McNally's Puzzle

by Lawrence Sanders

  She opened the door; he immediately jumped to the ground, had another luxurious stretch, and then looked at us more closely. And you know, the villain picked out the one of his four visitors who would determine his fate. Tail wagging, he sidled up to mother and gave her an affectionate ankle rub.

  “Why, Hobo,” she said, obviously enchanted, “you are a friendly pooch, aren’t you?”

  She leaned to scratch the top of his head and tweak his ears. He writhed with content. That kid must have studied method acting. I looked at father. Both his hairy eyebrows were hoisting aloft. He knew Hobo had conquered.

  “Would you like to see him run?” June August asked.

  “I don’t think that will be necessary,” I said, and looked to my parents for approval. They nodded and we all returned to the office to sign papers and ransom Hobo.

  Twenty minutes later we were on the way home. As I had guessed, there was no need for collar and leash. Hobo bounded readily into the Woody and sat rather grandly between mother and me, making no fuss but viewing the passing scene with calm curiosity. I think father was amused.

  “Not a very excitable beast, is he?” he said.

  “No, sir,” I agreed. “But deep. Definitely deep.”

  We arrived at the McNally manse and alighted. Hobo leaped down, shook himself, and looked around at his new surroundings. Ursi and Jamie Olson came from the kitchen to join us and examine the latest addition to our household.

  “What a cute doggie!” Ursi said.

  “Um,” said Jamie.

  The five of us were standing there, staring at the terrier, when suddenly he took off. I mean his acceleration was incredible. One moment he was still, the next he was a brown-and-white blur. He raced away from us, ears laid back, tail horizontal, and dashed into the wooded portion of our mini-estate.

  He reappeared, circled the garage at full speed, and disappeared again. We caught glimpses of him darting through the underbrush, charging around the entire McNally domain, apparently never pausing to take a sniff.

  “He’s not running away, is he?” mother asked anxiously.

  “Of course not,” I said, praying my faith in Hobo would be justified.

  Finally the scoundrel came skidding to a stop in front of us. He flopped onto his side, panting mightily, tail thumping. I think we were all astonished and puzzled by his behavior.

  “Now why did he do that?” Ursi wondered.

  Father pressed a knuckle to his bristly mustache, probably to hide a smile. “I suspect he may have been celebrating,” he said.

  I think it occurred simultaneously to all of us that we had made no preparations to feed and water our adoptee. It was decided a wooden bowl of water would be temporarily provided along with leftovers from our Sunday dinner and supper. Hobo would not suffer from malnutrition for one day, and mother and Ursi promised to go shopping for him on the morrow. They planned to purchase everything a healthy hound might desire: a supply of food, bowls, brush, comb, flea-and-tick spray, and perhaps a rawhide bone to exercise his molars.

  “And some treats,” mama said happily. “Little biscuits and nibbles. Things like that.”

  “But no gumdrops,” I warned.

  She stared at me. “Archy,” she said, “I never know when you’re joking.”

  “All the time, darling,” I said, and hugged her.

  My parents and Ursi went indoors. Jamie and I introduced Hobo to his new condo, beckoning him forward to examine the doghouse formerly occupied by Max. The strange dwelling didn’t spook him at all and I was convinced the kid was fearless. He poked his head through the doorway, looked around a moment, then slowly entered. I leaned down to see what he was doing. Just sniffing, inspecting the premises he had inherited. Then he came bouncing out, tail wagging.

  We took him on a tour of the McNally domain and he followed along happily, occasionally frisking ahead. He explored the garage, potting shed, and greenhouse. Apparently he found nothing to which to object. We have a low stone wall bordering Ocean Boulevard and he could have leaped it easily. I pointed to the traffic speeding by and said, “No! No!” as sharply as I could. I hoped he understood he was not to venture onto the highway to chase cars.

  We returned to the main house and I left him in Jamie’s care. The two seemed to have formed an instant rapport, and I wondered how long it would be before Hobo was smoking a pipe and drinking aquavit.

