“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
