McNally's Dare (27 page)

As I knew she would, Georgy ran a missing persons check this morning and came up with nothing. “Hospitals, police blotters, accident reports, the works. Not a trace of her.”

“I alerted Al Rogoff this morning, but not officially. We met on another matter,” I said.

“Who’s Al Rogoff?” Gallo asked.

“Sergeant Al Rogoff,” Georgy answered for me. “He’s with the Palm Beach force. He and Archy are working on a homicide. The kid that was drowned in the MacNiff pool.”

“The police questioned us about that,” Gallo said.

“What did you tell them?” I ask him.

“Nothing,” he responded. “We didn’t know the kid. We were as stunned as everyone else that day.”

I was pleased that Georgy had reintroduced the subject of the MacNiff fete. I could query Joe Gallo on the subject of Holga von Brecht without giving away my hand too soon. “Was Ms. Emerson an annual contributor to Malcolm MacNiff’s scholarship fund, Joe?”

He smiled. “No way. That crowd is out of Viv’s league.”

He related how one of Vivian Emerson’s golf buddies, who was a regular invitee to the
Tennis Everyone!
benefit, had complained that she and her husband had purchased tickets as usual, but this year a business trip to Milan would keep her husband from attending, and she had decided to tag along at company expense. Vivian offered the woman twenty-five hundred dollars for the tickets; which was half their cost. The woman accepted, saying she wouldn’t tell her husband, and would use the money to go boutiqueing while visiting our planet’s boutique capital.

“So we got in on someone else’s shirttails,” was how Gallo finished the story.

“You didn’t know anyone there?” I nudged.

“Not a soul. Like I said, I knew you by sight from the interview in the
Daily News,
and I knew who Dennis Darling was because everyone was whispering about him. I wanted to meet him but never got near him.”

Zeroing in, I asked him, “Do you remember the woman who partnered with me opposite you and Ms. Emerson?”

He grinned. “Her? She really ticked Viv off.”

Now we were getting to the nuts and bolts of this confrontation. “Why?”

When Vivian Emerson saw Holga von Brecht, she told Joe that she knew Olga from their undergrad days at Smith.

“Did you say Olga?” I cut in, carefully articulating the first vowel.

“Yeah. Olga something. I don’t remember the family name. Viv went right up to her and Olga froze,” he recalled.

“You mean she snubbed Ms. Emerson?”

“No,” Joe said. “I mean she froze, pop-eyed, is the best I can describe it. Then she snubbed her. She told Viv she had mistaken her for someone else and walked away”

Needless to say, Vivian Emerson was furious. Being something of a gate-crasher, she thought it would boost her image if she was seen embracing an old friend who was there by invitation.

“Then came the discovery of the kid in the pool and after that, as you know, Archy, the party broke up.”

“Helen MacNiff had to give the police a list of all the guests. How did she get your names, if the tickets belonged to someone else?”

“Easy,” Joe said. “Viv’s friend called the MacNiffs’ secretary and told her we were coming in place of her and her husband. I mean it would be awkward if we weren’t on the security checker’s list and got bounced. That night, Viv told me about Olga—Norton, I think was her maiden name.”

The girls had met at Smith and were acquaintances, if not the best of friends. Vivian had heard that Olga went to Europe shortly after graduation and had married someone in Switzerland, remaining there with her husband. Two years later, while on her own honeymoon, Vivian ran into Olga in Lucerne. “She said Olga had a son and seemed very happy.”

I almost upset the cup of coffee I had balanced on my lap. “A son? Are you sure?”

“I think so. What difference does it make? Viv thought she was a perfect bitch. No, I think she called her a cow.”

Holga, or Olga, von Brecht may be many things, but a cow wasn’t one of them. I put my cup and saucer on the coffee table as Georgy, who was seated next to me, put a hand on my knee. “The von Brecht woman is the one you told me about, isn’t she? The one who’s here with Lance Talbot. Do you think Vivian’s disappearance has something to do with the murder?”

“What?” Gallo shouted, leaping out of his chair. “What murder? The kid in the pool? Viv never knew him.”

Taking charge, I told them both to simmer down and motioned Joe Gallo to resume his seat. Vivian Emerson knew Holga von Brecht. That seemed clear. But von-Brecht wasn’t happy to see her former school chum. That was even clearer.

Jeff Rodgers was connected to Lance Talbot, who was connected to Holga von Brecht, who was connected to Vivian Emerson. And the hipbone’s connected to the thighbone, and the thighbone’s connected to...

