Murder Under the Palms

by Stefanie Matteson

  But until then, they had nothing to do but enjoy each other’s company and try to figure out what had happened in February of 1942 that had resulted in the murder of Paul Feder on a Florida beach fifty years later.

  “So,” said Eddie once they were served their plates of ordinary old prime rib (the menu was a far cry from Château Albert), “Jack McLean was the Fox. I never would have thunk it was him.” He shook his head as he cut into his meat. “I still can’t believe it.”

  “It’s disturbing,” Charlotte agreed. As an actor, she prided herself on being a judge of human character, and she never would have pegged McLean for a spy. But then, playing games with mirrors was the spy’s specialty. “Why can’t you believe it?” she asked, curious.

  Eddie thought for a moment.

  “Is it because of the social credentials, the Ivy League education, the impressive career?” Charlotte probed.

  “I suppose that’s a lot of it, yes,” he said thoughtfully.

  “There’s nothing about being a member of the establishment that precludes one’s being a spy,” she commented, thinking aloud. “Look at his namesake: Donald McLean. Part of the most devastating spy ring of the twentieth century. He was from the right background, but he still betrayed his legacy.”

  “Betraying his legacy I can more or less understand,” Eddie said. “Even betraying his country. In either case, he would have been committing himself to an impersonal ideal. But to risk the lives of the men under his command …”

  Charlotte nodded. As hard as it was for her to fathom, it must have been many times harder for a man who had looked up to McLean as a leader and then been critically injured as a result of his treachery.

  “He sure pulled the wool over my eyes, and over the eyes of all the men under his command,” Eddie said bitterly. “We thought he was the next thing to God.” He gestured emphatically with his fork. “If it does turn out that he’s the Fox, I’m going to revel in the fact that I played a role in exposing him.”

  Charlotte was surprised to see a glint of anger in his smiling eyes; she had never seen him angry before.

  For a moment they sat, eating their dinners, soaking up the heat from the fireplace, watching the flakes come down through the snow-dusted windowpanes.

  Then Charlotte said, “I want to go over this McLean business again, from start to finish. Tell me if I leave anything out or if I say anything that doesn’t sound right to you.”

  Eddie nodded.

  “Okay,” she began. “He’s from a distinguished family, has a privileged upbringing. He’s a childhood friend of Freddie Welland, who’s involved with the America First movement at Yale. Through Freddie, he meets Freddie’s Uncle Walter, an admirer of Hitler who heads a fascist organization called the Yankee Patriots. At some point, he’s recruited by the Abwehr, probably through Uncle Walter’s Nazi connections. The United States enters the war, and he joins the Navy. He’s assigned to oversee the conversion of the Normandie to a troopship, an assignment that is viewed by the Abwehr as a perfect setup for sabotage.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Eddie said.

  “Through his connection with Alex Koprosky, he becomes acquainted with two of the count’s young fascist protégés, and recruits them for Operation Golden Bird through a Bund leader in New York. He arranges for them to work for the carpet company that’s been hired to lay the linoleum in the Grand Salon.”

  “I’ll bet that’s why he never ordered security checks on the employees of the subcontractors,” Eddie interjected.

  “Good point,” Charlotte said, and then continued. “He supplies his operatives with an incendiary device and sets up the conditions for the fire, namely the stack of burlap-covered life jackets stored near the welders who are taking down the metal light stanchions.”

  “What he didn’t count on,” Eddie said, “was the young Navy lieutenant who just happened to be sitting at the piano that afternoon, dreaming of his ladylove.”

  Charlotte smiled. “The war goes on. McLean has a change of heart and renounces his previous fascist associations. Writes them off to youthful folly, as Jeannie did her attendance at SDS meetings during her college days. Or maybe he just sees the handwriting on the wall.”

  “That seems more likely to me,” Eddie offered. “Who wants to stay on the losing team if you can switch sides without anyone ever knowing?”

  Charlotte nodded. “He goes on to a distinguished career, and his previous fascist associations become a potential source of embarrassment, to say nothing of his role in Operation Golden Bird. The past is buried, until one day he gets wind of the fact that someone has visited Roehrer and is asking questions.”

  “How would he have gotten wind of that?” Eddie asked.

  “Maybe through Roehrer himself. Roehrer said he didn’t know who the Fox was, but maybe he was lying.”

  “I doubt it. That’s how intelligence organizations protect their members—by insulating one level from the next.”

  “Okay,” she agreed. “We don’t know how he found out. If there is some sort of reinvestigation of the Normandie fire going on, it could even be that the authorities questioned McLean himself. In any case, he decides that Federov has to be eliminated to prevent his exposure.”

  “Even if Federov didn’t know his identity?”

  “If the authorities could prove that a sabotage plot existed, then they could carry the investigation further. Perhaps they could even find out about McLean through Abwehr records. But if they can’t prove there was a sabotage plot, then there would be no investigation to carry forward.”

  Eddie nodded. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll buy it.”

