No one gave Meacham the deprecating “junior” treatment any more. A year earlier, in 1955, the then-novice detective had walked in on a ghoulish death scene involving a reluctant witness and subsequently solved a murder case that had made him somewhat of a celebrity in and around Parlor City. In this euphoric atmosphere, he had been promoted rather hastily to the job he now held but for which he was unsuited.
He had realized after only a few months as Police Chief that he wasn’t cut out for the administrative bullshit – and the politics. When he finally expressed his concerns to the newly-elected Mayor, both of them were relieved. His new wife, who he affectionately called Bridey when they were alone, just patted him on the back, smiled and said she had been wondering how long it would take.
“Thanks for making my job easier, Billy. You were definitely a duck out of water and I am particularly pleased that we both view the situation the same way. You know, Braddock has done a nice job of cleaning up the security mess at the Institute left behind by Santimaw. The Chief might be lured back to his old job with a little urging from you” said the Mayor.
The Parlor City Institute cast a giant shadow over the town from its prominent position on the hill. Begun as a private sanitarium for wealthy drunkards in the prior century, it still had a special wing for high-society boozers to dry out in private but it also now housed the dregs of society, the mentally-deranged of all classes, whom the hospital in town was ill-equipped to accommodate. Shortly after their marriage, Gwen Meacham was appointed Head Nurse at the Institute, more commonly known in town as Crazy Hill.
Meacham’s pride felt the sting of the Mayor’s comments but it was fleeting. Even though he was confirming what Meacham had just suggested himself, it still hurt a little coming from someone else. At the same time, the idea of once again working as a detective under a Chief Braddock sounded good.
Despite all the past accolades, what still gnawed at Meacham was the elusiveness of the demonic, amoral Winston Siebert, III. Clearly, he was a gifted con man with a chameleon’s adaptability who had outsmarted a number of perspicacious people in multiple cities, employing various disguises and aliases to avoid capture. Above all, though, he was wanted in Parlor City as the ruthless killer of Randall DePue. There was no doubt in Meacham’s mind that Siebert had planned and helped carry out the murder that sent his accomplice and erstwhile dupe, Burt Grimsley, to prison. The fact that he had also fleeced the Parlor City Institute was small potatoes in comparison.
And then there was the role, never proven, of the steely-eyed, lissome blonde. Stella Crimmons had disappeared with Siebert, came back to Parlor City to claim her innocence and then went home to Boston with her Aunt when there was insufficient evidence to charge her with complicity in any of Siebert’s crimes. A few months after her return to Boston, Meacham learned from her perpetually distraught Aunt that Stella had disappeared again and Meacham was convinced that she had run off to join Siebert.
So, in spite of all the laudatory comments for his past work, Meacham knew he had unfinished business which could only be tackled if he was once again a full-time detective.
Meacham’s thoughts drifted to Gwen, his wife of several months and his stepson, Woody Braun. They were the good things that had come out of all the tumult that had torn apart Parlor City just a short time ago.
He had a ready-made, idyllic family now and he would be eternally grateful for the almost accidental way in which he had obtained it. But at the same time, he sometimes felt guilty that he had not struggled mightily, hadn’t earned his good fortune. The minister, Alex Carmichael, who left Parlor City abruptly and moved to Boston where he then married a wealthy socialite’s daughter, had done him a great favor by trying to charm Gwen right before his eyes. When she rebuffed the minister, it opened the door for the reluctant but ardent Billy Meacham. If Carmichael hadn’t acted, Billy wondered if he would have continued to let his personal relationships drift. At almost the same time, Harry Macklowe stepped in and fortuitously ended Meacham’s relationship with sultry “Big Red” Bigelow. Billy just shook his head and smiled as he reflected on these two unrelated events from just last year that profoundly altered his life. He concluded that fate was in his corner – he was simply a lucky man.
