McNally's Secret

by Lawrence Sanders

  On Sunday night my parents and I made a short trip down A1A to a Palladian-style mansion owned by a wealthy client of McNally & Son. Along with thirty other guests we enjoyed a boisterous cocktail party and cookout that featured Maine lobsters and Louisiana prawns. The grill was presided over by a uniformed butler wearing white gloves and a topper.

  But Monday rolled around all too quickly, and then it was back to the Sturm und Drang.

  You may think a detective’s best friend is his revolver, magnifying glass, or bloodhound. Wrong. It is a telephone directory—the handiest aid to any inquiry, discreet or otherwise. I looked up the home address and phone number of Kenneth Bodin in Delray Beach, and scrawled them on the inside of a book of matches. Then, just for the fun of it, I tore out the Yellow Pages listing places that sold hurricane shutters. There were a lot of them, but most seemed to be located north of Boynton Beach. I found only a few in the Del-ray-Boca Raton area.

  By ten o’clock I was on the road again, and it was not a day that would bring a prideful smile to the mug of Florida boosters. The sky had the color and weight of a wet army blanket, not a wisp of air was moving, and even the palm fronds looked dejected. It was an oppressive atmosphere, as if a storm was lurking nearby and might pounce at any moment.

  I stopped for gas in Delray Beach and made my phone call to Kenneth Bodin’s residence from the station. As I had hoped, a woman answered.

  “Hello?” she said in a squeaky little voice.

  “Sylvia?” I asked.

  “Yes. Who’s this?”

  “My name is Dooley, and I’m in South Florida for a convention. I threw my back out, and I need a massage. A friend suggested you might be able to help.”

  “Yeah?” she said suspiciously. “What friend?”

  I named the most active roué I knew. “Phil Meecham,” I said. It worked.

  She squealed with delight. “What a crazy guy!” she said. “How is Phil?”

  “Sitting up and taking nourishment,” I said. “How about that massage?”

  “Aw, I’m sorry, Dooley, but I’m not in that line of work anymore. My boyfriend won’t let me.”

  “Well, I can understand that,” I said. “But is he home right now?”

  “No. He works up at Palm Beach.”

  “Well, then...?” I suggested.

  “No can do,” she said firmly. “I gave him my sacred promise. And besides, he might come home unexpectedly.”

  “That’s too bad,” I said, sounding disappointed. “Then I guess I made the trip for nothing.”

  “Listen, Dooley,” she said. “I’m working as a cocktail waitress at a lovely place on the beach. The joint opens at noon. Why don’t you stop by, have a few drinks, and maybe we can work something out.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said, and she gave me the name of the lovely place on the beach and told me how to find it.

  I killed an hour by driving around to stores that sold and installed hurricane shutters. I hit pay dirt on the fourth. Yes, Thomas Bingham worked there, but at the moment he was out estimating a job. I was relieved to hear it, having absolutely no idea of what I would have said to him if he had been present. I think I just wanted to size him up, see what a man looked like who would sacrifice Jennifer Towley for the sake of a dog race.

  I left no message for Bingham but said I’d stop by again. Then I headed for Sylvia’s place of employ, wishing I knew what the hell I was doing. But sometimes chance and accident prove more valuable than the most detailed plan. That’s what I told myself.

  At least I had sense enough to park my car a few blocks away and walk back. I had no desire for Sylvia to remark casually to Bodin, “A young buck stopped by today, driving a flag-red Miata.” His porcine ears would have perked up immediately.

  When I entered Hammerhead’s Bar & Grill, I was tempted to do a Bette Davis impersonation: flap my elbows, suck an imaginary cigarette, and utter those immortal words: “What-a-dump!” I suppose I was being elitist, but it was a bit of a culture shock, after that deluxe weekend at Palm Beach, to be faced by so much Formica with naked fluorescent tubes flickering overhead.

  The bar was crowded with what appeared to be a fraternity of construction workers and commercial fishermen. I took a bandanna-sized table in the corner, and in a moment a zoftig blond lady came jiggling over to me. She was wearing a hot-pink miniskirt and a hot-green tank top that may have been sprayed on with an atomizer.

