McNally's Alibi

by Lawrence Sanders

  “Of course,” she said. “He was the first to die in And Then There Were None. It’s the film version of Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians.”

  This was unbelievable. “But that film is over sixty years old.”

  “Most of the films I rent are over sixty years old.” She spoke as if she was proud of the fact.

  “Have you ever rented What Price Hollywood!”

  “Rent it?” she cried. “I own a copy on tape and DVD.”

  “Would you marry me?” I begged.

  “Only if you tell me why you got the boot at Yale.”

  We lingered over our coffee, chatting celluloid trivia like magpies, and when next I looked Connie and Binky were gone. Funny, I never noticed them leaving.

  14

  FOR THE HOPELESSLY ROMANTIC and the romantically curious I offer the following epilogue to my evening with Georgy O’Hara:

  The red Miata makes its way up the long, winding drive, passing the manor house, where an old woman peers out from behind a beaded curtain, and comes to a stop before the gingerbread cottage.

  He: “If you invite me in, I promise to behave.”

  She: “If you behave, what’s the point of inviting you in? Good night, Archy. Thank you for a lovely evening.”

  The red Miata makes its way down the long, winding drive, passing the manor house, where an old woman peers out from behind a beaded curtain, and heads south.

  Old Chinese proverb: When one door closes, another soon opens. (“But it’s hell in the hallway.”)

  The next morning dawned partly sunny, but dawn means nothing when you’re sleeping in. I arrived downstairs just in time for either an early brunch or a late breakfast, depending on your perspective.

  Father had left for the office, and mother, with Jamie at the wheel, was off in search of the perfect begonia, a seemingly endless quest. Pouring myself a glass of orange juice, I requested scrambled eggs, bacon and white toast.

  “Boring,” was Ursi’s summation of my order.

  “I know, Ursi, but I’m compensating for last night’s dinner. It had a caloric content that read like a telephone number. Don’t butter the toast and get that crock of marmalade out of my line of vision.”

  “Boring,” Ursi repeated.

  She was usually as chatty as her husband was taciturn, but not this morning. As she poured my coffee, I asked, “How were the Éclairs?” and almost got the scalding brew in my lap.

  “Had better,” she snapped.

  And there it was. Ursi was in a snit and it was all Archy’s fault. Without thinking, I had brought her someone else’s homemade pastries, which she had undoubtedly served for dessert last night to rave reviews from the mater and pater. Also, and undoubtedly, she had tasted a few of the minis and found them to be superb. Were they inferior she would be all smiles, compliments of Sam Zimmermann.

  Unable to resist, I said, “He also sings.”

  “Who?” Ursi cried, attacking my eggs mercilessly with a wire whisk.

  “The man who made the éclairs,” I informed her.

  “Then maybe he should go on the radio.” With that, my eggs were dumped, unlovingly, into the frying pan.

  I thought it best to keep my mouth shut until the preparation of my simple fare was history, at which time I would treat Ursi to a juicy bit of gossip to compensate for my faux pas and get back into her good graces before she ruined tonight’s dinner.

  After serving me, she filled a cup with Java and took a seat at the table. Now was the time to make reparation for Sam’s prizewinning minis. “Do you recall, Ursi,” I began, “that we were discussing the Beaumont family at breakfast just the other day?”

  “I’m not so old that I would forget,” she countered. “It was three days ago. Mr. McNally complained because you were late coming down, like you were late again today.”

  Nothing like asking a simple question and getting one’s life history in return. My, my, but those éclairs must have been purely ambrosial. “Well,” I persevered, knowing I would win her over, “the Beaumont boy is coming to Palm Beach and he wants to see me.”

  Her eyes lit up like two distress flares in the night sky. “Which twin?” she exclaimed.

  “I hope not the dead one,” I answered. So much for her nimble mind. “Tyler Beaumont, I believe he’s called.”

  She pushed aside her coffee mug, which I’m sure was poured just so she could sit opposite me and pout, and leaned forward. This was serious business, and make no mistake about that. “When’s he coming? Where’s he staying? Is he opening the house? Why does he want to see you?”

