McNally's Alibi

by Lawrence Sanders

  I had stopped at a lunch counter on my way here for a burger and a cup of decaf. A far cry from one of Leroy’s delicious quarter-pounders and a draft drawn by Leroy’s father, Simon Pettibone, at the Pelican.

  Having had my after-lunch ration of tobacco, I declined without explanation and the ashtray was withdrawn.

  “You know about the murder,” O’Hara finally said.

  “That’s the reason I’m here, isn’t it?”

  “It wasn’t in the papers or on the local news, so I strongly suspect you have a friend in the Palm Beach Police Department. What else did he tell you?”

  “How do you know it’s not a she?” I quickly got in.

  “Because a female officer would have the common sense not to prep a possible suspect before an interview.”

  I bowed my head in disgrace. “Forgive this possible suspect,” I apologized. “Harrigan was alive when I went into the room and alive when I left.”

  “Was there anyone else in the room?” she asked.

  “Not unless they were hiding in the bath or closet,” I told her.

  The green eyes widened, hinting that I may have given her the first matching piece in the puzzle. “You got there at nine, spoke to this Harrigan for ten minutes, give or take, and left the motel at ten. We’re missing a significant number of minutes.”

  “Did your witness have a stopwatch?” I complained, like a defense lawyer on the offensive.

  Her lips curved into a tantalizing smile. Did I mention that Officer O’Hara wore no makeup? A soap-and-water girl who needed nothing else. “He was just sitting down to watch his favorite television show,” she explained. “It goes on at nine. He heard a car drive by, looked out and saw the red Miata heading for the public parking area. When he heard a car again, the show had just ended. He took another look out and saw the Miata drive away. As you may have guessed, it’s a one-hour show.”

  Having no rebuttal for that, I again obeyed father’s orders and told the truth. “I was mugged in the parking lot. Zonked out for half an hour.”

  “Did you report it?”

  “To who—or whom?” I asked her. “The management of the Crescent?”

  “No, Mr. McNally. To the police. Did he or she take your wallet?”

  My, how gender conscious we were these days. “No, ma’am, he or she did not.”

  “And you didn’t report it to the police because the perpetrator took whatever Harrigan gave you and the item might prove an embarrassment to your client.” Without waiting for a confirmation, she went on, “Did Harrigan follow you out and take back the prize?”

  “That was my guess,” I said, “but when I came to my senses and went back to the unit, it was locked and the room’s carport was empty. If Harrigan is dead, as you say he is, he couldn’t have zapped me on the head and then driven merrily on his way.”

  “Now who’s jumping to conclusions?” she mocked. “I didn’t tell you Harrigan was dead.”

  “Then who is?” I begged.

  “First tell me what this Harrigan looked like.”

  I thought a moment before answering. “About six feet. Good-looking if you like the boy-next-door type.” Recalling the jeans, I said, “Dressed for cruising in South Beach. Close to thirty, but with a little makeup and good lighting he could pass for younger.”

  She picked up a large brown envelope, opened it and withdrew a black-and-white photo. I knew I was about to get a sample of the scene-of-the-crime boy’s photographic skills. She handed it over and I was looking at a torso shot of a man who had seen his fiftieth birthday a few years ago and would never see another. Near his head was the base of what I believed to be a toilet bowl.

  “He’s not the man I saw in unit number nine of the Crescent Motel,” I said.

  “His driver’s license tells us he’s Lawrence Swensen with an address in Key West. The room was registered in his name. We contacted the police down there but have no word back as yet.”

  His age and home address told me he could be the houseboy who was selling Capote’s manuscript. “I take it you found him in the bathroom.” When she nodded, I said, “He could have been there when I was talking to Harrigan.”

  It made sense. Harrigan, the rep from the auction house, met Swensen in the motel to get the manuscript—if the houseboy and the manuscript actually existed—oversee the deal and collect his and Claudia’s share of the loot. Being greedy, he does in Swensen, puts him in the bathroom and waits for me to come with the fifty thousand. I deliver, leave, and Harrigan goes after me, takes back the manuscript and beats it with the cash and the cash cow. The script had one flaw, which I voiced aloud. “The empty car port. If Harrigan left in his car, where was Swensen’s car?”

