“You mean the Academy Award Oscar? No, but I wish I did. When an actress, who shall be nameless, pawned hers I tried to get it out of hock, but the ghouls with deep pockets got there first. Why do you need one?”
“I want to present it to a young lady,” I confessed. “She just gave the performance of her life, and I thought it would be a nice gesture.”
“Is she Hollywood bound?” Arnie asked.
“No. In fact, she’s on her way to twenty-five years to life without parole.”
“You know the nicest people, Archy.”
“It’s my star quality that attracts ‘em. Thanks, anyway, Arnie, and if you drop in at the Pelican tomorrow night, I’ll stand you a drink for your trouble.”
“You got a date, Mr. McNally.”
Twenty-Five
.
Wanting to give the police and their suspects time to get acquainted, I lunched before driving to the station house. My gourmet meal consisted of two slices of pizza topped with pepperoni and washed down with a bottle of commercial beer. This gave me time to reflect on the events of the past week and the circumstances that had shaped them. In that week a life had been snuffed out and two others would pay the piper with theirs. But the real story went back thirty years. An unwanted pregnancy resulting in an overbearing mother and a virago wife. Sabrina Wright had ruled her kingdom like a tyrant and there would be those who said she got what she deserved. Not this observer. Daughter and husband were not indentured servants. They could have walked away, but refused to leave all that moola and privilege behind. Oppression was their excuse, greed their motive.
At the end of every case you look back and rue all the stupid mistakes you made from the start. You gather information, draw conclusions, and drive merrily up the garden path, never noticing the tow line attached to your front fender.
The television vans and the reporters, including Lolly Spindrift, had followed Sabrina’s family to the precinct. Lolly waylaid me as soon as I got out of the Miata.
“What’s happening, Archy? And remember, you owe me big,” he hassled.
“The police will have a statement for the press shortly and I will give you an interview when they do,” I promised. I moved past him and the others who now recognized me, thanks to Lolly’s reception.
I entered the palace without my statuette and was immediately grateful for Arnie’s inability to provide one when I was greeted by an officer bearing the name tag “Lieutenant Oscar Eberhart.” The gods move in mysterious ways and, as mother often said of life’s disappointments,
“Everything happens for the best.”
“Thank you, sir.” I tried to sound humble, which was difficult under the circumstances. I did crack the case. “Have they made a statement?”
“The reporter, Ward, told us the husband and the girl told him about the missing jewels and cash. When we confronted them with it they clammed up. I think the girl will crack, but this Silvester won’t budge. He called some big-shot lawyer in New York and the guy is on his way here.”
“I can corroborate Ward’s story,” I said.
“So Rogoff tells me.” Oscar didn’t seem particularly pleased with my offer. “We’re getting a warrant to search their rooms at the hotel. If the jewels Silvester described turn up we can hold the one who’s hiding them until a judge sets ball. The reporter is innocent. He talked, never knowing that he had incriminated the pair. He can go as soon as we’ve gone over his room, but he’ll have to stay in Palm Beach until we issue a formal indictment.”
“Can I see Silvester?”
“Ten minutes, but only because he might open up to you. There’s a guard in the room with him. If you can get him to talk, the guard will get me.”
It was a small room containing a table, four chairs, a uniformed policeman, and Robert Silvester. “Nice try,” I said.
He told me what I could go do to myself, which, as we all know, is a physical impossibility.
I sat opposite him. “How long have you and Gillian been plotting to get rid of Sabrina?”
I was again told to do the impossible, so I answered my own question.
The two of them must have said, “I could kill her, often enough for the empty threat to become a conspiracy. Perhaps a joke at first, devising means and opportunity, they were suddenly handed both when Sabrina made her confession to the girl. How simple. Gillian goes in search of her father who is reluctant to come out of hiding and the man must silence the only person who can finger him.
“I’m sure it was your idea,” I said. “Gillian is the actress. You’re the writer and director. When you told me she had attended drama school I should have paid closer attention. I also should have asked you how you managed to find the girl and Zack Ward so soon after arriving in Palm Beach. Now we know the seemingly chance meeting was prearranged.
“Zack Ward, a tabloid reporter, was a dividend sent from heaven.
Gillian and Zack came to Palm Beach in search of daddy and up went the curtain.”
They needed an investigator to snoop around and spread the word and Silvester remembered me. He comes after Gillian, breaks contact with Sabrina, and she comes looking for the both of them. Silvester has already told Sabrina he will elicit my help in finding Gillian, therefore Sabrina contacts me upon arrival.
“It was you who tipped Lolly Spindrift, wasn’t it? You told him Sabrina was here looking for a man and that was the match that lit the fuse. How did you know when and where Sabrina arrived? Now it’s perfectly clear. Like a dutiful husband you called her travel agent in New York.
“Then Gillian, with the unsuspecting Zack, starts her search with all the fanfare of a marching band. Were you surprised when Sabrina got that first call and went off to meet the man you believed to be Gillian’s father?”
Forgetting himself, Silvester said, “I was shocked. I didn’t believe Sabrina’s story. She was a genius when it came to creating plots.”
But not even Sabrina Wright could have created the plot she had lived.
Now, thanks to her assassins, and a loyal Archy McNally, her story would never be told and three very lavish floral wreaths, unsigned, would see her to her rest.
If Silvester didn’t believe Sabrina’s story of Gillian’s birth, neither did Gillian. But when the calls came they didn’t stop to wonder that Sabrina was telling the truth. They thought it convenient that their fictional patsy was real, but Gillian had no intention of waiting around to claim her birthright. She and Silvester wanted only to get away as soon as possible and leave it to the police to solve the thirty-year-old mystery.
The first call must have taken them by surprise. They were not ready to make their move. They needed time for the gossip mill to build momentum. The second call was also a surprise, but when Sabrina went out that night they must have lacked opportunity, perhaps because they couldn’t get rid of Ward. Time was running out and just as they were beginning to put what must have been their original plan into operation, the third call came. This time luck was with them. Zack wanted to see the ball game. Lucky for him. If he hadn’t they would have gotten him out of the way if they had to drug him.
“Sabrina left, you and Gillian got in Gillian’s rented car and followed her. It was conceivable that the meeting would not take place in a public place and you were right.”
But where was Schuyler? If he had kept his date, Silvester and Gillian would have seen him. Did he arrive late to find Sabrina dead?
“It was Gillian’s turn to make the anonymous call,” I finished. “And because you thought any murderer would try to make it look like a robbery, you took the jewelry and cash. That was stupid, Rob. Very stupid.”
