree our inquiry was to continue?”

  “He did. After I convinced him it was impossible to terminate it as he had requested.”

  “Good. Keep a careful record of your billable hours, Archy.”

  And on that happy commercial note we parted.

  I trudged upstairs to my third-floor cage reflecting I had not been entirely forthcoming with the author of my existence. It was true, as I told father, I thought Oliver Whitcomb had made a devilish bargain with Ernest Gorton in order to further Oliver’s dream of creating the McDonald’s of mortuaries.

  But I suspected there might be another reason for their partnership: Gorton was a dependable source of all those “controlled substances” people stuffed up their schnozzles or injected into their bloodstreams. I did not believe Oliver was hooked, but I suspected many of his moneyed chums were. And it was those same stoned pals our hero wanted to keep happily dazed, for he was depending on them to help finance his grandiose plans.

  But that was speculation and I could be totally wrong. I have been totally wrong before—as when I assured Binky Watrous he would suffer no ill effects from eating a dozen fried grasshoppers.

  I knew I should work on my journal, bringing that magnum opus current, but the prospect of scribbling for an hour was a downer. I yearned for a more challenging activity, something that would set the McNally corpuscles boogying and enliven what had really been a dismal day.