  “Hiya,” she said.

  “Sylvia?” I said. “I’m Dooley.”

  “Well!” she said, giving me a really nice smile. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, I’m sure. In town for long?”

  “Oh, maybe a week or so,” I said. “I’m staying in Boca with a friend.”

  “Man or woman?” she asked, leering at me.

  “Man,” I said. “Unfortunately.”

  “Maybe we can do something about that,” and she actually winked at me. “What can I bring you?”

  I know that in a place like that, the only safe choice would be something with a cap on the bottle. But I feared if I asked for nonalcoholic beer, the proprietor and patrons might toss me to the sharks skulking offshore.

  “A bottle of beer, please,” I said. “Do you have Heineken?”

  “Of course,” she said. “This is a high-class joint.”

  She brought my beer and a bowl of salted peanuts. Then, unbidden, she took the chair opposite me, and I was aware that a few customers at the bar glanced at me enviously.

  “You’re awfully young to be a pal of Phil Meecham,” she said.

  “You know Phil,” I said. “He never discriminates because of age, sex, color, creed, or country of national origin.”

  “You can say that again,” she said, laughing. “Once I saw him try to make a chimpanzee. Can you believe it?”

  “Easily,” I said. “May I buy you a drink?”

  “Maybe a diet Coke,” she said. “Okay? I’m trying to lose weight.”

  “Don’t you dare,” I said.

  “Oh you!” she said.

  She came back with her drink and then dug into my bowl of peanuts.

  “What time do you get off work, Sylvia?” I asked.

  “Well, that’s the problem,” she said. “I leave around eight when the night girl comes on. Then I have to go right home or my boyfriend will have the pip. Or sometimes he comes in here when he gets off work, and then we go home together. He keeps me on a short leash.”

  “What’s doing there?” I asked her. “Wedding bells?”

  “Maybe,” she said, scoffing more peanuts. “It depends on my mood.”

  “So really the only time you have free is in the mornings?”

  “That’s about it,” she agreed. “Ken leaves for work early to beat the traffic. And I have to get up early to make him breakfast.”

  “I’ll be around awhile,” I said. “May I call you some morning?”

  “Of course you can, Dooley,” she said. “We could take a ride down to your friend’s place in Boca.”

  “Good idea,” I said, and finished my beer. “I’ll give you a ring.” I stood up. “How much do I owe you, Sylvia?”

  “It’s on the house,” she said. “Maybe you’ll come back. You’ve got class; I can tell.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and slipped her a ten for her keen discernment. I waved and started away. Then I had one of my wild ideas that always shock me because I can’t understand where they come from.

  “By the way,” I said, turning back, “my friend in Boca lives in a high-rise condo, and he’s thinking of installing hurricane shutters. You know anyone around here who sells them?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Tom Bingham. He drops by almost every evening when he gets off work.”

  “Fine,” I said. “The next time you see him, will you get me a business card?”

  “A pleasure,” she said. “Tom’s a good guy. Him and Ken and me spend a lot of time together.”

  See what I mean about chance and accident? But sometimes yo
u have to nudge them a bit.

  I drove home through a darkling day. It hadn’t yet started to rain, but the sky pressed lower, and gulls were straining to beat their way against a freshening wind. Where do gulls go during a storm?

  But I had more on my mind than the homing habits of sea gulls. I was computing that if Kenneth Bodin, girlfriend Sylvia, and Thomas Bingham were buddies, maybe all three—or at least the two men—had planned and carried out the theft of the Inverted Jennies. My main reason for considering this a distinct possibility was that Bingham had served time for stealing fifty thousand dollars.

  That may sound prejudicial to you, but law enforcement officers the world over know that if a former felon is anywhere near the scene of a crime, the odds are good that he or she was actively involved. It’s not bigotry; it’s a knowledge of recidivist rates. Leopards don’t change their spots, and ex-cons rarely change their stripes.