  Before I could answer even one of her queries, she was on her feet. “You’ll choke to death on that dry toast. Let me get you some butter. And spread on a dab of marmalade, it’ll stick to your ribs. So, what’s the poop, Archy?”

  Ursi would pass the word of the Beaumont boy’s arrival to every housekeeper along Ocean Boulevard, and even to a few less fortunate souls deprived of beachfront property and condemned to life in multimillion-dollar landlocked hovels. They would tell their respective madams. The madams would tell their hairdressers and their manicurists, who would tell all their clients who hadn’t already got the news. By evening, Palm Beach would be alive with rumors and unfounded speculation regarding young Tyler Beaumont.

  Finally, Lolly Spindrift, our resident gossip whose column “Hither and Yon” daily dishes the dirt to his horde of avid readers, would call me for an exclusive and, incidentally, fill me in with any tidbits he might know that I didn’t.

  This ploy of using Ursi to play the electronic Paul Revere was certainly not a new one. I had used it before to raise some dust and see where, or on whom, it would settle. If you can’t afford legmen, you improvise. Having sowed the seed and imparted to Ursi what little I knew, I called Mrs. Trelawney to say that should Tyler Beaumont call, have him come to the office at two and, if possible, reserve the conference room for the meeting.

  As I expected, she said, “Your father has been asking for you.”

  “I will try to get back to the office in time to see him before my meeting with the Beaumont boy.” Making it sound urgent, I went on, “I’m on my way to the Lake Worth library to research certain facts pertaining to the Fortesque case. Father will understand.”

  My decision to visit the library was not a fool’s errand concocted to placate father. Since my initial meeting with Fortesque I had wanted to take a look at Answered Prayers to see if it could help me separate fact from fancy in his account of the sudden discovery of a heretofore unpublished version of me book. But as so often happens at the start of a case, I had been too preoccupied with gathering the facts and interviewing our cast of characters to indulge the whim. Not to mention my own brush with the law and where that led.

  After the new assignment’s heady rush comes the pause, similar to the eye of a storm where you sit, becalmed, watching pieces of the jigsaw puzzle whirl around your weary brain. My job for Fortesque was to find the elusive manuscript for which he had paid a goodly sum. The man who supposedly owned it is dead, the broker who was negotiating the deal says her partner ran off with it, and the partner says he’s being framed. So where do I go from here? The library seemed as good a place as any.

  The Lake Worth Public Library is the pride of the community, and for good reason. Located in the historic district of Lake Worth, North M Street, between the town’s main thoroughfares, Lake Avenue and Lucerne Avenue, the library is housed in a building of Mediterranean design. It boasts a barrel-tile roof and is one of the few buildings in the area with a full basement.

  Its history is as unique as its impressive facade. Some ninety years ago, me ladies of the new community saw the need for a public school and a library. Seeking book donations, they stacked a room donated by the town with the acquired tomes and had themselves a library a few years before the first school was built and some two years before electricity came to town.

  A decade later, the town board voted to establish a library under Florida statutes
and the Lake Worth Public Library was born and housed in City Hall. Of historic interest, the library was to be named after General William Jenkins Worth, who has been credited with ending the Seminole Wars in Florida. Congress passed a law to fund money for the new library building, but President Roosevelt vetoed the bill.

  Undaunted, the good citizens of Lake Worth raised the money, without taxing the overburdened citizenry, to erect the current building, which was dedicated four months before Pearl Harbor. A generous benefactor added a wing to house the Art League. When the League moved to larger quarters, the wing became what is now the children’s library. Rare for public libraries, it owns the only known collection of historic paintings by the noted artist R. Sherman Winton, whose works include themes of Florida’s Spanish era depicting DeSoto, Ponce de Léon and Osceola.

  A vital part of the community, the library offers public access to computers as well as a dynamic outreach program to the area’s schools.

  Stopping at the front desk, I told the young lady on duty that I was looking for Answered Prayers.

  “Aren’t we all,” she replied. “But try the fiction section.”

