McNally's Alibi

by Lawrence Sanders

  I had missed the early news and cocktails, but I was on time to enjoy one of Ursi’s masterpieces. Dinner at eight was a fact, not a clever comedy, in the McNally abode. Served in the formal dining room, the meal was accompanied by damask, Sevres, Sheffield and stemware that exploded if foolishly put in the dishwasher. When it came to the culinary arts and its proper service, Prescott McNally did not stint. When it came to portraying the squire enjoying the comforts of the Hall, father had no peer, because he didn’t see it as an act but as his due.

  I think, therefore I am. Conversely, I am whatever I think, and Prescott McNally thinks he is a nineteenth-century squire trapped in a twenty-first-century body, screaming to be freed.

  When Ursi’s fare is not strictly American, it tends toward the French with a definite Scandinavian touch; in other words, dieters beware. Tonight she treated us to grilled veal chops served with a red Bordeaux reduction, fingerling potatoes sautéed in lemon and garlic and baby green peas accented with the tiniest of pearl onions and fresh chopped dill. The pain was Ursi’s own sourdough served with room-temperature plugra butter, and the wine, from father’s cellar, was a white Hermitage from the Rhone Valley.

  With espresso brewed from freshly ground beans, Ursi brought in her famous chocolate mousse served with whipped cream and a handful of fresh berries. Being the true scion of a faux squire did have its perks. Table conversation was confined to the weather, mother’s begonias and father’s lunch date with a new client. Archy’s love life was neither mentioned nor alluded to, thus enabling me to declare the evening banquet a modest, if not a roaring, success. At this point in my life, less roar and more modesty is okay with me.

  Knowing father and I would rally in the den as soon as mother bid us good night, I delayed my after-dinner smoke until I had poured out our port, while father carefully snipped off the end of his cigar and began the lengthy business of putting torch to tobacco. Sinking into a comfortable chair covered in Morocco leather, I lit my English Oval and knew contentment on a day sorely lacking in compassion for the oppressed.

  Before my meeting with Claudia Lester I had given father a brief account of my interview with Officer O’Hara. Now I reported in detail on my meetings with both O’Hara and Lester. He listened attentively while stroking his mustache, and when I finished he nodded thoughtfully and asked, “Do you believe the Lester woman?”

  “I have no reason not to believe her, sir, but past experience tells me not to trust her. I would like to hear Harrigan’s side of the story, but that doesn’t seem possible at this juncture.”

  “If Harrigan is gone,” father said, “it would appear he ran off with the money and the manuscript, as the lady stated. Why else run? What I don’t understand is why he murdered Swensen. If Harrigan did drug Swensen and put him in the bathroom to get him out of the way for your visit, all he had to do was follow you out, get the manuscript back and take off. Why kill the poor man after rendering him senseless?”

  It was a point that had long preyed on my mind. Why drug a man before killing him? To render the victim unable to defend himself was the only logical answer. Now father had posed an even more interesting enigma. Why kill the man after drugging him? If all Harrigan wanted to do was get away with Swensen’s money and the manuscript, a drugged Swensen was as incapable of stopping him as a dead Swensen. Not even a hardened criminal, which I was certain Harrigan was not, would leave himself open to a murder charge when he could achieve his goal without resorting to that most abhorrent of crimes.

  Why was Swensen drugged and murdered? That was the rub. But as Sigmund liked to say, “Once we know the problem, the solution is easy.” And as Archy likes to say, “From your lips to God’s ear, Ziggy.”

  Puffing away happily, I couldn’t help but envy the length of father’s cigar. My English Oval seemed to be shrinking at an alarming rate.

  “The answer to that, sir,” I expounded, “would go a long way in solving the crime. One reason for murder is to silence the victim. Did Swensen know something Harrigan, and perhaps Claudia Lester, did not want made public? If so, it would have to do with the manuscript. What Swensen’s murder does tell us is that we don’t know diddly-squat about these people, their game and how far they would go to win.”

