Murder in the Ball Park

by Robert Goldsborough

  Mona looked down and stirred her drink. “No, there was another reason, Archie,” she said after a pause of several seconds. “Ross was dead-set against the Northern Parkway. He felt it would destroy what he called the ‘bucolic environment’ of these counties, particularly the northern two.”

  “Yeah, Westchester, nice as it is, hardly qualifies as totally bucolic. There’s a bunch of good-size towns here, including the one we’re in right now. But both Putnam and Dutchess certainly can be called rural, at least for the present.”

  “Well, anyway, Ross was even opposed to Orson’s compromise proposal, although he kept quiet about it. He didn’t want to see any road built. He and I would have locked horns from day one. It would have become an impossible situation. I suspect Ross realized that, too.”

  “Were you in favor of the road when you worked for Milbank?”

  “I didn’t share his strong aversion to it, but after all, he was my boss, and I respected him, so I held my own counsel. Have you and Nero Wolfe gotten anywhere in figuring out who the killer was?”

  “Not yet, I’m sorry to say.”

  “And I’m sure the police continue to be in the dark.”

  “If they’ve gotten anywhere, they certainly are not sharing it with us. Other than today’s meeting, what kind of reaction have you received about your position on the road?”

  “A congratulatory phone call from Jonah Keller, which was to be expected, and a telegram cheering me on from Ray Corcoran, also no surprise.”

  “Any negative calls?”

  She chuckled. “Howell Baxter of CLEAR called our office to say that he would use every means at his disposal to fight me, but he didn’t specify just what those means would be.”

  “Other than having a group of rosy-cheeked, skirted young women march through the auditorium holding signs?”

  “They are all students from Vassar, as you probably know. Howell has got a big following on the campus. I’m just glad many of them are still too young to vote,” she said, laughing.

  “Other than Baxter, have you received any threats—I mean threats of a perilous nature?”

  She bit her lower lip and nodded. “Two telephone calls this morning, about a half hour apart, anonymous, of course. A different man’s voice each time, but the message was essentially the same: ‘The same thing could happen to you that happened to Orson Milbank.’ ”

  “Any thoughts on who’s behind the calls?”

  She sniffed. “Our old friend Bacelli, without doubt.”

  “I don’t know, Mona. He’s gone out of his way to say he had nothing to do with Milbank’s killing.”

  “Huh! And you, Archie Goodwin, cynical, hard-bitten veteran New York private investigator, actually believe him?”

  “I’ll plead guilty to the cynical part, some of the time anyway. But I’ve never thought of myself as being hard-bitten.”

  “Oh, maybe not,” she conceded. “But I hardly see you as someone who would accept anything Franco Bacelli says at face value.”

  “Good point. Are you taking precautions against this threat, regardless of who might have made it?”

  “I haven’t, other than to report it to the various local police departments in this district. What can I do, hire a bunch of bodyguards? Hardly practical, given that over the next several weeks, I’m going to be standing in front of what I hope will be large crowds many times, where anybody can easily take a potshot at me. A dozen bodyguards wouldn’t be able to prevent that from happening any more than they could have prevented Orson’s shooting in front of several thousand baseball fans in the nation’s largest city.”

  “You paint a pretty grim picture,” I said.

  “I suppose, but then I went into this campaign with my eyes open, Archie. Call me a realist. I am damned if I’m going to let this thug or anybody else intimidate me. If we all were to let that happen, nobody would ever end up running for office.”

  “I can’t quarrel with that position, but you still need to be careful, Mona. Don’t confuse being intrepid with being reckless. By the way, I’m repeating a question I asked you some time back. How is your husband reacting to your new role as a campaigner?”

