Murder Under the Palms

by Stefanie Matteson

  Maureen was still toying with the netsuke. “The cabana is quite unique,” she said. “It’s also in the art deco style. There was a write-up on it in an article on cabanas in the Living section of the paper recently. I imagine some of the guests might have gone out there to have a look at it.”

  “I wondered why they were all headed that way. I thought it might be to smoke, but they could have smoked on the patio.”

  “Do you remember who you saw?”

  Charlotte nodded. “Most of them I don’t know by name, of course. But I did see Admiral McLean wander out there, and the man who’s head of the preservation association and his wife. There were a number of others. I wasn’t able to see if they just went to the cabana, or if they continued on down to the beach.”

  “I understand that Marianne didn’t return.”

  Charlotte nodded again. “I didn’t see her.”

  “And Dede?”

  “She came back about twenty minutes later. Just before the soup course.” Charlotte thought for a minute and then volunteered: “She looked upset.” She saw no point in holding out anymore. Maureen would find out anyway, and there was no point in alienating her.

  “Crying, you mean?”

  Charlotte nodded.

  “Do you think there had been a scene at the beach?”

  “I would guess that’s what happened, yes,” Charlotte replied, thinking that it certainly wasn’t looking good for Marianne.

  “What was Marianne wearing?”

  “She was wearing a dress of her own design. It was long, pleated, a soft purple color. With a ruffle at the hem and a big mauve flower at the waist. Very pretty.” What was Maureen getting at? Charlotte wondered.

  “Any accessories—a handbag, anything like that?”

  “Yes, she was carrying a minaudière.”

  Maureen gave her a look. “A mini-what? I’m just a girl from da Bronx. Can you please tell me what the hell that is?”

  Charlotte smiled. “I didn’t know what it was either. She was carrying it at the dinner party last night. It’s from her new collection. It’s a box with compartments for everything a woman might need for an evening out: lipstick, powder puff, comb, and so on.”

  “It’s worn on a chain, like a pocketbook?”

  Charlotte nodded. “Marianne’s was gold, enameled with an art deco design and inset with diamonds.”

  Maureen looked her in the eye. “Miss Graham, are you squeamish? What I mean is, do you have any objection to looking at a dead body?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “Then I suggest we take a little walk.”

  With Maureen in the lead, they followed the winding driveway out to South Ocean Boulevard. By now it was dark, though the undersides of the low-lying clouds that had moved in over the last hour were still tinged a dusty rose. The clouds had obscured the moon, and a stiff ocean breeze had come up, rustling the fronds of the coconut palms that dotted the lawn. From the direction of the ocean came the dull roar of the surf pounding against the shore. It was one of those unsettling South Florida nights. A line of cars, including several police cruisers, was parked on the beach side of South Ocean Boulevard. After speaking briefly with a cop sitting behind the wheel of one of the police cars, Maureen led Charlotte through a wooden gate and down a stone-paved path that passed through a miniature grove of feathery Australian pines, swaying palms, and stubby palmettos. Another path led off to the right, to the art deco cabana, which was surrounded by a thicket of sea grapes. At the foot of the path they were following, a steep set of wooden stairs led down to the wide, white stretch of beach twenty feet below.

  At the bottom of the stairs, Charlotte paused to remove her high heels. The sand, still warm from the sun, felt wonderful between her bare toes. (She was one of those women who hated pantyhose and avoided wearing them whenever possible.) Then they turned north along a path in the sand that was demarcated by the yellow plastic tape used by police to rope off crime scenes. The path led to a spot about 100 feet up the beach where a cluster of policemen was gathered at the foot of a steep bank covered with sea grapes and the wheatlike stalks of sea oats. Other policemen were stationed up and down the beach to keep away the curious, and floodlights had been set up to illuminate the scene, which was encircled with the yellow plastic tape. At the center of the scene, a body lay on the sand at the foot of the embankment.

  As Charlotte and Maureen approached, one of the policemen withdrew from the group and came down the path to greet them.