Billy Meacham had never been a deeply introspective man. He had always, outside of his work, let things come to him. But he was starting to think more often about personal things and felt that he could no longer leave big decisions to chance. There were no bogeymen in his past, no abusive childhood from which to flee. Meacham had it good and he knew it. And yet he still felt haunted at times by his inability to set everything right like his Father had always seemed to do so effortlessly. When would he let go and stop harboring these lingering feelings of inadequacy? Only when Winston Siebert III was brought to justice, he concluded.
Billy Meacham was a man who, despite nagging personal doubts, felt comfortable in his own skin and knew what was important in life. Certain people would make derisive comments about his “demotion” but he could live with it. “No sense wasting time”, he said to himself, vowing to visit Braddock at the Parlor City Institute that very afternoon so that the Mayor could make his decision official.
CHAPTER TWO
Stella in Havana
Stella Crimmons was lounging by the pool sipping a daiquiri, waiting for Siebert to join her. After months of zig-zagging their way south, they had spent several weeks in Miami Beach where Siebert had developed some new relationships that had eventually brought them to the Riviera Hotel in the Cuban capital.
The newly-opened Eden Roc Hotel in Miami Beach was an elegant, glamorous spot that attracted a number of celebrities to Florida but even that popular beach town was a backwater village to the newly-sophisticated Stella when compared to the old world charm of Havana.
She sensed that they would not be in Cuba for long as it wasn’t Siebert’s style to remain stationary and invite undue scrutiny, especially after victimizing some local fat cat who would instinctively look for revenge. And yet she knew that Siebert was pleased with his little enterprise at the casino and would milk it for all it was worth before walking away.
Shorn of her trademark long blonde tresses, Stella stood up to adjust the straps of her one-piece black polka dot bathing suit and look around at the swells populating the pool area. Some said that blondes like Marilyn Monroe got all the attention but Stella always drew looks with her short, dark brown pageboy hairdo and lithe, athletic body with its alluring curves.
Before disappearing from Boston, most assuredly putting her Aunt Mildred into another state of apoplexy for the second time in two years, she had not hesitated when Siebert had demanded that she disguise herself before they could reunite. For what other man would she have cut off the blonde locks that had captivated so many?
Fresh out of high school, Stella was already a self-possessed, arrogant girl when she came to Boston to live with her Aunt. When she was introduced by her Aunt to the suave Winston Siebert III, then posing as Ripley Maxwell, Jr., she was immediately dazzled by him and quickly fell under the older man’s sway. It was only a few months before she agreed to take on a new identity and move to Parlor City to further Siebert’s latest scheme.
Stella has enjoyed playing her nominal secretarial role as Danielle Deschambault at the Parlor City Institute and thought she had handled it well, sort of an audition as Siebert’s faithful assistant. It hadn’t really been difficult to take on the haughty, distant pose of Danielle. She came by it naturally but had refined it first while living with her Aunt Mildred in Boston before arriving in Parlor City. And here she was, a year later, in the captivating city of Havana, reborn as Lily Sanswhite.
Siebert was still a wanted man in Parlor City where he had posed as Reginald Carver and the Boston Police had a warrant out for his arrest on the check-kiting scheme he perpetrated using the name Ripley Maxwell. Cops elsewhere were sorting through the aliases he used and then discarded like empty cigarette packs. She never pressed him but he
gradually let things out about what he called his “adventures” before they met. He glossed over his more brutal encounters with some of his victims and never told Stella how he had seduced her Aunt, making it seem like she had shamelessly thrown herself at him.
Somehow, Stella felt good that this conniving man without a conscience had finally taken her more and more into his confidence as their time together grew. Stingy with compliments, he even commended her for the assistance she had provided in pulling off the fake art sale to the dealer in Knoxville that had netted them a “cool ten large”, as Siebert had put it when describing the $10,000 flimflam. So, whatever was in the works, she felt confident he would bring her in at the appropriate time. She sometimes wondered, though, if he knew just how fiercely loyal she was to him.
