McNally's Bluff (29 page)

“Go back,” I ordered Tom.

“Again?”

“Yes, again.”

There was something lying next to the sundial. It was long and narrow and...

“Can you go lower?” I shouted.

“No, sir.”

“Why the hell not?”

“There are laws, sir. We’re over a residential area and this is as low as I’m allowed to take it. There are a lot of influential homeowners down there and I know I’ll get complaints flying over them even at the legal altitude. We always do in this air lane. If we dropped a foot they would have my license.”

“Then take me back to the heliport as fast as this crate can go.”

“You okay, Mr. McNally? You look like you’re going to be sick. I showed you where we keep the sick bags.”

I didn’t need a sick bag. I needed the police. If that long, narrow thing wasn’t a dead body
I’d
eat Connie Garcia’s hat.

The crime scene evidence boys and girls were still sauntering about behind their glass wall. Was the foxglove leaf found in Mack Macurdy’s mouth now in their dominion? I had no time to cogitate on this depressing thought as I raced across the lobby of police headquarters. There was now a young man behind the information counter who proved no more helpful than his female colleague.

Approaching him I demanded, “I must see Lieutenant Eberhart at once.”

“Your name, sir?”

“Archy McNally. Look, officer, just get him on the phone and tell him this is an emergency.”

“And what is the nature of the emergency, sir?” he asked as if I were selling subscriptions to the
Police Gazette.
This was maddening. The kid was a minute past puberty and still battling zits. I also didn’t like the way he kept staring at my Ike jacket.

“The emergency will be history if you don’t get Eberhart on the line and tell him I have to see him now. Right now, Officer.”

“I must know the nature of your business, sir.”

This guy was a real Johnny-one-note. “Murder, officer. I’m here about a murder.”

“Whose murder, sir?”

“Yours, if you don’t get Eberhart on that phone in the next ten seconds.”

“What are you ranting about, pal?” I swung around to find Al Rogoff directly behind me. I almost threw my arms around the big lug.

“Al,” I cried, taking him by the arm. “I’ve got to see Eberhart, quick. Come on, I’ll explain on the way up.” With that I pulled him toward the staircase.

“I ain’t seen one of them jackets in a month of Sundays, pal. Where you been? To a V.F.W. rally?”

“I’ve been flying all over Palm Beach, Al. Really flying.”

“You want help, Sergeant?” the kid behind the counter called after us.

“It’s okay, Bruce. I’ll take responsibility. He ain’t no nut.”

Bruce?

Thanks to Bruce, Eberhart was expecting us. Once inside his office he questioned, “Flying, McNally? The kid thinks you’re high as a kite.”

“I was up in a helicopter...”

“Helicopter,” he exploded. “Was that you in the helicopter? What are you up to, McNally?”

“How do you know about the helicopter?” I asked, now somewhat baffled.

“How do I know? We got a dozen complaint calls, that’s how I know. You were snooping on private citizens.”

“I was snooping on the maze, Oscar, and I saw a body. A dead body in the goal of the maze.”

“Whose body?” This came from both the lieutenant and the sergeant.

“How should I know?” I cried. “I was too far up to see a face. Now let’s get moving. If people noticed the helicopter this morning so did Hayes and he’s had enough time to remove whatever he’s hiding in that damn maze. Is your patrol car outside, Al?”

“Hey, mister, I’m in charge here,” Eberhart protested, then paused, as if making a momentous decision, before asking, “Is your car free, Al?”

“Free and clear, sir. You want we should go to that maze?”

“I want,” Eberhart said to Al, “and on the way there, McNally, I also want to know what possessed you to go over the maze in a helicopter.”

Bruce looked startled as the three of us sped past his counter and made for the exit. When we got to Al’s patrol car Eberhart got in the front passenger seat, which placed me in the rear, behind the metal grate that separates the good guys from the bad guys in a squad car.

“Give,” Eberhart ordered before we had pulled away from the curb.

I gave him everything I knew and got accused of holding out on the police.

“Not true, Lieutenant. If Macurdy learned anything from his helicopter tour of the maze I didn’t know what it was, and I still don’t. I was just playing a hunch.”

“And stumbled over a dead body. Nice.” Eberhart wasn’t pleased. “So if Macurdy was leaning on Hayes, you think Hayes done him in, and maybe there’s a link between Macurdy’s murder and the Marlena Marvel murder.”

