McNally's Puzzle

by Lawrence Sanders

  “Yep.”

  “Tree him?”

  “Nope. Didn’t give him a chance. Tell you what, that hound is swift. Set out after the critter. You should have heard Hobo snarl. Scared the daylights out of Mr. Raccoon. He went skedaddling south with Hobo right behind him. I finally whistled the dog back and he came. But I figure that raccoon is in Broward County by now and still running flat out.”

  I gave Hobo an extra helping of pats. “Well done, sir,” I told him. “Keep up the good work.”

  I went into the house, my sunken spirits somewhat elevated by the tale of Hobo’s hunting prowess. Ursi was working in the kitchen and offered to prepare a lunch but I respectfully declined. My appetite was blunted—a very rare occurrence, I assure you, and indicative of how deeply I had been affected by the news of Hiram Gottschalk’s murder.

  Up in my hidey-hole I reviewed all the notes I had made on what I was now fancifully terming the Puzzle of the Patricidal Parrot. I chose the adjective because I was convinced the birdman had been topped by a close relative. But a desperate search of my journal revealed nothing of significance. Just bits and pieces, dribs and drabs.

  I existed in a mindless stupor for a half hour or so. I was thinking but it was a chaotic process, skipping from this to that: Ricardo Chrisling’s taste in interior decor to Judith Gottschalk’s mole, Peter Gottschalk’s irrationality to Yvonne Chrisling’s dictatorial manner. I mean the McNally cerebrum was in a tizzy with a surfeit of stimuli, whirling like a bloody carousel with the brass ring continually out of reach.

  I was saved from total mental collapse by a phone call, finally, from Sgt. Al Rogoff. He was obviously in no mood for idle chatter.

  “You going to be home for a while?” he demanded.

  “The rest of the day as far as I know.”

  “Suppose I come over now. Okay?”

  “Sure. Hungry?”

  “I could use a sandwich and a beer.”

  “You’ve got it,” I said. “How does it look, Al?”

  “The Gottschalk kill? Pretty it ain’t. See you soon.”

  I went down to the kitchen. Ursi had finished her chores and was gone; I played the short-order chef. I made Al two sandwiches, both with luncheon meat: sliced chicken breast with tomato and mayo, and salami with pickle relish. Even preparing this sumptuous repast didn’t perk my appetite and I feared I might never wish to eat again. That put me in a better mood; absurdity always does.

  Al pulled up outside in his pickup truck. It’s not that he couldn’t commandeer an official squad car but he has a nice sensibility about how Palm Beach residents feel about having a police vehicle parked in their driveway. Neighbors ask questions or gossip. I couldn’t care less, of course, but I appreciated his discretion.

  He came lumbering into the kitchen, took off his sagging gun belt, and slumped at the table. He looked more weary than grim and we did nothing but nod to each other. I popped two cans of chilled Coors and gave him one with the sandwiches. I gripped the other as I took a chair facing him.

  “Rough morning?” I said.

  “Not a barrel of laughs,” he said. “Thanks for the feed. You make these sandwiches?”

  “I washed my hands first.”

  “I hope so. Your father says Gottschalk thought someone was after him. Right?”

  “Correct.”

  “Why didn’t he come to us?”

  “Come on, Al,” I said. “Get real. He had received no threatening letters or phone calls. Would you have done anything?”

  He picked up the chicken sandwich. “You’re right,” he admitted. “Until he got snuffed. Now we got to do something. Did you believe him?”

  I flipped a palm back and forth. “Maybe yes, maybe no. Here’s why he was spooked...”

  I related what Hiram had told me: the slashed photograph, mass card, dead mynah, shattered phonograph record. Al listened closely while chomping through his first sandwich and picking up the second. I brought him another beer.

  “You think he was telling you the truth?” he asked.

  “I thought so at first,” I replied. “What reason would he have to lie? But then I began talking to his children and employees, and they told me he’d been losing his marbles, had delusions of persecution. They implied senility.”

  Rogoff stopped scarfing and drinking to stare at me. “Did you ask them if he had been acting nutty, or did they volunteer the information?”

