McNally's Dilemma

by Lawrence Sanders

  Well, Archy was persona non grata at Melva’s bail hearing. Why?

  “Mr. McNally, I want to thank you for your help and hospitality.” She put out her English Oval and deposited her drink on the desk. Both had a long way to go before they could be considered consumed. “I know you want to talk to Archy, and unless you have more to tell me or want me to stay, I would like to go to my room. It’s been a long day.”

  “No, there’s nothing more I have to say,” Father told her, “and I think a good night’s rest is a most sensible idea.”

  She rose and Father and I did the same. “I’ll show you up,” I offered.

  She shook her head. “I don’t want to lose my status as preferred guest, so I’ll find my own way. Good night, Archy, and Mr. McNally, I’ll see you at seven.”

  “Half past six if you want breakfast,” Father reminded her.

  “Oh dear.” And with a toss of her blond head she left us to our brandy and masculine parlance.

  “I expected to accompany Veronica to the hearing,” I said as soon as the door closed behind her.

  “It’s what I wanted to discuss with you, Archy.” He reached into a drawer and came up with a box of cigars. Taking one, he used an instrument made for the express purpose of snipping off one end before lighting up. “She’s taken quite a shine to you, Archy.” He exhaled the words along with a cloud of smoke.

  “A port in a storm, sir.”

  “I think there may be more to it than that.”

  “She’s very young,” I said.

  “She’ll be twenty-two next month.”

  “You know, sir?”

  “I thought it prudent to know. A fifteen-year difference is not unheard of.”

  I stopped sniffing my brandy and took a generous slug. “It’s early days, sir, and I think Melva is top priority at the moment.”

  “Indeed. I was just speculating, Archy. Just speculating. The counsel I assigned to Melva told me about this so-called Mystery Woman. What have you learned, Archy?”

  I brought him up to date and when I finished he said, “You’re something of a fop, Archy, but you’re not a fool.”

  I didn’t know if I should be flattered or insulted. “I’m your son, sir.” Now he didn’t know if he should be pleased or indignant.

  “Do you know what I’m thinking, Archy?”

  “Yes, sir. We’re all assuming that Geoff lied to Melva about where he was going last evening. One could also assume that Melva was lying when she told her story.”

  “Exactly. And Geoff isn’t here to counter anything she says. Whom do you believe?”

  “Melva is an old and dear friend, sir.”

  “I know that, Archy. What’s said here is said in complete confidence, you know that.”

  “I do, sir. I think Melva is telling only a part of the story. I mean, I think she knows who the Mystery Woman is, and is protecting her.”

  “A friend of Veronica’s,” he quickly stated. Father is a quick study, and Geoff’s reputation is no secret in Palm Beach.

  “Yes, sir.”

  He enjoyed a few more puffs on his cigar while engaged in thoughtful meditation. When he had worked it all out, he said, “There are too many variables here, and, as you’ve just said, it’s early days for any decision making. For that reason, Archy, I’d like you to back off until Melva has consulted with her attorneys and we know exactly the stance they will take in her defense. Any assumption on our part that is contrary to the defense and leaked to the wrong people could be disastrous for Melva.”

  I agreed with what he said, although I was a little chagrined at what he might be implying. “Do you think Lolly’s appeal on national television was ill-timed, sir?”

  “No, no,” he quickly responded, waving his cigar to make the point. “It was just a matter of time before this Mystery Woman became public property. Lolly’s presentation was very sensitive, very dramatic. I take it you used Lolly to commandeer Phil Meecham’s yacht, and he alerted the network in return for his fifteen minutes of fame.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But you take my point, Archy. While attempting to help Melva, or Veronica, you called on Lolly, but you had no way of knowing that Lolly would carry the plot one step further for his own purpose. As it turned out his purpose suited ours. But, for argument’s sake, suppose it had not. Then the disaster I mentioned would have become a reality. Something to avoid at all costs.”

