Murder at Royale Court

by G. P. Gardner

  Dolly Webb’s bedtime, I knew, was only an hour away. I figured she’d leave at the break, but the lights dimmed and right away, someone got up, tiptoed in a low crouch to the lobby, and slipped out soundlessly. But it wasn’t Dolly, still sitting on the second row beside Nita.

  It was Patti. I couldn’t tell if she headed for the parking lot or for the kitchen. Was it possible she’d come to the lecture just to cozy up to the speaker? What if the simple act of facing up to bad behavior could stamp out bigotry? I engaged in a little escapist imagining while Handleman adjusted his audio-visual equipment.

  “Anybody recognize this elephant?” He gestured toward the screen.

  It looked a little crude to me, like something a child might make with modeling clay or that green stuff that had stuck to my shoes when Stephanie was little. The dog ate some of it once and turned his poop green, something I’d never forget.

  “This is the hood ornament of the most valuable car in the world.”

  Handleman was feeding it to us bit by bit but there were still no replies from the audience. I glanced at Riley and he shook his head in an I-don’t-know gesture.

  There was small print in a red oval below the elephant. I was sitting in the back of the room, but when I squinted I could just make out the letters…Bugatti?

  It sounded Italian. I pronounced it to myself in various accents but none of them sounded particularly expensive, as Lamborghini or Ferrari did. The VW beetle had been called a bug but it wasn’t a Bugatti. And Bug was never meant to be a flattering designation. Maybe I’d seen the name on one of the car show posters?

  “We’ll save the rest of the automobile for later and begin instead with some of the common rarities. That’s a term I invented. Common rarities. An oxymoron, a smart guy like Charlie Levine might say. Raise your hand, Charlie. Where are you? Ah, Eloise is here tonight, too. Great! I’ll get back to you, sweetheart. Listen, folks. Charlie’s the fellow responsible for these lectures. If you’ve enjoyed them, or if you haven’t, tell him. Now, I need three chairs up here. If some of you men will do the honors—” He rapped his knuckles on the front table. “We’re going to have a little competition.”

  Handleman leaned over a chair where his briefcase sat open.

  I heard a bell ring and he glanced over his shoulder at the audience, grinning, and turned his back again, concealing whatever he was doing.

  When volunteers had arranged the requested three chairs at the front tables, Handleman turned around carrying three little call bells, the kind used to signal for service. Each one had a little button on top that, depressed, produced a loud, clear tone. He winked at us as he spaced the bells out, one in front of each chair. Then he walked down the table and rang each bell.

  Ding. Dong. A long pause and another grin. Dang.

  Three distinct sounds.

  “Now, I need three volunteers, and I know just the people for the job.”

  He scanned the front row and finally lifted his eyebrows inquiringly and pointed to the empty chair where Patti had been.

  Jim announced in a loud voice, “She went to the bathroom.”

  Nita gave him an elbow in the ribs and the audience laughed.

  “In the kitchen,” Stewart said. “Want me to get her?”

  “No, no. We wouldn’t want to interfere with refreshments.”

  Handleman moved on, looking around the room. Finally, he pointed to me. “Ms. Mack, will you come to the front?”

  There was polite cheering and clapping from the Harbor Village residents, and I curtsied when I got to the front of the room. Handleman pulled out a chair for me, then went back to select another victim.

  It took a minute for him to decide on a slim blond man who moved toward the front of the room in a sluggish saunter that looked familiar. When he got closer, I recognized Todd Barnwell.

  “Hi there.” I gave him a little wave.

  He was clearly embarrassed to be singled out and didn’t make eye contact. He slumped into the third chair, as far away from me as possible, and left an empty seat between us.

  Handleman was pacing the aisles, looking for someone else. Someone he couldn’t seem to find. Finally, with a sweeping gesture, he swooped down on his final victim. “How about you, Mr. McKenzie?”

  Travis.

  Naturally, Travis hammed it up, clasping his hands together above his head like a prizefighter and swaggering to the front as if he’d won already.