  “Anything new?” Maureen asked, and he shook his head.

  They paused at the edge of the crime scene, about ten feet from the body, which lay in a pile of seaweed and palm fronds and other debris that had been deposited at the foot of the embankment by the tides. Charlotte noticed that the location would have been hidden from the view of anyone at the cabana, which was set about fifteen feet back from the summit of the embankment.

  The body lay on its back with with its knees bent to one side and its arms outstretched. It always struck Charlotte as odd how one tended to notice small things about a corpse, as if the death itself was too much for the mind to comprehend. This evening, it was Paul’s satin-lapeled tuxedo with its white pocket-square and his shoes, elegant patent leather tuxedo pumps with small grosgrain ribbons. The shoes had already been half-buried by blowing sand from the stiff offshore breeze.

  “We’re waiting for the medic unit to take the body away,” said Maureen. “They should be here any minute. The medical examiner has already been here.”

  The mouth and the clear gray eyes were open and the skin was already beginning to turn gray, but otherwise Paul looked in death as he had looked in life, the exception being the small red-ringed wound in the center of his starched white shirt front, just above the third gray pearl stud, and what looked like fingernail scratches on his right cheek.

  “Very neat,” Charlotte observed.

  “Yes, it is,” Maureen agreed as they gazed down at the body. “It looks like a direct in-and-out thrust. No defense wounds. The perpetrator must have caught him by surprise. Though there are signs of a struggle.” She nodded at the sand, whose surface had been disturbed by a chaotic jumble of footprints.

  “Looks like somebody held a dance here,” Charlotte commented.

  “Yeah,” Maureen said. “Some are the footprints of the crime-scene investigators, but most of them were here already. The photographer was here before the sand was disturbed.” She nodded at the policemen who were combing the vegetation on the bank with flashlights. “We’re looking for the weapon, but we haven’t found it yet. We’re planning to come back tomorrow.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  “The ME says it’s probably a dagger with a six-inch blade, though he won’t know for sure until he measures the depth of penetration.” Borrowing a flashlight from one of the crime-scene investigators who were sifting the sand around the body, Maureen aimed the beam at a point a few feet to the right of the corpse. “This is what I wanted you to see.”

  Lying on the beach, partially covered by sand, was Marianne’s minaudière. The rich colors of its distinctive geometric cloisonné design gleamed in the light of the flashlight’s beam.

  “Is this Marianne’s minny?” Maureen asked.

  Charlotte nodded.

  “Can we bag that now?” one of the crime-scene investigators asked.

  Maureen nodded, and he proceeded to pick up the minaudière in a rubber-gloved hand and put it in a plastic evidence bag, along with a cigarette butt that was also lying in the sand.

  Maureen then guided the flashlight beam along the ground to a spot where a photographer was aiming his lens directly downward at the sand. Then she moved the flashlight beam along the sand. The beam illuminated a line of footprints that went from the body to the stairs leading up to the next cabana, about fifty feet to the north.

  They were the prints of small bare feet, feet that might have belonged to a petite woman, a woman of about Marianne’s size. The woman
must have been carrying her shoes, just as Charlotte now was.

  “As you can see, these footprints lead to the stairs up to the next of the cabanas lining this stretch of oceanfront. We’ll be coming back tomorrow to make plaster of Paris castings of the impressions. Also to do another search; it’s hard to conduct a thorough search in the dark.”

  Charlotte could see the flashlight beams dancing in the vegetation crowning the embankment at the head of the stairs. Presumably, policemen were searching the area around the neighboring cabana. It was a cabana that she was very familiar with: she had spent all day there just two days before.

  It belonged to Spalding and Connie.

