McNally's Dilemma (32 page)

“You can’t prove a thing, Mr. McNally.”

I ignored the comment, because it was very close to the truth, and asked, “What time did Veronica get here the night Geoff was killed?”

“Nine, give or take ten minutes.” He didn’t look at me as he lied. Instead he ground his cigarette out in a glass ashtray.

“Now that’s interesting. She got here around nine and parked behind everyone who drove in after her. Did the latecomers fly over her Mercedes?”

He didn’t answer, so I filled in the blanks. “She came here after the murder and told you what had happened. She also told you the clever plot she and her mother had cooked up about Geoff being with a woman that night. The so-called Mystery Woman. Their housekeeper was in her room all day and only mother and daughter knew what took place that night. You were to swear that Veronica was here hours before the murder to authenticate Melva’s story. What went on at their house that night, Jeff?”

“Ask Veronica.”

He knew when to give and when to hold back.

“What was your fee for backing her story?”

He flashed me a look so insolent I almost knew what was coming. “Marriage,” he spat out.

“I don’t believe you,” I said.

“Believe whatever you want, but she promised to marry me. Like father, like son, as they say.”

Hence the annuity. I still didn’t believe it, but there was so much about this case I wouldn’t have believed before coming to Hillcrest this afternoon. “Wouldn’t your girlfriend, Linda Adams, have objected to the marriage?”

He shrugged and grinned sheepishly. “Linda is very flexible. Especially if the price is right.”

“When Veronica told you they had to have a Mystery Woman, you came up with Linda. And, not counting your sixth-grade porn enterprise, this was your second mistake. From the night I came here to take Veronica home, you thought I was working for Melva and had no idea someone was investigating on behalf of Fairhurst. You forgot to cancel that second letter now that you had a bigger fish on the hook, but you weren’t too worried because you were so sure no one could connect Linda to the blackmail scam.

“You were so sure that it never even occurred to you to have Linda give the police an address other than the Boynton Beach one. Error number three, little Jeff, and you’re out.”

“Am I? Can you prove Linda wasn’t with my father that night? Can you prove Veronica got here after the murder? Do you know how many silver Mercedes convertibles with blue canvas tops there are in this town, Mr. McNally? Don’t count me out. Don’t ever count me out.”

“I got you on the blackmail rap,” I reminded him.

“Fairhurst doesn’t want the family secret to go public. He won’t prosecute, and I don’t want his money.”

I wasn’t about to tell him what Fairhurst had in mind for the blackmailer. Instead, I lied. “He will prosecute. He told me he would, regardless of the consequences.”

I think little Jeff was the first to blink. I took advantage of the moment. “Twenty years,” I said. “With the Fairhurst money behind him, he’ll have you locked up for twenty years. And if Veronica does marry you, you’ll be the richest guy in the stir. If you call that a consolation, it would be your fourth very serious error in this unfortunate caper.”

He drank his beer, draining the can, and lit another Camel. “So, what’s your offer?”

“You know the police are wise to what’s going on here every night. They’ll be moving in on the action any time now. I’ll put in a good word for you, if it’s true that you’re not a part of the drug cartel.”

“You have influence with the police?” He was back to his wise-guy mode.

“How do you think I knew the address Linda Adams gave the police which led me to your neighbor, Angie, at the trailer court? And how do you think I knew who signed the lease on this place and where to find you and your mother?” Not waiting for a reply, I continued. “Second. Take your mother back to the trailer court and see that she gets the help she needs.”

“Don’t you think I haven’t tried?” he challenged me.

“Try harder. And call on me if you need help.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I thought you were a punk, and now maybe I’m not so sure. Please don’t prove me wrong.”

“You want Linda to go back to the police and tell the truth?”

“You got it, little Jeff.”

“It will hurt your friend Melva.”

“If she’s the murderer. Is she, Jeff?”

“All I know is what Veronica told me. Her mother killed my father and they needed my help. The rest you know.”

“Okay, but nothing could hurt the accused as much as bribing a false witness,” I said.

But it was himself he was worried about. Not Melva or his incipient bride. “If I do what you say,” he asked, “how do I know you’ll keep your word?” Given his
curriculum vitae,
it was a fair question.