  “Charles? He thinks that I am absolutely crazy, of course, even more so since I came out in favor of the road,” she said, waving her husband away with a manicured hand. “And he also acts upset that I’m moving into an apartment here in White Plains. That’s just a pose on his part, though. He’s as easy to see through as a plate-glass display window at Macy’s Herald Square. He really wants me out of the way so he can be free to spend more time with the glamorous and charming Caroline Jackson Willis, she of the society pages, the benefit luncheons and dances, and the numerous save-the-world committees.”

  “This from one who is very glamorous and charming herself,” I said. “Speaking of your relationship with Mr. Fentress the advertising man, are you worried that voters are going to wonder why you and your husband live apart?”

  “It did not seem to hurt Orson that he and Elise spent so much time apart,” she said with a toss of her blonde mane. “I’m hoping the voters will give me the same leeway they gave him.”

  “Unfortunately for you, though, most people tend to cut men more slack than women when it comes to situations relating to propriety.”

  She nodded, pursing her lips. “Your point is well taken, I’m sad to admit. The world is not always fair, I know that all too well, Archie. But I am absolutely convinced that we’re going to be seeing a lot more women in public life in the years ahead. Although I don’t place myself in the same league as Senator Margaret Chase Smith, I like to think of myself as something of a trailblazer. Do you think of that as arrogance on my part?”

  “No, I don’t, not in the least. Given the way the men in this great country’s government have bollixed things up, more women holding office can only be seen as a good thing,” I said, raising my Coke glass in salute to the lady.

  Chapter 24

  It was seven forty-five when I got back to the brownstone, which meant Nero Wolfe was in the dining room consuming Fritz’s breaded pork tenderloin. I had already said I would not be at dinner tonight because of, one, my trip to White Plains and, two, a soiree I had been invited to at Lily Rowan’s apartment on East Sixty-Third Street between Park and Madison.

  Calling Lily’s splendid abode an “apartment” hardly does it justice. It actually is a duplex penthouse perched atop a ten-story building and furnished with, among other things, a nineteen-by-thirty-three-foot Kashan carpet, an off-white Bösendorfer Imperial grand piano with ninety-seven keys (I’ve counted them), and artwork by Renoir, Monet, and Matisse. If you’re wondering where her money came from, and there’s plenty of it, she is the only offspring of an Irish immigrant who made millions heading up a company that built much of Manhattan’s sewer system in the early years of the century. Those millions are now Lily’s.

  This is a good time to mention that although Lily is one of the wealthiest women in Manhattan, that wealth is not and never has been what I find most attractive about her. I could give you at least a dozen better reasons for my wanting to spend time in the presence of the lady. And let it be known that when we go out on the town, whether it be to dinner at Rusterman’s or other fine restaurants, dancing at the Churchill, or to a Rangers game at the Garden, I pick up the tab. Period.

  With all her piles of dough, she might well be described as a lady of leisure, although to her credit she serves on the committees of more charitable groups than I can keep track of, and she always seems to be throwing open her doors to host parties that benefit these groups. Tonight was one such event: a gathering to raise funds for an orphanage badly in need of an additional wing.

  After sprucing myself up and changing, I grabbed a cab and arrived at Lily’s at twenty minutes after eight. “Escamillo!” she said as she opened the door, “I thought you had forgotten all about this
evening.”

  “Forgotten about one of your memorable bashes? Unthinkable, absolutely unthinkable,” I said in mock horror, encircling her slender waist with my arm and planting a prolonged smooch on her lips.

  “Whatever will people think?” she said, looking over her shoulder at the crowd that milled about with cocktails and canapés in her sprawling living room and adjoining parlor while a string trio played Mozart in an alcove.

  “I believe we were barely noticed in that little embrace,” I answered. “Everybody appears to be more involved in talking and drinking up your pricey liquor and gobbling down your shrimp and caviar and the numerous other delectables you have so generously set out for them.”

  “All for a very good cause, my fine man,” she purred, taking my arm and leading me to one corner of the room, where a red-jacketed bartender poured drinks of generous proportion.

