The Archy McNally Series, Volume 1

by Lawrence Sanders

  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, startlingly 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 gun-belt 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.

  Chapter 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 wine 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.

  I obviously dozed off because when the phone rang I discovered my head was down on the desktop, cradled in my forearms. I roused and glanced at my Mickey Mouse watch: almost two-thirty A.M.

  “Rogoff,” he said. “Why should you be sleeping when I’m not?”

  “You still at Gillsworth’s house, Al?”

  “Still here. If I take a breather and run up to your place, do you think you could buy me a cup of coffee?”

  “You bet. How about a sandwich?”

  “Nope, but thanks. Just the coffee, hot and black. I won’t stay long.”

  I went down to my parents’ bedroom and knocked softly. Father opened the door so quickly that I guessed he hadn’t been sleeping, even though he was wearing Irish linen pajamas: long-sleeved jacket and drawstring pants.

  “The sergeant called,” I said in a low voice, hoping not to disturb mother. “He’s coming for a cup of coffee.”

  “May I join you?” the pater asked.

  That was so like him. I mean it was his home, he was the boss, he could have said, “I’ll join you.” But he had to couch it as a polite request to sustain his image of himself as a courtly gentleman. He’s something, he is.

  “Of course,” I said. “Decaf for you?”

  He nodded and I went on down to the kitchen. I put the kettle on and set out three cups and saucers, cream and sugar, spoons. In less than ten minutes I heard tires on our graveled turnaround and looked out the window to see Rogoff’s pickup.

  He came in a mome
nt later, looking weary and defeated. He collapsed onto one of the chairs without saying a word. He put a heaping teaspoon of regular instant into his cup and I poured boiling water over it.

  Then my father came in. He had changed to slacks, open-necked shirt, an old cardigan, and older carpet slippers. The sergeant stood up when he entered. I admired him for that. The two men shook hands, wordlessly, and we all sat down. Father and I had instant decaf with cream, no sugar.

  “He is dead, sergeant?” the senior asked.

  “No doubt about that, sir,” Rogoff said. “The exact cause will have to wait for the autopsy. I’m no medic, but I’d say it was loss of blood that finished him.”

  “Exsanguination,” I remarked.

  Al looked at me. “Thank you, Mr. Webster,” he said. “Well, there was enough of it in the tub.”

  “How do you interpret it?” father asked.

  “I don’t,” Rogoff said. “Not yet. There are too many questions and not enough answers. Let me set the scene for you. The people next door were having a barbecue on their patio. One of the guests spotted flames behind the window of Gillsworth’s kitchen. The men ran over there but the back door was locked. Meanwhile the women called nine-one-one. When the firemen arrived, they had to break down the back door. It was locked, bolted, and chained. They also broke through the front door of the house. That was closed with a spring lock but not bolted or chained.

  He paused to blow on his coffee and then sipped cautiously. It wasn’t too hot for him, and he took a deep gulp. Father and I sampled ours.

  “That’s significant,” I said. “Don’t you think? The front door on a spring lock but not bolted or chained?”

  “Maybe,” Rogoff said. “Maybe not. Anyway it wasn’t much of a fire. There was a big frying pan on the range. The pan had grease in it—butter or oil, it hasn’t been determined yet. But it caught fire and spattered, igniting the curtains and cafe drapes. The range coil was still on High when the firemen got there.”

  “Then he was preparing dinner,” my father said, a statement not a question.

  “It sure looked like it, sir. There was a plate of six big crab cakes on the countertop, ready for frying. And in the fridge was a huge bowl of salad, already mixed.”

  “Any booze?” I asked.

  “Yeah, an open liter of gin on the countertop, about two slugs gone. Also a highball glass still half-full. Looked like a gin and tonic. It had a slice of lime in it. And there was a six-pack of quinine water in the cabinet under the sink. One of the bottles was half-empty.”

  I shook my head. “That doesn’t compute. A man is making dinner. He has a drink, mixes a salad. He gets ready to sauté his crab cakes. Then he decides to slit his wrists instead. Do you buy that, Al?”

  “Right now I’m not buying anything. Could I have another cup of coffee? I’m not going to get any sleep tonight anyway.”

  I fixed him another regular and another decaf for myself after my father put his palm over his cup.

  “Please continue, sergeant,” he said. “How was Gillsworth found?”

  “The firemen figured things didn’t look kosher and went searching for him. They found him in the tub of the downstairs bathroom, the one next to his den. He was fully clothed. There was a bloody single-edge razor blade on the bath mat alongside the tub. Both his wrists were slashed.”

  “Both?” I said. “If you slit one wrist, do you then have enough strength in that hand to grip a razor blade and slit the other wrist?”

  “Don’t ask me,” Rogoff said. “I’ve never tried it. We’re going to need a forensic pathologist on this one.”

  “Did the body show any other wounds?” father asked.

  The sergeant looked at him admiringly. “Yes, sir, it did,” he said. “On the back of the head, high up. The hair was matted with blood. But after he slashed his wrists he could have slipped down in the tub and cracked his head on the rim. In fact, there’s a bloody mark on the rim that looks like he did exactly that. It’s one of the questions the ME will have to answer.”

  “What’s your guess, Al?” I said. “Suicide or homicide? I’m not asking what you’re absolutely certain about, but what’s your guess?”

  He hesitated for just a brief instant, then he said, “Homicide.”

  “Of course!” I said triumphantly. “No one is going to slit his wrists in the middle of preparing dinner—unless he finds worms in the crab cakes.”