  “In the parking lot,” came the answer. “You may have parked near it. Swensen seems to have left his space free to accommodate his guest. Thoughtful, don’t you think?”

  No, I didn’t think any such thing. He left the space free so his guest wouldn’t attract attention by having to drive the length of the crescent route to the parking lot like yrs. truly. And, come to think of it, the creep that attacked me could have been hiding in Swensen’s car—but that was a long shot. Now that I knew Harrigan wasn’t dead, I again fingered him for my nemesis.

  “I can tell you,” O’Hara was saying, “that Swensen was heavily sedated and then strangled.” She took a deep breath before reading me the riot act. “Now we have to get down to the nitty-gritty, Mr. McNally. As you can see, we have to find this Matthew Harrigan. If you’re telling me the truth, he’s our leading contender for the role of the heavy. If we don’t find him and you can’t come up with a better alibi than being asleep at the time of the crime, we award you the blue ribbon.

  “Your client is our only lead to finding Harrigan, so at the risk of making you dizzy once again, I must ask your client’s name and the nature of your case. Blackmail often leads to murder, as I’m sure you know.” To bring home the point, she threatened, “You can tell me now, or I can subpoena you and get it from you later.”

  In a bid for time and to get as much information from her as I could before baring my soul, I asked her who found the body. She consulted the paper on her desk, which I now believed contained everything she knew about the murder—and me.

  “One Rodney Whitehead,” she said, “from New York, New York. He called us at a quarter after ten.”

  And another county is heard from. But his hometown did link up with Claudia Lester. The only thing unit number nine at the Crescent Motel lacked was a turnstile. “Did he say how he got into the room?”

  “He said the door was open.”

  This was a lie. Whitehead got there literally minutes after I had tried the door and found it locked. Someone let him in. If it wasn’t the corpse, it must have been Harrigan who went back after mugging me. No. The carport was empty, so Harrigan must have driven away. But that was pure conjecture. Let’s say someone drove away—and enter Rodney Whitehead. This was beginning to resemble a box of Kleenex—pull out one and up pops another.

  Without my asking, O’Hara volunteered, “Whitehead said he went to see Swensen on business. When we asked the nature of his business with the dead man, Whitehead clammed up. Said he wouldn’t say anything more without a lawyer present. He’s staying at a motel in West Palm. We told him not to leave town without our permission. Now tell me what I want to know, Mr. McNally.”

  I didn’t want to involve Fortesque until I had found Claudia Lester. I had to see if she would corroborate what Fortesque had told me and maybe shed some light on what took place at the Crescent last night now that everyone’s cards were on the table. As I saw it, I could shield Fortesque, for a time, without actually lying to the police.

  O’Hara wanted to know what I was doing at the Crescent Motel last night, and I told her the truth. “My client, Claudia Lester, hired me to retrieve something that belonged to her. She said a young man named Matthew Harrigan had stolen it and would return it for a certain sum of money. Harrigan would be at the Cres
cent, unit number nine, at nine o’clock last night to make the exchange. The rest you know.”

  “What did he have that belonged to the lady?”

  “Her diary,” I said.

  “A diary that could prove embarrassing to this Claudia Lester and therefore a motive for murder,” O’Hara concluded.

  “But it wasn’t Harrigan who got done in,” I reminded her.

  “If the man you spoke to at the Crescent was Harrigan,” she shot back. “You didn’t ID him, did you?”

  “We’re on that merry-go-round again, officer. Can we hop off, share what we know and see if we can’t make some sense of this charade?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to do, Mr. McNally. Are you telling me everything you know?”

  “I’m telling you everything that transpired between my client, Claudia Lester, and me, including what happened in the execution of my duties—so help me Sam Spade.”

  She looked at me as if I had told her the dog ate my homework, but she didn’t challenge my testimony. I think O’Hara, too, was playing it by ear and didn’t want to tread too heavily until she knew more. My position exactly.

