McNally's Folly (2 page)

“Please, sir, call me Archy. My father is Mr. McNally. How did your wife come in contact with Serge Ouspenskaya?”

Holmes shrugged, sending his jowls into a tizzy, and explained, “At some social gathering or other. You know how women talk. Ouspenskaya claims to have a knack for locating lost objects. He’s supposed to have told a woman where she could find a diamond clip she misplaced and gave up for lost. They say she talked her insurance company into paying Ouspenskaya a finder’s fee.”

My policeman friend, Sergeant Al Rogoff, once told me that the police and insurance companies use psychics and mediums more often than they care to admit, especially in cases of missing persons and objects. “Did your wife seek out Ouspenskaya especially for this reason, Mr. Holmes?” I asked.

“Yes, Archy, she did.”

“And may I ask what she wanted him to locate?”

His jaw was set so tight those jowls remained as firm as his response. “No, Archy, you may not.”

The pater raised one bushy eyebrow, a trick that never ceases to fascinate me, and spoke like a judge counseling a reluctant witness. “Archy has already assured you that nothing you say here will be repeated to anyone without your explicit permission and need I remind you, sir, that client/lawyer confidentiality is sacrosanct.”

“I assume you want me to investigate this Ouspenskaya,” I came in right behind Father, “but if I don’t know what your wife wants from him, how can I ascertain the validity of his dealings with her? I would rather decline the job, Mr. Holmes, then proceed without knowing all the facts. Unlike Serge Ouspenskaya, I’m not on speaking terms with a higher power who’s willing to share with me.”

Holmes gave this a lot of thought as Father and I waited patiently for him to reply. With a sigh of what I took to be resignation rather than acquiescence he began, “My wife was an actress...”

“Desdemona Darling!”
I exploded before I could stop myself, causing Father’s eyebrow practically to meet his hairline. Regaining some semblance of self-control I immediately apologized for my outburst.

Holmes gave me a reassuring smile and with unabashed pride said, “I understand, Archy. People still respond with awe when they suddenly connect me with DeeDee, or Desdemona as you know her.”

Desdemona Darling was one of the most celebrated film actresses at a time some like to call Hollywood’s Golden Age—the years just prior to and shortly after the Second World War. A photograph of Desdemona in a shocking pink maillot was a favorite pinup of our GIs and is as representative of that war as the photograph of the marines raising the American flag on the Isle of Iwo Jima.

Desdemona, it was well known, had had six husbands, three of them Hollywood idols of the moment: Her current spouse, Richard Holmes, was a self-made millionaire via the futures market, thanks to an unerring skill for buying pork bellies low and selling them high. It was no wonder that his name had struck a chord which needed only the word
actress
to inspire me to identify the key.

The Hollywood of that time had given us a Sweater Girl, a Sarong Girl, an Oomph Girl, a platinum blonde, a strawberry blonde, and a peek-a-boo bangs blonde. The ash blonde Desdemona Darling was the Golden Girl of that golden era.

So famous was Desdemona Darling that the mere mention of her name had the sire stroking his handlebar mustache, a sure sign that he was enjoying whatever immodest memories her name had evoked. When angry, he tugs at that hirsute indulgence.

“DeeDee made a risqué one-reeler early on in her career,” Holmes told us like a man who suddenly decides to leap before he looks and to hell with the consequences.

Surprising, but not shocking. Several celebrated actresses of that bygone era had been rumored to have gotten their start in what were called “blue” films, or “smokers.” (But Archy, who knows all, ain’t naming names; not only because a gentleman never kisses and tells, but because some of them may still be alive and a libel suit I don’t need. Look what happened to O. Wilde.)

“Not as bawdy as today’s porn videos, but bad enough,” Holmes went on. Had he seen the film or was he quoting his wife’s rationalization of her early cinematic offering? “It was never widely distributed because in them days you could go to jail just for looking at a smoker.”

Not to mention that in
them
days you could go to jail twice as long for starring in one. And, if his grammatical faux pas was any indication of his roots, Richard Holmes traded up when he went into pork bellies.

“The studio thought they had bought up the few that existed,” Holmes told us, “but they missed one.”

“Your wife is being blackmailed, sir,” I stated.

