Larry ushered her in.
To say Mrs. O’Hara was not too hard on the eyes was like saying a gunshot to the head stung a little. Not beautiful, no, but very attractive nonetheless, with a quality that made you want to hold her in your arms way past the legal limit. Her chestnut brown hair rested lightly on her shoulders and looked quite happy to be there. Her ocean-blue eyes invited you to take a dip while warning that drowning was likely. Yeah…she was attractive. A real dish.
“Mrs. O’Hara, this is Burn McDeere, our top operative. He will be more than happy to help you.” He gave McDeere a wink and closed the door. Three seconds later he stuck his head back in and whispered loudly, “Harry, you wanna come with me?”
“Sure, sure,” Harry said slowly, eyeing Mrs. O’Hara. “Come with you.” The Malloy twins left McDeere and Mrs. O’Hara alone in the office.
McDeere shook the delicately gloved hand she offered and gestured to the chair in front of his desk. “Won’t you please sit down, Mrs. O’Hara?”
She sat in the chair and slowly crossed her long, slender legs. McDeere kept his eyes on hers and thanked the Lord for blessing him with superb peripheral vision. She tugged suggestively at each gloved finger, then placed her gloves neatly in her lap. Burn stared at them helplessly.
“Would you like a coffee or … ?”
“I’m fine, thank you, Mr. McDeere.”
“Please, call me Burn.”
“Unusual name. Were your parents arsonists?”
“Less romantic than that, I’m afraid. Dad just liked the idea of verbs as names.”
“Lovely.”
“I’m sure my sister Runny wouldn’t agree. Cigarette?”
“Why, thank you.” She parted her lips slowly and put the cigarette to her mouth in a way that would have gotten her arrested in twenty of the forty-eight states. She held McDeere’s hand steady as he offered a light. He hoped she couldn’t feel his pulse. His heart was pounding like an over-caffeinated jackrabbit’s. She blew out the match and smiled at him. The smoke she exhaled hung between them like a question mark. But there was no question in her eyes. Allyson O’Hara knew exactly what she did to men.
“How can I help you, Mrs. O’Hara?”
“I suppose I should start at the beginning.”
“Tends to make it easier to follow.”
“I’m very rich. My father owns the Faren Heights Winery in the Napa Valley. You’ve heard of it?”
“Actually I have. A bit of a fan of the pinot. I know I look like a bourbon guy, but I’m fond of the grape.” McDeere did indeed look like a bourbon guy. Strongly built with broad shoulders and an ever-present five o’clock shadow, Burn McDeere was craggily handsome to those who knew what craggily handsome meant.
“Not excessively fond, I hope.”
“I know my limit…with wine, anyway.”
“Good to know.” She smiled. “The winery has always done very well, even during Prohibition. Daddy kept us afloat, I’m sure not always legally.”
“Legality doesn’t always mean what’s right. And it’s a God-given right for Americans to get tight on the giggle juice.”
“You don’t strike me as a religious man, Mr. McDeere. You believe in God?”
“Haven’t been able to find him yet. Even with all the clues at my disposal. And I’m a pretty good detective. I try to keep an open mind.”
“I certainly hope that’s true. Daddy has left the country for a couple of weeks, leaving me to take care of things while he’s away.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s in Argentina chasing down the blue-throated macaw with some friends. Daddy has always loved birds. He is an amateur ophthalmologist.”
“Your father helps birds with eye complaints?”
“Isn’t that the study of…? No, wait, I meant entomologist.”
“Still off. I think the word you’re looking for is ornithologist.”
“Say, you’re pretty smart.” Allyson O’Hara leaned forward slightly, and her eyes shone with interest.
“In some things,” Burn replied, leaning back. “Other times, dumb as a bag of hammers.”
“Hammers are very useful if you need something nailed.” She looked away demurely.
Burn choked on his spit.
“Anyway, as I was saying, I’m in charge right now and I have a little problem.”