  Then came the inevitable. “Where do I find Claudia Lester?”

  “She was at the Ambassador in Palm Beach. She checked out last night and left no forwarding address. I’m waiting to hear from her.”

  Looking puzzled, O’Hara asked, “Why do you think she beat it?”

  “I thought the bump on my head had something to do with it. When I didn’t get back to the Ambassador after the time it should have taken me to make the exchange, she suspected something went amiss and ran. I don’t know why, but Swensen’s murder makes the cheese more binding, as they say. It’s clear that Ms. Lester had reason to run and that she was less than truthful with me. I’m as eager to speak to the lady as you are.”

  O’Hara shook her head. She wasn’t buying it, but she wasn’t calling me a liar, either. “That must be one hell of a diary the lady kept,” was all she said.

  I felt guilty not telling her all I knew and wondered if I would have felt the same if she were a sturdy male trooper rather than a beautiful female trooper. “Once upon a time,” I began, “there lived a beautiful actress named Mary Astor. She kept a diary that fell into the public domain, causing important men in Hollywood and New York to blush from coast to coast.”

  “I think it had something to do with the prowess of a famous director during a long, long cab ride around Central Park.” She spoke with all the panache of one of the guys telling tall tales in the locker room. “My reading habits are less than Proustian,” she confessed with nary a tint of crimson in her flawless complexion.

  Good grief, she sounded just like someone I knew—myself. Had she also read Answered Prayers? No doubt she had, and I, for one, admired her unabashed honesty. Yes, I liked Officer O’Hara. I liked her a lot but wasn’t unaware of the dangers inherent in my esteem. As a possible suspect in a murder case, the accusing goddess could easily prove to be a Venus flytrap posing as one of the boys.

  “Do you think this Claudia Lester will contact you again, Mr. McNally?” she then asked.

  “I’m sure she will. I was the last person to have my hands on her precious diary. She’ll want to know what happened to it and to her money.”

  “How much was she paying to get her property back?”

  Again protecting Fortesque, I let it go at, “It was a hefty sum.”

  “She told you there was only one person involved in the theft of her diary. Matthew Harrigan. Now we have two other people on board. The victim, Swensen, and the man who found him dead, Rodney Whitehead, who’s from New York. Did you say Claudia Lester is from New York?”

  “I didn’t say, but, yes, she told me she was from the Big Apple. And, yes, there could be a connection.”

  “We’ll check with the police in New York as well as the Ambassador down here to see if we can get a lead on her,” O’Hara said. “If you get to her before us, you will call me immediately.” It was an order, not a request. “And don’t leave town, Mr. McNally.”

  This hunk of masculine flesh was being used as bait to snare Claudia Lester. Apparently, O’Hara believed most, if not all, of what I told her. No fool she, but I’m not complaining. I needed time to catch up with Lester—and I had offered myself up for less noble causes.

  “I will do just that,” I promised, “on one condition.”

  “What’s that, Mr. McNally?”

  “That you call me Archy.”

  “Get out of here before I have Swathmoore put you in a holding cell.”

  On that note my first meeting with Georgy O’Hara came to a close. It wasn’t to be my last, so as they say on the soaps, stay tuned.

  8

  THIS WAS THE FIRST case I had ever worked where I was to report to my father not only as a member of the firm and the family, but as one who might be in need of a lawyer. My interview with O’Hara was strictly at the honeymoon stage of her investigation—and how she would love that metaphor. And why, pray tell, did the metaphor pop up as I mulled over my meeting with Georgy O’Hara on my ride back to the office? Connie, that’s why. Her game of brinkmanship with a church aisle as the dividing line and Alejandro Gomez y Zapata as her dare had me seeing a bride behind every palm tree. Connie would be sorry when they led me away in handcuffs. Or would she?

  Without Harrigan I was the only person who could be placed at the scene of the crime during the crucial hour before Swensen’s body was discovered. I don’t believe I was seen entering and leaving unit nine, but I had admitted to spending enough time in the room to spring Swensen from this vale of tears. And why was he drugged before he was strangled? To make the murderer’s job less arduous? And let’s not forget father’s cheerful account of what a good prosecuting attorney could do with a dollop of circumstantial evidence.

