Carnal Hours

“I have no doubt.” And she didn’t seem to. Her eyes, her expression, were unwavering. Also, unnerving, as she faced me, leaned in to me, while she stretched each long limb behind her, one at a time of course.

“You see, Mr. Heller, while I may not have made a study of it, I know human nature-I’ve lived with Freddie, and he may not be perfect…but he is my husband, and he is no murderer.”

“That’s an admirable attitude for a wife to have.”

“Thank you. I want you to do a job for me.”

“A job? What sort of job?”

“I want you to clear Freddie, of course. Would you like a cup of coffee? Or orange juice? I think even Miss Graham would agree I’ve done enough of a workout for one day.”

She pointed me to an area where picture windows overlooked the Biltmore golf course, and I sat alone at a carved wooden table shaped like a large seashell and sipped coffee she’d provided from a silver service on a stand nearby.

She emerged in a white terry-cloth robe, belted over her workout clothes, and smiled her multimillion-dollar smile and said, “Would you like breakfast? I can have some brought up.”

“No. Thank you. I already ate.”

She sipped her orange juice. She looked calm, poised, but it was a mask. Her eyes had the same red filigree as Marjorie Bristol’s. Yesterday she had reminded me of Merle Oberon; today I was thinking Gene Tierney….

“Your friend Sally Rand really is quite a gifted ballerina,” she said.

“Yes she is. A lot of people don’t notice that, though.”

“Lovely dancer.” Her smile seemed confident, but I sensed vulnerability. “Well, Mr. Heller? What do you say? Will you take the case?”

“No.”

Her wide eyes widened. “No?”

“No. Mrs. de Marigny, it’s impossible. I’m a material witness…for the prosecution!”

She smiled wickedly. “So much the better.”

I shrugged. “I don’t think it’s a bad idea, getting a private investigator to work with this attorney…Higgs, is it? I can tell you, frankly, that I’m not impressed with what the police down there are doing, either the Nassau boys or the imported Miami variety.”

She rolled her eyes. “I know that all too well.”

How? I wondered. But I didn’t ask.

I just said, “Really, I apologize, I’d like to help, but…”

She locked onto me with that unwavering gaze. “Mr. Heller-I checked with the person who recommended you to my father-an old friend of yours: Evalyn Walsh McLean. She speaks warmly of you, and assures me you are the man for the job.”

Evalyn. There was a name from the past…one of the queens of Washington society, the owner of the famed, cursed Hope Diamond, she’d been at my side during much of the ill-fated Lindbergh investigation. We’d parted rather bitterly-oddly enough, after all these years, it felt good to know I’d been forgiven….

“She claims you solved the Lindbergh kidnapping,” Nancy de Marigny said.

“Oh yeah. That one worked out just peachy for everybody.”

Her smile was wistful, her eyes glazed. “You know, it’s funny…that’s one of the reasons why my father moved to the Bahamas….”

“What is?”

“The Lindbergh kidnapping.”

“It is?”

She smiled, laughed sadly. “Oh, I know-everyone thinks Daddy moved to Nassau strictly to dodge the Canadian taxes. Well, I’m sure that was part of it. But after the Lindbergh baby was kidnapped, Daddy received several notes, extortion notes, threatening that I would be the next ‘rich brat snatched,’ if he didn’t pay. We lived near Niagara Falls at the time…sort of in the same part of the country as the Lindberghs- Mother and Father were friends of theirs, you know. Anyway, for something like two years we had armed guards walking our grounds. I know it was probably only a relatively short time, but in my memory it seems that I spent my entire childhood accompanied everywhere I went by armed guards.”

I didn’t know what to say; so I just nodded sympathetically.

“But in Nassau, Daddy had been told, even the richest man in the world could go to sleep, and leave his doors unlocked….”

And now, finally, she began to cry.

She found some tissues in her robe pocket and dabbed her eyes; I rose and went to her and touched her shoulder. After a while, she nodded that she was better, and gestured for me to sit down again.

I did.

“Mrs. de Marigny-I really do wish I could help.” And in a way I did, but really I didn’t: I just wanted to get back to Chicago. Between Nassau and Florida, I’d had my fill of palm trees, and I sure didn’t need to travel to the tropics to find knuckleheaded American cops to tangle with.

“Then you decline?” She took one last swipe at her eyes.

“Yes.”

“In that case, I’ll have to speak to Mr. Foskett.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well…you’ll need to refund my father’s ten-thousand-dollar retainer.”

“What?”

“I think you heard me the first time, Mr. Heller.”

“That was a nonrefundable retainer….”

“Do you have that in writing?”

“Well, no. How did you know…?”

She smiled blandly. “I’m friendly with the head of my father’s household staff-a Miss Marjorie Bristol? She’s holding the carbon of the check my father made out to you.”

I didn’t say anything. I may have moaned.

“And,” she continued cheerily, “in his personal ledger, where he recorded the payment, he noted that your daily rate was to be three hundred dollars. He also made a notation that you’d been paid in advance, one thousand dollars for one day’s work. And I believe that’s how long you did, actually, work? Isn’t it, Mr. Heller?”

I nodded. “That was three hundred dollars plus expenses, though.”

She shrugged facially. “That’s fine. And if you put in enough days to exhaust the retainer, I’m willing to continue paying you at the same rate. Which I understand is top money in your field.”

I sighed. “That’s correct.”

“So. When would you like to head back to Nassau?”

She’d beaten me; Nate Heller, tough guy, pummeled by a nineteen-year-old ballerina.

“This afternoon will be fine,” I said.

“Wonderful!” She reached in the pocket of her robe. “Here are your tickets…your room is waiting at the B.C.”

She meant the British Colonial; I took the tickets, numbly.

She sipped her orange juice. Looked out at the golf course, proud of herself.

“Mrs. de Marigny…”

“Nancy.” She smiled, and it was genuine enough.

“Nancy. And call me Nate, and how did you know the police are botching the investigation? Did the Count’s attorney, Higgs, tell you?”

She shook her head no. “I had firsthand experience with those Miami detectives.”

I squinted at her. “Barker and Melchen? How’s that possible?”

“They flew to Maine yesterday…they crashed the funeral, Mr. Heller.”

“Nate. They crashed the funeral?”

They crashed the funeral, and afterward they followed Nancy and her mother to the latter’s bedroom, where Lady Oakes collapsed in grief. They chose this moment to tell Nancy and Lady Oakes, in gruesome detail, their reconstruction of the murder as Freddie de Marigny supposedly committed it.