McNally's Dare (11 page)

Jeff and Lance were friends years ago, when they both attended the Palm Beach Day School and even before that. When the boys were about ten, Lance and his mother left Palm Beach to make their home in Switzerland. If Jeff knew something disparaging about Lance it went back to the first ten years of their lives, when they were mere tots. Surely, Jeff wasn’t killed because he knew Lance was a rake with the girls in the first grade or had plagiarized an essay in the fourth grade.

A detective is akin to a plastic surgeon reconstructing the face of an accident victim. The PI gathers the facts, puts them together and comes up with a scenario that he hopes is a true replica of the events as they happened. A skilled surgeon probably works from a photo of the guy going under the scalpel. In both cases you end up with a reproduction. At best, a plausible likeness, at worst, a distortion of the truth.

Excuse the analogy, but was Lance Talbot wearing a surgical mask that was a good likeness but a distortion of the truth? If Lance didn’t commit a major indiscretion in the first ten years of his life, the only thing Jeff could have against him was that he wasn’t who he claimed to be. My rationale was Nifty’s feeling that old Mrs. Talbot had some doubts about her grandson she either wasn’t able to articulate or wasn’t able to define. Neither Jeff nor Mrs. Talbot had seen Lance in ten years. Could Jeff have discerned something about his boyhood friend that a sick old lady could only puzzle over? If Jeff’s father was the chauffeur that caused the accident, Jeff would know about the amputated toe. Could Jeff have had a look at the returned Lance’s feet? Unlikely.

This line of thinking had me heading straight for the MacNiff house to report what I suspected. Purposely, I made a detour to Seaview Avenue and drove past the Palm Beach Day School. A charming, light and airy edifice surrounded by palm trees, it looks like an ideal setting for the young and privileged. Noted for their soccer team, the Bulldogs, the school recently enrolled two boys, one from Italy, the other from England, to join the varsity squad, living up to its claim that “Beyond academics, the Palm Beach Day School stresses the importance of community service, athletics, fine art and social skills.” Jeff must have loved it.

I drove the Miata off the A1A, or Ocean Boulevard if you prefer, and into the MacNiff driveway, pulling up short of the three-car garage that displayed the tails of a Rolls and a BMW The third door was closed so one could only guess what it was hiding. My ring was answered by Maria Sanchez in a white uniform that would not be out of place in a hospital’s intensive care unit. Maria is a shapely woman with the hourglass figure so popular a hundred years ago. I wanted to encourage her with the fact that what goes around, comes around.

“Mr. McNally,” she said, as if I were the last person she expected to find on the MacNiffs’ doorstep.

“In person, Maria. May I come in?”

“Yes. Please.” She opened the door to allow me to step into the entrance foyer, which was modest by Palm Beach standards. I doubt if it could hold more than a string quartet and a dozen waltzing couples. The furnishings of the MacNiff home are not Louis Seize or Louis Didn’t Say, but American and British antiques worthy of the Winterthur collection. Wood, not gilt, dominated, making the display more home and hearth than awesome. But then the landed gentry don’t have to dazzle to intimidate.

“When you call Ursi to tell her I’m here, Maria, would you mention that I will be home for dinner this evening?”

Maria blushed scarlet. “Mr. McNally. I no do such a
ting,
you bad boy.” My word, she sounded like Carmen Miranda.

“Before you no do such a
ting,
would you announce me to Mr. MacNiff?”

“Si. I go now. They are in the drawing room.”

When Maria returned she beckoned me onward and I followed her into the drawing room where I had commiserated with Nifty after the abrupt termination of his
Tennis Everyone!
benefit. Mrs. MacNiff was seated on a lovely couch (Duncan Phyfe) with a tabby on her lap and two other cats, a gray and a black, reclining on Mr. Phyfe’s masterpiece. The three felines eyed the intruder with suspicion. I am not a cat person and suspected they could tell. Also, my lunch was beginning to talk back.

Nifty was in a wing chair (Queen Anne), reading
The Wall Street Journal.
Both were dressed casually, she in skirt, blouse and sensible oxfords, he in flannels and a rugby shirt. Nifty made a motion to rise but I stopped him with a wave of my hand. “Don’t get up, sir. I won’t keep you. I just wanted to report what I’ve learned regarding...” I hesitated and was saved by Mrs. MacNiff.

“Lance Talbot,” she said. “I know all about it, Archy. Why don’t you have a seat.” She patted the space next to her on the Duncan Phyfe, annoying the cats. “Shoo, Iago. You, too, Othello.” When I started at hearing the names she laughed, saying, “And this, of course, is Desdemona.”

