“Your father has already left,” Ursi informed me when I came down to breakfast.
Good. It was why I had lingered over my ablutions. Ever diligent, I knew father would want to arrive at the office exceptionally early on his first day back at the helm. Mrs. Trelawney, as always, would be there to greet him when he walked in the door. I was more than a little apprehensive about the day ahead and I did not want to start out with father’s doubts, fears, and cautions ringing in my ears.
“Just scrambled eggs and toast, Ursi, please,” I ordered. “It’s all I can take this morning.”
“I have a lovely fruit cup,” Ursi tempted me, ‘with fresh pineapples and cherries.”
Not wanting to offend I accepted the offer. “But no cream. Just the fruit.” The colorful array was cool, refreshing, and delicious, but I missed the cream.
“Jamie has gone to gas up the Ford and your mother is in the greenhouse. She’s been there practically since dawn.”
I saw Ursi add a splash of milk to the bowl before she started scrambling the eggs. “I have those breakfast sausages you like. Should I put a couple in the skillet?” she asked.
“Why not?” I would start my diet, once more, tomorrow, if I wasn’t shot dead before then. If I was, it wouldn’t make any difference if I had my eggs with or without the sausages.
Busy at her stove, Ursi prattled, “The murder is the talk of the town, Archy. Everyone is guessing who the family is that poor Sabrina Wright was after. Neither her husband nor daughter has given the police a statement as yet, but when they do we’ll all know who it is.”
Curiosity made me ask, “Who are the leading suspects?”
“Harry Schuyler, hands down,” Ursi said. “He wasn’t called a terrible infant for nothing.”
“I believe the expression is enfant terrible when you’re talking about the very rich. But what could one write about Harry Schuyler that hasn’t already seen print?”
“With his kind I imagine what we know only scratches the surface. I think Sabrina Wright had something on him that no one in the world knows.”
Out of the mouths of babes, I pondered. “And you think he did her in, Ursi?”
“Him or the one she was after. Her daughter knows who it was. Why it’s like a Sabrina Wright novel without the romance.”
My eggs and sausages were placed before me and, forgetting to tell Ursi I wanted dry rye toast, I was handed a generously buttered English muffin. Having been taught to eat what is served without making a fuss, I did just that.
I went to the greenhouse to have a word with mother before I left. I do this as often as time will allow because I enjoy seeing her in the joyful serenity she derives from administering TLC to her beloved blossoms. The dappled light coming through the tinted glass cast her in a warm glow and when she looked up at my entrance I noticed a smudge of brown earth on her perpetually blushing cheek. Her apron was also stained, her hair slightly ruffled, and her smile endearing. It was a picture I would cherish all my life.
“Oh, Archy, your new jacket, and it’s a perfect fit. I knew it would be.”
I wore the raw silk yellow jacket with a dark brown shirt and chinos.
“I dressed for you this morning, mother.” I said kissing her unsoiled cheek.
“How flattering. And see how much better my begonias look since I’ve been back. I told them all about our cruise.”
They did look rather perky on this lovely Palm Beach summer morning.
Blue sky, bright sun, and a refreshing ocean breeze that promised not to forsake us by noon. “Father told me how much you enjoyed it.”
She frowned. “Between us, Archy, it wasn’t all that wonderful. Too much to eat and too much to do. What they have against only three proper meals a day and a good old lounge chair, I’ll never know. But your father needed to get away and even if he did call the office every day he managed to relax and unwind a bit, and that made it all worthwhile.”
Was this a marriage made in heaven? And how nice to be a by-product of the union. “He said he had a marvelous time, mother.”
She looked at me wistfully. “What are your plans today, Archy?”
“This and that. Nothing special.”
“You will be careful, son, won’t you?”
What was this all about? “I’m always careful, mother. Why the long face?”
“You are involved in the Sabrina Wright murder, aren’t you?”