  The crowd whistled and clapped and I rolled my eyes at him.

  “No fair,” I said. “I live here.”

  “People love an underdog.”

  I supposed he meant me. He was grinning like a fox. Todd Barnwell, farther down the table, looked like thunder. I turned my chair so I didn’t have to see him.

  “Ready?” Handleman asked. “Now, here’s the deal. You’re going to see ten cars on the screen, one at a time. If you can identify the car, ring your bell and I’ll call on you. The first correct answer wins a point. If I rule you wrong, you’re out for that item and someone else can ring in. Now, audience, don’t help them. It’s sink or swim for these three. Everyone ready?”

  We nodded. Or Travis and I did.

  I was fast with the bell and won the first item—a VW beetle—and the second one. “BMW!” I slammed my bell. I recognized the insignia even though the orange car had a dainty appearance that contrasted my mental image of BMWs. But I was right and the crowd cheered.

  “Two to nothing,” Handleman mugged. “Come on, guys. Wake up!” He rapped the table in front of Todd and I looked at him again, in spite of my resolve. He was clearly miserable.

  Travis beat me on the third slide, a spotted Cadillac convertible with fins on the back and cow horns on the hood. The audience judged it hilarious.

  Todd Barnwell actually got the fourth one, a Hummer, but forgot to ring his bell. Handleman threatened to deny credit but relented, and after that, Todd didn’t try again. I had classified him as pouty the first time I encountered him. Now I felt compelled to pump up my own enthusiasm and act a fool to compensate for his bratty behavior.

  Travis knew the next two automobiles instantly, a Rolls Royce followed by a Porsche, which he pronounced as a single syllable. Handleman repeated it with the two-syllable pronunciation I used, like the name Portia. My husband, Robert, had always said anyone who could afford a Porsche could call it whatever he liked.

  The seventh car was a curvaceous white convertible with chrome mesh over the headlights. “Corvette!” I slammed the bell a split second ahead of Travis. Score one for Wozniak. I hoped he was there to see it. It might’ve been the same car we’d talked about on the poster in the Henry George Colony office.

  Travis got the gull-wing Mercedes with doors that lifted up, like a bird in flight. Handleman pointed out that gull-wing doors would come in handy on some of Fairhope’s narrow streets.

  I got the Citroen 2CV only because Robert and I had rented one on our honeymoon and I’d liked the French pronunciation. Deux chevaux. Two horsepower. Seeing it unexpectedly was like a stab in the heart, but it wasn’t exactly the right model, and anyway, the show must go on.

  At this point, Travis and I were tied, with one car to go.

  I hovered over my bell as the tenth slide popped onto the screen. It was a silver Jaguar roadster, with a long hood and red leather interior for two. I pounced on my bell and knocked it off the table.

  Dong, Travis’s bell chimed.

  The crowd went nuts and I put my head down, sobbing and giggling until I got the hiccups. Travis clowned around while I got my emotions under control. Handleman picked up my bell, brushed it off and, with a flourish, put it back in place. I found a tissue in my pocket and dried my nose and eyes.

  Todd Barnwell helped, too, by slinking out to the parking lot.

  “Past his bedtime,” someone said, and the audience howled with laughter again. />
  “All right, folks. That was fun,” Handleman said. “But what’s our topic tonight? Investing. So the real question is this: Of all the valuable cars we just saw—and they were all valuable, for one reason or another—which one has appreciated the most since it was new?

  “The Rolls Royce,” Travis answered promptly. Half the audience agreed and applauded, and he turned to me with a smirk.

  Handleman waited. I could feel everyone watching, wondering what I’d do now with the right answer already taken.

  “And the little lady says…?”

  I hated that term. Anybody younger than eighty knew it was taboo, or should be. Just hearing it made me want desperately to get the answer right. But Travis probably had it already. I cut my gaze around and saw his smug smile. I refused to agree with him. Handleman began singing the Jeopardy theme. I knew it wouldn’t be the little French car, and I could remember only one other.