  I went up to my snuggery to relax before dinner. I was happy the adoption of Hobo had been glitchless. I hadn’t mentioned it but I did hope the others would not attempt to teach tricks to our new family member. I mean it’s quite sensible to train a dog to obey simple commands such as Stay, Heel, and Sit. Even Fetch. But when it comes to such things as Shake Hands and Play Dead, I object. It’s an insult to a dog’s dignity, making him exhibit his total serfdom. If your boss commanded you to lie down and roll over, what would be your reaction? Exactly.

  Dinner was short ribs of beef, which everyone agreed was a fortuitous choice. The bones, rinsed free of a delightful red wine sauce, would keep Hobo content for the remainder of the day. I even added a single small macaroon just to convince him he had arrived at a canine Ritz.

  I postponed the usual après-Sunday dinner nap to add a few lines to my journal describing the curious conversation with Ricardo Chrisling the previous evening. I also jotted a separate note to remind myself to call Mr. Hiram Gottschalk the first thing Monday morning to set up a meeting.

  I finished those minor chores and was about to collapse onto the mattress for a few hundred welcome winks when my phone destroyed that hope. Ah-ha! I thought. Connie Garcia is calling to apologize for her unseemly behavior. Not quite.

  “Archy McNally?” A sultry female voice.

  “I am indeed. And you?”

  “Judith Gottschalk.”

  A short, shocked pause. Then I said, “Judith! How nice to hear from you.”

  “I got your number from daddy. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all.”

  “Listen, you live on the beach, don’t you?”

  “Practically in the sea.”

  “It’s such a gorgeous day I’d love to take a dip.”

  “Of course,” I said bravely. “And Julia?”

  “She’s got the sniffles or something. Maybe the flu. She plans to spend the day in bed.”

  “What a shame,” I said, resisting the urge to ask, “With whom?”

  “Could I pop over for an hour or so? Just long enough to get wet.”

  “Come along,” I said, not terribly enthused at the prospect.

  “Got any bubbly?” she asked in a tone implying that if I didn’t I was a hopeless dolt.

  “I think I might be able to find a bottle,” I said, a bit miffed by her peremptory demand.

  “Do try,” she said. “See you in thirty minutes or so.”

  She hung up and I sighed. But then I reflected that an afternoon with one of the twins might prove more productive than entertaining both at the same time. Encouraged, I went downstairs to the pantry, found a bottle of Korbel brut, an excellent wine, and popped it into the freezer for a quick chill along with two plastic cups. Then I climbed up to my aerie again.

  I changed to swimming trunks imprinted with portraits of the Pink Panther and added a cover-up of aubergine terry. I slid my feet into flip-flops and picked up a beach towel.

  I flip-flopped downstairs and waited at the kitchen door until I saw the blue M-B come charging into our driveway, skidding to a halt with a scattering of gravel. Judith Gottschalk alighted, then leaned back inside to retrieve a beach bag and an enormous pagoda-shaped hat of fawny linen. She was wearing a gauzy cover-up beneath which the eagle-eyed McNally discerned the world’s tiniest bikini, in a calico pattern. If my father had observed her arrival from his study window I reckoned his eyebrows had ascended to his hairline.

  I plucked the Korbel and plastic cups from the freezer and went out to greet her. She gave me an air kiss and then examined my offering.

 
; “But it’s domestic,” she said in a snippety tone approaching outrage.

  I refused to be offended by her pettishness. I glanced at the label. “Jumping Jehoshaphat, so it is!” I exclaimed with shocked chagrin. “I could have sworn I selected a bottle of an ’83 Krug. Well, it’s chilled, so I’m afraid we’ll have to make do. Shall we go to the beach?”

  She pouted. I don’t think she was accustomed to having her desires thwarted—or even diluted. The Gottschalk twins, I decided, were enamored of the lush life and expected it as their due.

  We went down to the strand and scouted three locations before Judith approved of a spot to spread my beach towel. I saw no difference in any of the places; sand is sand is sand. But that’s a characteristic of pooh-bahs and would-be pooh-bahs. Observe their behavior in a restaurant; they will never accept the first table offered by the maître d’.

  Finally we were settled, I opened the bottle of champers, and we each had a cupful. At least she had the grace to murmur, “Very nice.” Then we went down to the sea, which proved a mite chilly but still held just enough summer warmth to be more invigorating than uncomfortable.

