McNally's Alibi

by Lawrence Sanders

  “Did your lousy night take place at the Crescent Motel out toward Juno?” he asked.

  My knees began to buckle, but I refused to reach for a chair. “And what makes you think I was at the Crescent Motel last night?” I asked as if I didn’t know.

  “Because a resident of that renowned establishment saw a red Miata pull in the guest parking area about nine last night and leave an hour or so later. I’m calling all the guys I know who own a red Miata.”

  Murphy’s Law! As provable as it is unscientific. The one time I don’t rent a nondescript black sedan to work a job is the one time I am seen coming and going as if I were wearing a neon tag flashing ARCHY MCNALLY in cerise.

  “So what’s the big deal, Al? Was the place raided? Are the vice boys now looking to harass respectable citizens? I was visiting a friend.”

  “Was your friend in unit number nine, Archy?”

  I pulled a chair away from the mahogany conference table and sat. “Who wants to know, Sergeant?”

  “Homicide, that’s who. They found a body in numero nueve.”

  “A dead body, Al?”

  “Let me put it this way, pal. When they shoved him into the icebox at the morgue, he didn’t ask for a blanket.”

  My forehead was damp, my heart was going thump, thump, thump, and a chill was running up and down my spine. It was either the flu, thrombosis or a panic attack. “I was on a case, Al,” I explained hopefully. “And when I left unit nine the man I went to see was very alive.”

  “Hey, pal,” Al groaned, “I ain’t looking for no alibi offa you. Tell it to O’Hara.”

  “Who?” I cried, certain it wasn’t Scarlett.

  “George O’Hara. The officer on the case,” he explained. “Look, Archy, when I got off duty this morning I saw the APB and figured it was you they was looking for. O’Hara must have already contacted the motor vehicle people and will have a list of all the red Miata owners in Florida. You should be hearing from him within the hour. I’m calling as a favor to a friend.”

  “Thanks, Al. It’s appreciated,” I assured him.

  “No charge. I’m a public servant.”

  “I guess I should call O’Hara. It’ll show him I want to cooperate.”

  “It can’t hurt, Archy. But remember, it’s usually the guy what done it that volunteers information.”

  “That’s encouraging,” I said. “So who found the body?”

  “Don’t know. You’ll have to ask O’Hara. All I know is it was reported about fifteen minutes after ten. If you didn’t ice the guy, Archy, you were the last person to see him alive.”

  “You’re all heart, Sergeant. Do you have O’Hara’s number?”

  Reaching for a pad and pencil, I took down the number and told Al to get some sleep. Instead of George O’Hara I got a brash young man who identified himself as Trooper Swathmoore. When I told him who was calling, he said, “You just saved the state of Florida two bits, Mr. McNally. I was about to call you.”

  “I understand Officer O’Hara would like to speak to me,” I told him.

  “You understand correct. Georgy isn’t here right now, but if I contacted you I was told to request that you come in at two this afternoon for an interview.”

  “Request?” I ventured. “Does that mean I have a choice, Officer Swathmoore? You see, I have a conflicting engagement.”

  “It’s your call, sir. You can come here at two or we can come to pretty Palm Beach and bring you in.”

  Swathmoore was a barrel of laughs. “Where is here?” I surrendered.

  His directions placed their barracks not far from the Crescent Motel. It told me why they were first on the scene. I said goodbye to Swathmoore and without putting down the phone called Connie. If she was heartbroken over not seeing me for lunch, she spared me her sorrow. “I’ll be sensible and share a fruit salad with Lady C.”

  “I hate to do this, Connie, but I have to see a policeman about a murder.”

  “Sounds like more fun than a burger and suds at the Pelican. Anyone I know?” she questioned.

  “It’s not a cop from Palm Beach,” I said. “He’s a state trooper.”

  “I didn’t mean the cop, Archy. I meant do I know the person you murdered?”

  Everyone was a comedian—at my expense. “It’s not a joke, Connie. I’m a suspect.”

  “Dearheart, you have always been suspect,” she countered.

