McNally's Secret (20 page)

“Who?”

“The nasties,” I said. “Where are they stuffing their ravenous maws?”

And that’s how I was forced to share a culinary masterpiece by Jean Cuvier. The barbecue sauce was tangy without being too spicy. I learned later that its smoothness was due to a dash or two of bourbon. I only wish my dining partners had been as mellow.

The Smythes went through that dinner like a plague of locusts, devouring everything in sight. (I craftily moved the bowl of fresh flowers beyond their reach.) And as they munched, gnawed, and gulped, they complained. Nothing pleased them. The ribs were too fatty, barbecue sauce too mild, kabobs undercooked, salad dressing too salty, bread not
quite
warm enough, the wine corky.

For most of the meal I had to listen to their litany of kvetches as an audience of one. The fourth chair at our table belonged to Connie Garcia, but she had to play the social secretary and was constantly disappearing to solve minor crises. So I was left alone to endure the Smythes’ endless bitching.

After a while I began to get a glimmer of why they claimed to be so dissatisfied. Lady Horowitz had called them “professional guests,” and they were that. But they had the wit to recognize it, and the only way they could hang on to shreds of their ego was to disparage the charity provided. Viewed in that light, their carping was understandable. Unpleasant, but so human it made one want to weep.

However, I had no intention of spending the remainder of the evening weeping. Dessert was served—warmed New Orleans pralines and chilled Krug—and I excused myself. I carried a handful of the buttery confections and a flute of bubbles to the table where my parents were seated alone, the couple they had dined with having risen to dance to the combo’s rendition of “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over”—which indeed it was.

“Did you enjoy dinner?” I asked mother.

“So good,” she said, patting her tummy, “but I’m afraid I ate too much. And drank too much.”

“Mother is feeling a bit faintish,” my father said, looking at her anxiously. “I think perhaps we better go home.”

“Are you really ill?” I asked her, taking up her hand. “Shall I call Doc Semple?”

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “I just stuffed myself, that’s all. I’ll have a nice cup of hot tea, and I’ll be right as rain in the morning.”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely. Don’t worry so, dear.”

“No point in your leaving early, Archy,” my father said. “Will you be able to get a lift?”

“Of course,” I said. “Plenty of wheels around. I’ll be along in an hour or so. Mother, have a bit of blackberry brandy with your tea. It’s wonderful for the grumbles. Believe me, I know.”

She reached up to stroke my cheek, and then my parents rose to seek the hostess and make their farewells. I finished my pralines, returned to the bar with my empty champagne glass, and asked for a refill. For a few moments I watched dazed couples dancing on the verge of the pool and wondered who would be the first drunk to fall in. Or jump.

I craved a cigarette but that red neon sign was staring at me. So I wandered back into the wooded section of the estate, hoping that if I got far enough away from the patio, Lady C. would be unable to sniff my transgression and call the cops.

That area of the Horowitz empire was flippantly called “the jungle” by its monarch. But it was far from that, being artfully landscaped with hundreds of tropical plants, including a few orchids if you knew where to look. Paths meandered, garden statuary was half-hidden in the thick foliage, and benches of weathered teak were placed here and there to rest the weary.

It was on one of those slatted seats that I paused to light an English Oval, sip my Krug, and wonder what more life could hold. I soon found out. I became aware of a murmur of voices coming from the direction of the lake. Once I heard a raucous laugh and once a sharp cry as if someone had suffered a sudden pain.

As you may have guessed, I am not totally innocent of nosiness. I stubbed out my cigarette butt and moved slowly toward the sound of the voices, careful to keep off the pebbled path and step only on the spongy earth.

I cautiously approached a place where old, gnarled ficus trees encircled a greensward with a concrete birdbath in the center. Concealed in shadow, I could see the people I had indistinctly overheard. Illumined by the light of the starry sky, the scene was clear enough and startling enough: Angus Wolfson and Kenneth Bodin locked in a fierce embrace, lips pressed.

I retraced my steps as noiselessly as I could, returned to the party, and exchanged my empty flute for a snifter of Rimy Martin. I downed that in two gulps.

“Again,” I said hoarsely to the bartender.

He looked at me warily, but poured another ounce.

“You driving tonight, sir?” he asked.