“Yes, I now believe there may be a connection between Jeff Rodgers’s murder and Vivian Emerson’s disappearance.” Raising my hand for silence as the two plied me with questions, I sought to extinguish the fuse I had inadvertently lit before it detonated the bomb in my noggin.

“There’s no reason to jump to conclusions,” I began, and that’s as far as I got.

“We already have,” Georgy said. “You told me...”

“Put a muzzle on it, Georgy. I confided in you because you wear that uniform. We’ve both said too much already”

“Meaning wait till little Joey leaves, and then throw it open for discussion. Well, I’m not leaving until I know what’s going on,” little Joey informed us. “I think I’m the guy who put you wise to whatever it is you won’t tell me.”

I looked at my watch. Mickey’s arms were vertically bisecting the dial, with the little arm pointing down. In short, it was time for a liquid refreshment that would banish the taste of Georgy’s instant coffee. The pot she claimed to have put up was filled with water. When boiling she put in three teaspoons of the instant powder, and one for the pot. Oh, Georgy!

“I believe there’s a bottle of a pretentious Chardonnay chilling in the fridge,” I announced. “Let’s clear the deck and fortify ourselves for the task ahead.” I began clearing the coffee table. “Many hands make light work,” I hinted.

I had them both bussing the table and, for the moment, off my back. I uncorked the wine as Georgy got out the glasses and Joe stacked the dishwasher. He was not unfamiliar with Georgy’s kitchen, I noted. Filling the glasses, I informed them, “Tis said a glass of wine is nature’s tranquilizer.”

“Vivian said that, and look what happened to her,” Georgy blurted. Joe and I paused in our labors. “Sorry,” she recanted.

“What’s going on, Archy?” Joe began as soon as he had tasted the wine.

“I don’t think Vivian Emerson is in any way involved in Jeff Rodgers’s murder, but I do think she unwittingly intruded upon a conspiracy and has made some people very nervous.”

“Olga?” Joe guessed correctly.

This is just what I didn’t want to happen. Nonprofessionals knowing too much, blabbing and getting up the wind before the police had a chance to sort it all out. I had no proof that Vivian Emerson was abducted by the von Brechts, just as I had no proof that Lance Talbot was responsible for Jeff’s murder. It was all circumstantial posturing. I needed something to hang my suspicions on and there was one chance in a zillion that Joe Gallo, of all people, might give me what I needed.

“Joe, does Vivian have Caller ID on her phone?”

“Yeah,” he said. “So does everyone in Palm Beach.”

“What are you getting at, Archy?” Georgy asked.

“Does it keep a record of the incoming calls? I mean, can you check to see what calls came in in the last few days?”

“I think it has a memory bank,” Joe stated.

“I know it does,” Georgy cut in. “We have it at the barracks. It can store just so many numbers, so how many days back it goes depends on how many calls came in.”

“Joe, this is very important. First, I want you to promise to keep your mouth shut about everything you heard here today. Can I count on you?”

“Is Vivian in danger?” he asked, and I think he was sincerely concerned. It went a long way in boosting my opinion of the guy.

“She may be. What I want you to do is go home and scan the Caller ID screen. Write down all the numbers listed. After getting rid of the ones you know, call me here and give me the rest.”

“What for?” Joe asked.

“Just do what Archy says,” Georgy ordered. “After that, call the Palm Beach police and report Vivian’s disappearance.”

“But you already ran a check,” Joe insisted.

“That was this morning,” Georgy exclaimed, losing her composure. “You and Viv live in Palm Beach so you must notify the Palm Beach police. Just do it, Joey.” When he reached for the Chardonnay for a refill, she ordered, “Now, Joey.”

She followed him to the door where they spoke quietly. I saw Georgy pat his cheek before he left. Seeing my gaze, she said when she returned, “I asked him if he needed money.”

“What did he say?”

“He told me to buzz off.”

“Good. You deserve it.” I consulted the little address book I always carry and picked up the kitchen wall phone. I dialed the MacNiff house and got Maria Sanchez. I held my breath. Mr. MacNiff was in. I asked him for Lance Talbot’s phone number, which I had neglected to get from Lance when he hired me. Georgy slipped me a pad and pencil as Nifty gave me the info. Knowing Nifty was curious but too polite to ask the reason for my request, I volunteered the information, saying, “He walked off with my bathing suit and I want it back.”