I could not believe that father had told her and I have never known Ursi or Jamie to trouble mother with any gossip more malicious than reporting what Palm Beach matron had worn the same dress twice in one season. Seeing my quandary she said, “Your mother is not as sharp as she used to be, but she’s not ready for the recycling bin just yet.”
“If they recycled you, mother, what would you come back as?”
A begonia, what else?”
“Do your begonias tell tales out of school?”
She brushed back a stray curl and anointed her forehead with yet another smudge. “I saw Jamie whispering to your father when we were waiting for our luggage at the dock. Last night I decided to open up a few topics and see which I would not be allowed to pursue. Sabrina Wright’s murder was the obvious choice. Your father couldn’t be less interested in Binky’s housewarming than I am in growing roses.”
I laughed. Long concerned with her short-term memory loss and her torpid interludes, I was more relieved at this sudden burst of astuteness than in her knowing the truth. “Okay, Miss Marple, I did some work for the lady when she arrived in town and she was alive and well when the job was done. I was not connected to her at the time of her death.”
“Will the police want to question you?” she asked.
“I imagine they will, mother.”
Are you going to help them find the murderer?”
I could honestly answer in the negative because what I intended to do I would do on my own. “I am going to tell the police what I know and leave it to them.”
“I’m. so glad, Archy.”
“So am I, mother.” I gave her another peck on the cheek and made my way out of the greenhouse.
The stretch limo got on my tail the moment I pulled onto Ocean Boulevard. I picked up speed and raised my voice in song, “Three blind mice, three blind mice…”
I was tempted to lead him to the scene of the crime, but I didn’t fancy being CNN’s morning news breaker Would the guy shoot me in the bright light of day? No, he would have his driver do it. Taking my time I drove to an outdoor juice bar in Lake Worth. I pulled into the limited parking area and the limo joined me. I did not get out of the Miata.
If Dickey Cranston wanted me he could come and get me. If he sent his driver to invite me in I would hold my ground.
We played the brinkmanship game for a couple of minutes, which is a long time when you’re taking up space in an outdoor juice bar and not lapping up the papaya. I decided to give the future ambassador to the Court of St. James sixty seconds to make his intentions known, then I would be the man that got away. At the count of thirty the limo door opened, the passenger door that is, and Mohammed came to the mountain.
“What do you know?” he grunted before he was seated.
“I know that Sabrina is dead.”
“Thanks. I got the news yesterday, shortly after midnight.”
Had he made his first error? “Strange, because it didn’t hit the wire services until early yesterday morning.”
“Stop playing the clever dick, Archy. Washington never sleeps and I’m never out of touch. What do you know about it?”
“I know I had no reason to murder the woman,” I said.
“Implying that I did? Sorry, but I didn’t.”
Time and space precluded finessing around the bush. “Don’t tell me you weren’t relieved to hear that the only person who could name Gillian’s father was dead.”
“You look very much alive to me, Archy,” he shot back, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket.
He was correct, as far as the supposition went. With Sabrina gone I was the only person who could name the contenders. What I could not do was crown the champ. Neither could Sabrina, but that didn’t prevent her from getting a bullet in her head.
Covering my back I told him, “I keep a journal, Dickey, and everything that passed between Sabrina Wright, you, and me, has been faithfully recorded. I willed it to Lolly Spindrift.”
He lit up. The Miata is not a stretch limo, therefore I was forced to have my first secondhand cigarette of the day. I rolled down my window, but Cranston didn’t seem to notice. He sucked on the filtered tip like it was the first one he had had in a year and wasn’t likely to get another in the near future. His hand was trembling, his forehead was wet and shiny, and his knee had suddenly developed a spastic tic.
Was he in the throes of withdrawal or scared out of his gourd?
“I didn’t kill Sabrina,” he said, ‘although I would have liked to when last we met. Fame and good fortune only made her more arrogant. And I have no intention of killing you. I’ve done some foolish things in my life, Archy, but I am not a fool. Killing Sabrina, or you, only draws attention to the problem. It solves nothing.