  Judith was not a swimmer; that was obvious. She was more of a dunker, careful not to get her hair wet. She was also a bobber. You’ve seen them I’m sure. They stand in waist-high water and bob up and down, occasionally slapping their shoulders and upper arms vigorously.

  I did nothing but get my knees wet while I watched Judith cavort. I was, I admit, a bit put out by her behavior and kept my distance. Not exactly Miss Congeniality, was she? She finally emerged from the briny and strigiled water from her torso and legs with her palms.

  “That was divine,” she said.

  I was happy she approved of the Atlantic Ocean.

  She strolled ahead of me back to our spread. I studied her lilting walk in the minuscule bikini plastered to tanned and glistening hide. Poetry in motion? Yes indeedy. But whether it was a sonnet or a limerick I could not have said.

  We drank more Korbel and she opened her beach bag to extract a package of rice cakes. She offered me one and I politely took a bite.

  “Good?” she asked.

  “Appetizing,” I responded, thinking it was about as tasty as I imagined a coprolite would be.

  She lay on her back, stretched out like a gleaming starfish. She placed her hat over face and head. I lay propped on my side examining her attractive carcass with more than prurient interest. I found it: a small black mole, no larger than an aspirin tablet, nestled low on the left side of her flat abdomen. I restrained myself and didn’t shout, “Eureka!” or even, “Hoover!” But I believed I had solved one small equation: Mole equaled Judith.

  “So, Archy,” she said, voice muffled by her hat, “what have you been up to?”

  “This and that,” I said, and then revealed something I hoped might provoke a reaction. “I had a drink with Ricardo Chrisling last night.”

  “Whatever for?” she said, disdain curdling her voice. “The man is a viper, definitely a viper.” Pause. Then: “I hope you won’t tell him I said so.”

  “Not me,” I assured her. “Discretion is my stock-in-trade.”

  She removed her hat and donned mirrored sunglasses to look at me. At least I think she was looking at me. With those specs it was hard to tell.

  “Archy,” she said, “did you talk to your father? About what my sister and I told you—how crazy daddy has been acting lately.”

  “I haven’t had a chance to inform him as yet,” I confessed. “But I fully intend to.”

  “You absolutely must,” she said firmly. “We cannot let it go on and maybe get worse.”

  That had an ominous tone but I made no reply. Shortly thereafter she announced she wished to leave, and so we did. A very perplexing few hours. I mean I really didn’t understand the reason for Judith’s unexpected visit. It may have been quite innocent; she merely yearned for a brief ocean dunk. I did not think so.

  That night before retiring I was still puzzling over our short encounter. Two things gradually surfaced from the bowl of Grape Nuts I call my brain.

  First: Judith had referred with obvious malevolence to Ricardo Chrisling as a viper. It would certainly suggest the twins were not joined with Ricardo in some adroit plot against Hiram Gottschalk. Coconspirators rarely malign each other, do they?

  Second: Was it really Judith Gottschalk with whom I had spent a not very exciting afternoon? Judith with the abdominal mole. She had said Julia was home with the sniffles. But could I have been deluded and was it actually Julia I had watched bobbing in the sea? Julia with the mole.

  It was a crossword puzzle with no clues.

  CHAPTER 14

  I MAY HAVE SET A personal record for oversleeping on Monday morning. By the time my dreams of Rita Hayworth had evaporated and I awoke, it was nudging ten o’clock and I muttered a mild oath. I staggered to the window and peered out. A gummy day with a ponderous iron sky pressing down and all the palm fronds hanging limply. I seriously considered returning to Rita for another hour.

  But there was work to be done, Western Civilization to be saved, and so I went through my usual morning routine, still somewhat somnolent. I was tugging on a lovat polo shirt that seemed distressingly snug, when my phone pealed. I glared at it, wondering what fool would call at such an outrageous hour. The fool was my father.

  “Archy?” The tone was cold.

  “Yes, sir,” I said, expecting he would demand to know why I had not yet appeared at my place of employment.