Suddenly, there was a shadow in front of Stella blocking the sun. She looked up, almost sneeringly, and said “Yes?” when a dark-haired man with a pencil thin mustache bent forward slightly and said “May I join you for a cocktail, darling?”. The man was slim but muscled with a deep tan that had been developed over days in the sun. He was certainly handsome and Stella looked at him with a vague sense that they had met before. “I am waiting for my husband, thank you” Stella said languorously before looking away. The stranger smiled as if he didn’t even care that he had been rebuffed with such blunt contempt and continued strolling toward the diving board.
And then she heard “Lily” and looked up to see Siebert approaching from the other side of the pool. He was dressed immaculately in a white linen suit, baby blue shirt and dark navy tie. The Panama hat shaded the top of this face but you could see the grey, bushy fringe around his ears. His hair looked thicker now since it was no longer slicked back the way he preferred it. The mustache was fuller now and was dyed grey as well. Stella smiled and thought that Siebert could walk right into the Parlor City police station and not even be identified by that obnoxious Det. Billy Meacham.
Siebert was smiling broadly as he leaned in to peck Stella on the cheek. “Do you know who you just snubbed, my lovely?” he asked. Stella shrugged and Siebert grinned even more broadly. “That, my sweet, was just the man most women in America are swooning over – the Hollywood star Errol Flynn.” Stella said nothing but gave Siebert a quizzical look which made him burst out laughing.
Havana was a favorite retreat for Flynn and other Hollywood and New York City stars. Politicians on the take flocked here as well where everything at the Riviera could be “comped” for them if the right favors were done back home.
Flynn was already chatting up a lovely creature with gorgeous gams in a daring white two-piece ensemble. He would continue to make innumerable female conquests at the Riviera but Stella Crimmons would not be one of them.
***
Siebert felt like he was at the top of his game, immensely successful with the string of cons he had engineered, often with Stella’s help, since leaving Parlor City in 1955. And now he was re-united with the first person he had ever trusted to be part of his “work”, as he enjoyed thinking of his ungodly profession. Siebert was a cunning and treacherous man, felonious by instinct and deceitful to almost everyone. But within him, there was still a yearning for a deep, human connection beyond superficial attraction. There were moments, perhaps only ephemeral, when he convinced himself that he had found this connection with Stella.
The success of his clip joint operation in Havana had exceeded his wildest expectations and even now, unbeknownst to him, a confluence of events was about to occur that would not only create the opportunity for a financial windfall but also provide the excitement that he craved and thrived on.
Siebert was in an excellent mood. He had come to appreciate Stella’s unwavering loyalty and had been, for the most part, faithful to her. But what had him particularly elated today was the profits from his “cubolo” dice game enterprise in the lavish open air casino at the Riviera. In conjunction with his Miami partner, he also operated some slot machines that were rigged for low payouts. All in all, they were living in style and Siebert had accumulated a considerable stake for his next venture, whatever that might be, thanks in great part to a constant stream of gullible American tourists. Tonight was chosen to impress Stella and her stiff dismissal of Errol Flynn actually made her more desirable than ever. Xavier Cugat and Nat King Cole, along with the famed rumba dancers, were headliners in the night club that evening and Siebert had arranged for a prime table.
CHAPTER THREE
Scene at Wattle’s Cottage
Bobby Mildrake was swaying in front of ex-Mayor Adelbert Wattle, as he leaned on first one leg then the other while staring at the ground and squeezing the baseball cap in his hands. He was a tall, lanky young man who had been classified as a “slow learner” at school. He walked tentatively with slightly hunched shoulders and a loping gait which disguised his powerfully built, sinewy frame to such a degree that, in his baggy shirt, he appeared almost physically weak.
“So, you saw the nurse standing by his bed while he ranted loudly to the point that she almost called for additional help to have him restrained? Is that all, Bobby?”