“With Sabrina alive there was a chance to ride this out. Now, every gossip in town is speculating on what she and her daughter were doing here. Looking for the girl’s natural mother? How long before someone trashes that myth? Then who is the girl looking for?”
He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. As none of them were idiots I couldn’t understand why one of them had pulled that trigger. It had to have been done in a fit of rage and just because Cranston was stressing the stupidity of the act didn’t mean he wasn’t the guilty party. As stated, he was no fool.
“What were you doing at Harry’s place?” he suddenly asked.
Calling Casa Gran “Harry’s place’ was like referring to Buckingham Palace as “Lizzy’s pad.” “He told you I was there in lieu of my father.”
“Spare me. Harry doesn’t need a lawyer unless he’s planning on making a new will which he isn’t.” He dragged on his cigarette and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his forehead. “So?”
I pleaded client confidentiality and he attacked. “When I saw you with Harry at Troy’s fund-raiser I remembered that I met Sabrina at a party Harry gave in his hotel suite in Fort Lauderdale that spring thirty years ago. Harry must know her, too.”
Puff, puff. Wipe, wipe. “Sabrina hits town and contacts you. Her daughter starts snooping around and the next thing we know Harry Schuyler and I are chummy with Archy McNally. Coincidence?”
It was just what Sabrina had rightly feared. Open a can of worms and there’s no stopping them from crawling out. Was Appleton at that party? How long before Cranston would place all three of them in the same hotel suite, at the same time? But it wasn’t Gillian who wielded the can opener. It was Lolly Spindrift’s blind item that had the three former preppies in a dither. And two anonymous calls? Coincidence?
Avoiding his insinuation I got down to the nuts and bolts of our second meeting on wheels. “The police are going to question me,” I told him.
“And what are you going to tell them?” “The truth. What else? I often work with the police and screwing them has a boomerang effect. I have to work in this town, unless you have an opening at the Court of Saint James.” He pulled another cigarette from his pack and lit it with the other before tossing it out of the window. I hoped his buddy on Pennsylvania Avenue had more control over his emotions. “If you tell them about Sabrina and me all you’ll be doing is screwing me, my family, and everything I’ve worked for all my life. I didn’t do it and I can prove it. Fingering me would help no one but Sabrina’s killer.”
“What’s your alibi?” “It happened about ten Saturday night is that correct?” he said. I nodded. “Give or take an hour. The M.E. will always give himself an hour either way.” Puff, puff. Wipe, wipe. At seven that night my sponsor picked me up and we attended an AA meeting in West Palm. It lasted until eight. From there my sponsor, me, and two other persons from the meeting drove to a rehab center to lecture the new recruits. They didn’t like what we had to say. We left there at ten and went for pizza and Diet Coke. I was driven home just after midnight when my wife told me about the call from Washington and Sabrina’s murder.”
Silence. I mean, what could I say?”
He went on. “If you link me with Sabrina I will have to give the police my alibi. The world will learn of my problem as well as my boyhood indiscretion. I will most likely lose my appointment and the witnesses will have to be interrogated. My sponsor is a prominent family man. Also with us that night was a school teacher and single parent with a child to support. None of us are ashamed of what we are, but we do have our pride. You will be rocking many boats for no reason. Give it some thought, buddy.”
I was giving it so much thought I couldn’t think. Was he bluffing? If I folded and walked away he wins without showing his hand. If I called him and he laid out a royal flush I’m a skunk. Excuse the old cliche, but it does say it all damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
“Will you give me the names of your witnesses?” I said.
“No,” he responded without hesitation. He appeared to be in control of himself for the first time since entering the car. Looking at his cigarette as if wondering what it was doing in his hand, it followed its predecessor out the window. Perhaps the truth does set one free if he was telling the truth. It was a tough confession to make for a man with the conceit of Richard Cranston. Or was he manipulating me? Could I afford to take another chance or had I taken too many already?