  “The BMW.” My voice sounded confident, but it was pure bluff.

  Handleman turned on his heel. “How many of you know the BMW five-oh-seven?”

  Nobody responded, and I had no clue if I’d been right or ridiculously wrong.

  “Well then, how many of you know Eloise Levine?” He walked down the aisle to the row where Eloise sat beside her husband.

  If they hadn’t been together, no one would’ve guessed Charlie and Eloise were a couple. Charlie Levine was short, grumpy, and had asthma or something like it, which caused him to breathe with a wheeze and to perspire with the slightest exertion. Eloise, closing in on seventy or maybe seventy-five, was still glamorous, a big woman with shoulder-length blond hair, exotic clothes, and jewels that definitely looked real. The effort she put into her appearance probably explained why we didn’t see her around Harbor Village very often. Even when they chose to patronize the dining room, Charlie generally walked over and picked up meals to take to their apartment.

  “Stand up, Eloise, and come out here.” Handleman held out a hand.

  Eloise moved into the aisle beside him, and he put his arm around her. Now there was a well-matched couple—two oversized, flashy individuals. I thought about Riley and wondered how we’d look together. Drab, maybe, but not really mismatched.

  “Back when I was a poor, broke college student,” Handleman said, “Eloise went out with me occasionally. That was before she developed good taste and discovered Charlie. And Eloise convinced me to buy this very car.” He clicked the BMW photo back on the screen and looked at Eloise. “You remember that, I hope?”

  I looked at the screen and turned back to see Eloise nodding. From the smile on her face and the twinkle in her eyes, she might’ve been remembering more than a car.

  “It took me three years to pay it off, thirty-four hundred dollars plus interest.” Handleman wiped his brow in a gesture of pretended desperation. “Then later—ten years ago, I guess—I put twenty-five thousand into it for a professional renovation.”

  The audience groaned.

  “And then I sold it, four years ago, for eight…hundred…thousand dollars.”

  I gulped and Travis, still sitting beside me at the front table, threw back his head and laughed.

  “Thank you, Eloise!” Handleman said.

  He gave her a hug and a big smooch on the cheek, and then she wiggled her way back to the seat beside Charlie. I applauded along with everyone else, and Eloise sat down and planted a big kiss on her husband, who took her hand and raised it in the air, signaling victory and managing to look slightly happier as he did it.

  Handleman walked back toward the front. “That was the best car investment I ever made. Now when people ask me if there’s money to be made in automobiles, I have to say yes. It helps to have money when you start out, but sometimes time can substitute for it.”

  Someone shouted out a question. “What do you drive now, Reggie?”

  He stopped abruptly and pointed to the speaker. “I was hoping somebody would ask that. Remember when we saw Duke Ellington playing the Steinway?” He pantomimed fingers on the keyboard. “And we talked about Steinway making engines for horseless carriages? Well, that’s not the only link between Steinway and the automotive industry.”

  He perched on the end of the table where Todd had sat. “In 2011, BMW brought out their seven-series Steinway model. Only a hundred and fifty were produced that first year, in any color you wanted so long as it was black or white. Like a keyboard, get it? For the gearheads in the audience, and I know you’re here, there were two engine options. Mine is the V-twelve with five hundred forty-four horsepower and twin turbochargers. It’s parked right up the street and you’re welcome to look, but don’t drool.”

  I looked at Travis.

  “Nice car,” he nodded. “I already looked.”

  I whispered, “When did you get so interested in cars?”

  “When I learned you could sell them for ten times what you paid.” He smirked and raised one eyebrow. “Get the right one and people beg to use it in parades. Good PR.”

  Handleman touched on the substantial appreciation of the other cars in our little competition before he dismissed Travis and me. “See that they get a couple of grapes during the break.”

  I walked down the aisle and Riley slid over, giving me the seat at the end of the row. I sat and the lights dimmed again.