  Quitting while I was behind, I asked if she was free for dinner.

  “I’m washing my hair tonight,” she said.

  “You washed your hair last night,” I reminded her.

  “Did I? I forgot. Now I must go. Do keep in touch.”

  When I emerged from the conference room, Mrs. Trelawney did a double take and said, “Are you all right? Your tan seems to have faded since last we met.”

  “I’ve felt better, but unfortunately I think I’ll live. Is father still free?”

  “He is. And he’s expecting you.” Never able to stem her curiosity, she asked, “Did Sergeant Rogoff have disquieting news?”

  “You might say that, Mrs. Trelawney, and I’m sure you’ll read all about it in the morning papers.” Leaving her to seethe over that one, I knocked once and entered the inner sanctum and the nineteenth century. Father’s office looks as if the furnishings came from the capricious shops on South Dixie Highway in West Palm, an area that has gone through urban gentrification and been christened Antique Row. It included a rolltop desk but not Queen Victoria looking down accusingly from a framed portrait. Father did once refer to Palm Beach and West Palm as “a tale of two cities.”

  “Well, Archy?” he said as I took my chair.

  I began with the good news and worked my way down. Father looked pleased when I told him we could now place Decimus Fortesque on our billing roster; pensive when I told him all that had transpired since taking on Claudia Lester as a client; concerned when I reported being attacked at the Crescent Motel; alarmed when I told him what I had learned from Al Rogoff.

  “Murder?” he questioned in disbelief. “You’re assaulted and the man you went there to see is found dead minutes later? There’s more to this, Archy, than two fools chasing after some penny-dreadful novel that may not even exist. I want you to tell the police all you know and have done with both Claudia Lester and Decimus Fortesque.”

  For those who are not scholars of nineteenth-century literature, a penny dreadful was the pulp fiction of the time—and poor Capote must be turning over in his grave. However, I will say I was elated by father’s concern for my safety even at the expense of losing a viable client.

  “I appreciate your counsel, sir, and your apprehension regarding the ethics of my clients, but I don’t think Fortesque is capable of anything more than vicarious lechery, and I want to stay on the case if only to protect him from himself. I’ll reserve judgment on Claudia Lester until I hear her side of the story.”

  “You think she’ll contact you?” father asked.

  “Me or Fortesque,” I answered. “She has too much at stake to disappear completely.”

  Father leaned forward and asked, “How much time did you spend in that confounded motel room?”

  “Ten—fifteen minutes, at most.”

  “If you got there at nine and left at ten, or a few minutes after ten, you must have been unconscious for more than thirty minutes.” He spoke like a lawyer building his case.

  “It was a heavy blow, sir.”

  “No doubt,” he said, “but do you realize the precariousness of your position, Archy? You are seen entering the motel at nine and leaving at ten. The man you visited is found dead—murdered—a short time thereafter. If no one saw you being attacked in the parking area or witnessed another person entering that room, you are the prime suspect.”

  “My car was seen entering and leaving,” I countered. “I don’t know if anyone saw me enter and leave unit number nine. The evidence is circumstantial at best.”

  “If no one comes forth to say you were with them in a different room, an
d they obviously will not, you can’t prove you weren’t in unit nine, and I don’t want you to attempt any such thing.” This was the seasoned lawyer speaking. “The truth is your best defense, Archy, and men have been electrocuted on less circumstantial evidence.”

  On that cheerful note I pleaded my case. To wit: Let me speak to Officer O’Hara and see what the police know or suspect. I will tell them as much of the truth as I deem necessary at this point without jeopardizing my position. “In short, sir, I think we should play it by ear until we know more about the game and the players.”

  Father tugged at his mustache. “As you know, Archy, I am not a fan of your dilettante ways—now, hear me out before you shut your mind to my words—but I have always been impressed, and proud, of the way you have conducted yourself on behalf of McNally and Son. Your reputation as an investigator is above reproach and well deserved.

  Therefore, against my better judgment and concern for your well-being, I will allow you to continue with this case as you see fit if you keep me au courant, allow me to change my mind—and don’t breathe a word of this to your mother.”

