Laverne examined the chartreuse polish on her fingernails. "Well, Hertha is very gifted but she can't win them all. No medium can."
"Did she ever do your horoscope?"
"Sure she did. So what?"
"Did you tell her details about your personal life, about Meg and your parents?"
"Of course. Hertha has to know those things to draw your psychic profile."
"Uh-huh. Laverne, do you know a man named Charles Girard?"
"Nope," she said promptly. "Never heard of him. Who is he?"
"He may be one of the catnappers."
"No kidding?" she said. "How did you get on to him?"
"Any genius could have done it. Did you ever hear your husband mention him?"
"Not that I recall. You better ask Harry."
"I shall. Laverne, how long have you known the Glorianas?" "Oh, months and months. I guess it must be almost a year now."
"Where are they from-do you know?"
"Chicago, I think."
"Is Mrs. Irma Gloriana widowed or divorced?"
"Divorced. She said her ex lives in California somewhere with their daughter. Frank went with his mother, and the daughter lives with their father."
"How long have Hertha and Frank been married?"
"I think they said four years. Why all these questions about the Glorianas, Archy?"
I shrugged. "I find them interesting people. Mysterious."
"Mysterious?" She laughed. "Not very. They're just trying to grab the brass ring like everyone else."
"You grabbed it," I said boldly.
She wasn't offended. She looked around that scented chamber with satisfaction, then stroked the raised gold and silver design on her robe. "You bet your sweet ass I grabbed it," she said. "But I've paid my dues. By the way, Meg is back in town. She phoned me this morning. You going to see her again?"
From which I deduced that Meg hadn't told her sister about the seance she attended with me. Initially I was thankful for that, but then I realized that Laverne would probably learn about it from the Glorianas.
"Yes, I'd like to see her again," I said.
"Good boy," she said approvingly. "She has to learn that not all men are shitheads. Most, but not all."
I had been standing throughout this interview because Laverne hadn't invited me to sit down. I was weary of standing in one position and couldn't think of any additional questions to ask.
"Thank you for your help," I said. "I'll phone Harry and ask him if he knows Charles Girard."
"Where does Girard live?" she said casually. "Do you know?"
She shouldn't have asked that. I had suspected she might be lying when she denied knowing Charles Girard. Her question convinced me she knew very well who he was and now she was trying to discover how much I knew of him.
"Haven't the slightest idea," I said, furrowing the old brow. "But eventually I'll find him. And Peaches."
"Don't strain yourself, Archy," she advised. "What difference does it really make? Harry can easily afford the fifty grand they're asking."
"Laverne!" I protested. "Don't let your husband hear you say that. He wants his pet back without paying and he wants the catnappers strung up by their thumbs-or whatever other bodily appendages are handy."
"My husband," she repeated darkly. "What he wants and what he gets are two different things."
I figured that was a good moment to make my farewell, so I did. I drove home thinking that Laverne Willigan had more than ozone between her ears. She had lied glibly and shrewdly, I was certain of that, but what her motives were I wasn't yet sure.
And in addition to the Charles Girard business, she had given me another puzzle. Roderick Gillsworth had said Irma Gloriana was widowed. Laverne had just told me she was divorced. I couldn't believe Irma would give varying accounts of her background to different people; she was too clever for that.
Which meant that Gillsworth was lying or Laverne was lying.
Or both.
I used the phone in my father's study to call Harry Willigan. He greeted me with screams, and I had to wait until he ran out of breath before I could get in my question about Charles Girard.
"Never heard of the bozo," he bellowed and took up his ranting again.
I hung up softly, hoping he might continue for another five minutes before he realized he was raving into a dead phone.
I went upstairs and scribbled in my journal for more than an hour. The dossier on the Peaches-Gillsworth case was bulking up nicely, but I still could not see any pattern in all those disparate tidbits of information. Where was Xatyl now that I needed him?
I had returned from my ocean swim and was dressing for the evening when Al Rogoff called. He wasted no time on preliminaries.