  Nothing I hadn’t thought of, but I’ve learned the better part of valor is not to bring such things to Father’s attention. It caused a chill to run through the castle, and I would hate to find the moat raised just as my Miata was pulling in for the night.

  “I agree, sir, but I want to poke about a bit and see what I can come up with.”

  “Do, but keep your own counsel and a low profile.”

  “Like keep out of the courthouse tomorrow morning?”

  “Correct. Let’s keep Discreet Inquiries discreet, and while we’re on that subject, is there any progress on the Fairhurst case?”

  “Nothing to report, but there is something I would like to follow up on. Once Melva comes home tomorrow, as I’m sure she will, and Veronica is back in the nest, I’ll have time for the Fairhurst case.”

  “Don’t abandon the girl, Archy.”

  “I won’t, sir.”

  12

  IT WAS MIDNIGHT WHEN I finally reached my third-floor retreat, a mere twenty-four hours since Melva’s call. I hummed a few bars of “What a Difference a Day Makes.” In that sentimental song of yore, the day went from cloudy to sunny, thanks to the appearance of the object of the singer’s affection. My day had gone from murder to blackmail to high jinks on the high seas in less time than it took Peter Piper to pick a peck of pickled peppers. The only thing resembling the sun in Melva’s case was her daughter’s lovely tresses, which were beginning to become an obsession with me. Another oldie but goodie advised, “Beware My Foolish Heart.”

  I undressed and washed, thinking that until Father mentioned the Fairhurst business I hadn’t given it a moment’s thought since John Fairhurst III passed his unwanted epistle around the Master’s private office. I would have liked to tell Fairhurst to fess up to Granddaddy’s folly, but that would put Discreet Inquiries out of business and Archy out of a job and, most likely, a home—and I liked my digs on the third floor, be they ever so humble.

  The brandy had spoiled my taste for a small marc, but an English Oval was certainly called for to bring closure to this day of infamy. Too tired to update my journal, I wrapped myself in a paisley silk dressing gown, lit up, and stretched out on my bed.

  The only lead, if you could call it that, in the Fairhurst case was the chauffeur, Seth Walker, who got his job through Geoff Williams, recently deceased. Coincidence? Probably. Geoff doing a good turn for the son or brother or boyfriend of one of his lady friends or a bookmaker to whom he owed a favor. Geoff’s love of things fast ran the gamut from greyhounds to women. But Walker was the only unknown quantity in the Fairhurst household, making him the logical suspect. Circumstantial evidence, I know, but for the present it would have to do.

  The only person who could enlighten me regarding the life and times of Seth Walker was Geoff Williams, and, for obvious reasons, he wasn’t talking. Mrs. Marsden, CEO of the Palm Beach Broadcasting System, might be able to tell me something about Seth as she was also the unofficial delegate to the union of domestic engineers. That, however, would entail a visit to the home of Lady Cynthia Horowitz, where I could not show my face without appearing before Connie of the black tresses.

  If Connie had not broken our date last evening, I would not have been at home to receive Melva’s call. Had I not received Melva’s call, I would not have been cast in the role of guardian to Melva’s daughter. Connie, then, was entirely responsible for my involvement with Veronica Manning. My conscience was clear.

  I heard a sound that I would attribute to mice in the wainscotting, were I residing in a tale of mystery and imagination by Mr. Edgar A
llan Poe. But I was in our three-story dwelling on five acres in Palm Beach, where the mice seldom found it necessary to come in out of the cold. I might imagine it was a raven tapping on my chamber door, but instead of “Nevermore” my visitor stage-whispered, “Archy?”

  “It’s open,” I called, sitting up and adjusting my robe to receive company. I regretted not wearing an ascot. Noël Coward never appeared in a robe without an ascot adorning his neck. I hurried, barefoot, from bedroom to sitting room just in time to see the door open and Veronica poke her head into my sanctuary. “I can’t sleep, Archy.”

  “Me, neither. Come on in and we’ll declare this our private chat room.”