  Deeply touched, I agreed to the terms and left his office feeling more confident than I had when I entered. I didn’t cotton to the dilettante label, but then I’m sure he didn’t enjoy being thought pompous. What mattered was that beneath the somewhat embellished epithets there existed a common bond between us that was as solid, if not always as transparent, as the glass-and-steel building that bore our family name.

  Emerging from his office, I tweaked our executive secretary’s prying mind with, “I’ll see you in court, Mrs. Trelawney.”

  “Has this anything to do with that Claudia Lester? I thought she looked fast.”

  “I refuse to answer on the grounds that it may tend to incriminate me. Ciao, bella.”

  “The only thing that can incriminate you, young man, is your expense report, and don’t bella me.”

  There were perhaps a dozen desks in the spacious room, all of them manned by men and women wearing the uniform of Florida’s state troopers. Some stared at computer screens, others shuffled printed matter from pile to pile and two whispered conspiratorially around the copy machine. The silence was terrifying.

  The nameplate on the reception desk told me I was one-on-one with Gary Swathmoore. The trooper sported a crew cut, a pug nose and freckles, a Norman Rockwell painting come to life. Given the somber atmosphere of the joint, I thought it wise to report in properly.

  “Archy McNally here to see Officer O’Hara.”

  Swathmoore gave me a wide grin and displayed his braces. “Glad you could make it, Mr. McNally.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Make a left at the copy machine, then it’s the first door on the right.”

  Not an eye followed me as I traversed the cavernous room, so why did I feel a dozen pinpricks boring into the back of my neck? The pair at the copy machine didn’t even flinch as I walked by, made the left turn and arrived at the first door on the right. There was another door farther along, and two more on the opposite side of the narrow hall. None of them bore any identifying markings, so I surmised that the rooms were used by any officer conducting a private interview.

  I knocked and heard a mumbled response. I opened the door and entered.

  George O’Hara was a green-eyed blonde with a movie star smile and a figure to match.

  “You look surprised,” she said.

  “I was expecting a man,” I stammered.

  “So was my father. His name is George. Mine is Georgia. Have a seat, Mr. McNally.”

  7

  “SO, MR. MCNALLY, YOU’RE a shamus,” she stated as I took the visitor’s chair.

  I hate that word, and I was sure she knew it. Compliments of my relationship with Al Rogoff and some prior experience, I knew the interviewing techniques of the law-enforcement branch of our republic. First the element of surprise, either by word or deed, to throw the guy in the hot seat off kilter. In O’Hara’s case, it was neither word nor deed but personal appearance that had achieved that goal, and I don’t think it was the first time the officer had taken advantage of this ploy.

  Swarthmoore had referred to her as Georgy, as she was probably called by her friends and colleagues. The name came, no doubt, from the film Georgy Girl, which was a few years before this Georgy’s time but popular with her parents’ generation. Al Rogoff had glanced at the APB fax bulletin after a long night on duty and, more interested in the red Miata than the issuing officer’s name, read Georgia as George. Given her career choice, I will go out on a political limb and call it a logical mistake.

  After surprise came demeaning the suspect, as in calling a prestigious investigator a shamus. When people are demeaned they are apt to respond with malice and say things they would not say when thinking clearly. I kept my cool—but not for long.

  “I’m the investigative arm of a law firm,” I informed her with all the pride I could muster given the reason for my presence.

  O’Hara glanced at a sheet of paper on her desk that might have contained my life history or the lunch schedule for the Juno barracks. “Yes,” she nodded, “with McNally and Son in Palm Beach. Are you the father or the son?”

  She was getting to me in leaps and bounds. “Do I look old enough to be the father?”

  She shrugged as if she couldn’t care less. “You’re certainly old enough to be a father.” She referred again to the paper on her desk. “But I forgot that you are one of Palm Beach’s eligible bachelors. I have the book.”

  “Are you looking for a husband, Officer O’Hara?”