  “That’s not my main reason for calling it homicide,” Rogoff said. “Suicides sometimes do goofy things before they work up their courage to take the final exit. No, it’s something else that makes me think someone cut Gillsworth’s wrists for him. Archy, do me a favor. Show me how you’d slit your wrists if you were determined to shuffle off to Buffalo.”

  I stared at him. “You want me to pretend to slash my wrists?”

  He nodded. “Use your spoon.”

  I picked up the spoon from my saucer. I held it in my right hand, gripping it by the bowl, the handle extended. I held out my left forearm and turned it palm upward. I was wearing a short-sleeved polo shirt; my arm was bare.

  “I feel like a perfect fool,” I said.

  “Nobody’s perfect,” Al said, “but you come close. Go ahead, slit your wrists.”

  As my father and the sergeant watched intently, I drew the spoon handle swiftly across my left wrist, just hard enough to depress the skin. Then I transferred the spoon to my left hand and made the same slashing motion down across my right wrist. I admit the playacting gave me the heebie-jeebies.

  “Uh-huh,” Rogoff said. “That’s what I figured.”

  “WW did you figure?”

  “You cut from the outside of your wrist down to the inside. You did it on both wrists.”

  I looked at my forearms and then tried slashing with the spoon handle from the underside of each wrist up to the top.

  “Of course I did,” I said. “It wouldn’t be impossible to cut in the other direction, but it’s awkward and you wouldn’t be able to apply as much force. It would be like a backhand tennis stroke versus a forehand.”

  “For sure,” Rogoff said, nodding. “I’ve seen slit wrists before, on suicides and would-be suicides. The slash is always made from top to bottom. But the cuts on Gillsworth’s wrists looked like they had been made from the underside of the wrist to the top. That was my impression anyhow, but I admit I could be wrong. But there’s another thing: Gillsworth’s wrists showed no hesitation marks. Those are scratches and shallow cuts a suicide sometimes makes before he finally decides to go for broke. Gillsworth’s wrists had single deep slashes. Hey, I’ve got to get back. Thanks for the coffee, it juiced me up.”

  “Thank you, sergeant,” father said, “for being so forthcoming. I assure you that Archy and I will keep what you’ve told us in strictest confidence.”

  “Yeah,” Rogoff said, “I’d appreciate that.”

  They shook hands, and I accompanied Al out to his pickup.

  “Got just a few more minutes?” I asked him.

  He looked at me a sec, then grinned. “Something you didn’t want your father to hear?”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Or he’d have me committed.”

  “Sure, I got a few minutes,” Al said. “Gillsworth isn’t leaving town.”

  I climbed into the cab of the pickup with him. He pulled out a cigar and I pulled out a cigarette. We got our weeds burning, and I turned to face him.

  “Remember before you took off from your place last evening I said I had something important to tell you? Well, I went to a séance at the Glorianas’ on Wednesday night.”

  He didn’t seem surprised. “So? Did you talk to your old friend Epicurus?”

  “No, but I talked to Lydia Gillsworth. The medium contacted her through Xatyl, a Mayan shaman. He’s Hertha’s channel to the spirit world.”

  “Uh-huh. Makes sense to me.”

  “It does? Anyway, Al, I heard Lydia talking. I know the words were being spoken by Hertha, but I could have sworn it wa
s Lydia. But Hertha knew her well, and if the medium has a gift for mimicry, which she obviously has, she could have imitated Lydia’s voice.”

  “That does make sense. What did you and Lydia talk about? Did you ask who offed her?”

  “Of course.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “She became hysterical. She screamed, ‘Caprice! Caprice!’ over and over again.”

  That shook him. He turned his head slowly to look at me, and his expression was a puzzlement.

  “You’re sure that’s what she said?”

  “I’m sure. First it was screamed in Lydia’s voice, then Hertha kept shrieking ‘Caprice!’ in her own voice. You know what she meant, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, I know. Mrs. Gillsworth’s car was a Caprice. She drove it from the séance to her home the night she was murdered.”

  “That’s right. How do you figure it?”

  Al was silent a long time. He turned away to stare fixedly through the windshield.

  “I’ll tell you something, Archy: I suspected Roderick Gillsworth might have killed his wife. He says he talked to her from your place, was told she had just arrived, and immediately drove home to find her dead. He called nine-one-one, and I got there about fifteen minutes later. Tops. After I heard his story, I went out to the garage and felt the engine block on her Caprice. I didn’t think it was as hot as it should have been if she had just driven home from the séance. But that was a subjective judgment. Also, she was killed on a warm night, and no one in South Florida drives around in late June without turning on the air conditioning. The interior of Lydia’s Caprice wasn’t as cool as it should have been if she had just arrived home—another personal judgment. It was nothing I could take to the State Attorney, but I began to wonder about Roderick Gillsworth.”

  “What about the grandfather clock that was toppled and stopped at the time of death?”

  “Doesn’t mean a thing, Archy. Anyone could have set the clock at any time desired and then pushed it over to stop it ticking. An easy alibi to fake.”

  “So far, so good,” I said. “But he did call his wife from my father’s study.”

  “I know he did,” Al said almost mournfully. “There’s no getting around that. And then, last night, Roderick gets iced—if it was homicide, and I think it was. That helps eliminate him as a suspect, wouldn’t you say? It looks like someone, for whatever reason, crazy or not, wanted to wipe out the entire Gillsworth family, wife and husband. But now you tell me the psychic, speaking in the murdered woman’s voice, yelled, ‘Caprice! Caprice!’ So I’ve got to start thinking again if Lydia’s car really does provide a clue to her killer. Maybe I was right in the first place about the lack of engine heat and no air conditioning inside the car. Listen, Archy, I’ve really got to get back to the Gillsworth place. There’s still a lot to do.”