  “Hiram Gottschalk was killed last night,” he said, speaking rapidly. “Sergeant Rogoff informed me a few moments ago. He says it is clearly a case of homicide. He will be contacting you later. I want you to tell him everything you know about our late client’s fear for his life and whatever you may have discovered in your discreet inquiry. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, father,” I said faintly, and he hung up abruptly.

  I just stood there, trembling. My drowsiness had vanished to be replaced by a sadness so intense I could scarcely endure it. And guilt of course. If I had worked harder, if I had moved faster, if... if... if... But I had failed and the man was dead.

  I collapsed at my desk. I could not bring myself to make a journal note of my failure. Instead I read and reread the note I had scrawled to myself to set up a meeting with Hiram Gottschalk as soon as possible. I was about to destroy that punishing reminder but then propped it up against my rack of reference books. I wanted to view it continually. “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”

  “You better believe it,” I saith aloud.

  I knew it would be useless to call Sgt. Rogoff. He was probably at the crime scene and would phone when he had completed the details of opening a homicide investigation. I could think of nothing I might do at the moment but mourn. I surrendered to that, had a tasteless breakfast, and drove slowly through a sticky morning to my cubicle in the McNally Building on Royal Palm Way.

  I wondered, not for the first time, if I was temperamentally suited for my chosen profession. Perhaps I should open a small haberdashery or seek employment as a waiter in a restaurant with enough chic to offer Grand Marnier soufflé. “Hello! My name is Archy and I shall be your serving person this evening.” Any job would do in which violent death was not routine. I am essentially a peaceable chap with, I admit, a dollop of timidity.

  I smoked much too much that morning, remembering Mr. Hiram Gottschalk, recalling our brief conversations, and realizing how much I liked him, really liked him. He was capricious, no doubt about it, but there was no malice in him and whatever his sins I did not believe they deserved murder. I hoped Sgt. Rogoff would phone and suggest we get together to exchange information. But my only call came from Binky Watrous, who sounded as shaky as I felt.

  “Archy,” he said, almost wailing, “did you hear what happened?”

  “Yes, I heard.”

  “It’s terrible,” he lamented. “Just terrible. He was a nice man, Archy.”

  “I know
. Where are you calling from, Binky?”

  “The store. We’re closed for business of course. But we’re all here. The birds have to be fed and the cages cleaned. But it’s all so sad. The girls are crying. I feel like joining them. Do you ever cry, Archy?”

  “Only at weddings.”

  “Listen, Ricardo called and told us to close up early. I guess he’s in command now. So we’re going to lock up and go out to lunch together. Do you want to come along?”

  “Thank you, no, Binky. I’m waiting for a phone call.”

  “Archy, when you told me to get a job at Parrots Unlimited you said it was part of a discreet inquiry. Does Hiram’s murder have anything to do with it?”

  “Possibly,” I said cautiously. “I won’t know until I learn more about what happened.”

  “Then you’ll tell me, won’t you? I mean I am your lackey, cleaning out cages and all that, so I have a right to know.”

  “Of course you do,” I agreed. “And so you shall. Now get off the line like a good lad and maybe the call I’m awaiting will come through.”

  He hung up but my phone didn’t ring again that morning. I packed it in around one o’clock and went home for lunch. I was in no mood for the conviviality of the Pelican Club. It seemed to me indecent to seek companionship as a quick fix for my melancholia. Mirabile dictu, I found a cure on the grounds of the McNally duchy.

  I dismounted from the Miata and heard the fast scrabble of claws on gravel. I turned to look and Hobo came racing around the corner of the garage. He skidded to a halt in front of me, panting, and jumped up to put paws on my knees. He seemed happy and he made me happy. What did he know of failure and murder most foul? He was just glad to see me and I blessed him, leaning to stroke his ears and scratch his hindquarters, which made him squirm with delight.

  “Hobo,” I told him, “you are a canine Samaritan and I thank you.”

  Jamie Olson came ambling up, gripping his old briar. His creased features wrinkled even more as he gave me a gap-toothed grin.

  “That’s some beast,” he said.

  I looked at him. “Don’t tell me Hobo found the raccoon.”