  Could I retract what I had told O’Hara? Had I been taped? Doubtful. I believe they have to tell you if you’re being recorded, and they have to read you your rights. Not having done either, I would guess O’Hara was on a fishing expedition, and what better fish to hook than the investigator (shamus, indeed!) who was working the case that led to the murder? She had hauled in Claudia Lester and Matthew Harrigan with her first casting, and she had given me Rodney Whitehead.

  Dare I hope that together we would solve the crime and live happily ever after—or for a short while thereafter? One mustn’t rush into things like burning buildings and love affairs. I would suggest putting our heads together over drinks at her place and show Consuela Garcia how the game was played. Of course, when O’Hara learned that I was holding back Decimus Fortesque and the elusive manuscript from our noir drama, I imagine she would feed me to the sharks.

  Another all-time first for this discreet inquirer was taking on a client, Fortesque, to keep a watchful eye on another client, Claudia Lester. I think it’s called playing both ends against the middle. Last night I was amazed, if not chagrined, when a simple hire to make a switch turned into assault with a deadly weapon. Less than twenty-four hours later, the assault is upstaged by murder.

  If Swensen is the houseboy who was bartering the manuscript and Harrigan is the auction house rep, who in Hades is Rodney Whitehead and what was his business with

  Swensen? Or was Swensen also playing both ends against the middle? And look what happened to him. Oy vey!

  Not caring if Al Rogoff had had his beauty rest, I called him from my cubbyhole the moment I got back to the McNally Building. He was having his coffee (probably a beer), and in the background I could hear Siegfried warbling to Brunhilde. I prefer Fred and Ginger, but to each his own.

  “First of all,” I griped, “her name is not George, but Georgia. He’s a she, and she practically called me a murderer.”

  “Keep your shirt on, pal,” Al answered. “You’re overreacting. It ain’t good for the blood pressure. Did you tell her everything you know?”

  Spoken like a cop. “I did a Scheherazade, if you know what I mean.”
/>   “Can you keep it up for a thousand and one nights, Archy?”

  His inadvertent double entendre was too good to let pass without a smart retort. “With Officer O’Hara I could.”

  Pause—but a brief one, as Al is a quick study—followed by a burst of raucous laughter. “Good, pal. Real good. For a guy on his way to the electric chair, I’m glad you ain’t lost your sense of humor. I take it the dame’s a looker?”

  “A Georgia peach, Al, with all the charm of an ice goddess.”

  “I never seen a policewoman that was a peach, Archy. Maybe you need specs.”

  Al was being pursued by policewoman Tweeny Alvarez. Tweeny’s idea of a romantic evening was watching wrestling on the telly while quaffing down beer and pretzels. More discouraging, poor Tweeny doesn’t know one Wagner who pronounced the name with a V.

  “I told her just what I knew last night, but omitted—”

  “Can it, Archy,” Al bellowed. “I don’t want to know what you told her and what you didn’t tell her. Me and O’Hara work the same side of the street and we’re obliged to share.”

  You had to admire the man, but his stance caught me off guard. I suddenly felt bereft of those I loved and counted on for support when needed. First Connie and now, albeit for a more noble reason, Al Rogoff. In an effort to deflect the blow to my cause I moaned, “Whoever would have thunk it—an honest cop—and just when I need a rogue in blue.” In self-defense I pushed on, “Honest injun, Al, I have no intention of holding out on O’Hara. I was on a case when I stumbled into this mess, and I’m trying to locate my client to nail down a few facts before I pass on what I know to Georgy. I have my client to consider, remember.”

  “Georgy, is it? Ain’t that sweet. What does she call you, Snooky?” Al grumbled. “And what do you mean you’re trying to locate your client? You mean he disappeared?”

  “She, Al. She disappeared. But I have another client, a he, who’s also looking for the she. If you would just let me explain—”