“I have to think about it,” I finally said.
“Thanks.”
“For nada. May I say I admire your courage and wish you well in your new life?”
He smiled his best press-conference smile, obliterating the impudent snob. Which one was the real Richard Cranston? “My new life in sobriety or in England?”
“Why not both?” I answered.
“Before I go, tell me if Harry is involved in any of this. You know he’s dying?”
“And therefore he has carte blanche to commit murder. Sorry, but I won’t tell you the nature of my business with Harry Schuyler. Last time we met we talked about the sacrosanct nature of client confidentiality. It applies to all clients.”
“If you go to the police, you’ll be breaking the rule with this client.”
“As they say, Dickey, damned if you do and damned if you don’t.”
“You missed your calling, Archy, you should have gone into politics.”
On the drive back to the McNally Building I regretted that time did now allow me to present father with the perplexity of Cranston’s alibi.
Would Justice tip her scale in favor of the law or compassion for those brave souls striving to make a new life for themselves and trying to help others along the way? Archy leaned toward compassion, but Archy is a soft touch and is the guy telling the truth?
Herb gave me the high sign from his post in our underground garage.
Today, I did not need Mrs. Trelawney to tell me who had called. On the way to the elevator I paused long enough to report, “Binky’s waffles landed in his lap.”
Unconcerned at having presented Binky with a lethal weapon, Herb told me, Two of Binky’s fingers are wrapped in bandages.”
“Burns,” I said.
“No, Archy. The burns were superficial. Seems he nicked himself on his chopping block. Maybe he should go to a cooking school.”
“I think a reform school is the answer. Did he mention his new lady friend?”
“Mention her? He can’t stop talking about her. She bandaged his fingers.”
Binky Watrous was being buttered and bandaged by his neighbors. How nice. But did he know about the basketball player? I couldn’t wait to tell him.
I called Mrs. Trelawney. Mr. Appleton had called and left a number where I could reach him. It was urgent. Al Rogoff had called and said I should contact him regarding setting up an appointment to meet with the lieutenant in charge of the Sabrina Wright case. Nothing from Harry Schuyler.
Appleton picked up on the first ring. “Archy? Thank goodness. Where have you been?”
“Working, Tom. Some of us do, you know.”
“I must see you. You know why, I’m sure. Where can we meet privately?”
“The PB Institute of Contemporary Art?”
“They’re closed on Monday,” he said.
I thought a moment then asked, “Do you know where L’Encantada is now located?”
“Who doesn’t?” Appleton said.
“Meet me at the site in thirty minutes. It’s still a tourist attraction and we’ll pretend to be one of the gawkers.”
“Fine. I’m on my way.”
L’Encantada is an Addison Mizner mansion that has become one of the wonders of Palm Beach. Built in Manalapan in the roaring twenties, it was destined for demolition last winter when the daughter of a local real-estate investor attended a party in the doomed house and begged her father to save it. Recently divorced and wanting to please his little girl with a grand gesture, he bought the mansion for millions and spent even more millions to have it floated to a new site on Seaspray Avenue and South Ocean Boulevard.
Yes, I said, floated. Like Caesar’s Gaul, the twenty-room house was divided into three parts and each section, one weighing in at four hundred twenty tons,
was hoisted on rollers and pulled with cables along the beach and into the ocean, where they were mounted on barges for the short trip north, where the process was reversed and the house put back together on its new lot. Watching the house come ashore was last winter’s most popular spectator sport. In these parts, the gesture has become the standard by which all devoted fathers will be judged.
Sofia Richmond called before I left my office. “I hear you lost a client,” was her opener.
“You win some and you lose some. What do you hear?”
“It would be easier to tell you what I haven’t heard. Sabrina was after one of our elite. Her daughter was doing the legwork and pretending to be looking for her natural mother. Sabrina is her natural mother and the girl’s father is Prince Philip, Porfirio Rubirosa (remember him?), and Frank Sinatra.”