"I've got some news for you," he said. "Interesting stuff."
"And I have a few choice morsels for you," I said. "When and where can we meet?"
"I'm up to my pipik in paperwork," he said. "I probably won't be able to get away until late. How about you coming over to my wagon around nine-thirty or so."
"Sounds good to me," I said. "Can I bring something to lubricate your tonsils?"
"Nah," he said, "I have a bottle of wine I'll pop. It's a naive domestic burgundy without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption."
"Thank you, Mr. Thurber," I said. "See you tonight."
That evening Ursi Olson served a Florida dinner of conch chowder, grilled swordfish and plantains with a mango salsa and hearts of palm salad. My father relented, and instead of a jug chablis he brought out a vintage muscadet, flinty hard.
I returned to my rooms after dinner and added a few more notes to my journal. Then I phoned Information and asked if they had a new listing for Margaret Trumble in Riviera Beach. They gave me the number and I called. I let it ring seven times before I hung up, wondering where she was. I don't know why I felt uneasy, but I did.
Then I grabbed up a golf jacket and went trotting out to the Miata. It was a super evening, clear and cool enough to sleep without air conditioning. But that night I didn't get much chance.
What Al Rogoff called his "wagon" was actually a mobile home set on a sturdy foundation in a park of similar dwellings off Belvedere Road. It was a pleasant place-lots of lawns and palm trees, a small swimming pool and a smaller recreation room.
Most of the residents were retirees, and I always suspected Al got a discount on his maintenance because the owner of the park liked the idea of having a cop on the premises. I mean if any villain got the idea of ripping off one of the mobile homes-and they didn't provide much security-he might think twice if he spotted a guardian of the law strolling around with a howitzer strapped to his hip.
Al's home was trim outside and snug inside. He had a living room, bedroom, kitchen, and bath, all in a row, like a railroad flat. He had decorated the place himself, and though nothing was lavish or even expensive, I thought it a very attractive and comfortable bachelor's pad-the kind of place where you could kick off your shoes and mellow out.
He had a bottle of wine chilled and uncorked when I arrived. But it wasn't a burgundy, it was an '87 Sterling cabernet. If you think it blasphemous to cool a good red like that, I must tell you that Floridi-ans customarily refrigerate even the most costly Bordeaux. We dine alfresco a great deal of the time, and if the wine isn't chilled, you're slurping soup.
We sat in padded captain's chairs at an oak dining table tucked into one corner of the living room. I sampled the wine, and it was just right.
"Who goes first?" Al asked.
"You start," I said. "My amazing revelations can wait."
He got up to fetch his notebook. He was wearing tan jeans and a T-shirt. He was unshod but his meaty feet were stuffed into white athletic socks. I noticed he was getting a belly, not gross but nascent. Most cops don't eat very well. They think a balanced diet is an anchovy pizza and a can of Dr Pepper.
"Okay," the sergeant said, hunching over his notebook, "here's what I got from Atlanta. Those people the Glori
anas named as references just don't exist at the addresses given. The Atlanta bank they named was a savings and loan that folded three years ago."
"Beautiful," I said.
"Then I got through to a detective in the Atlanta PD who knew all about the Glorianas. Jerry Wein-garter. A nice guy. He's a cigar smoker, like me. He was a big help so maybe I'll send him a box of the best."
"McNally and Son will pick up the tab," I said.
Al grinned. "That's what I figured," he said. "Anyway, this Weingarter told me that Irma Gloriana and her husband were-"
"Whoa," I said, holding up a hand. "You mean Irma is married?"
He looked at me. "Sure she's married. What did you think?"
"I didn't know what to think," I said honestly. "Is her husband still living?"
"He was about six months ago when he got out of the plink. His name is Otto. Otto Gloriana. Got a nice sound to it, doesn't it? Drink your wine; there's another bottle cooling. Irma and Otto were running what my dear old granddaddy used to call a house of ill repute. It wasn't a sleazy crib; the Glorianas had a high-class joint. All their girls were young and beautiful. The johns paid anywhere from a hundred to five hundred, depending on what they wanted. Irma was the madam, Otto the business manager. They had been in business four or five years and had a nice thing going with a well-heeled clientele of uppercrust citizens. The law got on to it when one of their girls OD'd on heroin."