“You don’t know,” I told him. “But neither do you have a choice. Add conspiring to produce a false witness and perjury to the blackmail rap, and you’ll spend the rest of your life in jail. Linda might get off with ten years, but then she’s flexible, right?”

“What about Fairhurst?”

“That’s my problem.”

“Yeah? I thought people like you had no problems.”

“Only the dead have no problems, little Jeff.”

He thought about that for a minute and said, “So my old man comes out the winner again.”

I rose and headed for the door. Jeff buried his handsome face in his hands and made a sound that could have been a sigh of relief or a sob. I didn’t hang around long enough to learn how he felt about our private chat.

I
KNEW WHAT I
should do. Drive straight to the McNally Building and inform the president and C.E.O. of McNally & Son of the latest developments in the case of the State of Florida vs. Melva Ashton Manning Williams.
Mon père
would pass it on to Melva’s lawyers who, according to Al Rogoff, already knew about the second set of prints on the gun. It would be up to them to learn the truth.

But just who was protecting whom when mother and daughter concocted the tale of the Mystery Woman? And why? Bigamy was surely a more justifiable reason for murder—if murder could ever be justified—than finding your husband in flagrante delicto with another woman. Would Melva rather be remembered as a murderer than as the second wife of a bigamist? Would the public remember Williams as a bigamist who kept his legal wife and son in near poverty while he and his supposed wife lived an existence of “opulent extravagance,” as the press would label it.

Tina Wolinsky being a nonentity, only little Jeff could have made up the Mystery Woman story. It was easy to see that if little Jeff demanded marriage to Veronica as his price, she had no choice but to agree. And it all might have worked if the boy’s blackmail gambit hadn’t sent them all tripping over one another’s lies, and if I had kept my puss out of where it wasn’t wanted.

So, Veronica’s play for Archy was nothing more than a diverting tactic. My ego was bruised, but not mortally.

Next, I should go to see John Fairhurst. I still wasn’t sure what I was going to tell him, but a plan was beginning to evolve that might satisfy both my client and my conscience. However, for a variety of reasons, Connie among them, my conscience was in tatters.

Melva had lied to me from day one, and so had her daughter. I owed them nothing. Therefore, I decided to bypass the McNally Building and the Fairhurst manse in favor of going to see Melva and caution her about what was afoot. Old friendships die hard, and that’s as it should be.

Alpha and Omega, as the poets say. The beginning and the end. These were my thoughts as I drove through the gates of Melva’s rented mansion. The same gates I had found unarmed that midnight because no one had left the house until after the murder, when Veronica sped off to Hillcrest, not stopping for a red light, let alone pausing long enough to set the alarm.

One look at Hattie’s face as she opened the door told me that news of the day’s events had preceded my arrival. The atmosphere here was in sharp contrast to my last visit, when we had celebrated the appearance of the Mystery Woman. Today we seemed to be mourning her disappearance. “Missy is in the drawing room and Miss Veronica is upstairs,” Hattie informed me. “What’s happening, Mr. Archy? They tell me nothing.”

“They told me nothing, too,” I said, but the poor woman had no idea what I meant. “Is a cup of coffee possible, Hattie?”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Archy.” And she hurried off to the kitchen, happy for something to do.

Melva was standing in the center of the room as if awaiting my arrival. “The sun is over the yardarm, Archy. What can I get you?”

“How about the truth, straight up.”

Her skin was ashen and her eyes swollen from crying. Even her chic silk print dress looked shopworn, and I doubt if she’d had her hair done since the day she was set free on bail. “You know the truth,” she said. “The boy, Jeff, is it, called and said the jig is up. Is that correct, Archy, the jig is up?”

“That it is, Melva. And you know the police found another set of prints on the gun, but they can’t identify them.”

She didn’t sit, nor did she invite me to sit. I noticed that her hands were trembling as she strained to keep them at her side. “Yes, so I’m told. Veronica tried to wrestle the gun out of my hand at one point, and that accounts for the smudged prints the police found.”

“Did you tell your lawyers that?” I asked.

“Yes. I did.”

“And who made up the story of the Mystery Woman? You or Veronica?”

“Why, I did.”

“I find that hard to believe, Melva. It’s so unlike you.”