  “By a twist of fate, Federov and McLean both end up in the same town. When McLean finds out that questions are being asked, he decides to kill Federov and picks the preservation association’s benefit as the place to do it.”

  Eddie interrupted. “Two questions,” he said. “One: how would McLean have found out that Federov and Feder were one and the same? And two: why would he have killed Feder? Why not kill the person who was looking into the fire, and nip the investigation in the bud?”

  “The answer to number one is, I don’t know. The answer to number two might be that he didn’t want to call attention to himself. If an investigator was killed, the authorities conducting the investigation might have come looking for him. Whereas Feder was once removed, so to speak.”

  Eddie nodded.

  “To continue,” she said. “Seeing Feder head out to the beach, he follows him and waits for a convenient moment to stab him. Having learned from the newspaper, or from Lydia, how valuable the cigarette case is, he takes it in order to make it look like a jewel theft.”

  “How long would you estimate he was out there?” Eddie asked.

  “I have to admit that my attention was elsewhere,” she replied with a smile. “But I’d guess twenty to thirty minutes. We could check with Maureen. She would have the statements from him and from the other guests.”

  “In any case, long enough to do the job.”

  “Yes,” Charlotte agreed, then shrugged. “End of story,” she said. “At least, what we know of it. Are we ready to take it to the police?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  They landed at West Palm Beach International Airport late the next afternoon. The predicted storm had fizzled out. In New England parlance, it was just a duster. Only four inches of snow had fallen, much to their disappointment, since their room had been very comfortable (and they had needed only the one). As they drove back to Palm Beach along Okeechobee Boulevard, Charlotte was struck by the contrast between the snow and cold of the small, pristine New England village and the tropical climate and glitzy atmosphere of Florida’s Gold Coast. It was like seeing a movie in color on a large screen after watching it in black and white on a tiny television set. Or maybe it was just being back in Palm Beach with Eddie. In any case, when they drove across the arched stone bridge that connected the island to the mainland, she had the feeling that they w
ere entering a fairy-tale city. It was an impression that was enhanced by the sight that met them on the other side of the bridge: a wide boulevard lined by four rows of columnar royal palms, with a median of boxwood-edged flower gardens filled with colorful plantings of impatiens and geraniums. Such was the effect of this magnificent approach that she half expected to be greeted by a a trumpet fanfare.

  As they drove down Royal Palm Way, Charlotte realized that she felt happier and more youthful than she had in years. She wondered what was going to happen now. Were she and Eddie really as compatible as they seemed? Was she ready for a full-fledged relationship or even marriage—her fifth? On the one hand, her mind was racing with questions like these. On the other, she didn’t much care. She had reached the point in life where now was what mattered. Because the next day, the next week, the next year, either or both of them might not be around. Maybe this was what Ponce de Leon had discovered when he’d come to Florida seeking the fountain of youth, and Mizner and Singer after him. That only by coming to terms with death can you really find life.

  She dropped Eddie off at the Breakers, where he would be meeting with his band to start rehearsals, and then proceeded on to the police station. She found Maureen in her office, showed her the copy of The Yankee Patriot, and told her the whole story.

  “This is great,” Maureen said when Charlotte had finished, relieved to have a new angle to pursue. “We weren’t getting anywhere with the jewelry angle. We’ve leaned on every fence in Florida. We’ve called in every IOU from our street contacts.” She set the copy of The Yankee Patriot aside.

  “How about the weapon?” Charlotte asked.

  “It still hasn’t turned up. But we know more about it from the autopsy. A dagger, which is unusual. We don’t often run across double-edge blades here. It’s not like in Spanish Harlem or Little Italy, where the stiletto is a favorite weapon. With a six-inch blade. Apart from that, nothing.”

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “First, I’m going to find out more about Jack McLean. I have some contacts at the CIA,” Maureen said. “I feel as if I need more definitive proof before I can accuse a decorated rear admiral of treason.”

  “And if you find it?”

  “We’ll conduct a search. Look for the dagger and the cigarette case. Meanwhile, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention this to anybody.”

  “Of course,” Charlotte agreed. “Call me if you hear anything.”

  It was just after seven the next morning when Charlotte heard from Maureen. Her message was brief. “Meet me at Villa Normandie as soon as possible,” she said. “Go right past the house to to the back—by the lake. I’ll tell them to let you through.” In ten minutes, Charlotte was on her way downtown in her rental car. As she drove, she pondered the significance of Maureen’s statement: “Tell them to let you through.” Them must be Maureen’s underlings. To let her through implied some sort of barrier, which in turn implied that a crime had taken place. Maybe even another murder. Why else would Maureen have summoned her to a crime scene at seven on a Monday morning? The fact that the event—whatever it was—had taken place at Villa Normandie implied that Lydia was involved. Which also implied that their sabotage theory as a motive for Paul’s murder was shot to hell. Whoa! she warned herself. Slow down! She was jumping from one conclusion to the next like an Olympic gymnast, without a shred of evidence to support any of them.