  Fortified with a single-malt scotch, I allowed Lily to steer me around the room, introducing me to a variety of her guests, all of whom looked like they were totally at home in their opulent surroundings. After making the circuit, Lily suggested we step out onto the terrace.

  “Ah, perchance have you lured me out here to neck?” I demanded.

  “Banish the thought—at least for now,” she replied, jabbing me in the ribs with a slim finger. “I just wanted you to myself for a few minutes, away from the madding crowd.”

  “They don’t seem all that madding to me, but I like your idea, especially on a night like this,” I said as a summer breeze wafted over us. “I like to view the city from up here above it all. Makes me feel important, even though I know better. Say, I have a question for you, oh, lovely one.”

  “Well, for heaven’s sake, Escamillo, don’t hold back. You never have before. Out with it. By the way, you’re important to me, damned important, and don’t you ever forget it.”

  “Thanks for that, my love. Do you by chance happen to know Caroline Jackson Willis?”

  Lily put her hands on her hips. “What is it about you and attractive women, Mr. Goodwin? First you pry information out of me concerning Elise DuVal, and now you want to know about another exotic and shapely female. Does this have anything to do with the investigation into Orson Milbank’s death, or are you interested for other, more lascivious reasons?”

  “Lascivious, eh? Now it is my turn to say ‘banish the thought.’ ” I parried. “First off, I have never laid eyes on Mrs. Willis, so I did not know she was attractive, let alone exotic and shapely. Second, I doubt very much that she has any connection with the Milbank case, except indirectly. It seems she has drawn the interest of one Charles Fentress, advertising executive and husband of the woman who is now running for Milbank’s senate seat.”

  Lily smirked. “I would reverse that, my dear, and phrase it that Fentress has drawn the interest of said lady—and I use that term loosely.”

  “I thought you told me you did not like to be viewed as catty.”

  “For certain persons, I will make an exception, and Caroline Jackson Willis happens to be one of those persons.”

  “Are you suggesting that she, dare I say it, is a man hunter?”

  “Very good!” she chirped, clapping twice. “I wouldn’t tell this to just anybody, but when she goes out after a man, she usually gets him. Her husbands, Edgar Jackson and Lance Willis, both were very rich and very married when she met them. Then they each got divorced to marry her.”

  “Let me guess what comes next: she divorced them, and neither man is as rich as he once was.”

  “See what happens when you hang around me long enough, Escamillo? You start thinking like I do.”

  “I’ll have to reflect on whether that’s a good thing. What can you tell me about this lady and Mr. Fentress?”

  “Not a lot, I’m afraid. Oh, I’ve heard more than a few rumors. But if they have become an item as you suggest, they’ve been very discreet about it. I have never seen them together in public—not once. In the last few weeks, I’ve been at three gatherings like this one tonight that Caroline has also attended, and each time, she was alone. That’s somewhat rare for her; she usually has a man in tow. Maybe she’s trying to keep him to herself. My suspicion is that when they are together, it is usually at intimate dinner parties in private homes, three or four couples, that sort of thing.”

  “Is the lady in question by chance here this evening?” I asked, looking around the room.

  “No, this is not one of her good works. Be thankful, because if she had been present, she probably would have latched on to you like a barnacle by now and ended up trying to monopolize you.”

  “That would have been very hard for her to do, what with me trying to monopolize you.”

  “Have I ever told you that you are a silver-tongued rascal? Where did you hear that they were seeing each other?”

  “From a newspaperman.”

  “Your old friend and poker-playing adversary Lon Cohen, no doubt. Well, through his paper’s intrepid columnists, he probably has far better pipelines to dalliances among the so-called upper crust than I do.”

  “Dalliances, is that what they’re called? I can’t imagine that anyone’s got a better pipeline than you.”

  “You say the sweetest things to a girl. As nice as the evening is out here, we should go back in. I don’t want my guests to feel that I’ve been ignoring them.”