  And that was when Terry Wozniak slipped in from the garden and took a seat a few rows in front of me. I hadn’t seen him earlier and realized he’d missed the first half of the night’s presentation. Good thing he hadn’t skipped Wednesday night’s lecture. If he had, Mary Montgomery might be having an unpleasant little conversation with him. I wondered if he’d known Devon Wheat.

  The next part of the night’s program involved the photographs people had brought to the afternoon session. Handleman told us about the most interesting ones, naming automobiles I’d never heard of, like the Elmore and the Gardner, and some I had, if barely, like Cord, Auburn, and the Stutz Bearcat, the best name of all. Is there such a thing as a bearcat? He talked about what he called the chess set, naming the King and Queen, the Knight, plus two attempts to manufacture a Bishop, one in Birmingham. “No Rook, but there was a Crow and a Black Crow.”

  People at the afternoon session had brought photos of a few of those.

  “I persuaded people to leave their photos here for you to see.” He gestured to a pair of tables positioned near the wall behind him. “I’d like the people who have photos on display to come up and stand behind them, in case anyone has a question. We’ll take a little longer than usual for our break so you can get something to drink and take a quick look at all the photos.”

  Suddenly he did a double take. “Well, there’s Mr. Wozniak! I must’ve overlooked you earlier. I hope you’re feeling better this evening?”

  Wozniak nodded. Had he been unwell when I saw him in the afternoon? I couldn’t remember any suggestion of that but hoped he hadn’t exposed us to some bug.

  “Well, as I was saying…” Handleman paced across the front. “Let’s take about twenty minutes for refreshments and photos. And after that, we’ll look at the most valuable cars in the world.”

  People stood and moved toward the front, but Riley bent toward me. “Who was that kid in the contest?” He gestured toward the parking lot door.

  “His name’s Todd Barnwell. I mentioned him to you earlier, remember? He’d been arguing with Devon Wheat over the management of a trust fund. And that reminds me. I need to run outside and make a quick phone call.”

  I left him heading for refreshments and went out to the garden. There were other people there already, chatting and stretching their legs and drinking coffee or punch or wine.

  “Good work, Cleo,” someone called out.

  I thanked them and took out my phone. The fountain in the koi pond made a lot of noise so I went to the covered walkway outside the arts and crafts room before I keyed in t
he nonemergency number of the FPD.

  “I’d like to leave a message for Lieutenant Montgomery,” I told the night duty officer.

  Montgomery had a curt outgoing message. When it ended, I gave my name and reminded her about Patti saying Todd Barnwell had harassed Devon Wheat about a trust fund. “I just remembered that Todd Barnwell was on de la Mare Street this morning, after you released Nita Bergen and me. He was there where he had a good view of the courtyard, and you said I should call if I thought of anything.”

  That would teach Todd Barnwell to be snotty. I clicked off and checked for calls.

  Ann Slump had phoned but hadn’t left a message. Why wasn’t she in the ballroom helping Carla and Lizzie? I hoped nothing was wrong.

  When I closed the phone case and started back inside, Terry Wozniak was standing alone near the koi pond. He was facing the ballroom, and the fountain noise kept him from hearing me, but I held back anyway, waiting to follow him inside.

  He walked toward the entrance but turned right at the last minute and disappeared around the end of the building.

  Suddenly I felt a little guilty. While Patti had been making friends with her nemesis, I’d been giving Wozniak the brush-off, even though he’d been so helpful about explaining the property tax business. And just now, I’d blown the whistle on Todd Barnwell, who’d done nothing except be a bratty kid. So, who was actually the bad guy? I went back into the bright lights of the ballroom feeling like a louse.

  The second half of Handleman’s presentation began with a photo parade of cars we were likely to see in the Grand Concours the next day.

  My favorite was the Cadillac V-16, a big, luxurious car from the 1930s, with running boards and six white sidewall tires, including spares inset in the front fenders. Some of the several photos he showed had official-looking flags fluttering on its fenders.