“If and maybe sums it up,” I carped. “And
if
we don’t hurry,
maybe
Hayes will have removed whatever I saw in the maze.”

“If he did,” Eberhart concluded, “all we’re doing is spinning our wheels—or Al’s wheels.”

“Not really,” Al said. “Hayes will know we saw something and are on to him, and we can gauge his reaction. We can also search the maze and the house.”

“Been there and done that,” Eberhart grunted. Turning to me, he said, “You think Hayes is the heavy, but I don’t see how he can be. In fact he was with you at the time of the murder.”

“I know a werewolf isn’t the culprit, Lieutenant.”

“You heard about the mark on Macurdy’s forehead, eh?”

“Lieutenant,” I sighed, “everyone in Palm Beach has heard about it.”

We didn’t have to ring the doorbell. Hayes, in his elevator oxfords, met us at the door. “What the hell is a police car doing in my driveway?” he ranted. “And was that a police chopper disturbing the peace this morning?”

“No, sir, it was me,” I confessed.

“You, McNally? That does it. You’re fired.”

Eberhart took charge. “I want to inspect the maze.”

“You got a warrant?” Hayes retaliated.

“It’s a crime scene under investigation. I have an ongoing warrant to search it and your house, sir.”

“What are you looking for?” Hayes looked anything but distressed over our surprise visit.

Without answering, Eberhart fired instructions at his subordinate. “Check out the house. We’ll walk around to the maze.” A meaningful nod passed between the two officers.

I followed Eberhart up the driveway, past the delivery entrance where Tilly was peeking, eyes wide, from behind the door she had opened a crack. Hayes followed Al into the house. The lieutenant took the map of the grid out of his jacket pocket and we went, in fits and starts, directly to the goal. Except for the sundial in the center of the opening, it was empty. We walked about, examined the ground and shook the hedges. Nothing.

Eberhart gave me a disdainful glare and said, “Let’s walk around the passages we missed on our way to the goal.”

We walked, and found nothing. “He hid it,” I said in defense of my allegation. “He had plenty of time to get rid of it.”

“It’s not so easy to hide a body, McNally, and why did he put it in the maze in the first place? To air it?”

“I saw something next to that sundial,” I insisted, feeling not a little foolish. The maze was constructed purposely to confuse and confound and was succeeding on both counts. The guy who built it was, by his own admission, a grifter, a con man, a swindler and a conjuring artist
par excellence.
He was making fools of me, the police and the town of Palm Beach. For the first time in my career I despaired of bringing a case to a satisfactory finale.

“I still think the answer is here in the maze,” I said to Eberhart, making the most of a lost cause.

“If it is, McNally, it’s invisible.”

When we got back to the patrol car we waited, in silence, for Al. When he emerged from the house I could just see Tilly closing the door behind him.

“You guys look like doom and gloom,” Al criticized his boss and his friend with good reason.

“We got zilch,” Eberhart reported. “What about you?”

“I looked around, lower level to attic, and didn’t see no body,” Al said.

I wanted to scream,
a double negative makes a positive.
If you didn’t see no body, you saw a body. But the boys were not feeling too kindly to me this day and more of my helpful tips might push them over the brink.

“I questioned them,” Al told us, “and got nothing. But the peanut and the broad ain’t the kind to cave in at the sight of a uniform. Personally, I think they’re both lying, but they do it so well you want to applaud.” Al saved the punch line for his swan song. “And he’s going to report this illegal raid to the commissioner.”

Eberhart opened the patrol car’s back door and motioned for me to get into the cage. “You know what, McNally?”

“What, Oscar?”

“I wish I could fire you.”

Joe Gallo placed a huge bowl of steaming beef stew in the center of the table. We guests inhaled the aroma, made the appropriate sounds and complimented our host.

“The stew is my specialty,” he stated with pride. “The trick is not to serve it before its time which is three days. I made it Friday, when Binky told me we would get together on Sunday. It’s been hibernating in the refrig since then, assimilating the juices of the meat and vegetables.”

“It looks good enough to eat,” Al Rogoff commented, which is about the zenith of Al’s wit in social situations. He reached for the ladle and got his hand slapped by the cook.

“Not yet, Sergeant,” Joe scolded his neighbor as if Al were a child being taught table manners. “First the noodles.”