Georgy had taken the bottle of Chardonnay into the parlor and I followed her, and it, there.

“You think the von Brecht woman called Vivian and asked to meet with her?” she said.

Taking my place next to her on the couch, I nodded as I poured us seconds, then I kissed her.

“Before you get too comfortable, tell me what’s going on, Archy”

“Where did I leave off last time I saw you?”

“From the beginning, please.”

I took a deep breath and told her what I had shared with Al Rogoff this morning, adding the masked man in the tunnel theory, which I passed off as my own clever deduction. And why not?

She listened carefully and, like Al, said with what I had on Lance Talbot and the von Brechts, they could live a long and happy life in snowy Switzerland. “Even if von Brecht did call Vivian, all you know is that she called an old friend. That’s what she would claim, showing the police photos of their days at Smith.”

I didn’t need Georgy girl to tell me that. What I was after was one more piece of circumstantial evidence to add to my collection, bolstering my resolve not to write off Lance Talbot & Co. and to enlist Al Rogoff in my cause.

When the phone rang I ran to the kitchen and picked it up along with the pad and pencil Georgy had supplied. Gallo read me a list of five numbers. One of them corresponded to the first number on the pad—the number Malcolm MacNiff had given me. I told Joe to call the Palm Beach police and to sit tight.

“Someone from the Talbot house called Vivian Emerson.” I showed Georgy the pad. “And she went to meet that person.”

Staring at it, she said, “This doesn’t look good for Vivian.

“No, Georgy, it doesn’t.” I sat next to her and took her hand. “And there ain’t tuppence we can do about it.”

“Poor Joey,” Georgy lamented.

“Poor Vivian Emerson,” I corrected.

We sat in silence for what seemed like a long time. Me thinking about Vivian Emerson’s encounter with her schoolmate in Switzerland, and my girl thinking about—what? Joe Gallo?

As it turned out our thoughts, like our hands, were intertwined. “You know,” Georgy broke the reverie, “you used the word
conspiracy.
If this Talbot and Holga were in plain sight at the time of the murder, why couldn’t Holga’s husband have been in the tunnel?”

“Because he was in Switzerland,” I told her.

“But you said he was at the pool party yesterday.”

“He was. He flew in yesterday. Lance and Holga picked him up at the airport that morning and brought him to the party.”

“Were you there?” she asked.

“At the party? Of course. I just told you all about it.”

“No, silly. Were you at the airport? Did you see the guy get off the plane?”

I squeezed her pretty paw. First Izzy Duhane, and now Georgy girl, telling me my business. Maybe God created women for reasons other than the obvious.

“I’ll ask Al Rogoff if he can check the incoming flights that day and their passenger rosters.”

“You’re welcome,” she heckled. “Now I want to get out of this uniform and into a shower. How about taking me out to dinner, McNally, and calling Joey to join us.”

“What?”

“Come on,” Georgy pushed. “He’s alone and worried, thanks to you.”

Now I’m to blame. “I’ll think about it,” I said, more as a matter of form than fact. Little Joey would dine with us.

Putting my address book back into my pocket, I discovered the photo I had shown Al. I took it out and looked at it as if it contained the answer to all my questions. Funny thing was—it did.

“What’s that?” Georgy asked.

“The prince and the pauper,” I said, handing her the photo. “That’s Lance Talbot on your right.”

“He’s a southpaw,” was her only comment.

“A who?”

“A southpaw,” she repeated. “The kid’s glove is on his right hand, so he’s a lefty.”

I took the photo back and studied it. The Lance Talbot I played tennis with was not a southpaw.

G
ENS DU MONDE, AS
the French call them. The fashionable people. Chauffeured limousines deposited them at Lady Cynthia Horowitz’s front door before driving off to the mammoth parking area on her ten acres of surf and sand nestled between the Atlantic and Ocean Boulevard. Each time I approach the white-columned mansion, the theme from
Gone With the Wind
echoes in my mind and for a moment the limos become smart carriages drawn by braces of noble stallions.

It is said in Palm Beach that it never rains on Lady Cynthia’s pageants, and tonight was no exception. The moon had risen to its height and beamed down on the ladies in their party finery and the gentlemen in their white dinner jackets. The patio was professionally lit with theatrical klieg lights in an array of flattering tones, cloaking the expanse in perpetual twilight. Who says money can’t make time stand still?