  She wore a blue cotton robe over a pair of crisp white pajamas. Her blond hair was braided into two pigtails. The only things lacking were cheeks shiny with cold cream and a book of obscure verse bound in morocco leather. How delightfully unglamorous. Why, she could have been visiting her next-door neighbor at the Tri-Delt sorority house. “Did I catch you in your pajamas?” she said, closing the door behind her.

  “Real men don’t wear pajamas, Veronica, but they do eat quiche.”

  “So this is where you hang out,” she said, looking around. “It’s like a pied-à-terre.”

  “More a toe-à-terre,” I said modestly.

  “Silly, it’s just a figure of speech.” She looked longingly at my English Oval, and I was forced to sacrifice another to four puffs and sudden death.

  After giving her a light, we kept our eyes on each other, avoiding, I think, looking into the next room, which she had to know was my bedroom. I offered her the only comfortable chair in the room and pulled out the desk chair for myself. “Did you try counting sheep?” I asked.

  “Can’t you ever be serious?” she accused.

  I thought I was being serious, but who am I to disagree with a lovely visitor garbed in PJ’s? “No, I cannot,” I told her.

  Having been nurtured on threats of global warming, ozone depletion, invasion by swarming killer bees, and universal extinction via nuclear war and cholesterol, I decided a long time ago that the only way to cope was to follow the advice of Mr. Pagliacci and Vesti la giubba. No, I don’t intend to add a clown’s collar to my already esoteric wardrobe—it’s just a figure of speech, like pied-à-terre. Do my glad rags hide a broken heart? I’ll never tell.

  I’m not impervious to Melva’s predicament, I just deal with it in my own way. But being a soft touch for blue eyes about to brim over, I quickly added, “But then I’m not serious about never being serious.”

  “Archy, I’m so scared,” she suddenly confided.

  “You have a right to be, and I don’t mean to sound glib.”

  “I know. You’re sweet, Archy.”

  “Your mother has the best legal team money can buy, and I think she has a good chance of beating this thing.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “I do, and so does my father, but he would never admit it. Lawyers don’t offer opinions because they don’t want to be told they were wrong.”

  “Why did you get bounced out of Yale Law, Archy?”

  “If I said that during a concert of the New York Philharmonic I streaked naked across the stage wearing a Richard M. Nixon mask, would you believe me?”

  “No.”

  “Then consider the subject closed.” I put out my cigarette and passed the ashtray. I thought about Melva and wondered if she had really gone back to two packs a day. My hunch was, she had—and with good reason. Veronica returned the ashtray, which now contained two dead soldiers—one having succumbed to old age and the other snuffed out in infancy.

  “I wish you were coming with me tomorrow, Archy. I could use the support.”

  “You’ll be in good hands. Being seen with your mother’s lawyers and not a gentleman friend, especially one known to be a private snoop, will help Melva’s cause, believe me.”

  “Appearances,” she exclaimed. “From now on it’s all that matters. Mother and I will be scrutinized like germs under a microscope—and judged accordingly. I want to run and hide, Archy. Would you come with me?”

  “I’d be tempted. But, no, I’ll stick around and see this thing through with Melva.”

  “So will I. I was just...”

  “I know you were.” Then, seizing the moment, I asked what had been on my mind since I broke the sad news to Veronica. “Tell me something. How did you feel about your stepfather? Yesterday you said you didn’t like him. Did you mean it, or were you in such a state of shock that you didn’t know what you were saying? And this is not for print. I’m not Lolly Spindrift.”

  She looked at me with those blue eyes wide open and seemed to give the matter a great deal of thought. When she did speak it was as if she were reciting a mantra that had been echoing in her pretty head longer than her tender years warranted. “I didn’t feel anything. Neither like nor dislike. All my girlfriends had crushes on him, and I thought they were silly. When I grew up and began seeing what my mother refused to acknowledge, I simply blocked him out. Can you understand that? To hate him would be to validate him, and I wasn’t ready to concede even that. Between Mother and me, Geoff had it made in the shade, as they say.”