  Father stroked his mustache. “While I find your language unnecessarily colorful, Archy, I do get the point, but what if this Whitehead, the unethical auction house representative, wanted to silence Swensen? How do we know Swensen wasn’t alive and conveniently drugged when Whitehead arrived on the scene?”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” I answered truthfully. “But, yet again, it doesn’t make sense. If the money and the manuscript were gone, why kill Swensen after the fact? It wouldn’t save Whitehead’s job if the story of the manuscript fiasco went public. And don’t forget, he didn’t have to call the police. He could have beat it when he saw the body and left it for the cleaning lady to trip over the next morning. Fact is, Whitehead put himself in jeopardy by reporting the murder.”

  “He also put Harrigan and you in harm’s way,” father added. “Remember, Whitehead said he found Swensen dead. The murder was committed earlier, when both you and Harrigan were in the fatal room. There’s no honor among thieves, Archy.”

  Silence followed. I took a final puff and doused my cigarette in the ashtray as father tapped ash off his cigar that still had more miles on it than there are minutes in an hour. I would overcome, but there was little joy in the resolve.

  I sipped my port. Father, seated behind his desk and perhaps eager to begin his nightly voyage back in time, fingered a beautifully bound copy of Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities. “I don’t think the police consider you a likely suspect,” he said, as if the thought had just popped into his head. “But that doesn’t put you in the clear. You’re still the only person they can place in that room before the body was discovered. Harrigan’s presence there depends on your testimony. They could build a case against you, but it wouldn’t be easy.”

  If that was a pep talk, it missed the mark, but knowing that father was thinking one step ahead of the police was reassuring. “Thank you, sir. But even being an unlikely suspect is too close for comfort. If Claudia Lester tells O’Hara the true story, and I believe she will, Fortesque is going to be pulled into the charade, which will lead right back to me. O’Hara is going to know I was holding out on her. She asked me why Lester hired me to go to the Crescent, and I told her the truth as I knew it last night.”

  Father shook his head woefully. “The police consider the sin of omission more mortal than venial, I’m afraid.”

  Knowing it would please him, I said, “I did it to protect Fortesque. I didn’t know anything about the murder when I talked to Fortesque. I wanted to consult with my client before I handed him over to Officer O’Hara. That’s my job.”

  “So it is,” father answered, “and you did the right thing, but doing what is right is not always in our own best interest. All we can do is hope that justice will triumph. What’s your next move, Archy?”

  “I want to sit down with Fortesque, tell him everything that’s happened and see if he can shed any light on the situation. Then I’m going to see O’Hara and throw myself at the mercy of the court.”

  I was rewarded with a smile. “Very good, Archy. Now pour us a tad more of the port and then off with you. I have work to do.”

  Over the tad of port father commented, “By the by, Archy, if Capote was commissioned by his publisher to write this book and given an advance on the work, I believe they are the rightful owners of the manuscript.”

  “A Voice from the Grave” was what I dubbed my latest discreet inquiry. It was a clear reference to the late Capote’s ability to stir up trouble and speculation for a second time with his notorious peek into the life and times of the rich and famous. The inquiry, I’m afraid, was going to be less than discreet when the tabloids got hold of this story, and subsequent events, unrelated to the case, would give an eerie relevance to that ghostly title.

 
I keep a journal of my cases not for the IRS or with any thought to publishing, but as a relaxing means of viewing the events of the day and perhaps seeing something I had missed along the way. Academics are told to publish or perish. Were I to go public with my journal, it would be more a matter of publish and perish. People come to me because they don’t want to bare their souls to the police, as that route is usually one step away from a tabloid headline.

  Ignominy being the prevailing atmosphere of my trade, I had picked up more tales of sex, lies and betrayal during my years of pounding the Palm Beach beat than Capote had amassed over all those lunches at La Cote Basque. However, I knew better than to shake down the hand that picked up the tab, a lesson poor Tru had not learned in time to save his career, which, like many artists of his volatile temperament, would be indistinguishable from his life.

  I listed my dramatis personae in the order I had encountered them either in person or, as with Rodney Whitehead, by word of mouth, which put Georgia O’Hara next to last. Simply writing her name caused me to pause in my work to light my fourth and last cigarette of the day before continuing to pen my memoirs.