I couldn’t think of a more compatible trio. “Is she married to Othello?” I asked, gingerly taking the place Othello and Iago had vacated. They had retreated to the far corner of the couch, relinquishing their position, but not their domain.

“Actually, he prefers Iago, who we discovered was a female after we had named her. Or, I should say, Othello discovered she was a female.”

Looking at the two snuggling in a corner of the sofa I hoped the MacNiffs had checked for themselves and not relied solely on Othello’s scrutiny. One never knows, do one?

“Can we offer you a drink, Archy?” Mr. MacNiff asked.

“No, thank you, sir. I had two slices of pizza with anchovies and a can of beer for lunch and a drink would be like trying to put out a fire with gasoline.”

Mrs. MacNiff laughed heartily at my little jest. She is a small woman with dark blue eyes and a smiling face covered with nothing more than a dusting of powder and framed by a halo of white hair that showed no trace of blue.

“I swear that jacket once belonged to Malcolm,” Mrs. MacNiff stated.

“I beg your pardon, ma’am?”

“She means the Lilly Pulitzer you donned for the interview,” her husband explained.

I was certainly getting a lot of mileage out of that romp. “I said it belonged to my father but he swears he never owned one” I told them.

“Knowing Prescott, I’m sure he didn’t,” Nifty said.

“And how is your mother?” Mrs. MacNiff asked.

“Fine, except for a little forgetfulness now and then.”

“Tell me about it,” she said. “I walk into rooms and wonder what I’m doing there.”

“Well, dear, we know why Archy is here and I would like to hear what he has to report,” Nifty gently chided his wife.

“Oh, I forgot all about that,” she responded, giving me a sly wink.

I waited until I was certain both parties had their say before beginning my report. “Well, sir, I fear I have some disquieting news.”

Hearing this Iago arched his back—excuse me, her back—and meowed. Nifty began to fold his newspaper as if it would be some time before he could return to it. “Let’s have it, Archy,” he said.

“You asked me to learn what I could about the newly arrived Lance Talbot and poke my nose into the unfortunate demise of Jeff Rodgers.”

“We spoke to Mr. Rodgers,” Mrs. MacNiff announced. “The funeral is tomorrow. I don’t know if we should attend...”

“Helen!” Nifty cut her off. “Please let Archy have his say.”

“Sorry, dear.”

“I’m afraid there’s a connection between the two, sir,” I related.

“Connection?” Nifty questioned, as if he had suffered a gross injustice.

“It seems, sir, that Jeff Rodgers and Lance Talbot were boyhood friends. In fact, they attended the Palm Beach Day School together, at Mrs. Talbot’s expense. Mrs. Talbot being Lance’s mother, not his grandmother.”

“He must be the other boy in the picture,” Mrs. MacNiff exclaimed. “Don’t look at me like that, Malcolm. You asked me to dig up a picture of young Lance to give Archy, and I found one.” The tabby flew off her lap a moment before Mrs. MacNiff got to her feet and went straight for the desk-on-frame. I will say the MacNiffs’ treasures were for use and not for show.

From the drawer she removed a small photo and proudly handed it to me. I found myself looking at two boys, aged nine or ten, in baseball uniforms, their gloved hands raised as if they were shagging flies.

“The boy on your right is young Lance as I remember him,” Mrs. MacNiff told me.

He could or could not be the Lance Talbot now in Palm Beach. This was the trouble I had anticipated from the start when asking to see a photo of young Lance. One changes in ten years. Especially the years from pre-pubescence to maturity. The other boy could be Jeff Rodgers or any other boyhood friend of Lance Talbot. But I now knew of someone who could tell me if the other boy was Jeff. In fact, it could be the person who had taken the photo. Jeff’s father.

Watching me scrutinize the photo, Nifty said, “I’ve been looking at it since Helen pulled it out of her collection. All I can say is it doesn’t disprove Talbot’s claim of being Margaret’s grandson. I mean he’s a white, Anglo-Saxon male.”

“Is that racist, Malcolm? Or sexist?” Mrs. MacNiff wondered.

“No, dear, it’s a fact.”

“My feelings exactly, sir,” I said. “Mind if I keep the photo, Mrs. MacNiff?”