  She arrived at Villa Normandie ten minutes later. The tricolor was still flying from the deck on the second story, but there was a Barclay’s International Realty “For Sale” sign on the front lawn. She was stopped just inside the entrance gates by a policeman.

  “Charlotte Graham,” she said. “Detective Maureen White said I should go right on through to the back.”

  The policeman nodded in recognition of her name and gave her a once-over—curious, Charlotte supposed, to see how the old warhorse was holding up. Then he directed her to drive past the swimming pool to the parking area in front of the garage.

  At the parking area, she was directed by another policeman to a path through a dense stand of low, leafy palms that led to a lawn overlooking the Lake Trail, which was a footpath that ran along the shore of Lake Worth.

  Emerging into the open a few minutes later, she could see a cluster of policemen gathered around a huge tropical tree at the edge of the Lake Trail. She walked down to the foot of the Bermuda grass lawn, where she joined Maureen at the edge of the trail. “What’s up?” she asked.

  “Good morning,” Maureen said. “I thought I owed you. We’ve got another body.” She nodded in the direction of the tree.

  Charlotte raised an arched eyebrow in her signature expression.

  “He’s over here,” said the detective, leading Charlotte toward the tree, whose enormous gray roots formed buttresses that were four or five feet high. A moment later, they were standing in front of a wedge-shaped enclosure created by the buttresslike roots.

  Lying on its side between the walls of the roots was the body of Admiral John W. McLean III. He was casually dressed in tan chinos, a white knit shirt, and a navy blue cardigan golf sweater. In the center of his upper chest was a neat, round stab wound ringed by a circle of fresh blood.

  “The wound appears to be identical to the one in Feder’s chest,” Maureen said.

  Charlotte was stunned. McLean was the last person she expected to be the victim. “I don’t know what to say,” she told Maureen, nonplused.

  “That makes two of us,” the detective said.

  Charlotte looked down again at the body. What impressed her about it was its sheer size and stateliness. In death, Big Jack McLean was as tragic as a mighty felled oak. “I guess this means our theory that McLean killed Feder to protect his reputation is out the window.”

  “Not necessarily,” Maureen replied. “If it’s true that McLean was involved in the sabotage plot, then both murders might be tied to that. We’re waiting for the medical examiner now, but it certainly looks like the same weapon.”

  “Yes, it does,” Charlotte agreed.

  “It also looks like a professional hit to me. That was my biggest problem with Marianne Montgomery as a suspect in Feder’s murder. It was too neat: it’s rare that a knife is thrust directly into a body at the right angle, and then pulled directly out again.”

  “In other words, the murderer was a person who knew what he was doing.”

  Maureen nodded. “Had to have done it before. Probably more than just once. Also, there aren’t any defense wounds, which means that the victim was taken by surprise. As was the case with Feder.”

  Charlotte looked up from the spot where the body lay to the asphalt-paved trail. At this point, the trail curved to accommodate the spreading roots of the giant tree, which must have been thirty feet in circumference. “Was he walking on the trail?” she asked.

  “We think so,” Maureen said. Turning away from the body, she led Charlotte out to the trail.

  Here the trail overlooked a narrow stretch of the Intracoastal Waterway which was dotted with uninhabited islands that were used as bird sanctuaries. The morning sun had tinted the still waters a pale pink. The vegetation was damp with dew, and the mourning doves cooed plaintively.

  It was hard to believe that a murder had taken place in such a tranquil setting, Charlotte thought as they stood there.

  The trail had been cordoned off to the north and to the south, and she could see policemen turning away early-morning joggers, dog walkers, cyclists, and roller bladers. A few of the more curious were hanging around on the other side of the yellow tape to see what was going on.

  “We think the perpetrator hid behind the roots of the tree,” Maureen said. “I just walked about a hundred feet in either direction; it’s the only place along this stretch of the trail where he could have concealed himself.”

  “It’s quite a tree,” Charlotte said. She’d noticed plaque on the trunk that said “Mysore Fig, Ficus Mysorensis, 1932.”

  “Yes. It’s one of
our historic specimen trees. The garden club puts up those plaques. It also makes a very good hiding place.”

  “For the killer and for the body,” Charlotte commented.

  Maureen nodded. “There’s a lot of traffic on the trail, as you can see,” she said, nodding toward a couple on a bicycle built for two who were being turned away by the police. “If he hadn’t hidden the body, it would’ve been discovered right away, which might not have given him enough time to get away.”

  “Who did discover it?”

  “A dog walker,” Maureen said. “The dog led him over there. You’d be amazed at how many bodies are discovered by dogs.”

  “Any clues?”

  “There are footprints. We’re going to have casts made. But that’s it. We’re looking for the weapon now.” She nodded at the policemen who were scouring the edges of the trail. “But I doubt we’ll find anything.”

  “What was McLean doing here?” Charlotte asked.

  “I don’t know,” Maureen said. “His car’s parked in front of Lydia Collins’s garage. I’m going to talk with her now. Do you want to sit in?”