  Her emerald eyes sparkling mischievously, she responded, “Are you applying for the position, Mr. McNally?”

  That fictional Georgia belle with the same family name was not a beautiful woman, but, her creator tells us, men seldom realized this when looking into her green eyes. This modern version was a beautiful woman, and real to boot.

  Going along with the breezy repartee, I quipped, “I’m flattered, but we just met.” Then, pointing at the printed page on her desk, I said, “But you seem to have found out a lot about me on very short notice.”

  “We have our methods,” she said. “And you seem to know a lot about our inquiry in the same space of time. Swathmoore told me you called him. How did you know we were looking for you?”

  “I have my methods,” I retaliated.

  She shook her head of blond hair that was pulled from her face and fastened from behind with a simple silver clip. The sun coming through the window behind her chair highlighted every strand, giving a specter-like appearance to her fine features. Did she let her hair down to dance in the moonlight like Terspichore or, given her calling, did she worship Diana, goddess of the hunt? Whichever, these were not the details a man should notice about his tormentor.

  “Let’s stop shadowboxing, Mr. McNally, and see if we can’t help each other. I take it you were at the Crescent on a case.”

  After surprise and demeaning came camaraderie. Befriend the suspect and lull him into a false sense of security. “Don’t be hasty, O’Hara. I may have been there on pleasure, not business.”

  “In and out in one hour? You’re a fast worker, Mr. McNally.” Now she was actually flirting.

  “Fast but thorough, I’m told.”

  “Who did you visit at the motel?” she demanded, going from flirt to interrogator in one giant step.

  “Matthew Harrigan.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “For business or pleasure, Mr. McNally?”

  The comeback was so swift, so filled with innuendo, I could feel myself blush. If this was a ball game, I had just made the first out. “Okay, I was on a case,” I admitted.

  “And what was the nature of your case?” she pitched.

  I caught it and tossed it back. “For now I will plead client confidentiality, and remember, I came here voluntarily.”

  “And saved us the trouble of coming for you. Did you see this Matthew Harrigan in unit number nine of the Crescent Motel?”

 
Remembering that I couldn’t prove I wasn’t in unit number nine, I followed father’s sage counsel and admitted to seeing Harrigan in that room. I had said I would play it by ear but now feared I was going deaf and had no idea where I, or she, would go from here. How much did O’Hara know? Did the person who had witnessed my Miata coming and going see me enter unit nine and leave ten minutes later? That, however, was now a moot question. Did anyone see me getting clobbered and the person who did it? “I was in the room no more than ten or fifteen minutes,” I told her in case she already knew.

  “What was your business with Harrigan?”

  “My business with Harrigan is the crux of my case, and I still ain’t saying,” I answered. “I will tell you that I went to the Crescent to make an exchange with Harrigan on behalf of my client. When the exchange was made, I left.”

  “Now, that’s interesting,” O’Hara said. “May I know what was exchanged for what?”

  “No, you may not,” I informed her, trying not to sound like a hostile witness. “We’re going round in circles, officer, and I’m getting dizzy. I gave Harrigan something, he gave me something. I left. That was my visit to the lovely Crescent Motel.”

  “I’ll take an educated guess and say you paid for something your client wanted. A late-night exchange in a one-star motel has blackmail written all over it.” This not-so-clever deduction seemed to please her.

  “There you go again, jumping to hasty conclusions.” I wagged a finger at Officer O’Hara. “I repeat, I conducted my business with Harrigan and left.” Almost as an afterthought I added, “Oh, yes, he was very much alive when I departed.”

  There was a large crystal ashtray on the desk, which O’Hara now pushed toward me. “You may smoke if you wish,” she invited.

  Yet another inquisitor’s ruse used primarily for two reasons, the first being that she wanted a smoke. Should I comply with the thoughtful gesture, she hoped I would offer her one of mine. In this way professional interviewers got more than they gave in more ways than one. Second, it was to stall for time. She didn’t know what to ask next, meaning she knew as much as I did, or less, about the murder at the Crescent Motel. This I took to be a good omen.