“Please do; Archy. I wish I could be of more help but you must remember that Malcolm and I were close to Margaret Talbot but seldom came in contact with Jessica and young Lance. Jessica was always a bit of a loner. Do you think the boy is an imposter? Poor Aunt Margaret was rather vague on the subject.”

“My dear, she was on her deathbed,” Nifty reminded his wife. “Where did you learn that Lance and Jeff were once buddies?”

“From a friend of Jeff’s,” I told him. Then, not wishing to prolong the inevitable, I dropped the other shoe. “I have reason to believe Jeff Rodgers was blackmailing Lance Talbot, sir.”

Iago leaped from her corner onto my lap.

I
TOLD THE MACNIFFS
as much as I could without compromising Denny’s position. One cannot serve two masters, especially when their interests converge. Judging by the speed with which this case was progressing, I would say Denny and Nifty were fast approaching a collision course, with Archy poised at the crossroads. In a very short time I would have to make them aware of each other, but not right now. I needed solid proof that Jeff was blackmailing Talbot and what secret he possessed that enabled him to do so. The reason for the blackmail was the crux of my case and Jeff Rodgers took the reason to his grave.

“This is very disquieting,” Nifty said after listening to my spiel. “If this boy, Jeff, was killed because of what he had on Lance Talbot, we have to assume that Lance is the murderer.”

“Assume nothing, is my credo, Mr. MacNiff, and remember, I said I could vouch for Talbot not being near the pool at the crucial time. You, Dennis Darling, Talbot and I played a set just prior to the time of the murder. After our game Lance Talbot didn’t stray far from the tennis courts. In fact I saw him talking on his cell phone about the time Jeff was chloroformed and pushed into the pool.”

“Perhaps he hired a hit man,” Mrs. MacNiff suggested. “Or should I say a hit person?”

“Helen, really!” her husband admonished.

“If he did,” I reminded Mrs. MacNiff, “he, or she, was recruited from among your guests.”

“Oh, dear,” she lamented, “I never thought of that.”

Mention of the MacNiffs’ guests reminded me of Vivian Emerson and I asked Mrs. MacNiff if she knew her.

“I can’t say I do, Archy. I’ll have to check my guest registry. Is it important?”

“I’m not sure, ma’am. I suspect she knows the von Brecht woman and as von Brecht is staying with Lance Talbot I think I should try to learn the connection between the two women. There’s no rush. At your convenience, is fine.”

“Do you think Holga von Brecht and Lance Talbot are lovers, Archy? They say she’s eighty if she’s a day.”

“Helen,” Nifty sighed. “Archy is not here to gossip, and that woman’s love life and age are not your business.”

“Oh, Malcolm, don’t be such a party pooper” she accused. “She’s living with the boy who claims to be Aunt Margaret’s grandson, and if we want to know more about him, Holga von Brecht is the only person who can help us. She knew him in Switzerland and none of us did.”

Score one for Helen MacNiff. I nodded in agreement, but very cautiously. Iago was now asleep on my lap and I thought it imprudent to disturb her. The sages tell us to let sleeping cats lie.

“Holga and Lance are very close,” I offered, “be they lovers or just friends. We must remember that she will not tell us, or anyone, anything she doesn’t want known. That’s why I’m interested in talking to someone who might know Holga and be willing to share.”

This was not the time or place to add that I believed there were ill feelings between Holga and Vivian Emerson, which might prompt Vivian to blab more than if they were on friendly terms.

“And who is this person who told you the dead boy had information on Lance Talbot he was trying to sell?” Nifty asked.

“I’m afraid, sir, I can’t divulge my source at this time. I promised him anonymity.” It was as good a line as any and one people read so often in their daily newspaper they never think to question it.

“How exciting,” Mrs. MacNiff said, pleased that her husband had been rebuffed. “Is your informant anyone we know, Archy?”

“Helen, we’re not here to play twenty questions, either,” Nifty snapped, rousing Iago, who looked up at me and meowed. “And you think Jeff had reason to believe that Lance Talbot is an imposter?”

“Just a hunch, sir. Coupled with what you told me about Mrs. Talbot’s doubts, I couldn’t think of anything else Jeff might have on Lance. As Mrs. MacNiff just said, Lance has been away from these parts for ten years and Jeff Rodgers has never left here. What else could he know?”

“It seems far-fetched,” Nifty claimed, “that the boy would know something Aunt Margaret didn’t.”

“But she did know something,” Mrs. MacNiff cried. “The king is dead. The king must be Lance.”

Nifty shook his head. “King? Why not
prince?
Or
my grandson?
It makes no sense.”