  When the reverie—which I refuse to relate, thank you—drifted languidly toward the ceiling along with the last cloud of blue smoke from my English Oval, I recorded the events of the last twenty-four hours and felt the bump on my head. I closed by listing the questions that needed to be addressed and those that needed better answers than had been given.

  Why did Claudia Lester hire me as her “bagman”?

  Why was Lawrence Swensen drugged before he was strangled?

  Why was Lawrence Swensen strangled?

  Was Lawrence Swensen dead when Rodney Whitehead entered unit number nine at the Crescent Motel?

  Was Lawrence Swensen dead when I exchanged the money for the manuscript with Matthew Harrigan?

  Who knocked me out and relieved me of the manuscript?

  Did Fortesque know more than he had told me?

  Did Claudia Lester tell me all she knew?

  Those were the problems, but, Ziggy notwithstanding, I foresaw no easy solution.

  I washed my puss, brushed my pearlies, got into my X-large T-shirt, which I wear as a nightie, got into bed and contemplated my potential captor.

  Georgia O’Hara was a lovely lass, in spite of the uniform—or was it because of the uniform? No doubt but that I was quite taken with Officer O’Hara, and unless I was very mistaken I think my feelings were reciprocated. She said she knew my vital statistics from the silly eligible-bachelors book, and so had probably anticipated our meeting with more than just a lawman’s curiosity in getting a first look at a possible suspect.

  Did I five up to her expectations? Well, when I asked if she was in the market for a husband she responded by asking if I was applying for the job. Not exactly a brush-off. Was I reading too much into foolish banter? I think not, because, as someone said, many a true word is spoken in jest.

  You may ask how I dare entertain such thoughts while actively committed to beseeching Connie Garcia, on bended knee if necessary, to abandon her Cuban freedom fighter and return to me, body and soul. Well, as always when pondering intangibles, I turn to the sages of our age who, with a word or the turn of a phrase, can tickle our funny bone, tug on our heartstrings, kindle our emotions and, ultimately, soothe the savage beast. Need I say I speak of our tunesmiths?

  I ran through my vast repertoire of sheet music, passing Berlin, Hart, Porter and Gershwin, before coming upon the solution to tonight’s quandary in the person of the master of the witty lyric, Jerry Herman. Jerry reminded me that in man’s quest for romance he should waive propriety in favor of variety. Bless you, Jerry Herman.

  My need to court the raven-haired Connie while seeking the affections of the blond Georgy was not an aberration. It was the norm. More proof? Herman also advises “Instead of one dandy dish, pass him the candy dish.” With that, I am exonerated of all charges of caddishness. I can stretch, yawn, stroke my cheek and greet the Sandman who comes to me humming “Georgia on My Mind.”

  The next morning, when I drove into our underground garage, Herb signaled me to approach his glass cage. When I got there, he handed me an envelope. “A man brought this first thing this morning. He said to give it to you as soon as you came in. I told him you don’t always get here at nine and sometimes you don’t get here at all.”

  Taking the envelope, I thanked Herb and said it wasn’t necessary to give my itinerary to messengers who didn’t know enough to use the front door. “I am often on covert business,” I reminded him.

  With a wink, Herb replied, “Mrs. Trelawney says you’re more often on monkey business.”

  If I had someplace to go, they would all miss me when I was gone. Not wanting to read my mail before Herb’s prying eyes, I went back to the Miata and opened the envelope. The note was handwritten and brief.

  “If you want to know what happened at the Crescent Motel the other night, check out the fresh vegetables at the Publix supermarket on Sunset Avenue before noon.”

  Zounds!

  10

  I GAVE HERB A toot as I sped out to meet my mysterious informer. Unless a new recruit had joined our troop, I believed I was on my way to meet with Rodney Whitehead in the produce section of the Publix market, but why the cloak-and-dagger sham was beyond my ken. I said that when Al Rogoff and I felt the need to meet clandestinely our venue was often the Publix parking lot; however, I had never set foot in the popular emporium and hoped I was properly dressed for my debut.