“Of course not,” I said. “I’m the designated drinker. The people I came with are sticking to Pepsi.”

I left him to puzzle that out and went to a deserted corner where I could sit, stretch out my legs, and ponder. Instead, I sat, stretched out my legs, and sipped my cognac. At the moment I was incapable of pondering.

And that’s how Connie Garcia found me a half-hour later, staring into my empty snifter and wondering if I should give up a career of discreet inquiries and learn how to flip hamburgers at McDonald’s.

“So there you are,” she said. “Dinner with the Smythes wasn’t so bad, now was it?”

“I loved it,” I said. “Just as I love root canal work. Connie, when are you leaving?”

“Very soon,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

“Can you give me a lift home? My parents left early.”

“Of course,” she said. “Just give me a few minutes to make sure everything’s under control.”

I wanted to express my gratitude and bid a fond farewell to mine hostess, but Lady Cynthia had discarded her turban and was dancing an insane Charleston with a partner who appeared to be seven feet tall. I left them to their madness and walked slowly out to the deserted driveway. Connie appeared in about ten minutes and we climbed into her Subaru.

She looked at me. “You okay?” she asked.

“Tiptop,” I said. “Wonderful party.”

“Do you really think so?” she said eagerly. “I thought it went well.”

“A joy,” I assured her. “An absolute joy.”

We drove home in silence. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. Connie pulled into the McNally driveway, killed the engine, and turned to face me.

“You’re uncommonly quiet tonight, Archy,” she said. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Just a bit weary,” I said. “After ten thousand and forty winks I’ll be ready for a fight or a frolic.”

“Something I wanted to tell you... I think your idea about Lady Horowitz being blackmailed is all wet.”

“Then where is she going on those solo jaunts?”

“I think she’s got a new lover.”

“Man, woman, or cocker spaniel?”

“No, I’m serious,” Connie said. “You probably think a woman’s instinct is all b.s., but I definitely have the feeling that she’s found someone new. She’s been buying lingerie you wouldn’t believe. Kinky stuff.”

“So?” I said. “She’s entitled. We’re all entitled; the Declaration of Independence guarantees it. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—remember? Of course it doesn’t guarantee you’ll find it, but you can pursue the hell out of it.”

Connie laughed and reached to stroke my cheek. It was certainly my night for cheek-stroking. First Lady Cynthia, then mother, now Connie.

Then she stretched to kiss me, which was a lot nicer than a pat on the mandible.

“Take care of yourself, Archy,” she said lightly. “You mean a lot to me.”

“And you to me, sweet,” I said. “Thanks for the lift.”

My father’s study was darkened, so I locked up and plodded bedward. In truth I
was
weary. It had been a long, eventful day, and I didn’t even want to think about it, let alone scribble an account in my journal.

I undressed and crawled between the sheets. Sleep was a mercy. I didn’t even have the strength to stroke my cheek.

D
URING MY UNDERGRADUATE DAYS
at Yale I studied Latin for two years and did quite well—with the aid of some wonderful trots. As I recall (don’t quote me on this),
“Hie in spiritum sed non incorpore”
means “Here in spirit but not in body.” Turn that around and you’ve got a clue to my mood and behavior that weekend. I was there in body all right, but where the spirit was, the deponent knoweth not.

Confusion reigned supreme, and I waltzed through those two days with a glassy smile that probably convinced my golf-, tennis-, and poker-playing companions that McNally was finally over the edge. Well, I wasn’t—but I was teetering. There were just too many bits and pieces, and I couldn’t see any grand design to the Case of the Inverted Jennies—if there was one.

I returned home late Sunday night after a subdued dinner with a couple of cronies at the Pelican Club. I was in such an anomic mood that, to give myself the illusion I was capable of working purposefully, I scrawled notes in my journal for almost an hour, jotting down everything that had happened since the last entry. Then I spent another hour reading over the entire record of the Inverted Jenny Case. No light bulb flashed on above my head. I groaned and went to bed.

It must have been a shallow sleep because when my phone rang I awoke almost instantly. I glanced at the bedside clock; the luminous dial showed 4:40 A.M. At that dark hour it had to be Death calling. I answered warily.

“Hello?”