  You may smugly believe that I had a more personal reason for suspecting Bingham, that I hoped to end what I thought was a determined effort on his part to win back the affection of his ex-wife. And if you ask if that was indeed my motive, or an important part of my motive, I plead the Fifth Amendment—the one dealing with self-incrimination.

  I was a short distance from home when I felt the first spatters of rain. I gave the Miata the automotive equivalent of giddyap and made it into our garage just before the deluge. Sgt. Al Rogoff’s pickup truck was parked outside on the gravel, and he lowered the window of the cab long enough to beckon me over.

  I dashed through the rain and climbed in. It was air conditioned but rank with old cigar smoke.

  “You don’t have to light up a fresh stogie,” I told him. “You can just drive around inhaling yesterday’s smoke.”

  “Talking about cigars,” he said, “I spent all day at the Horowitz place, and that crazy dame wouldn’t let me flame a cigar anywhere. Not just in the house, she said, but nowhere on the grounds. She’s only got a hundred acres—right?”

  “Maybe a little less.”

  “Well, I couldn’t even go out in the woods and grab a puff. She’s a bird, that one.”

  “A rich bird,” I said. “Is that why you’re wearing civvies and driving your own heap?”

  “Yeah. She didn’t want any uniforms or police cars hanging around. I guess she thought it would lower the tone of the neighborhood. Where have you been?”

  “Down in Delray Beach checking out Kenneth Bodin, the chauffeur.”

  “Learn anything?” Al asked.

  “Less than a soupçon,” I said. “He’s living with a cupcake, but if that’s a crime, half the guys in South Florida would be behind bars. No signs or talk of sudden wealth.”

  “Heavy debts?”

  “I can check that out through bank and credit agencies up here. How did you make out on the homicide?”

  “Not too bad,” the sergeant said. “We’re lucky because the time of death can definitely be established within an hour or so. At that time the five members of the staff were all on the estate. I admit they alibi each other, which could be a conspiracy, but I doubt it. Lady Horowitz says she was at the hairdresser’s. I’ll have to check that out. As for the houseguests, the DuPeys claim they were partying on a docked yacht and were seen by dozens of people. Something else to check out. That leaves Mr. and Mrs. Smythe, Gina Stanescu, and Angus Wolfson. All four claim they left the yacht after the cruise was canceled and were wandering around the shops on Worth Avenue at the time Bela Rubik got pasted in the Great Stamp Album in the Sky. The actual whereabouts of those four at the time of death will be a migraine to pin down, but I guess it can be done with a lot of legwork.”

  “You’re convinced that the homicide and the theft of the Inverted Jennies are connected?”

  “The only reason I’m convinced,” Al said, “is that I’ve got nothing else. There’s no evidence at all pointing to an attempted robbery. Maybe it was a weirdo, a serial killer on the loose, but I don’t buy that. Those missing stamps and what Rubik said to you on the phone are the only leads I’ve got. Archy, what’s your guess—was it a man or a woman?”

  I considered a moment. “I’d guess it was a man. Look, the human skull isn’t an eggshell, you know. You can give it a pretty sharp bop without breaking it. So there was physical power behind that paperweight.”

  “It could have been a strong woman.”

  “Could have been,” I agreed, “but bashing in a skull just doesn’t seem to me something a woman would do, even if she was insane with rage.”

  “Yeah,” Rogoff said, “it doesn’t seem likely, does it? By the way, he didn’t die of a bashed skull.”

  I stared at him. “Would you run that by me again.”

  “Bela Rubik didn’t die from repeated blows to the cranium. According to the ME, they would have knocked him out for sure, and they damaged the brain, but he actually died of cardiac arrest, a massive heart failure brought on by the assault. That still makes it a homicide, of course.”

  “Of course,” I said, “but it opens up a whole new can of worms. Maybe the attacker didn’t intend to kill him. Just knock him out or hurt him.”

  “I’m not interested in the killer’s intent,” Al said. “That’s for the courts to decide. I just want to nab the perp and then let the lawyers argue about intent.”

  “I’m not sure that’s the way to go,” I said slowly. “Perhaps knowing the intent is the only way to find the killer.”