  It was a long evening—or so it seemed. Using three of the second-floor rooms, Maureen and her assistants took written statements from all the guests who had gone out to the beach themselves and all the guests who had seen others go out to the beach. The remaining people—guests, security guards, and catering staff—were asked to give their names and addresses to the police stationed at the front door on their way out. But the party had gone on. After dinner came the jewelry show, for which Charlotte was drafted as mistress of ceremonies in the conspicuous absence of either Paul or Marianne. Since she didn’t have a script, she improvised, relying on a combination of descriptions from the catalogue of the collection that had been prepared by Feder Jewelers, and whispered prompts from Connie on the names and backgrounds of the socialites who modeled the jewelry on runways that had been set up between tables. The guests at the captain’s table had succeeded in keeping the news of the murder under wraps for the duration of dinner, but once the police started interviewing the other guests, the secret was out. Watching the news spread across the room had been like watching a wind rise across a wooded plain: at first, just a few eddies of movement, and then all the leaves rustling. The fact that guests were being interviewed by the police downstairs added a titillating air to the party that, rather than putting a damper on it, made it all the more lively. Three of the guests, however, were clearly not amused by the prospect of a murder in their midst, and they were Connie and Spalding and their granddaughter, Dede.

  After the jewelry show, Spalding suggested that they leave, and since Charlotte and Dede had already been questioned, they did. Charlotte went up to the stage and briefly said goodbye to Eddie. Then they thanked Lydia and went back downstairs, where Connie and Spalding provided the policeman posted at the door with their names and address, following which a valet in a SS Normandie sailor cap promptly fetched their Cadillac. Within minutes they were heading uptown on South Ocean Boulevard.

  As they headed back to midtown, Charlotte’s mind was swirling with questions, foremost among them being: Had Marianne killed Paul in a jealous rage? And then: Were those scratches on Paul’s face from Marianne’s fingernails? How could she have stabbed him if she was carrying her shoes? Charlotte found it difficult to imagine a scenario in which Marianne had set down her shoes, pulled out a dagger, and stabbed Paul, all without his taking notice. How would she have concealed the weapon? The minaudière wasn’t big enough to hide a dagger with a six-inch blade. Why didn’t she come back to the party? Had any of the guests who wandered out to the beach witnessed the murder? Or had any of them seen anyone suspicious in the vicinity? And where was Marianne now? Though the police had been busy all evening, they had yet to interview the most important witness: Marianne Montgomery.

  “Okay, Miss Diana, let’s have it,” said Spalding sternly the minute they were underway, using the name he had called Dede as a child. “What happened out there?” he asked, looking up at her through the rearview mirror. “I want every detail, minute by minute.”

  Dede started to sob, and Spalding pulled out a handkerchief and passed it to her.

  After a minute, she began to speak: “I was with Paul out on the patio. We were talking about the preservation association. Our financial problems. I had seen Mother standing on the deck, and I knew she was watching us. That’s when I asked Paul if he wanted to walk out to the beach.”

  She sat for a minute, the delicate diamond choker gleaming in the light from the headlamps of the oncoming traffic. “I knew it would piss her off. That’s why I did it: to provoke her.” She sobbed again. “She had been so obnoxious the night before at Paul’s.”

  Connie looked at her sympathetically in acknowledgment of Marianne’s bad behavior and reached over the seat to grasp her hand.

  “I wanted to get back at her, to make her think that there really was something between Paul and me, which there wasn’t. The idea is ridiculous: he’s old enough to be my grandfather!”

  “Not quite that old,” Spalding observed.

  Dede forced a smile. “Anyway, we stood on the terrace by the cabana for a few minutes, and then we went down the steps to the beach. We were walking along the beach—again, we were talking about the preservation association—when I heard someone coming up behind us.” She looked out at the ocean for a moment and then back at her grandparents. “When I turned around, I saw that it was Mother. I knew there would be trouble; I had been asking for trouble. She grabbed Paul by the arm and spun him around.”

  Connie shook her head in disapproval.

  “Was she carrying anything in either of her hands?” Charlotte asked. “Like her shoes, for instance?”

  “Yes,” Dede replied. “She was carrying her shoes. In her left hand.” She looked at Connie. “Nana, do you think she could be taking anything?”

  “Like drugs, you mean?” Connie asked.

  Dede nodded.

  “What makes you think that?”