  The fiction section is most impressive, owing to the huge Winton mural portraying the Spanish Armada that dominates the space.

  Shelved alphabetically by author, I found what I had come for under the C’s and took it to a comfortable reading area. The first thing I learned was that the title came from a quote by Saint Theresa, “More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.” The novel is prefaced with a detailed editor’s note, from which came Fortesque’s account of the novel’s history—as far as it went.

  Capote got a hefty advance for the book he said would recount in detail the fortunes and foibles of the rich and famous on both sides of the Atlantic. Hence Fortesque’s interest in the work. Some four years later, Capote had completed four chapters of the book and announced that he would publish them in Esquire. As noted, he did publish the first chapter in the popular magazine. It caused some talk, but little else. But when he published the second chapter, “La Cote Basque,” he was immediately shunned by the beautiful people he so viciously exposed, the very same people who had taken the author into their homes and their confidences.

  Mortally wounded, Capote published two more chapters before stopping work on the book. The editor mentions Capote’s house in Sagaponack (there is no mention of a houseboy), and he also states that Capote did write, some years later, “I returned to Answered Prayers,” as Fortesque had asserted and upon which was based the collector’s belief that the author had indeed completed the work. We are told that a very exhaustive search was made of Capote’s papers after his death and not so much as a line was found to show that he had done so.

  Then, the editor writes, “There are three theories about the missing chapters.... The first is that the manuscript was completed and is either stashed in a safe-deposit box somewhere, was seized by an ex-lover for malice or for profit, or even... Truman kept it in a locker in the Los Angeles Greyhound Bus Depot.”

  The ex-lover theory is the crux of my case and the basis of Swensen’s claim, which sent Whitehead scurrying off to Key West and Claudia Lester scurrying off to Decimus Fortesque. Swensen had fulfilled the equivalent of a biblical prophecy and the believers had beaten a path to his door. Now the prophet was dead, the sacred scrolls missing and Bob’s your uncle.

  Having rinsed out enough of the rich folk’s dirty laundry to satisfy the appetite of a Decimus Fortesque, I did not check out Answered Prayers. Bidding the Spanish Armada and the lovely lady at the front desk a good afternoon, I exited into the partly sunny day in search of a lunch counter and a much-needed digestive English Oval.

  The man standing in front of my Miata said, “Mr. McNally?”

  When approached by a stranger who calls me by name, my first thought is that I am going to be presented with a subpoena. “I could be,” I parried, “it depends on who’s asking.”

  “I’m Rodney Whitehead.”

  It wasn’t a voice from the grave, but from the looks of the guy it wasn’t far from it either. Rodney Whitehead had the countenance of an unhappy tourist in our sun-drenched (well, not today) paradise. Rimless specs dominated a face one could call pudgy, if one wanted to be kind, atop a body to match, and what was left of his hair was gray. He wore a dark business suit and a woeful grimace. Sad Sack would say it all in two words. Rodney Whitehead resembled a guy who would stake his job and reputation for one final chance at the brass ring—which he had done, and lost.

  When people turn up in my back pocket I like to know how they got there without my noticing. Instead of a how-do-you-do, I asked, not too politely, “How did you know where to find me?”

  “I called your office,” he said. “Your secretary told me you were working at the Lake Worth library and would be in when you had finished. I took the liberty of coming here, saw your car and decided to wait.”

  “You know my car, Mr. Whitehead?”

  “The night of the murder,” he explained, “I was there when the witness told the police he had seen a red Miata enter and leave the Crescent. Knowing that Claudia had hired you to make the exchange, I figured it was your car—and apparently I was right.”

  “And what can I do for you, Mr. Whitehead?”

  “I’d like a word with you,” he said.

  “I believe the police would like a word with you,” I informed him.

  “I know. I have an appointment to see them this afternoon at three.” He consulted his wristwatch as if time were of the essence. “I have two hours. Perhaps you can spare me one of them.”

  “What do you want to tell me, Mr. Whitehead?”

  He bowed his head to look at me over the rimless specs and uttered, “The truth, of course.”