  “Heaven forbid. There must be at least ten men in this penthouse right now who wish they were in my shoes at this moment.”

  “Now that really is sweet. After this humble little gathering has ended and everyone else has gone, would you like to be a dear and stay around to help me clean up?”

  “I thought you would never ask,” I said as we strolled back indoors and into the rarefied world of Manhattan society.

  Chapter 25

  The next morning after breakfast, I had barely settled into my chair in the office when the phone rang. I answered with my usual, “Nero Wolfe’s office, Archie Goodwin speaking.”

  “Archie, why haven’t I heard anything from you?” It was the plaintive voice of Elise DuVal. “You said you would keep me posted regularly, but I feel like I have been cast in the role of the neglected client, sitting by a telephone that doesn’t ring.”

  “I’m sorry, Elise. It is just that we simply don’t have anything to report, but I confess I am at fault for not keeping in better touch with you. Am I forgiven?”

  “Oh, of course, you are. And just what do you think of that goody-two-shoes who has decided to run for Orson’s seat?” she continued as her tone hardened. “Do you find that as disgusting as I do?”

  “I wouldn’t have put it quite that way myself, but I’m interested in why you think so.”

  “Oh, Archie, isn’t it obvious, for God’s sake? That woman has ambition oozing from every pore and always had. Remember, I’m an actress, or at least I was. Of all people, I know ambition when I see it. From the day she joined Orson’s staff, she wanted his job, wanted to be a senator herself.”

  “You didn’t mention that to me before.”

  “I didn’t think I had to. I figured that you would realize it once you learned more about her. You are right about one thing, though. At first, I didn’t even consider her to be a suspect. But then, when she announced she was running for Orson’s seat, things started adding up.”

  “Go on. I want to hear more.”

  “Whoever shot Orson, you can bet Mona Fentress hired the gunman, either herself or through some go-between.”

  “Yet when we first talked, you said any one of three people might have killed your husband: Franco Bacelli, Jonah Keller, and Ray Corcoran. You never once suggested Mrs. Fentress as a suspect.”

  “That was then and this is now. The scales have now fallen from my eyes. That woman only waited barely over a week after his death to announce that she was running.”

  “What about the rumo
r that she and your husband were having an affair?”

  “Now I see that for exactly what it was,” Elise said. “A clever piece of acting on her part—and I know acting when I see it, although the closest I’ll ever come to an Oscar is seeing a picture of one of the statues in the newspapers the day after the show. Mona wanted people to think she and Orson were carrying on because that would make her seem the least likely suspect, right?”

  “Maybe. But if she knew he was going to get shot at the ball park, she must have nerves of steel, because she was standing right next to him,” I said.

  “I believe she does have nerves of steel, Archie. Ever since the shooting and even before she announced she was going to run, have you noticed which of us, Mona or me, has had their picture in the paper more often? Not the grieving widow, but the faithful aide to the senator, who had to witness his death from up close. She’s milked that for everything she can, and she continues to milk it.”

  “So as you now see it, Mona Fentress ranks even ahead of Franco Bacelli as the prime suspect in the shooting?”

  “Yes, that is how I now see it.”

  “All right, I will inform Mr. Wolfe of everything you’ve said, and I promise we will do a better job of keeping you informed.”

  “Thank you, Archie,” she said in a tired voice. “Just remember two words: Mona Fentress.”

  I sat for several minutes, digesting Elise DuVal’s comments. If Mona Fentress had indeed orchestrated Milbank’s shooting, she would have needed help, some sort of go-between, as Elise suggested. Someone who could enlist a sharpshooter like the late Dick Thompson. On a hunch, I called Lon Cohen.

  “Rare is the day I don’t hear from you,” he said. “What favor do you now seek? And make it fast, because we’re on a deadline.”

  “As long as I’ve known you, you’ve always been on a deadline. How often can you use that excuse?”

  “As often as I can get away with it. What gives?”