The Deadly Ackee

by Joan Hess

  He pulled her hands away and gave her a smile of great tenderness. “I can’t, darling. If they have the film, and if it depicts what Eli said it did, then there’s nothing I can do. They’ll stop me before I get twenty feet off the island. All I can do is insist that I didn’t poison this police chap—and I didn’t. After he suggested the deal, I could only laugh and show him an empty wallet. I did tell him that I would see what sort of cash I could lay my hands on, and that I’d get back to him when I was in a position to negotiate some sort of settlement. He was willing to give me a day or two.”

  “You do have a basis to argue your innocence,” Theo said, tugging on his beard as he pondered the count’s version of the events. Eli’s expensive wardrobe and penchant for imported liquor did nothing to undermine it. “If Eli agreed to give you some time to acquire the money, and it seems reasonable to suppose he would, then you would have been most foolish to murder him in the interim. He wouldn’t have given you the roll of film for safekeeping; he would have concealed it in a safe place. He was more dangerous dead than alive.”

  “That’s true.” Count D’Orsini stood up and began to pace across the patio. “I pointed out that I was hardly likely to hand over twenty grand until I saw exactly what he had. He said he would develop the film, show me the prints, and pass along the negatives when we concluded the deal. We actually shook hands when he left, as though we’d finalized a merger or contracted to purchase widgets from each other. It was downright eerie, if you ask me.”

  “It makes sense,” Gerry said, suddenly coming to life. “Hal wouldn’t have done anything until he saw the prints.”

  “The prints that show him either buying or selling cocaine to an associate,” Theo pointed out drily. “Who was it, D’Orsini? Who’s the connection?”

  “It’s hard to say, since it rather depends on when he took the photographs. He failed to be specific, and I was too unnerved to inquire in great detail.” He began to pace again, turning sharply at the pool and coming within inches of a wicker sofa. “Don’t you see that, Gerry? He could have caught a fetching likeness of that swarthy Colombian chap with the dirty fingernails, or more possibly my … ah, shall we say, entrepreneur friend.”

  “Either of whom has the same motive you do,” Theo said. “Eli may have approached the second person, intending to collect from the two of you.”

  D’Orsini paused to think, then shook his head. “Not the Colombian. We merely tossed about some ideas for future transactions, and he left the island the next morning to confer with his partners at home. Furthermore, had Eli approached him, our pool boy would have been discovered without a face. The South American business types aren’t subtle.”

  “And the other man?” Theo prompted.

  “That would be telling, old chap. If the police have ascertained his identity, then they’ll be more than delighted to tell.” His face grew more animated; Theo could now see why women were attracted to him. “But,” he added, flashing teeth as white and even as the petals of a snowcap Shasta daisy, “the police haven’t come screeching up the hill, sirens blaring, lights flashing, all that overly done sort of thing. It’s perfectly quiet. I do think it’s possible that this insidious roll of film was simply a threat on Eli’s part.” He knelt down in front of Gerry and took her hand, looking like a small, exuberant altar boy. “The roll may be a dud, darling. If so, they have nothing on me—or on anyone else. I’ll be home free.”

  “Then you’ll cease this deadly drug thing?” she asked in a hoarse voice. “You’ll quit completely? You swear it?”

  “And do what—work?” He turned to Theo with a self-deprecating grimace. “Harvard trained me to pull wonderful pranks, to use the correct silverware, to wear the proper clothing and say the proper things. A bit of French opens many a chateau door. All in all, it was a valuable experience, and I am quite indebted to the institution for that. But I was booted before I finished a degree, due to an unavoidable scandal that not even the dean, a liver-spotted pedant with limited imagination, could laugh away over a cigar and a glass of sherry. I’m not qualified to do anything useful. No, by damn, that’s not totally accurate—I am a charming extra man at dinner parties, where I flatter the ugliest of the ducklings until they’re so flustered they drink from the finger bowls. I use my talents to make otherwise lonely women feel cherished. I tend other people’s houses and am meticulous about watering their plants, supervising their servants, and seeing that the lawn and the pets are groomed on a regular basis.”

  Gerry gave him a look of exasperated fondness. “You could work at my firm. It’s not as exciting as jetting over to Nice for brunch and Paris for le cocktail hour, but it does keep one in groceries.”