The jowls shook in agreement. “But not in the way you’re thinking, Archy. The guy has never asked her for a dime. But every year, on the anniversary of the day the film was made, he sends her a reminder, telling her he owns a print and might, or might not, go public with it. I guess you could call it emotional blackmail. And it’s been going on for over half a century.”

“And after all this time your wife is still perturbed by the possibility that he may go public?”

“If perturbed is a nice way of saying she’s bonkers over the possibility, then she’s pretty effing perturbed, if you’ll excuse the English. Actresses are very vain people, Archy, and DeeDee is a classic example of the breed. Hanging on to the Golden Girl image is more important to her than life itself.”

“Do the letters contain a return address?”

“No way. They come from all over the country through some kind of mail-drop service.”

“And Mrs. Holmes wants Ouspenskaya to find this miscreant?”

“That’s right. And if he’s dead, she wants to know what he did with that little tin can in his possession. Ouspenskaya is not the first psychic DeeDee has been to with this but he’s the first to get her so bamboozled. You see, she didn’t have to tell him what she was looking for. He knew.”

A good guess, I thought, or the guy did a bit of research. With a lady boasting a public record as long as Desdemona Darling’s, he probably picked up enough info to make her believe he had spent the last fifty years in her boudoir.

“He charges five hundred bucks a session, Archy, and my wife has him on our weekly payroll.”

“Did it ever occur to you, or Mrs. Holmes, that the threat is a paper tiger? I mean, how do you know he actually owns a print of the infamous one-reeler?”

“Because of how the letters are signed,” Holmes said.

“And how are they signed, sir?”

“Kirk.”

“And does Mrs. Holmes know who Kirk is, sir?”

“Sure. He’s the cameraman who photographed the one-reeler.”

I
T WAS TIME TO
collect on the lunch I had so generously advanced Connie a few days earlier. If Serge Ouspenskaya was the current rage of Palm Beach society, Connie could fill me in on all the vital statistics. Connie labors as social secretary to Lady Cynthia Horowitz, Palm Beach’s hostess with the mostest. In that capacity, Connie was a one-woman FBI, CIA and
yenta
who kept an ear to our sandy ground and an eye on those who trod it. She was as vital to my line of work as Tonto was to the Lone Ranger’s.

Not being the cad I pretend to be, or would like to be, I am not smitten with Connie for purely commercial reasons. She is the one steady love of my life and we have been dating for lo these many years, a relationship I prefer to marriage. However, whenever Connie plays bridesmaid to one of her numerous cousins, she never misses the opportunity to lament, “Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.” Therefore, when I was godfather to my sister’s boy, Darcy, I loudly proclaimed, “Always a godfather, never a god.” Connie, alas, did not appreciate the witticism.

I called Connie and, happily, she was free for lunch. I told her I would pick her up at high noon and rode down to petty cash to collect on my expenses. Whoever christened that department must have had a precognition of my weekly reparation at the time. I retrieved my Miata from our underground garage, waved a farewell to Herb, our security person, and was off on the first lap of the case I would label in my journal as “Serge the Seer.” And, were I a seer, I would have driven right back to the McNally Building and hid in my cubbyhole until the future bode more auspiciously.

Lady C, who got her title from her last husband—she had had six and the other five left her nothing but money—lived on ten acres of prime Ocean Boulevard real estate in a faux antebellum mansion that had me humming the theme from
Gone with the Wind
every time I rode up the drive to collect Connie.

Getting into the Miata, Connie gave me a peck on the cheek before complaining, “Long time, no see.”

“We had lunch last Tuesday,” I reminded her.

“And this is this Tuesday. So where have you been for the week that was?”

“I’m a working man, Connie, remember?”

“Just make sure that what you’re working on doesn’t wear high heels and a little something from Victoria’s Secret.”

“I know a drag queen in West Palm who fits that description.”

This got a laugh from my good-natured significant other and a pat on my thigh. “It’s been a long time since you’ve been to my place for dinner and...”

“You miss Archy’s
arroz con pollo?”
I teased. Connie is more at home with a computer than in the kitchen, so I prepare the meal when invited to dine at Chez Garcia. The
arroz con pollo
is my specialty.

“If that’s what they’re calling it these days, I miss it.”