“Mrs. O’Hara, being the amazing detective that I am, I assumed that you would not be here if everything in your garden was rosy.”
She lowered her voice and leaned forward again. “I need you to find something for me. Something very important.”
“What is it you’d like me to find?”
“My car keys.”
McDeere looked at her for a long moment. “Your car keys?”
“My car keys,” she repeated.
“You want me to find your car keys?”
“I hope you’re better at finding things than you are at understanding plain English.”
“Why are these car keys so important to you?”
“They start the car.”
McDeere couldn’t tell whether she was joking. And that, he reasoned, was a quality that could make a woman dangerous. “Is your car missing?”
“No. Just the keys.”
“How did you get here?”
“Mr. McDeere, I wouldn’t be a very impressive rich person if I had only one car, now, would I?”
“Is there any reason you can think of why someone would take your keys but not your car?”
“I never said someone took my keys. I’ve misplaced them.” She examined her perfectly manicured nails.
“So.” McDeere made a temple with his fingers. “You are hiring me to find your keys?”
“I thought I was clear.”
“You’ve just misplaced them?”
“Well, yes. It’s a big house and I have too many things to look after. I can’t waste time looking for something so—trivial. Daddy trusted me to keep everything in order. I would hate to disappoint him.”
McDeere shook his head in disbelief. “Mrs. O’Hara, don’t take this the wrong way, but I think you’re loony.”
She looked at him with a smile that was maddening. She opened her purse, took out five crisp one-hundred-dollar bills, and placed them in front of him.
He looked down at the money, then met her glance. “Well, you may be loony, but your Benjamin Franklins make complete sense. All right, Mrs. O’Hara, you have just hired yourself a private detective. May I ask—have you actually tried looking for your keys?”
“Oh, yes. A full five minutes. But then I got distracted and stopped. Whenever I look excessively, my eyes get tired and are useless for the rest of the day. I have many things to look at in a day. I need my eyes fresh.” Her eyes were a bewitching blue, framed by ridiculously long lashes.
“Yes, of course. Fresh.”
“Usually when I return from taking the car out, I hang the keys on a little hook by the door.”
“But not this time.”
“No, not this time.”
“How big is this house of yours?”
“Twenty-two rooms, plus seven bathrooms, a garage that fits five cars, a cabana by the pool, a guest house. And of course the vineyard. Your basic.”
“Yeah, basic. That reminds me. I’ve got to get my Louis XVI armoire rewaxed. And I take it you are not the only one living there?”
“Don’t be silly. There’s a staff of twelve. Butler, chauffeur, cook, assorted maids, and of course Malaya.”
“Malaya?”
“She looks after my son.”
“Filipino?”
“No, he’s a little white boy. Right now, Daddy’s given most of the staff a few weeks off. There’s not really a lot to do this time of year. The butler is there right now, and a cleaning staff comes in once a week.”
“Must be a hardship. Having to prepare your own meals and such.”
Allyson looked a
t him with a small smile playing at the corners of her lips. “Why, Mr. McDeere. There are things I can do in the kitchen that would make your head spin.”
McDeere blinked rapidly three times and tried to recover his power of speech. He fought the urge to shake his head to clear it.
Allyson smiled sweetly. “Oh, would it help if you had a picture of the keys?”
“You have a picture…of your car keys?”
“I was very much into photography for a little while. Took pictures constantly. Still life was my specialty, although my nudes were quite lovely too.” Her gaze fell to the floor as though she were embarrassed, but Burn wasn’t buying it. Wouldn’t buy it even if she threw in a carton of Lucky Strikes. Allyson rummaged through her purse and brought out a photo. “Here you go.”
Burn looked at the picture. The composition was beautiful and the lighting was exquisite. Attached to the key ring, among seven or eight keys, was a small replica of a bird. A falcon.
“What’s with the bird?”
“I told you. Daddy likes birds.”