  “They volunteered,” I said. “They may have been right.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Me neither,” he agreed, and started on his salami sandwich and second beer.

  “I think they were trying to convince me Hiram was non compos mentis,” I said. “They wanted me to tell my father his client’s judgment was not to be trusted.”

  “And why do you suppose they wanted you to do that?”

  “‘Ay, there’s the rub,’” I said. “Hamlet’s soliloquy.”

  “Thank you so much, Professor,” he said. “I learn a lot when I talk to you. It takes weeks of hard work to forget it.”

  “Al, it couldn’t have been an intruder, could it?”

  “A masked villain who breaks in, kills, and escapes without stealing anything? I don’t think so. But some moron tried to make it look like that. A pane of glass in the patio door was broken and the door was wide open.”

  “So?”

  “All the broken glass was on the outside.”

  “Beautiful,” I said. “Either a moron, as you said, or a murderer so emotionally disturbed by what he had done that he wasn’t thinking straight.”

  “Or she wasn’t,” Rogoff said, finishing his beer.

  “You think it might have been a woman?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Al, you haven’t yet told me how Hiram Gottschalk died.”

  “According to the doc, the victim was probably snuffed while he slept.”

  “But how? Shot, stabbed, strangled, smothered?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “I do want to know,” I said angrily. “I want you to tell me.”

  “He was stabbed through both eyes with a long, slender blade, something like an ice pick, probably a thin stiletto.”

  I groaned. “I wish you hadn’t told me.” I found myself involuntarily pressing palms to my own eyes, to make certain they were still there.

  “Archy, don’t repeat what I just told you: the stabbing of the eyes. We’re holding out on that, just telling the media he was knifed to death. We keep a few details back to check fake and real confessions.”

  “I know,” I said. “I shan’t repeat it to anyone, I assure you. It’s not something I’d care to mention casually at a Tupperware party. Al, I know you’ve only started your investigation but I’m sure you’ve met all the whirlybirds involved. Any first impressions?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “How do you tell the difference between the twins?”

  “You don’t,” I told him. “Think of them as one woman. But what I want to know is if you have any initial feeling or instinct about who might be responsible for Hiram’s quietus.”

  “You know,” he said, “I’ve decided you talk the way you do because it helps soften the world’s nastiness. You can’t face crude reality, can you?”

  “I can face it,” I said defensively, “but would prefer not to. You haven’t answered my question. Who is your number one suspect at the moment?”

  He sighed. “It’s got to be the son, Peter Gottschalk. The guy is such a wacko. I mean we’re talking world-class kookiness. He’s capable of shoving a shiv into his father’s eyes while the old man slept.”

  “But why?”

  The sergeant shrugged. “Maybe just for the fun of it. I don’t know whether or not the kid is a druggie—we’ll find out—but he sure acts like one. So he’s got to be tops on my hit parade. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop looking at the others. Where were they last night? What time did they go to sleep? Did they hear an
ything? See anything? The usual drill.”

  He rose, buckled on his gun belt, looked at me. I was still nursing my first beer.

  “You going to keep digging?” he demanded.

  “You want me to?” I asked him. “Or do you want me off?”

  He considered a moment. “Keep nosing,” he said finally. “They might tell you things they won’t tell me. And I know you’ll report anything you learn.”

  “Of course,” I assured him.

  “Of course,” he repeated.

  We smiled at each other.

  CHAPTER 15

  I KNOW YOU’LL BE DELIGHTED to learn I regained my appetite on Monday evening. Well, of course it had to happen because Ursi served beef stew Provençale with fettuccine, and what man, woman, child, or werewolf could resist that? Oh, how I gorged! But remember, I had ingested scarcely a morsel all day. It is foolish (and painful) to deny the body’s demands.

  Dessert, mercifully, was a simple lime sorbet. By the time I waddled from the dining room I had decided that life, despite its eternal frustrations, was indeed worth living. The guv stopped me in the hallway.

  “You talked to Sergeant Rogoff?” he asked. “About Hiram Gottschalk’s murder.”

  “Yes, sir. I told him what little I had learned. He wants me to keep nosing about.”