  “It’s just that she’s been acting so crazy lately. I know she’s been under a lot of stress with this jewelry debut, but she’s been under a lot of stress before and she’s only acted mildly crazy.”

  “It could be,” Connie acknowledged. “I gave up long ago trying to account for my daughter’s behavior.”

  Spalding turned his head toward Dede. “I’ve been saying that for a long time, but your grandmother refuses to acknowledge that her darling daughter could be a druggie,” he said. “I know she takes pills by the handful.”

  “Nana, she was like a … a pit bull,” Dede said. “She stood there with her fist clenched, staring him in the eye, snarling at him about …” Tears started rolling down Dede’s cheeks, and she wiped them away with Spalding’s handkerchief. “I don’t even want to tell you what she was saying—it was so sick.”

  “What then?” asked Connie.

  “She ordered me to go back. She was screaming at me.”

  “And did you?” asked Charlotte.

  Dede nodded. “That was the last I saw of them.”

  “Do you think we should contact our lawyer, dear?” asked Connie, who by now was an old hand at getting Marianne out of trouble.

  “Let’s wait,” said Spalding.

  “I can’t believe Mother would have stabbed him,” Dede said. “Poor Paul,” she added, and started bawling again. “If only I hadn’t set out to provoke her, none of this would have happened.”

  Charlotte didn’t think Marianne had killed him either, but the truth was, with Marianne, you never knew.

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions, Dede,” said Spalding. “Just because they had an argument doesn’t mean that your mother is a murderer. For one thing, she doesn’t carry a dagger around with her.”

  Dede looked at him hopefully. “You mean, it might have been someone else? But then, why didn’t she come back to the party?”

  “She was upset, that’s all. Think about it. If she really was the murderer, don’t you think she would have come back to the party in order not to attract attention to herself?”

  He had a point, Charlotte thought.

  “I’m sure she just walked home,” Spalding went on. “We’ll talk to her when we get back and find out what happened. Maybe it was a robbery. Remember that couple who were held up on the beach last year, Connie?”

  “What happened?” Charlotte asked.

  “They we
re held up at gunpoint. They’d been walking home from a party. The wife’s diamond ring was taken, and some other jewelry. I don’t think the police ever solved that case, did they?”

  Connie shook her head.

  Remembering the minaudière lying in the sand, Charlotte hoped for Marianne’s sake that that was what had happened.

  It was eleven-thirty when Spalding and Connie pulled into the circular driveway in front of Charlotte’s hotel. The doorman opened the door for her, and she walked into the old-fashioned lobby with its beamed ceiling, crisp black-and-white tiled floor, and yellow walls, where she was greeted by a young, tanned, handsome bellboy. She paused in the lobby for a moment, and then, lured by the music of a jazz combo, headed toward the hotel’s Rio Bar at the far end of the lobby. She wasn’t sleepy, and felt as if she needed to sit quietly for a few minutes before she went to bed, to sort out the evening’s events in her mind. A maitre d’ greeted her at the door and escorted her to a banquette at a small table at the back, where a waiter promptly appeared to take her order. When she explained that she only wanted to listen to the music, he graciously brought her a glass of ice water. Putting the murder out of her mind for the moment, she sat quietly, sipping her glass of ice water and studying the handsome, well-dressed, older couples who were swirling around the tiny dance floor. Watching them, Charlotte decided that the element that most characterized this island paradise was the quality of grace—grace, in the sense of acceptance. Though there was still quite a bit of inherited money, there was less than in the past, and most of the inhabitants of Palm Beach were people who had worked hard all their lives to fulfill their dreams, achievers who had reached the pinnacle of their field. At peace with themselves and with all the comfortable accoutrements that went along with wealth, they were at last free to quietly enjoy what time was left to them. It seemed as if the marvelous climate, the elegant buildings, and the tanned, handsome young men who were always standing at the ready—to open a door or fetch a glass of ice water—were there to pay homage to this quality of grace that seemed to hover in the gentle tropical air like a magic spell.