“Hmm,” said McDeere. “Had a hunch there’d be a better story than that. Feel bad. Usually my hunches are good.”
“Nothing interesting about it, really.” She jotted a note on a piece of paper. “Here’s the address in Napa. Could you be there tomorrow morning at nine?”
“That’s fine,” Burn replied.
“Just ring the doorbell.” She looked deep into his eyes. “You know how to ring a doorbell, don’t you? Just push the button till somebody comes.”
They sat there looking at each other for an interminable moment. Burn felt every drop of moisture leave his mouth. This woman had his number and was dialing it hard. “Nine it is,” he croaked.
The next day, as McDeere drove his newly washed coal-black Auburn Convertible Cabriolet to the O’Hara house, he was troubled. Nothing about the case seemed right. Why would a wine heiress hire a shamus to find a set of worthless car keys? It could be that his first impression was right: just a dippy dame with too much sugar and way, way too much spice. Even as he thought it, he dismissed it. McDeere had a feeling she wasn’t as shallow as she made out. No, that dame was deeper than a Buddhist in a mine shaft. He also knew she wasn’t being totally honest with him. It wouldn’t be the first time a dame had used the truth like a disposable hankie, but it didn’t mean he had to like it. He hated lying and liars. In fact, he was almost a pathological truth teller. Had learned through some bad experiences to tone it down. If you tell the frail who hired you straight out that her man is crushing corsages with a nightclub canary, then suddenly you’re the one dodging the crockery. Sometimes you’ve got to soft-soap it a little.
Halfway to the valley, he stopped at a greasy spoon, tossed back a Coke and a fried egg sandwich, and invested a couple of nickels in the phone booth out front.
Twenty minutes later, McDeere pulled up to the address Allyson had given him. Pretty swanky. It was one of those giant mansions that would have looked more at home in the English countryside. Only the acres of grapes that stretched behind the estate distinguished it from your everyday run-of-the-mill castle. McDeere hoped he didn’t have to go through the entire house to find the keys. It could take weeks.
He walked up to the door and pushed the doorbell. The door was opened by a man whose face looked like it could chew nails and spit out rust. It was a face that McDeere knew.
“Gurney Malone? When did you get out of the joint?”
“’Bout a year ago. Look, Mr. McDeere, I’m walking the straight-and-narrow now. I promise you. The best thing that ever happened to me is you putting me away. It changed my life.”
Malone had been behind a series of cat burglaries a few years back. He would only hit houses that had cats and would take them along with any valuables he could find. The fixation got him five to eight in Alcatraz.
“Okay, Malone. I believe in second chances. But I would be very disappointed if you were lying to me.”
“Nah, don’t lie anymore. Takes too much work keeping everything straight. Truth is easier.”
I wish that were true, McDeere thought. Sometimes he found the truth anything but easy.
Malone led McDeere into the house. He immediately spied the empty wall hook for the car keys. It was in the shape of a turkey vulture. The first thing you would glance at as you walked through the door. It would be hard to forget to hang your keys there.
The decor was early Audubon. Birds everywhere. Stuffed birds, pictures of birds, statues of birds. The only thing missing were the live ones. McDeere looked at Malone, who shrugged.
“The guy likes birds.”
Malone motioned to a room that McDeere surmised was the library. Leather-bound books lined the floor-to-ceiling shelves.
“Mrs. O’Hara will be with you in a minute. You here about the keys?” Malone asked.
“Yeah. Mind if I ask you a few questions?”
“Free country.”
“What’s the deal with Mrs. O’Hara? Good to work for? As spoiled as she seems?”
“Don’t know her that well, really. Her father was the one man who’d hire me when no one was willing to give an ex-con a chance. He’s a good egg. She’s only been at the house the last couple of weeks. Been in Europe off and on the last ten years.” He glanced around to make sure no one was listening. “Rumor is she got knocked up by one of those Riviera playboys and stayed there to hide the scandal from Napa society. I think she only came back to get in the old man’s good graces again.” He straightened up. “Hey, you know the old man’s going to be away for a couple of months with some bird people he knows. He told me they were chasing a blue-throated macaw in Argentina. The rich, huh? They sure are different from us.”