  “You told Lolly that your stepfather treated you more like his sister than a daughter.”

  “That might have been an exaggeration, but not a big one. Geoff was certainly more interested in his tailors and barbers and how often he could get his name in the society columns than in looking after me. But then I didn’t need him, did I? I had Mother and school.”

  “I wouldn’t make an issue out of those schoolgirl crushes unless you think one of your friends...”

  She shook her head adamantly. “No, I don’t think any such thing. Besides, none of my school friends are here, in Palm Beach. The Mystery Woman is someone Geoff picked up at Phil Meecham’s party.”

  And that seemed to lay to rest my theory that the Mystery Woman was a friend of Veronica’s. However, I now had to resurrect a painful fact to my late-night caller. “Veronica, Geoff never went to Meecham’s party.”

  She looked stunned, as if I had tossed a glass of cold water in her face. “But...”

  “Lolly didn’t pick Geoff up and drive him to Meecham’s boat, and neither Lolly or Meecham remember seeing Geoff at the party.”

  “He lied to Mother,” she cried.

  Of course, I didn’t counter with the fact that Mother could be lying to us. The poor girl had enough to think about without putting that bee in her bonnet. “He did,” I agreed.

  “But who did pick him up? You said the Rolls never left the garage and I had my Mercedes.”

  “The girl, we presume. Who else?”

  Again she seemed to mull over this new development as she was apt to do before making a statement. Veronica Manning did not rush in where angels fear to tread. Then, very slowly, the bee found her bonnet without my help. “But that conflicts with Mother’s story. I mean, without Lolly’s and Phil Meecham’s backing, it’s only her word against Geoff’s.”

  “And she fired the gun and Geoff is dead. Sorry, but them are the facts, as my friend Al Rogoff would say.”

  “Then we must find this Mystery Woman, Archy—we must.” She was now wide-awake and animated—arms and pigtails in motion.

  “I’ve told you how important that was more than once, young lady.”

  “A reward,” she almost shouted. “We’ll offer a reward and Lolly can announce it on the television. One million dollars. Who wouldn’t trade their reputation for a million dollars?”

  “Who? Why, someone who doesn’t need a million dollars, that’s who. On the other hand, those who do need a million bucks and couldn’t care less about reputations—and their number is legion—will come out of the woodwork in droves to say they are the Mystery Woman. Don’t forget the Hollywood starlet or two in need of publicity, as well as several transgenders who want to show off their new ball gowns. It would become a joke, Veronica. Melva’s tale will go from suspect to broad farce.�
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  “But they would have to give the police particulars,” she argued. “Time, place, describe our house, things like that. Details only the real Mystery Woman could know.”

  I hated to burst Pollyanna’s bubble, but the sooner her feet touched the ground, the better it would be for all concerned. “The prosecution could say she had been briefed by Melva’s lawyers, or by Melva herself. In short, the witness was bribed a million bucks to say what the defense needed saying.”

  She hit the ground so hard I thought I heard the thud. “Sorry, kid. The Mystery Woman will have to come forward of her own accord. Of course, a newspaper or one of the networks might offer a reward, less than a million, I’m sure, but the burden of proof would be on them, not on your mother and her lawyers.”

  I wanted to go to her and take her in my arms. For the sake of propriety as well as my blood pressure, I kept my seat. “I thought Lolly’s pitch was right on target, and it could work. In fact, I’m thinking the Mystery Woman might even give herself up to Lolly.”

  Veronica was shaking her head, putting the pigtails in motion once more. Clearly, she had more faith in the power of a million bucks than in Lolly Spindrift’s powers of persuasion. So did I.

  “Now,” she whispered, “all we can do is wait and see.”

  “There were posters displayed during the last big war that were intended to boost the morale of wives and mothers. They stated, ‘Those who wait, also serve.’”

  “I’m glad you’re waiting with me, Archy.”

  Her confidence was unfounded, but only I was privy to that. “Might you answer one more question before I toss you out of my toe-à-terre?”