“I also brought you into it to help back my story. I did that because you’re the only person in Palm Beach I consider a true friend, and if you find that a paradox I was wrong about you. Can you believe that?”

I could, and I didn’t find it a paradox. When in need, one calls on friends, and that’s just what Melva had done. “The paradox, Melva, is that I’m the guy who blew your cover.”

She moved about the room, touching the tops of pieces of furniture as if checking for dust. “Don’t think I haven’t thought about that,” she said. “You’re better at your job than anyone suspects.”

Was that a compliment or a slap in the face? I settled on the former and moved on. “What went on around here that night? And let’s have the truth this time.”

“Veronica went out with that boy, and you know what he told her. The next day she confronted Geoff and he denied it, but she didn’t believe him. She said she would call our lawyers and have them check his past. Then she stormed out of the house.”

“Where were you all this time?”

“In a state of shock, I think, and acting like a zombie. I swear to you, Archy, I can’t recall with clarity what went on after Veronica told Geoff what the boy had said. It’s like a bad dream that you can’t recall in detail but you know was a horror.”

I nodded. “I understand.” Then I prodded her to continue. “When did Veronica get back?”

“Not till late. After ten, I think. I was frantic. I didn’t know where she’d gone or what she would do. I refused to talk to Geoff. I didn’t even want to look at him. I locked myself in my room with a bottle of Scotch and actually thought about taking my life. I either fell asleep or passed out. When I awoke it was dark, and the first thing I heard was them arguing. Veronica and Geoff. I think it was then I decided to kill him. I took the gun from the night-table drawer and went downstairs.

“They were screaming at each other. Or rather, Veronica was screaming at Geoff. I was sure Hattie would hear. They were in the solarium. I went in and pointed the gun at Geoff. That’s when Veronica tried to stop me but failed. I shot him. Then we mapped out the clever plan that almost worked.”

“You both undressed him, set the scene, then Veronica took off to where she knew she would find Jeff. Then you called me.” I finished the story.

“And that’s it,” Melva said, simulating relief. “Now that you have the truth, are you sure you won’t have a drink?”

Veronica joined us, entering the drawing room barefoot, her hair disheveled, dressed in jeans and a man’s shirt with the tails hanging out. She looked as if she had either just awoken from a drugged sleep or was drunk.

“Go back to your room,” Melva ordered. “I told you to stay there until Bill gets here.” Turning to me, Melva explained, “Bill Evans is our lawyer. He said he would come to take our statements before we gave them to the police.”

“The charade is over, Mother,” Veronica announced.

“Go back to your room,” Melva repeated. Her voice was as shaky as her hands, which she now clasped in a prayerlike gesture.

Looking at Veronica, I wondered if the beautiful girl who had taken me to faraway places the other night had remained abroad and been replaced by a Ms. Hyde. Had her eyes always been such an icy blue? The nose so sharp? The jaw set in stone? The voice so harsh and cynical? “He was my lover,” she stated. “My lover. It began when I finished school and moved back home—”

“No,” Melva cried. “Please, Veronica. Don’t say any more. I’m begging you.”

“He was going to leave my mother and marry me. Imagine that, Archy. He was going to be a bigamist twice over. So I killed him.”

Melva was sobbing and pleading at the same time, “Now do you understand, Archy? Now do you see why I lied and why I must continue to lie? Why we must all continue to lie? Please, please, leave us and pretend you never heard any of this. I killed him—I killed him. The day I married Geoffrey Williams I pulled the trigger, and I’ll pay for it. Not my baby. Please. Now do you understand?”

What a merry hell must have been going on around this place since the day little Jeff spilled the beans. But did the boy know the whole story? I didn’t think so.

Veronica sank into a chair. “I did it, Archy. My mother wouldn’t have the nerve and you know it.” She closed her eyes and looked as if she were about to nod off.

I went to her and raised her head. Her eyes were closed. I shook her but she didn’t respond. “She’s dead drunk, Melva.”

“That can’t be. She hasn’t had anything to drink all day.” Melva was whimpering and looked more bewildered than ever.

I thought I was going to have two comatose women on my hands when Hattie came in with my coffee. “It’s time for your pill, Missy,” she was saying, “but I can’t find them. They’re not on the night table in your room and—”