“Yes sir,” stammered Mildrake, fixated on a knot in the wooden floor as if he was fascinated by its design.
“Now, tell me once more what you heard Mr. Braun yell out. Take your time and get it exactly right, Bobby” Wattle said in his most soothing tone.
“‘He’s got the German bear bonds. Tell the governor I want my share – or else’. He must have said it a couple of times. Then he just clammed up and stared at the ceiling.” Mildrake confirmed that the nurse was the only person who had heard Braun’s wild outburst before Wattle held up a finger and said softly, “Except for you, Bobby, and I know you won’t repeat what you heard, not even to your Mother. Very well, then. Stop and see Mrs. Wattle before you leave. She has something for you, lad.”
As Mildrake was leaving the room, Wattle stopped him and asked, “By the way, Bobby, who was the nurse?” “Oh, it was the Head Nurse, Mrs. Meacham, sir” he said, brightening up and smiling before closing the door. If he had turned back, he would have seen the look of concern on Wattle’s face.
***
Wattle and his wife conferred after Bobby Mildrake left. In the old days, Woodrow Braun would never have been a threat to talk about the cash bribes he had paid to the former Mayor over the years but now he was “as crazy as a hoot owl” according to Mildred Wattle and, she warned, might blab at any moment. And then this talk about German bonds – what did that mean, if anything? Was it more blather from a deranged man? While it relieved the Wattles somewhat that the ex-Mayor’s name had not come up, it made them wonder what else Braun and ex-Governor Traber may have kept from them.
Mrs. Wattle decided she would stop by Bobby’s house to remind him to write down anything that Braun said or did during the next few weeks while they vacationed in Florida. While Mayor, Wattle had secured Mildrake his job as an orderly when Frederick Hawkins was still running the show up on Crazy Hill, as locals liked to call the Parlor City Institute. Some of Bobby’s co-workers thought he should be a patient there instead of an employee and teased him unmercifully. Bobby’s widowed Mother constantly reminded her dim-witted son that the family should be eternally grateful and beholden to the Wattles.
Wattle brooded about what appeared to be a secret arrangement between Traber and Braun from which he had been excluded. He had mentored both men while Mayor, helping Traber get elected and aiding Braun in amassing considerable assets through cozy real estate and insider construction deals with the city. At this point, Braun was a drooling, incoherent shell of a man whose few moments of clarity each day were unpredictable but still dangerous. Wattle had to find a way to engage Traber and somehow insinuate himself into this German bond deal as the ex-governor’s new partner. Maybe a little relaxation in the Florida sun would give him inspiration.
Little did Wattle know that Traber would take the first step in reuniting with his old political crony.
CHAPTER FOUR
“Guuuuvenor”! Traber heard the drawn out, shrill cooing of his name from the next room and while amused by it initially, he cringed now. He had picked up Natalie during a visit to New York City while shopping at his favorite haberdashery. There she stood, a statuesque and provocative chestnut-haired beauty, sort of a greeter or hostess to entice more male customers through the glass door by modulating her seductive, capacious mouth and lowering her eyes suggestively. When she heard that he was the former Governor, she practically swooned or, at the very least, put on a very good act.
Back at his hotel that evening, it was almost too easy. When he casually mentioned, without a scintilla of sincerity, that she accompany him back to his horse farm outside Parlor City, she readily accepted and Traber was trapped. He was used to success with the ladies but he still enjoyed the hunt and this conquest felt empty. His preference was blondes but the vacuous Natalie had that wide, pouty mouth that he couldn’t resist. But, then again, when had he ever?
It had been almost two weeks now since Traber had returned home with Natalie in tow and it was somehow understood that her stay was indeterminate. Well, he would come up with a pretext to send her packing with some spending money and an introduction to a few old political cronies back in the big city. Traber was realistic enough to know that she would protest vociferously at the start but adjust very quickly. At the worst, she could position herself at the glass door of the haberdashery again and make some new friends in short order.
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