  “The police take a dim view of me working their side of the street, Mr. Whitehead.”

  Going on the offensive, he argued, “You’ve heard what Claudia and Harrigan had to say. I think it only fair that you hear my side of this charade.”

  “You’ve talked to Claudia Lester and Matthew Harrigan?” I asked him.

  “To Claudia only. She had a call from Harrigan, who, she says, refuses to see her. Naturally, I don’t believe her.”

  Not believing Claudia Lester seemed to be an accepted fact by those who knew her. “Why tell me and not the police?”

  “Oh, I’ll tell the police, too. I have nothing to hide. I might have acted a little unethical, but that’s not their concern. I came to you because you’re working for Decimus Fortesque and I want to clear my name with him and be what help I can in getting him the merchandise he paid for at the price agreed upon.”

  “You know where the manuscript is, Mr. Whitehead?”

  “I can lead you to the church, Mr. McNally, but not the pew.”

  I didn’t need a partner, especially one I wouldn’t trust out of my sight, but in the lull of a case you go with the flow, and right now the tide had dragged in Rodney Whitehead. Besides, a church might be just the place to find answered prayers.

  I agreed to sit down with Whitehead and invited him to join me for a sandwich. It’s a short stroll from the library to the Gourmet Deli House on Lake Worth Road, a favorite of mine for a quick lunch that did not smack of fast food. One comes to the Gourmet Deli House for two reasons: lox and bagels and pastrami on rye. The pastrami sandwich is enough for two, and after my late breakfast all I could sensibly handle was half. Whitehead said he would take the other half off my hands, so we sat down to share in more ways than one. Mustard, a fat dill, quartered, and two Dr. Brown’s CelRay tonics accompanied the main course.

  After a bite of the sandwich Whitehead asked, “What did they tell you?” He wiped a dab of mustard from the corner of his mouth.

  “I’m not saying. It was you who wanted to talk.”

  He didn’t look happy, but I doubt if he knew how. Resigned, he told his story. Act One didn’t vary one iota from the version given me by Lester and Harrigan. Lawrence Swensen
called the auction house in New York and told them what he had. They sent their man, Rodney Whitehead, to Key West to investigate the claim.

  “Was it the completed Capote manuscript?” I asked him.

  “It was. Believe me, Mr. McNally, it was. And Tru didn’t miss a beat, from who murdered Marilyn Monroe to Cary Grant’s long affair with Randolph Scott, and even who shot the producer Thomas Ince aboard the Hearst yacht back in the roaring twenties. Oh, yes, it was all there.”

  Without apology, Whitehead told me how he had seen a chance to make himself a quick profit by bypassing the auction house and brokering the manuscript himself. “I’m tired of making other people rich with the books and papers thoughtful relatives leave in the attic for their heirs to cash in on,” he told me with disdain. “I want out of the rat race, and after a too-short vacation in Costa Rica I learned how one could live like a prince for a long time in that country on the annual income of most Americans. The Capote manuscript was the answer to my prayers, Mr. McNally—pun intended.”

  He knew Claudia Lester, as do most who make their living in the world of valuable collectibles, and told her what he had. She contacted Decimus Fortesque on the advice of her friend and neighbor, Vera Fortesque. Here, as with Lester and Harrigan, the story leaves the familiar and becomes singular to the teller.

  According to Whitehead, he talked Swensen into a private deal, dangling Fortesque’s name, and arranged for Swensen to come north with the manuscript and check into the Crescent Motel. He told Swensen to park in the visitors’ area to facilitate parking for the people who would be calling on him—namely, the person delivering the money and picking up the manuscript and, second, Whitehead, who would call after the exchange to collect his share of the cash.

  I didn’t believe him. I was surer than ever that Swensen was told not to park in the space provided for tenants in order to keep the visitors from being seen driving the length of the courtyard to the guest area. Harrigan had taken Swensen’s space, leaving me a sitting duck for anyone looking out their window. Fact: I was set up. As for who did the setting up, I had no idea—yet.