  The sergeant groaned. “You know, you have a taste for complexity. I’ll bet you like black olives, too.”

  “Love ’em,” I admitted.

  “It figures.” Al said mournfully. “All right, the rain’s letting up, you can run for the house without getting soaked. I have to get back to work. Keep in touch.”

  “For sure,” I said. “I expect to be in all night. Give me a call if anything breaks.”

  That evening my parents left to attend a dinner being given for a septuagenarian couple celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. I was invited but begged off. Long hours of fruit punch and charades are not my idea of a hot time in the old town tonight.

  So I had dinner in the kitchen with the Olsons. Ursi dished up a concoction she called McNally Stew: a spicy mix of chunks of beef, chicken, hot Italian sausage, and shrimp, all in a red wine sauce and served over a bed of wide noodles. Kiss your diet farewell.

  After that gluttonous debauch I went upstairs, thankful I was wearing an expandable belt, and set to work on my journal, with the original cast album of Guys and Dolls playing on my stereo. I may even have sung along with “Sue Me.” This was after I phoned Jennifer Towley, got her answering machine, and hung up without leaving a message.

  I was still scribbling when my phone rang. It was Sgt. Rogoff.

  “Wake you up?” he asked.

  “Come on, Al,” I said, “it’s not even ten o’clock. What’s up?”

  “After I left you I hit the streets. First I went to the hairdresser where Lady Horowitz claims she had an appointment at the time Rubik was aced.”

  “And?”

  “She had an appointment all right, but she never showed up.”

  I was silent.

  “Hello?” Rogoff said. “You there?”

  “I’m here,” I said. “Just trying to catch that curve ball.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “It’s screwy, isn’t it? Listen, Archy, do me a favor, will you? I don’t want to brace that old dame with what I know and demand she spill the truth. She scares me; I admit it. She’s got a lot of clout in this town and could make things sticky for me if she wanted to. You follow?”

  “I follow,” I said. “All right, Al, I’ll try to find out where she was at the time Rubik was killed. Did you tell her that the theft of her stamps was connected to a homicide?”

  “Hell, no! I didn’t tell her or any of the others there was probably a link. I just said we had a good lead on the identity of the stamp thief, and I had to check out their whereabouts at a specific time to eliminate the inn
ocent.”

  “You think they bought that?”

  “Everyone but the killer,” Al said. “Talk to the old biddy for me, will you, Archy? She likes you.”

  “She does?” I said, somewhat surprised.

  “Sure. She told me so herself. Something else you can do for me...”

  I sighed. “And I get a piece of your salary—right?”

  “Wrong. Your father drew up Lady Horowitz’s will, didn’t he?”

  “That’s correct,” I said, knowing what was coming.

  “Can you find out who inherits if she croaks?”

  “Probably,” I said, “but I’m not going to tell you. That’s privileged information.”

  “What do I have to do to get it?”

  “Get her permission first. I’ll ask my father.”

  “Do that, will you?”

  “Sure. But why do you want to know who inherits?”

  “Because maybe someone, family or friends, perhaps one of the house-guests, doesn’t inherit, knows it, and decided to pinch the stamps to get what they could. And that led to the homicide.”

  “Sergeant Rogoff,” I said, “you’re brilliant.”

  “It’s taken you this long to find out? What a lousy detective. Let me know what your father says.”

  It was about ten-thirty when I heard the crunch of gravel, went to the window, and saw the Lexus pulling into the garage. I waited another half-hour, smoked my first cigarette of the day, and brooded about what Rogoff had told me. I wasn’t looking forward to telling Lady Cynthia she had been caught in a lie. She was quite capable of canning McNally & Son instanter.

  The door of my father’s study was closed, but when I knocked I heard his murmured, “Come in.” He was plumped down in his club chair, still wearing his dinner jacket, but he had loosened tie and collar. I thought he looked old and tired.

  “Good party?” I asked.

  “Wearing,” he said with a wan smile. “You were wise not to attend. Not your cup of vodka at all.”

  “Speaking of that, sir,” I said, “may I bring you a glass of port? You look a mite bushed.”