“Why, you naughty lady,” I scolded.

Connie is no more than sixty-two inches high and blessed with a generously curvaceous figure. She sports a year-round tan and usually lets her long, glossy black hair float free. In a string bikini the lady is more impressive than the Pyramids. Today she wore a white silk shirt and white denim jeans, neither of which contained a ripple or a wrinkle. We have an open relationship, Connie and I, which works fine until I look at another woman, at which time Connie asks me if I have a burning ambition to be a male soprano. I sometimes think she’s serious.

There was a goodly crowd at the Pelican Club’s bar as attended to by Simon Pettibone, bartender and major-domo, but surprisingly few members seated in the dining area. Connie and I commandeered our favorite corner table and Priscilla, Simon’s daughter, strutted over to take our order. “Hello, beauty and the beast,” she welcomed us.

“You can be fired, young lady,” I answered.

“If I go so does the rest of the family,” Priscilla countered.

Brother Leroy was our chef and mother Jasmine was our den mother. Without the Pettibones the Pelican would cease to fly.

“Is that a threat?” I asked.

“No, Mr. Legree, it’s a promise.”

“Pay him no mind, Pris,” Connie intervened, “and tell us what delights Leroy has in store for us this afternoon.”

The day’s special was our favorite grilled grouper sandwich on Italian ciabatta with spicy sweet potato fries and homemade ketchup. This came with a salad of Bibb lettuce, avocado slices, paper-thin slices of red onion and a sun-dried tomato vinaigrette. When Leroy was on, he was on, and when he was off not even little Oliver would have asked for more.

We ordered vodka gimlets to start and when they arrived I asked Connie what she knew about Serge Ouspenskaya. “Did you get me here to gaze into my eyes or pump me for information?”

“To gaze into your eyes, of course. But in order to write this off as a business lunch I have to pump you while I gaze.”

“Did it ever occur to you not to write off at least one of our lunches?”

As a matter of fact, it had not, but intent on remaining a tenor I didn’t tell her this. Instead I waxed romantically, “You’re all in white today, Connie, just like a bride.”

“Why Archy, whatever made you think of that?”

And I learned all I wanted to know about Serge Ouspenskaya.

Lady Cynthia had treated Palm Beach’s elite to a “who-done-it?” extravaganza just before the holiday season. She hired a theatrical agency in Miami to orchestrate the morbid gala wherein one of the guests is selected to be the murder victim, another designated the murderer. The rest of the crew have to figure out who-done-it, how-done-it and when-done-it. It’s the kind of fete very popular on mystery cruises and hotels that offer solve-it-yourself weekends.

To gild the lily, as is Lady C’s wont, she decided to hire a seer, allow him to exchange a few words with all the guests and then have him write the names of the victim and the murderer on a piece of paper based on his “reading” of those assembled. The paper would be put into an envelope, sealed and opened after the lesser folks had a chance to solve the crime without divine intervention. Ouspenskaya was the chosen psychic.

“How did Lady C come to choose Ouspenskaya?” I asked Connie.

“That’s the weird part of the story, Archy. He chose us.”

“How so?”

“Madame decided on the psychic show one day and the next day Ouspenskaya called us. This is not hearsay. I took the call. He introduced himself and said he was calling in answer to Lady Cynthia’s need. I asked him how he knew what Lady Cynthia needed and he laughed and said, ‘Because I’m psychic, of course.’ ”

“This is on the level, Connie?”

“Would I lie to the man I love?”

Love and marriage weigh heavily on Connie Garcia’s mind and Mr. Pettibone’s vodka gimlets only added fuel to the fire. I now nursed mine, fearing that if I ordered another Connie would be asking me to name the day.

“Naturally, Lady C spread the story up and down Ocean Boulevard, more to drum up advance hype for her party than to further Ouspenskaya’s career.”

“And did he name the victim and the murderer?”

Connie raised her hand as if I had asked her to take an oath and said, “He did. Right down to the nitty-gritty of the bizarre plot.”

Anyone with two brain cells that mesh would have then stated, “Lady C must have told the agency what she was up to and they could have hired Ouspenskaya as an extra added attraction to dazzle Madame and her guests. They had Ouspenskaya call and then they gave him all the information he needed to solve the crime they had set up.”