  “But don’t you see? I do work. It’s not your perception of honest labor, but it really and truly is. Someone has to do this sort of thing. Babysitters do it on a primitive basis, tending to children. Servants do it, too, but for money. I do it for free.” He squeezed her hand so tightly she winced. “I provide a necessary service to the idle wealthy, and I ask no payment in return. I accept what is offered, certainly, but for the most part it’s a meal, the use of a house or yacht, a trinket of jewelry, a ticket to the theater, a little safari. What I receive is minor in comparison to what I give so freely.”

  Theo suspected the count was about to wax poetic over the intricacies of providing such a selfless public service to the jet set. He put down his glass and rose. “The police do have the roll of film and are presently developing it. You must be prepared to deal with that, although I do tend to believe you are not responsible for Eli’s death.”

  “I would never murder someone,” he said earnestly, still on his knees in front of Gerry. “For one thing, I’ve had no experience in that kind of endeavor, and I wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to go about it. I suppose one could seek suggestions from a mystery novel, but I rarely have time to finish the Gentleman’s Quarterly and Town and Country every month. For another thing, I do have a vestige of loyalty to the family name and I would never do anything to add to the disgrace I’ve already put on it. Mother was quite right to cut me off, you know; I hardly would have expected her to have done otherwise.”

  Theo did not point out that a conviction for drug trafficking might be considered a whack to the family tree. He thanked the two for the drink and went down the driveway, keeping an eye on the undergrowth on the off chance he might spot Mary Margaret’s foot under the spectacular ferns (Heliconia). He did not.

  Theo retired to his room, hung his jacket in the closet, aligned his shoes in the closet, and lay down on the bed with his guidebook to read a section on ferns (Heliconia). When he opened his eyes, more than an hour had passed. He discovered the book astraddle his chest and placed a bookmark in it before putting it on the bedside table. He was, he reminded himself sternly, sixty-one years old and unaccustomed to spending most of the night in a police station. Count D’Orsini had described the ordeal in the police station as “trying.” “Trying” was a mild term, but of course the count was at least ten years younger—and had all his hair.

  He was peering in the bathroom mirror at the shiny circle on the top of his head when his door opened. “Mr. Bloomer?” Bitsy said.

  “Yes?” he said, coming out of the bathroom with a slightly guilty expression. Vanity was not a mortal sin, but he did not wish to be caught in the act.

  “That policeman is back, and he’s absolutely frothing about the mouth. He brought a herd of men with him, and they’re searching the entire house. They actually insisted on pawing through my lingerie, if you can believe it. It’s nasty, and probably illegal.”

  Theo realized he had been hearing some activity for several minutes, although he had not assumed it came from an invasion of the magnitude Bitsy described. “I have no idea if a search warrant is required in Jamaica, but it does seem worth the bother to inquire. Where is Sergeant Stahl?”

  “On the terrace. He’s drinking our coffee and talking to your friend.” The implicit accusation hung
in the momentary silence. “I cannot bear to watch them going through my private things, so if you don’t mind, I shall wait in here,” she added in an indignant squeak.

  Theo saw several policemen in the master bedroom as he went downstairs, but he did not linger to discuss the legality of their activity. He stopped in the kitchen to request a glass of water, but the room was uninhabited. Drawers had been pulled open; cabinet doors were ajar. Canisters had been placed on the counter—and searched, if the scattered flour and sugar were valid indications. Cases of beer had been pulled into the middle of the floor, and the contents of the refrigerator were piled on the table. Amelia and Emelda were gone, no doubt in a huff more indignant than that of the occupant of his bedroom.

  Stahl and Sitermann were on the terrace, a tray with coffee and cups on the table between them. Trey sat at the far end of the table, his feet propped on the table and his hands wrapped loosely around a beer can. He appeared to be lost in his thoughts, although Theo was beginning to surmise he was merely lost.

  Dorrie, Biff, Sandy, and Sandy’s golf bag were lined up against the rail. Dorrie was pinker than a foxglove (D. purpurea); the boys’ faces had the more mottled hues of a rosita lily. Dismayed by the proximity of weapons (irons, woods, and hard white spheres), Theo gave the bag a cautionary glance as he pulled out a chair and sat down. “Looking for something?” he inquired politely.