“No, they just dress better.”
“Anyway, Mrs. O’Hara shows up with the kid, tells us she’s here to look after things till Daddy gets back.”
“Any way I can talk to Daddy?”
“The old guy’s incommunicado.”
“No phones in South America?”
“No. He’s in the village of Communicado. Somewhere in Argentina.”
“Do you know anything about these keys?”
“Only that they’re not here. We turned the place upside down. Well, I turned it upside down, but no go. The car hasn’t been moved since, so it’s not like someone wanted to steal it. It’s a mystery.”
“So if the car is still here, chances are the keys are too. Say, Malone, any cats in the house?”
Malone held up his hands in mock surrender. “No way, boss. Made sure when I applied for the job. Kicked the habit of stealing cats. Been four years pussy free.”
“Yeah,” said McDeere, “prison’ll do that.”
Malone glared, then left. McDeere looked around the library. There were a lot of books about birds. A few murder mysteries, a couple of first-edition classics, and a small section on botany. McDeere suddenly wished he had an obsession.
“Mr. McDeere.” Allyson entered the library with a small boy following closely behind. “This is my son, Ashley.”
McDeere bent down to shake the youngster’s hand. “How’s it going, Champ?”
Ashley smiled shyly and hid behind his mother’s skirts.
“Ashley dear, why don’t you go to the playroom while Mother tends to business.” She kissed him on the top of the forehead and sent him on his way. She turned to McDeere.
“He’s lovely, isn’t he?”
“Seems like a nice kid. Kinda ugly, but nice.”
“What?”
“Well, you must have noticed. Nothing wrong with being ugly. Builds character.”
“Your candor is refreshing. I wish there was a strong man around to influence him. He’s very nervous and shy.”
“And ugly. Really ugly. No Mr. O’Hara around?”
“No. He was shot in Mexico over a Twinkie dispute.”
“Sorry to hear that. There’s been a lot of snack-related killings down the
re recently. Too bad. Mrs. O’Hara, what do you say we get started?”
“Straight to the point. You don’t know a lot about women, do you? We like a bit of a lead-up to the main event.”
“True, what I know about women wouldn’t fill a gnat’s navel. I do know that the main event is where all the action is.”
She smiled. “The main event it is, then.”
McDeere decided the best course of action was to go over the last time she had the keys. They started at the front door, where they were joined by Gurney.
“So. You parked the car, opened the front door. Why didn’t you hang the keys on the hook?”
“Gurney had a question for me about my father’s office. I got distracted.”
“Your father’s office?”
“Yes,” confirmed Gurney. “Before Mr. O’Hara left for Argentina to search for the blue-throated macaw, he left his office in a horrible state. I wondered if I should clean it up or just leave it.”
“Huh.” McDeere rubbed his chin. “Why don’t we head there?”
They climbed the curved staircase to the second floor, stopping in front of an ornately carved door. They stepped inside. Like the rest of the house, the room was filled with stuffed birds and marble statues of birds perched on pedestals. Papers lay strewn upon every surface.
“Looks like someone was looking for something,” said McDeere suspiciously.
“No,” said Allyson. “Daddy is just incredibly messy. Most brilliant men are.”
McDeere noticed a couple of bottles of wine sitting in the corner. He wandered over and picked one up. The label was a picture of the winery, with a striking font that proclaimed “Faren Heights Bin 451.”
“Never heard of this, and I’m a fan of your dad’s work. Is it merlot, pinot, cab? Odd that the label wouldn’t say.”
“Don’t know much about this side of the business,” said Allyson. “Daddy was always trying new things…trying to keep the winery at the top of its game.”
“Between that and the bird thing, doesn’t sound like he had a lot of family time.”
Not QUITE the Classics Page 17