“Archy? Al Rogoff. I just got a wake-up call from the Beach Patrol. They pulled a floater out of the surf near the Horowitz place. Elderly male Caucasian. He was naked, but there were clothes stacked on the sand. They tentatively ID him as Angus Wolfson.”

I swallowed. “Dead?”

“Very,” Rogoff said. “Want to meet me there and positively ID the body?”

I really didn’t want to. “Sure,” I said. “I’ll get dressed.”

“Take your time,” the sergeant said. “It’ll take me at least twenty minutes. Listen, any chance of your bringing some hot coffee along?”

“Yes, I can do that. We’ve got a thermos.”

“Good,” Al said. “No sugar or cream. Black will be fine.”

I dressed as quietly as I could because my bedroom is directly above my parents’. I tiptoed down the stairs to the kitchen, switched on the light, put a kettle of water on to boil. I went into the pantry for the thermos and a stack of plastic cups. When I returned to the kitchen my father was standing there.

Was he the last man in America to wear a full pajama suit: long-sleeved jacket and drawstring pants? Under a robe of maroon silk, of course. With matching leather mules on his long feet.

“Trouble, Archy?” he asked.

I repeated what Sergeant Rogoff had told me.

Father nodded once. “Keep me informed,” he said, turned, and went back to bed.

The unflappable Prescott McNally.

I was at the scene within a half-hour after Al’s call. It wasn’t hard to find; three police cars, a fire-rescue truck, and an ambulance were parked on Ocean Boulevard. I pulled up, and Rogoff came over before I could dismount from the Miata.

“You bring the coffee?” he asked eagerly.

I nodded.

“We better have a slug,” he said. “There’s a cold wind down on the beach.”

He did the pouring, for which I was grateful; I didn’t want him to see that I had the shakes.

“How did they happen to find him?” I asked.

“Some dentist from Lake Worth wanted to try out his new ATV, a three-wheeler. He figured he could get away with driving on the beach at four in the morning. He spotted the body bobbing around in the shallows and decided to be a good citizen. He had a cellular phone with him and called 911. Good coffee, Archy.”

“Thanks. Was it suicide?”

“Could be. But does a suicide stack his clothes neatly on the sand under a palm tree before he takes the long walk?”

“I don’t believe suicides are thinking rationally in their last few minutes.”

“You may be right. But there are some other things.”

“What things?”

“You’ll see. Finished your coffee? Let’s go.”

We walked down that same flight of wooden stairs I had taken to stroll the beach with Angus Wolfson. He had looked like a rakish boulevardier then. I tried not to imagine what he looked like now.

The body lay on the sand, covered with a blue blanket. There was a group of officers nearby, smoking cigarettes, conversing, occasionally laughing. Rogoff had been right; it was chilly down near the water. The wind was kicking up whitecaps, and clouds were moving swiftly across the night sky.

“Can I get some light here?” Rogoff called.

A woman from the fire-rescue truck came over with a big lantern. She turned the beam onto the blanketed corpse. The sergeant leaned down and uncovered the naked body to the waist.

The face was remarkably peaceful. Almost serene. A few wet strands of thin, grayish hair were plastered to his cheeks. He was so pale, so pale. But I had the irreverent notion that he looked younger in death than he had in life.

“Yes,” I said steadily, “this is the body of a man I knew as Angus Wolfson. He was a house-guest at the home of Lady Cynthia Horowitz.”

The sergeant turned to the woman holding the lantern. “You hear that?” he demanded.

She nodded.

“Al,” I said, “what are those blotches on his neck and chest?”

“The things I mentioned to you—bruises. Could have been caused by the body banging around in the surf. But look at this.”

He beckoned, and we both squatted alongside the remains. “What do you make of that?” Rogoff asked, pointing.

Four faint parallel scratches ran down the torso from clavicle to navel.

I peered closely. “Looks like fingernails did that,” I said.

The sergeant grunted. “Could be,” he said. “Made by himself in the final moment when he was gasping for air. Or made by someone else. Or made by shells on the bottom of the sea. We’ll let the ME figure it out. Let’s go finish that coffee.”

I started back to the stairway.

“Take him away,” Al called to the waiting officers and followed me up to the corniche.

We sat in the Miata and sipped coffee. It was lukewarm now, but we drank it.