I finished my glass of wine and poured myself another. "A pretty picture," I said. "And what part did the son, Frank, play in all this?"
"He was like a bouncer, providing muscle if any of the johns got out of line."
"And Hertha?"
"Apparently she had no connection with the cat-house. Weingarter says she had her own racket, doing what she does now: holding seances and doing horoscopes. He also said she's a crackerjack psychic. Once she helped the Atlanta cops find a lost kid. Weingarter doesn't know how she did it,
but the lead she gave them was right on the money."
He paused to refill his glass, and I had a moment to reflect on what he had told me. I think I was more saddened than shocked.
"What happened after the cops closed them down?" I asked.
"Otto cut a deal. He'd take the rap if his wife and son got suspended sentences and promised to leave town."
"Very noble of Otto," I said. "How long did he get?"
"He drew three-to-five, did a year and a half, and was released about six months ago. No probation. Present whereabouts unknown."
I gazed up at the ceiling fans. "Al," I said, almost dreamily, "do you have a physical description of Otto?"
"Yeah," he said, flipping pages of his notebook, "I've got it somewhere. Here it is. He's-"
I interrupted him. "He's tall," I said. "Reddish hair. Broad-shouldered. Very well-dressed in a conservative way. About sixty-five or so."
The sergeant stared at me. "What the hell," he said hoarsely. "You been taking psychic lessons from Hertha or something?"
"Did I get it right?" I asked.
"You got it right," he acknowledged. "Now tell me how."
"He's down here," I said. "Using the name Charles Girard."
Then I gave Rogoff an account of how I figured Peaches might get sick, how the catnappers would seek medical help, how I canvassed emergency animal hospitals with a flapdoodle story, how I finally found a veterinarian who remembered treating
Peaches and gave me the name and address of the man who brought her in.
Al looked at me and shook his head in wonderment. "You know," he said, "you have the testicles of a brazen simian. You also have more luck than you deserve. Where is Otto living?"
"In a fleabag motel on Federal Highway. But I haven't told you the punch line, Al. I went out there this morning to pay a visit to Charles Girard, or, if he wasn't present, to see if Peaches was on the premises and could be rescued. But I took one look and departed forthwith. Roderick Gillsworth's gray Bentley was parked outside Otto's cabin."
The sergeant stared and slowly his face changed. I thought I saw vindictiveness there and perhaps malevolence.
"Gillsworth," he repeated, and it was almost a hiss. "I knew that-"
But I wasn't fated to learn what it was the sergeant knew, for the phone rang at that instant, star-tlingly loud.
Al waited until the third ring, then hauled himself to his feet. "I'll take it on the bedroom extension," he said.
He went inside and closed the door. I wasn't offended. If it was official business, he had every right to his privacy. And if it was that schoolteacher he dated occasionally, he had every right to his privacy.
He seemed to be in there a long time, long enough for me to finish what was left of the cabernet. Finally he came out. He had pulled on a pair of scuffed Reeboks, the laces flapping, and a khaki nylon jacket. He was affixing his badge to the epaulette of the jacket. After he did that, he took his gunbelt with all its accoutrements from a closet shelf and buckled it about his waist with some difficulty.
Then he looked at me. I could read absolutely nothing in his expression, because there wasn't one; his face was stone.
"There was a fire at Roderick Gillsworth's place," he reported tonelessly. "A grease fire in the kitchen. The neighbors spotted it. The firemen had to break down the door to get in. They put out the fire and went looking for Gillsworth. They found him in the bathtub. His wrists were slit."
I gulped. "Dead?" I asked, hearing the quaver in my own voice.
"Very," Al said.
"Can I come with you?"
"No," he said. "You'd just have to wait outside. I'll phone you as soon as I learn more."