Joe went to the kitchen which, in a trailer, is about ten feet from the dining area. Come to think of it, it’s about the same distance from table to sink in our Juno cottage. Using pot holders, Joe took the boiling cauldron off the stove and poured the water into a sieve, retaining the noodles. These he placed in a bowl which already contained a generous amount of melted butter, tossing the noodles in the butter before presenting them to Al, Binky and Archy.

“A dollop of noodles,” Joe instructed, “then a dollop of stew over them. There’s a baguette, sliced and warm, and a salad which we’ll have after the meal because I’m Italian, and also because the table isn’t big enough to hold four salad and dinner plates at the same time.

“Binky brought the salad, Al brought the beer and Archy brought his august presence.
Bon appetit,
gentlemen.”

We dug in and it was excellent. Beef stew is a man’s meal, and for our beverage we drank ale (Bass, in fact) which is a man’s drink. Wine at a stag dinner in the U.S. of A. would be frowned upon. The background music,
sotto voce,
was classical and included a variety of arias, some familiar (the suite from
Carmen
) and some only a buff like Al Rogoff could name.

His musical choices, and the beef stew, had assured Joe Gallo lifelong tenure in the heart of his crusty neighbor. As the trumpets blared the triumphal March from
Aida,
Al declared, “You can’t beat them Eyetalians when it comes to music.”

Joe Gallo knew how to charm the rattle off the snake.

“Georgy never told me you were a cook,” I said between piquant bites of the three-day-old ragout.

“Georgy has spared you many of my talents,” Joe replied, “cooking being the least of them.”

Al Rogoff let out a ribald laugh. Binky Watrous blushed. I helped myself to bread. “I hear you’re going to Lady Cynthia’s ball as Paris. True?”

Joe treated us to a lackadaisical shrug. “She’s having my skirt tailor-made. What do you wear under a skirt?”

“Ask a Scotsman,” Al told him.

Not letting Joe get away with such indifference to his entry into Palm Beach society, I blasted, “And what of Fitz? I hear she’s not going.”

I got a smug look and a boyish grin. Joe Gallo has become famous for his boyish grin. I find it boring. “Paris will arrive with a wooden horse on wheels. A big wooden horse. Once inside the gates, the stallion’s belly will open and out will pop Fitz, as Cleopatra.”

Binky looked at Joe with great admiration. “What does Cleopatra wear?” he wanted to know.

“Very little, Binky. Very little,” his idol assured him.

“When they do
Les Troyens
at the Met they bring out the wooden horse. It’s incredible.” Al hummed a few bars from
Les Troyens,
or
The Trojans
to the common folk.

“What does Paris wear at the Met, Al?” Joe asked.

“A skirt, pal. What else?”

“Watch your step, Joey,” I warned. “Hell ham no fury like Lady Cynthia Horowitz deprived of Paris in a skirt. She’ll get Lolly Spindrift to trash you in print.”

“I can handle Lolly,” Joe boasted with a ribald snicker. Ribald laughs, snickers and hoots, as you now know, are what stag dinners are all about. I find it boring.

“On the subject of romance, if that’s what we’re talking about,” Joe began, “Binky has something to report.”

“I do not,” Binky denied, his face pink.

“Binky has a girl, Binky has a girl.” Joe teased. “Her name is Marilyn Anderson.”

“Anderson?” Al questioned. “You mean the dame that found Macurdy’s body?”

“None other, Sergeant,” Joe said. “I sent Binky to talk to her about doing an interview with me and they hit it off, right Binky? She and Binky Went to the flicks last night.”

Resigned to his fate, and rather pleased with the attention, Binky told us, “We have a lot in common, Marilyn and me.”

“Give me a for instance,” I said.

“Jogging,” Binky announced.

“Since when do you jog?” I badgered.

“Since I met Marilyn Anderson.”

And we all gave this more laughter than it deserved. As you must have noticed by now, the four of us were in a playful mood that bordered on the giddy, thanks to having just spent the better part of two hours discussing the murders of Marlena Marvel and Mack Macurdy—all to no avail. We rehashed, again and again, what we knew as fact, only in this case the facts came to a preposterous conclusion.

Al Rogoff made the definitive statement. “The body in the maze was that of Marlena Marvel. That is a provable fact. The person you saw posing as Venus was not Marlena Marvel because she could not have gotten from the house to the maze, dead or alive, without being seen. Period, finished, over, done, the end.”