“All three?” I exclaimed.
“No, Archy. One must choose. I understand the ladies who lunch have gotten up a pool.”
And who are you putting your money on?”
Archy McNally, of course. I’m betting he knows all the answers.”
Smart lady, my Sofia. Very smart. “Put a fiver on Porfirio, Sofia, they say he had…”
“Careful, Archy, this call may be monitored for quality purposes. Did you see Lolly’s obit this morning? He links her with every big name in pants, including you.”
“Me?” I would kill Lolly Spindrift.
‘ “When Sabrina Wright arrived in Palm. Beach just a week ago, the first person she contacted was our own most eligible bachelor, and my dear friend, Archy McNally. Stay tuned to these pages for all the latest developments on the popular author’s murder,” unquote.”
The little twerp. Implying that I was going to tell all for him to pass on to his readers. “Wishful thinking,” I said aloud.
“I thought so,” Sofia said. “How much can you tell me?”
Today, nothing. Tomorrow, the world. Now I have to go, Sofia. I’ll catch you later.”
“That’s the story of my life,” she sighed audibly. Take care, Archy.
Someone out there didn’t like Sabrina and Lolly has made you her confidant.”
I wanted to tell her that everyone had made me their confidant and Lolly had nothing to do with it. I rang off with a promise of taking her to lunch before the week was out.
As predicted, there were a few cars parked near the newly planted stucco and tile Mizner dream cottage. I saw Appleton get out of his BMW convertible and after parking, joined him on the street. Given the venue, it was a perfectly natural place to congregate and chat. Thomas Appleton, however, was anything but natural, unless hysteria is your bag.
“What the hell happened?” he stage whispered as I approached.
We were far enough from the two couples who had stopped to see what the tide had dragged in to speak without being heard. “Someone murdered Sabrina, that’s what happened. Any ideas who did it?”
His Santa jowls glowed. “If you think I did, forget it. It must have been a lunatic.”
“Did you meet with her last week?”
“Yes, and she was a perfect bitch. She told me not to worry and to bug off, thank you. She said she would take care of her daughter.”
“But someone took care of her instead, didn’t they?”
“I tell you, it wasn’t me.” He kept a stealthy eye on the tourists.
“Have the police questioned you?”
“Not yet, but I got a call today to contact them.”
“And what will you tell them?”
Each time I met with these three guys was like being in a hit show on Broadway. One had to play the same scene again and again. Thirty years ago Sabrina must have felt the same way, but being the star she had been well paid for her trouble. “I’m going to tell them what I know. I have no choice.”
He was practically doing a tap dance on Seaspray Avenue. “You do have a choice. I spoke to you in confidence and you have no right to betray that trust.”
A woman has been brutally slain and I have every right to tell the police what I know.”
“When you saw me at Troy’s gathering you pretended not to know me. Why can’t we keep it that way?”
“I just told you,” I said, ‘there’s been a murder and that changes everything.”
“And why did Harry want to see you? I find it very strange that a few days after our meeting, you get a call from Harry.”
“I find it very strange that a man who has nothing to hide is afraid of being questioned by the police.”
The tourists went back in their cars, leaving Tom Appleton and me alone on the street. He was biting his lower lip so hard I thought it would bleed. “Damn it, I do have something to hide, but not what you think.
“I didn’t want to do this,” he ranted, ‘but I see I have to. I went to New York for the weekend and stayed with a friend. I got back this morning. I took a commercial line and the stewardess will vouch for me. I’m a regular commuter. Then we have the doorman at the apartment building where I was a guest and the staff at Le Cirque where I dined Saturday night. For reasons which are none of your business, I do not wish to implicate my New York friend in this mess. You can go to the police and tell them I’m Gillian Wright’s father and then you can go to the devil.”
Well, ain’t that a boot in the buttocks?