  The sire nodded approvingly. “Good,” he said. “Do it.”

  And that was the extent of our conversation. I went upstairs to my journal, wanting to find a factoid I dimly recalled. I found it: a scrap of conversation with Peter Gottschalk at the Pelican Club. “I hate my father,” he had said.

  But now, with Peter being Al Rogoff’s chief suspect in a heinous killing, the son’s emotional comment took on an added resonance. I debated informing the sergeant but decided not to pro tempore. One impulsive utterance was hardly evidence of murderous intent, was it. Was it?

  Disturbed about where my duty lay, I deserted my quarters, went downstairs and outside. I wandered over to the doghouse. Awakened by my approach, Hobo emerged slowly, yawning, tail wagging feebly.

  “Sorry to disturb your slumber, old man,” I said, and leaned down to peer within his shelter.

  There was now a square of old carpeting on the ground, and he had been provided with plastic dishes holding food and water. There was also a rawhide bone and a toy that looked like a stuffed cat and already showed signs of enthusiastic gnawing.

  “All the comforts of home,” I told him. “You’ve got it made, Hobo.”

  I sat down on the patch of lawn about his mansion. He came close and curled up alongside. He rested his head on my knee and looked up at me. I am trying very hard not to anthropomorphize too much but I swear that animal knew or sensed I was troubled. His look and manner were concerned and sympathetic. Ridiculous? Possibly.

  I stroked him steadily and absently, scratching his ears and head, smoothing his coat down to his tail. He allowed me, although I suspected he might have preferred snoozing within his castle. I don’t know why but caressing the dog was marvelous therapy. I suppose I might have achieved the same result with a cat, gerbil, hippopotamus—or even, I thought suddenly, a mynah who responded to all approaches by repeating, “Dicky did it.”

  I finally arose, gave Hobo a final pat, and returned to the house. I paused at the kitchen door and looked back. He was standing at the entrance to his dwelling, watching me. To make certain I’m safe inside, I fancied, and then recognized it was so loony that if I kept it up I’d soon be inviting him in to join me for luncheon at the Pelican Club.

  Up in my den again, I treated myself to an English Oval and a marc, parked my feet on the desk, and surrendered to the gruesome puzzle biting at me since I spoke to Sgt. Rogoff. Hiram Gottschalk had been stabbed through the eyes. Wouldn’t your average, run-of-the-mill assassin, anxious to complete the dirty deed and escape, knife a sleeping victim in the heart, or at least the chest, once or many times? But no, the killer had deliberately pierced the eyes. And through those orbs of seeing into the brain. Why?

  Obvious, was it not? A deranged slayer sought to make Hiram Gottschalk permanently sightless. He had seen too much, and so he had to perish. I could come to no other conclusion. Could you?

  But that judgment solved little. It merely engendered more questions. What had Hiram seen—or what was he seeing? Why did his witnessing have to be abruptly terminated in such a vicious manner? In my brief conversations with the man, I had thought him mildly eccentric but hardly the possessor of dark secrets so ominous they demanded his death. Someone thought otherwise.

  I went to bed that night still pondering what Hiram might have viewed that caused his demise. The result of my mulling? Nada.

  Connie Garcia didn’t phone.

  Tuesday might as well have been called Bluesday. Not the weather—that was sprightly enough—but I was feeling far from gruntled. The perplexities of the Gottschalk affair were nagging, of course, and Connie’s intransigence was infuriating. Her refusal to make the slightest effort toward a rapprochement was a blow to the McNally ego. After all, who had taught her the complete lyrics of “May the Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your Nose”? Moi! And cold rejection was my reward. Maddening!

  A breakfast of scones with apricot preserves helped but I was still in a tetchy mood when I drove to work. I decided my megrims could only be vanquished by resolute action. I would make phone calls, ask stern questions and demand answers, pry relentlessly, and by the end of the day I would have Hiram’s killer by the heels.

  It didn’t happen. I found myself slumped at my desk, counting the walls (four) and wondering what to do next. There’s a German word for my condition: verdutzt. The Yiddish version is fartootst. Both mean confused, bewildered. At the moment A. McNally was definitely fartootst. Plussed I was non.