  Plotting my revenge for Connie’s open liaison with Alejandro, I had chosen jealousy as my strategy and Georgy O’Hara as my secret weapon. Not wishing to camouflage my mission, and as a precursor of coming events, I had stepped out rather smartly this morning in my dress greens. Forest-green twill trousers, Nile-green polo shirt of Sea Island cotton, bottle-green ultrasuede jacket, and a green felt porkpie hat. My combat boots were tassled white loafers with no socks, of course. To be sure, this garb was strictly for parading. I had a duffel bag full of togs for when we went into the trenches.

  The Publix offers valet parking (really!), which I eschewed, commandeering one of the many empty spaces. I entered the complex with great apprehension. Would I meet anyone I knew, like our Ursi? Lord forbid. Connie? Even worse. And what about Georgy O’Hara on the prowl for melon squeezers? A moment later I found myself in a fluorescent-lit horn of plenty. Aisle after aisle stacked with edibles in tins, boxes, jars and colorful plastics met my gaze. Ladies in capri pants, men in shorts, housekeepers in uniform, blue collars, white collars and collars trimmed in mink maneuvered their carts without the aid of traffic signals or crossing guards.

  So this is it, I thought. The great American leveler, where the classes in our classless society come together to see, be seen and forage. Being the most public of all public places, I could see why my informant had chosen a supermarket for a surreptitious meeting. The best place to hide a book is in a library.

  The produce section was big and lush. Freshly washed fruits and vegetables glistened with beads of moisture like the flora in a rain forest. Except for the occasional grape tomato, I am not a crudités enthusiast, but I will admit the display made me think about lunch, which was the rationale for the bountiful presentation. You may think it strange for a gourmand like myself not to be a habitué of food markets, but would a concert violinist hang around a catgut factory?

  A pint-sized monster riding shotgun in a cart glided past me and pointed: “Look, mommy, there’s the Jolly Green Giant.” Impudent little bugger. Children should be neither seen nor heard, was my credo. Perhaps that was why I had not been blessed, as the blessed liked to say. Funny, I always thought it was because I was lucky.

  As the imp moved up the aisle, I saw a familiar face coming down the aisle. Was this possible? When Matthew Harrigan approached and said, “You remember me?” I knew it was.

  Matthew looked a bit worse for wear. He hadn’t shaved this morning, and his clothes, jeans and a white Lac
oste, were not exactly April fresh. He was actually pushing a cart that contained a can of baked beans. With a toss of his head he ordered, “Let’s look like we’re shopping,” even before I had a chance to reply to his greeting. I have never seen a man look and act more like a fugitive.

  Still not giving me a chance to speak, he blabbed as we began to stroll aimlessly, “I didn’t kill Swensen, if that’s what she told you.”

  Enough being enough, I stopped walking and put a restraining hand on his cart. “First,” I began, “is your name Matthew Harrigan and are you an associate of Claudia Lester, doing business in Palm Beach with Decimus Fortesque?”

  “So she told you everything,” he said, looking around as if in search of a hidden microphone or camcorder. “Okay, I’m Matthew Harrigan and I’m Claudia’s patsy, that’s what I am.” He tugged on my arm. “Keep moving. I know you’re here alone, because I’ve been watching you since you came in, but let’s not attract attention by blocking the aisles.” He removed a box of cereal from the shelf and put it in the cart.

  This was all inane and pointless, but I figured the best reaction to his hysteria was to go with the flow and hear him out. “Why didn’t you call my office and meet me there? Don’t you think this is a bit dramatic, to say the least?”

  “I was going to do just that,” he answered, adding two cans of tuna fish to our collection while ignoring the sign that said TODAY’S SPECIAL 3 FOR $5. “Then I heard about Swensen on the news last night, and it’s in the morning papers. I’m wanted for murder, mister—and keep moving.”

  “You’re wanted for questioning,” I said. “There’s a difference. And why didn’t you keep running after you accosted me in the Crescent parking lot? Why did you come back if you knew the police were looking for you?”