"Al, there's something else I've got to tell you," I said desperately.
"It'll have to wait. Go home, Archy. You better tell your father about this."
"Yes," I said. "Thanks for the wine."
"What?" he said. "Oh. Yeah."
We both went outside and paused while Al locked up. Then he got in his pickup and took off. I stayed right there, smoking a cigarette and looking up at the star-spangled sky. Another spirit had passed over. Another ghost. It had never occurred to me before that the living were a minority.
12
The door to my father's study was open. He was seated at his desk working on a stack of correspondence brought home from the office. He looked up when I entered.
"I'm busy, Archy," he said irritably.
"Yes, sir," I said, "but I have news I think you should hear immediately. Not good news."
He sighed and tossed down his pen. "It's been that kind of day," he said. "Very well, what is it?"
I repeated what Al Rogoff had told me and, like the sergeant's, his face became stone.
"Yes," he said in a quiet voice, "I heard the fire engines go by earlier this evening. The man has definitely expired?"
"According to Rogoff. He promised to phone me when he learns more about it."
"Does the sergeant believe it was suicide?"
"He didn't say, father."
"Do you think it was?"
"No, sir," I said, and told him of my early morning meeting with the poet. "He seemed very up, as if he was happy Lydia's funeral was over and he could get on with his life. He said he had some errands to do today, shopping and so forth. A man planning suicide doesn't go to a supermarket first, does he?"
"He was sober, I presume."
"As far as I could tell. He did offer me an eye-opener but in a joking way. Yes, I'd say he was completely sober."
My father drew a deep breath. "And now all my fears come true. As things stand, he leaves all his worldly goods, except for his original manuscripts, to a wife who predeceased him. As far as I know, he has no immediate survivors."
"None?" I said, shocked. "Siblings? Cousins? Aunts? Uncles? No one at all?"
"Not to my knowledge. Would you pour us a port, please, Archy. I believe we both could use it."
I did the honors, and the sire gestured me to the armchair alongside his desk. He sipped his wi
ne thoughtfully.
"If an investigation proves I am correct and he had no survivors, then I imagine Lydia's aunt and cousins will have a claim on the bulk of her estate inherited by Roderick."
"A mess," I offered.
"Yes," he said, "it is that." Suddenly he was angered. "Why the devil the idiot didn't make out a new will immediately after his wife's death I'll never know."
"You tried to persuade him, father," I said, hoping to mollify him.
"I should have been more insistent," he said, and
I realized his fury was directed as much at himself as at Gillsworth.
"You couldn't have anticipated what happened," I pointed out.
"I should have," he said, refusing to be assuaged. "I learned long ago that in legal matters it's necessary always to prepare for a worst-case scenario. This time I neglected to do that, and the worst happened. You say Sergeant Rogoff will call you when he learns the details of Roderick's death?"
"He said he would."
"Please let me know as soon as you hear from him."
"It may be very late, father. After midnight."
"Then wake me up," he said sharply. "Is that understood?"
"Yes, sir," I said, drained my glass of port, and left him alone with his anger. The old man likes things tidy, and this affair was anything but.
I went upstairs but I didn't undress, figuring it was possible Al might want to meet me somewhere else. I sat in my swivel chair, put my feet up on the desk, and tried to make some sense, any sense, out of Gillsworth's death.
Despite the corpse's slit wrists, no one was going to convince me the poet was a suicide. If I tell you why I refused to accept that, you'll think me an ass, but it's how my mind works: I could never believe that a man with the joie de vivre to wear a Lilly Pulitzer sport jacket in the morning could kill himself in the evening. Unless, of course, he had suffered a cataclysmic defeat during the day, and so far there was no evidence of that.
Do you recall my mentioning that I had a vaporish notion of what had gone down and was still going down? It was so vague that I couldn't put it into words. But now Gillsworth's death made a difference. I'm not saying all the mists had cleared, but I began to see a dim outline that had shape if not substance.
McNally's luck (mcnally) Page 17