  Stahl nodded with a stony expression, but Sitermann said, “The sergeant was not happy about the results from the photo lab. To be honest with you, he was more than a mite disappointed with the roll of film.”

  “Overexposed? Too dark?”

  “No,” drawled Sitermann, leaning back in his chair, “the lighting was pretty damn good for an amateur. Focus wasn’t bad, and neither was the composition. One of them might win a prize in a photography contest. Of course it’d have to be sponsored by Playboy or one of that ilk.”

  “And why is that?”

  “I don’t think I should explain out loud, not with a fine, upstanding young lady present, Bloom.” He picked up an envelope from the table and handed it to Theo. “Take a peek and you’ll see how awkward it might be to verbalize the problem.”

  Theo took out the prints and studied them. The first was of Mary Margaret, her eyes closed and a serene smile on her face. Her breasts were bereft of any clothing. The second centered on her buttocks, which were snowy white hills of unimpeded flesh. “Oh, goodness,” Theo murmured, primly moving on to the next print. It featured not only Mary Margaret’s breasts, but also a totally bewildered gentleman with a balding head and scandalously wide eyes behind bifocals.

  “I especially liked that one,” Sitermann said. He slapped Theo on the back. “Your peepers are about to pop right out of their sockets, aren’t they? That must have been some camera sweep. A right delicate close-up of something most men would kill for, in a manner of speaking.”

  “Uncle Theo!” Dorrie said in a shocked voice. “You didn’t really stare at … at whatever Mr. Sitermann is snickering about, did you?”

  “Right on, Mr. Bloomer,” Sandy said. “You’re my kind of guy.”

  Dorrie swiveled her head to give him a withering look. “I can assure you that my uncle is not ‘your kind of guy,’ Alexander Whitcombe. I find these tawdry insinuations juvenile and primitive. You may be both, but Uncle Theo is neither.” She rotated her head in case Biff felt a urge to contribute his opinion. He did not.

  Theo hastily put the prints back in the envelope. “May I assume they are all of a similar nature?” he asked Sitermann.

  “Prone and supine. Nude, nuder, nudest, and whatever comes after that. Mary Margaret made a fine model, didn’t she? I really ought to arrange a screen test for her.”

  “Uncle Theo,” Dorrie began ominously, “is this—”

  Sergeant Stahl banged down his cup. “The entire roll of film consists of this sort of thing, Mr. Bloomer. I personally badgered the lab men for several hours to hurry them along, and will now owe favors for a long time to come. I was disappointed, very disappointed, especially since you had led me to believe we would find something of value to the investigation. I was not prepared for pornography.”

  “Pornography?” With an outraged expression, Sitermann bounced his hand off his forehead. “This isn’t pornography, Stahl; this is art. Why, I’d gladly have one of them blown up to poster size and hung in my living room right over the mantel. Did you see the tits on that girl? Old J. Edgar himself would’ve had a coronary if—”

  “Uncle Theo,” Dorrie said, her expression as icy as her voice, “muzzle that man or I shall do it myself. He has no right to expose me to this locker room vernacular.” She glared at the spy until he wilted into his chair like a dog’s tooth violet in a drought.

  “Yeah, watch your language,” Biff said gallantly, if belatedly.

  “I understand your disappointment,” Theo said to Stahl. “There was reasonably credible evidence that the film was shot from the balcony and that it would implicate Count D’Orsini and an unknown associate.”

  “But it seems my top officer wasn’t occupying himself with the investigation. It seems he had other things on his mind—and in his expensive lenses. That equipment cost a great deal of money. I didn’t requisition it so that Staggley could indulge in voyeurism.” He snatched up the envelope before Sitermann, whose hand was moving stealthily across the table, could reach it. “What’s more, we don’t have a damn thing on D’Orsini now. With the pressure we’ve gotten in the last eighteen hours, we wouldn’t dare give him a parking ticket if he drove through a wall and parked in the middle of the police station.”

