“You must return to Westbourne, sir,” said the one who’d tapped on my shoulder.
And in their company, I did.
I was ushered into the billiards room, where the lights were off but for a small lamp on a fancy wooden card table along one wall. The effect was moody, like the lighting in an old Warner Brothers gangster movie. Looming above the card table was a huge stuffed fish-a swordfish or a marlin or something, I’m a city boy myself-swimming in the darkness.
Two men in baggy suits and fedoras were shrouded in these shadows. One was a tall, ruggedly handsome character in his forties, who looked like what a police detective was supposed to. The other, a fiftyish, chunky, hook-nosed guy in wire-frame glasses, was what police detectives did look like.
If the melodrama of this underlit room and these imposing figures was supposed to intimidate me, I could only stifle a laugh. Once upon a time, I was the youngest plainclothes officer in the history of the Chicago PD, thanks to a little honest graft, and could give these bozos lessons in scare tactics and the third degree.
In fact, all I could think of, when I looked at this pair, was Abbott and Costello.
“Is something funny?” the tall one asked.
“Not really,” I lied, and stopped smirking.
“You’re Heller?” the shorter pudgy one drawled.
“Yeah. And who would you be?”
“This is Captain Edward Melchen,” the tall one said, gesturing to his partner.
“And this is Captain James Barker,” the short one said, with a similar gesture.
Maybe I should wait for the applause to die down.
“You’re Miami PD,” I said.
“That’s right,” Barker said. Unlike his partner’s, his Southern accent was barely noticeable. “Sit down.” He gestured to the little lamp-lit table and the chair beside it.
I stayed put. “Why don’t you boys turn on the lights, take off your hats, and stay awhile?”
“I don’t like this guy,” Melchen said.
“I don’t like him either,” Barker said.
“Who’s on first?” I said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Barker snapped.
“Nothing. What are a couple Miami dicks doing working a murder in Nassau?”
“If it’s any of your business,” Barker said, “we were invited by the Duke of Windsor. We’re acquainted.”
Now I did laugh. “You’re acquainted with the Duke of Windsor?”
Melchen stepped forward; his bulldog face was tight. If I’d been twelve years old, I’d have been really scared. “We’ve handled security for him when he’s passed through Miami, from time to time. So, do we have your goddamn permission to be here?”
I shrugged. “Sure. Thanks for asking.”
Barker barked. “Sit down!”
I sat at the little table. Barker started to turn the lamp toward my face and I batted it away. “I’m from Chicago, boys. Spare me the musical comedy.”
Barker said, “You’re an ex-cop.”
“Mmm hmm.”
Melchen was looking at me thoughtfully, which seemed to be an effort. “Most private dicks are.”
That was a shrewd observation.
Barker spoke, and he’d drained the intimidation from his voice. “Mr. Heller, why don’t you tell us what your business with Sir Harry Oakes was.”
“Sure,” I said, and did.
Every now and then they would look at each other, and one of them would say, “De Marigny,” and the other would nod. Neither bothered taking any notes.
When I’d wrapped up my account, Barker said, “The estimated time of death is between one-thirty a.m. and three-thirty a.m. You’ve just placed Count de Marigny on the murdered man’s doorstep in that time frame. Perfectly.”
Melchen was smiling tightly and nodding.
“Fellas,” I said, “the Count’s a good suspect-don’t get me wrong. But the behavior I observed the day of the murder wasn’t consistent with somebody planning a crime.”
“Maybe it was spur of the moment,” Melchen said.
“Yeah,” said Barker. “He saw the lights on here at Westbourne, driving by, pulled in and had it out with the old man.”
“What,” I said, “and just happened to have a blowtorch in his pocket? I saw the crime scene, gentlemen. Sloppy as it is, murders don’t come much more premeditated.”
They both looked at me blankly, the way a dog might.
“Of course,” I said, “he may have been killed elsewhere and moved here.”
“What makes you say that?” Barker asked.
“The direction of the dried blood on his face. He was on his belly when he was shot.”
That made both of them smirk; Barker looked up smugly at Melchen, who was rocking on his heels like a fat top.
“Did I make a joke?” I asked.
Barker laughed soundlessly. “He wasn’t shot at all.”
“He was killed with a blunt instrument,” Melchen said.
“According to who?”
“According,” Baker said pointedly, “to Dr. Quackenbush.”
“Didn’t Groucho Marx play him?”
“Someday, boy,” Melchen said, in his molasses-mouth manner, shaking a finger, “you’re going to pay for that smart-ass mouth.”
“Deliver the bill anytime, fat man.”
Barker held Melchen back with an arm.
I don’t know why I was needling them, except to see if my initial reading of them as a couple of thick-headed strong-arm types was right. It was-although Barker was clearly the brains. So to speak.
“Hey,” I said. “I’m out of line. We’re all here for the same reason: to help find Sir Harry’s killer. Right?”
“Right,” Barker said. But Melchen was still fuming.
“Let me ask you-you fellas have seen the body, haven’t you?”
They looked at each other dumbly. In both senses of the word.
“It was moved before we got here,” Barker said, vaguely defensive. “It’s at Bahamas General for a post-mortem, then it’s being flown to Maine later tonight.”
“Maine,” I said. “What, for the funeral?”
Barker nodded.
“Well, have a look at those head wounds yourself. I think the old boy was shot.”
Footsteps interrupted us, and I turned to see Colonel Lindop silhouetted in the doorway.
“Gentlemen,” he said stiffly, addressing the Miami dicks, “the Governor is here. He would like a word with you.”
They scurried out of there. I followed, taking my time; Lindop was standing just outside the billiards room as I exited. I looked at him and raised my eyebrows and he shook his head in quiet disgust.
Down the hall, near the front door, by the scorched stairway, the former King of England-sad-eyed, almost slight, dressed in white, like a dapper ice-cream man-was conferring with the Miami cops. A hush had fallen across a hallway crowded with police and various hangers-on; everyone stood around watching breathlessly, respectfully.
I supposed I should have felt impressed. But it wasn’t like he was Capone or anything.
What was most impressive, to me at least, was the way the Duke was treating these Miami roughnecks like old friends, shaking their hands, even placing a gentle hand on Melchen’s shoulder at one point.
Despite the now-hushed hallway, I couldn’t make out anything of their low-pitched conversation. The Duke looked toward the stairs, gestured, and he and the American cops went upstairs, to check out the crime scene. Next to me, Colonel Lindop-who had not been asked along-watched them go, his face etched with the hollow hurt of a spurned suitor.
“Mr. Heller?” a musical voice said.
Down near the kitchen, there she was: Marjorie Bristol. She wore the same light blue dress as before, or an identical one; perhaps it was a maid’s uniform. I went to her.
In the kitchen, white cops in khaki and businessman types milled, while a heavyset colored woman in a bandanna kept busy at a counter, preparing small sandwiches.
“It’s a tragedy, Mr. Heller,” Miss Bristol said. The whites of her lovely dark eyes were filigreed red. “Sir Harry, he was a fine man.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Bristol. Were you here when it happened?”
“No. I left around ten, after I set Sir Harry’s nightclothes out on his bed….” She cupped her mouth; just the thought of his bed was jarring. “Then I…tuck in the mosquito nettin’, and spray the room for bugs.”