Leave home? Sure. When elephants roost in trees.
Twenty-One
The phone woke me. Trouble. I knew by the insistent urgency of the ring, which was as jarring as chalk on a blackboard. Besides, no one in Palm Beach would dream of calling on Sunday before noon.
When I heard Al Rogoff’s voice I honestly thought Binky had mangled himself with his new electric mixer. “Sorry to wake you, Archy,” Al began.
“Not at all, Al. I was just dressing for church.”
“You still working for Sabrina Wright?” he asked.
“No. We formally terminated our working relationship yesterday.
Why?”
“Someone terminated the lady last night.”
I was in my pajama tops, the only half I ever wear, and felt an icy draft attack my lower extremities. “Come again, Al.”
“You heard me,” he said.
“Where? When?”
“In her rented car. Last night about ten, as far as we can determine.”
I jumped on that. “Her car? An accident?”
“No, Archy. Someone put a bullet in her head.”
Amazing how calmly Al Rogoff could deliver such news. It must go with the territory. Murder always got me where I lived and, come to think of it, it got the victim in the same place. Sabrina gone. Still half awake, I wondered If I was dreaming the whole thing. Like the guy who’s stopped for passing a red light and telling the officer, “I saw it, sir, but I did not perceive it.” I heard it but I hadn’t as yet grasped it. I could see her face; laughing, seething, cajoling. I visualized her dictating to those she professed to love and ruled like a despot. I heard her telling the three contenders to ‘go climb the family tree.” Brash, brazen, and foolish Sabrina. Did her sense of humor fail her in the end, or did she enrage her assailant with, “Do you expect to shoot a leopard, Mr.. ”
“The palace is in an uproar,” I heard Al say. A visiting celebrity gunned down on our turf. The press is here from Miami, Tallahassee, and Atlanta. We hear the boys from New York have touched down in Fort Lauderdale and the rest are arriving at any airport in the state they could book a flight to without having to wait more than five minutes to board.”
“Where are you now, Al?”
“In my car on the cell phone. I just got off duty. This call is a warning, Archy. You’re going to be questioned, you know that.”
I knew it. I also know I could narrow the investigation down to three names, all of which would make headlines in every capital of the western world and especially in our very own. I stood there, bottomless, shivering at the thought of the awesome power I possessed.
Until yesterday Sabrina and I held the fate of those three men in the palm of our hands. Now there was only one hand left holding the bag.
I had to think and I needed the time in which to do it. Time was at a premium and right now I couldn’t parse a sentence in a first-grade reader. “Al, this is important. I need to know the facts. Can we rendezvous in our office in an hour? I won’t keep you long and then you can go home and get some sleep.”
“Don’t worry about me, Archy. I got a few hours off to shower and change my socks. All hands on deck until further notice. You’re on in one hour and don’t dawdle over your wardrobe. Come as you are.”
“If I did, Al, you’d arrest me.”
“Cute, Archy, cute.”
I put the phone down and it rang immediately. I didn’t have the time but I couldn’t afford not to know who wanted me. “Archy here.”
“Lolly here. Have you heard?”
“I’ve heard, Lolly, but I don’t have time to discuss it. Maybe later.”
“Every network reported it and CNN is carrying it as a news-breaking story. There goes my exclusive,” he moaned.
A thousand-watt bulb exploded in my head. “Ain’t it a bitch, Lol? She had agreed to meet with you tonight in her suite at The Breakers.”
“I believe you, Archy, because deep down I’m in love with you. I have a penchant for losers.”
“It’s nice to be loved, Lol. Now I have to go.”
“Any idea who done it, and why? They say it’s linked to her daughter’s raking up the past. I heard the police are going to commandeer all the old newspapers she was thumbing through as soon as the library opens tomorrow morning. I imagine they’ll want to question all the newspaper editors she called and you, too, I’m sure.”
The big three were hearing the same rumors and quaking. Did the fool who did it realize he had cut off his nose? Did the other two think a kind benefactor had interceded on their behalf? Or was it a conspiracy? Could the old school buddies have sat down at Casa Gran after the guests had left and exchanged notes? Was I losing it? I was.
“I know as much about this as you do, Lol, but if I hear anything you’ll be the first to know. Now I have to go.”
I hung up before he could respond. I showered, brushing my pear lies under the spray to save time, shaved, nicked my chin, doused my face with witch hazel, got into a pair of briefs, jeans, last night’s chambray shirt, and sneakers.
The phone rang. Archy here, and I can’t talk.”
“Have you heard?” It was Connie. “It’s all over the TV. The local station has a camera outside the police station. I saw Al Rogoff coming out. What do you know?”
“No time now, Connie. I have to meet Al in twenty minutes. I’ll be in touch. Will you be at home?”
“Only if a beautiful knight in shiny armor doesn’t carry me off to Camelot.”
“Fine. You’ll be home.”
In the kitchen Ursi was all atwitter as Jamie calmly perused his morning paper. Not even Walt Disney could animate the guy.
“I’ve heard, Ursi, so don’t ask. I haven’t got the time.” She handed me a glass of juice which I downed gratefully and I poured myself a cup pa adding only milk.
“It’s on the radio and the TV, Archy, but the newspaper doesn’t have it as yet.” On cue, Jamie raised the morning paper to show me the headline and confirm his wife’s words. “It happened late last night, they say. What a tragedy. As I was saying to Jamie just the other day, Archy, this town isn’t what it used to be. Time was when we never locked a door. Now you can’t go for a drive without fearing for your life. They say her next book was going to be an expose about an old Palm Beach family, that’s why she was done in. Her daughter and the boyfriend were doing the research, everyone knows that.”
Strange the things that pop up in one’s head when under stress. The rumors making the rounds of our island had me thinking of a line from Browning’s My Last Duchess “Here you miss, Or there exceed the mark.”
The execution of Sabrina Wright brought to mind the cruel duke’s response to his wife’s effervescent charm”I gave commands; Then all smiles stopped…”
“Are you going to Fort Lauderdale dressed like that, Archy?”
“Sorry, Ursi, but I’m not coming with you and Jamie. I have to go out now and will get back here to see the folks as soon as I can. Make my excuses.”
“It’s about the murder,” Ursi stated.
“Don’t say anything in front of mother, Ursi,” I warned her. “You know how she worries.”
I’ll have a word with your father,” Jamie said.
Ursi and I looked at him askance.
Al Rogoff and I maintain a mobile office in the parking lot of the Publix supermarket on Sunset Avenue. It’s convenient, discreet and you can’t beat the rent. Our location is as far from the madding crowd as one can get and our bays depend on space availability. Same church, different pews, but it works and what works is good.
As more people sleep in than go to Publix on Sunday morning I got a spot next to Al and joined him in his car. He was in need of a shave and a few hours’ sleep. For a change, Al wasn’t chomping on a cigar, but the aroma of those past pervaded his car’s interior like a pool hall on a busy night.
“You’re ten minutes late,” Al griped as I climbed in. “I gotta be back at the station in two hours.”
“Sorry, Al, but I’m still reeling from the news.”
“It never fails, Archy. You get a case and we get a body. Do me a favor and retire.”