  Dorrie stepped forward. “I still don’t understand why you’ve taken it upon yourself to search the villa. We certainly don’t have Eli’s film canisters tucked in among our panties, although it might be an appropriate place for them.”

  “Yeah,” Biff said, nodding. “Do you have a constitutional right to do this—or a good old-fashioned search warrant? Dorrie’s father has some high-power connections, and he’ll be totally pissed when he finds out how your men have—”

  “Sir,” a uniformed officer said, coming from the dining room, “we found this in the downstairs bedroom.” He held up a plastic baggie. “It’s ganja, sir. About three-quarters of an ounce.”

  Trey flapped his hand. “Oh, that’s mine. Be a good sport and put it back where you found it. I promise not to say a word if you want a little toke, but don’t make a pig of yourself.”

  “Possession of a controlled substance is a felony in Jamaica,” Sergeant Stahl said coldly.

  “I told you to get rid of it,” Dorrie hissed.

  Trey gave her an indulgent smile. “Yes, you did, darling, and several times if I recall. But I didn’t, did I? You may have enough pocket money to squander it; I, on the other hand, have been trained from birth to pinch every penny, since we all know that’s why the rich stay richer. Do you think that’s the reason I do so love to pinch bottoms, too? A nasty habit learned from dear old nanny?”

  The uniformed man had been following the exchange with growing amusement, but he sobered when he caught Stahl’s glower. “What shall I do, sir? Do you want me to arrest him and transport him to headquarters to be booked?”

  “Tedious, too tedious,” Trey said with a yawn.

  Theo wanted to suggest tar and feathers, but instead said, “It is a minimal amount for personal consumption, Sergeant Stahl. I hope you won’t allow this young man’s behavior to influence your decision.”

  “I think you ought to nuke him,” Dorrie said. She marched through the door into the villa. Biff trailed after her, murmuring to the back of her head.

  Trey held out his wrists. “Have your way with me, Sergeant. Handcuff me, swallow the key, and drag me to some filthy prison cell populated with lepers and rats. Or, if you prefer, I can trot downstairs and fetch my checkbook. I could make it out to you personally, if you prefer. That way it won’t have to detour through the system.”

  Blinking at Trey, the o
fficer said, “I am impressed with your obviously fervent desire to spend several more years in Jamaica, with room and board provided by the national penal system. However, I fail to understand your motivation to do so. Do you not think life will be pleasanter in your parents’ home in Connecticut?”

  “It’s a toss-up, actually. Hanging around the family mausoleum is boring, especially if Magsy’s not about to needle. My parents have always encouraged me to meet new people and try new experiences.”

  Stahl sighed. “I won’t take any immediate action concerning the illegal possession—but I won’t rule out the possibility of doing so in the future. At the moment, I’d rather find a roll of film that will provide evidence of D’Orsini’s involvement. Maybe it doesn’t exist. Maybe Staggley spent his idle moments photographing the young lady in various stages of undress.”

  “But if there is a second roll of film, why do you think it’s inside the house, sir?” Sandy asked. “Wouldn’t Eli have been more likely to leave it with his family or with a friend?”

  “I have no expectations that we’ll find it,” Stahl conceded in a wry tone, “but it seemed prudent to look around for it. I don’t understand why he didn’t bring it to the police lab the next morning to be developed. If he had, we would have concluded the investigation, arrested D’Orsini, picked up the associates, and handed the entire thing over to the prosecutor. Staggley knew better, damnit!”

  Theo felt obliged to explain why Eli had not taken the roll of film to the police lab. He related the blackmail attempt, D’Orsini’s admission of complicity, and the settlement the two had reached concerning a delayed exchange of goods and services. Once Stahl had stopped growling, Theo added, “D’Orsini did not imply he’d actually seen this roll of film, but it seems likely Eli had it in his possession at that moment. However, it is possible that it might be at a private developing service.”

  “I’ll put Winkler on it immediately,” Stahl said, standing up. “As much as I’d like to drag D’Orsini right back down to the station, I’ll have to wait until we have evidence.” He jabbed a finger in Trey’s direction. “And as for you, you retarded little snot, keep your nose clean if you don’t want to learn some of our island techniques for eliciting confessions. A checkbook won’t do you any good, and neither will your family’s money.”