  My brain was saved from a total scatter by a phone call from Julia Gottschalk. At least she claimed to be Julia. The voices of the twin sisters were so alike I could not be certain but took the caller at her word.

  “Julia,” I started, “I want to express my—”

  “Yes, yes,” she said somewhat testily, cutting my condolences short. “I know how you must feel. We all feel the same way. Archy, I’d like to see you as soon as possible.”

  “Oh? Sniffles better?”

  “What?”

  “Your sister said you were indisposed. Cold, flu, or whatever.”

  “Oh that,” she said blithely. “It went away. When can we meet?”

  “Lunch?” I suggested.

  “No can do,” she said promptly. “Judith and I must go shopping. Something suitable to wear at the funeral, you know.”

  “Of course,” I said, amazed at the priorities of Hiram’s loving female offspring.

  “Around three o’clock,” she said firmly. “The bar at the Cafe L’Europe. We’ll have some nice shampoo and a cracker or two.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “See you then,” she said lightly, and disconnected.

  I sat staring at the dead phone. Hardly the wail of a grieving daughter, was it? “Shampoo and a cracker or two.” Was that her idea of a wake for her murdered father? I wondered if Mr. Gottschalk had been fully aware of the character of his progeny. Parents sometimes do have a tendency to view their kiddies through glasses so rose-colored they’re practically opaque. My mother, for instance, firmly believes me to be sterling. Father, on the other hand, is convinced I am tarnished brass.

  I was still musing on that curious exchange with Julia Gottschalk when I received another equally puzzling call.

  “Archy?” she said. “This is Yvonne Chrisling.”

  “Oh, Yvonne. Please let me express my condolences for your loss. He was a fine gentleman and I shall miss him, as I’m sure you all will.”

  “Of course,” she said. “And I thank you for your sympathy. The sooner they find the fiend who did it, the better. It was an ugly, despicable crime, and I haven’t stopped crying yet.”

  She didn’t sound as if she was weeping, or had been, but perhaps s
he had herself under control. No surprise there.

  “Archy,” she said, “the last time we spoke we discussed how strangely Hiram had been acting recently. Did you tell your father about that?”

  “No, I did not. I didn’t have the opportunity.”

  “Good,” she said. “Because it’s all meaningless now, isn’t it?”

  “Quite right.”

  “That’s a relief,” she said, and I thought it was to her—a relief. “There’s no point in bringing it up since the man has passed. Well, I must ring off. Things are in an uproar, as you can imagine, with the police, reporters, television crews, planning for the funeral, and so forth. The children have been of no help whatsoever. But I do want to see you again as soon as things settle down.”

  “If there’s anything I can do to help, please let me know.”

  “I’ll do that,” she said warmly. “I know you represent Hiram’s attorney but I think of you more as a friend. A close friend.”

  “Thank you, Yvonne,” I said, thinking, Close friend? Since when?

  “Ta-ta,” she said, and hung up.

  It was the final “Ta-ta” I found particularly distasteful. I mean it was so frivolous. The woman’s employer had been brutally slain, stabbed to death through the eyes, and she said, “Ta-ta.”

  Suddenly I realized if I had failed to take action that morning as I intended, action had come to me. I had received two communications and though neither was apparently of earthshaking importance, both were what I call nuzzles: Little nudges by which fig leaves are raised ever so slightly and nakedness can be glimpsed. My lady callers had intrigued me, not with revelations but with teasing hints of hidden treasures. And both, I reckoned gleefully, had me pegged as a simp. I thought that was just dandy.

  I was beginning to regain a measure of the usual McNally esprit when I received my third call of the morning. It was from Binky Watrous but had no deflationary effect.

  “Hi, Archy,” he said brightly. “I’m at home.”

  “Bully!” I said. “Whose?”

  Short silence. Binky, as I’m sure you’re aware, is not too swift. “Why, I’m at my home,” he said finally. “I don’t work on Tuesdays. Archy, did you know there are more than eighty-six hundred species of birds?”