McNally's Bluff (22 page)

“Why can’t Joe just run the tape of the show for the morning that footage was aired? Those shots were even repeated a few times after the murder, and I bet a zillion people have it on tape, too. What’s the problem?”

“You don’t understand, Archy,” Binky began to explain. “The cameraman took about ten minutes of film that day he went up with Mack, but it was edited down to what was seen on the show, which was exactly ninety seconds of tape. Joe wants to see the unused footage.”

Now I was more than interested. I was ecstatic. “And where is it?” I asked, anticipating the answer.

“It’s disappeared,” Binky said. “Or the cameraman has disappeared, according to Mack. Either way it’s a dead end.”

“But isn’t the cameraman a network employee?”

“No,” came the answer. “Like all shows, Mack’s has a budget and the producer didn’t want to okay the cost of the chopper and cameraman so Mack did it on his own. It’s not so unusual for a star to spend his own money to boost his ratings and it sure paid off for Mack.”

“Macurdy hired his own cameraman who he now says has disappeared along with the film,” I finished the story. “If you believe that, Binky, you believe in Santa, the tooth fairy and the sincerity of politicians.”

Macurdy had that film and he didn’t want anyone to see it because it contained something amazin’ about the Amazin’ Maze of Matthew Hayes. “What was Joe looking for, Binky, do you know?”

“Nothing special,” Binky said. “He can’t get into the maze because Hayes has barred all newsmen from the place and the police aren’t giving away anything they may have discovered in their search. Joe thought the unseen footage might be worm having a look at.”

Or was Joe on to something he wasn’t sharing with Binky, or anyone else? Everyone was playing this close to the vest. And did Macurdy just luck out when he decided to pay for the chopper and cameraman, or did he know what to look for? So many questions.

Now I pondered over what to do with Joe Gallo and his stringer who had stumbled onto something that might be injurious to their wellbeing and didn’t know it. There is nothing as frightening as two amateur sleuths following a hot fuse attached to a stick of TNT. If I told Joe to forget trying to locate the unused footage, he would become more determined than ever to badger Macurdy for its whereabouts, and Macurdy might well be the TNT at the end of the fuse. If I said nothing I would be derelict of my duty. Contrary to my blabbering, I harbor a soft spot for Binky and Joe Gallo.

I compromised thusly, “I’d like to sit down with Joe and compare notes, Binky. What do you think?”

As I had hoped, he jumped at the offer. “Great, Archy. I’ll tell Joe and get back to you.”

W
HEN I RETURNED TO
the garage, Herb, in his glass kiosk, gave me a thumbs-up. This was not sign language for “have a nice day” but to inform me that Mrs. Trelawney was hot on my trail. How did she know I was in the building? Guess.

I didn’t need a clairvoyant to tell me that Hayes, tired of leaving messages with the red eyed monster, had somehow gotten through to the executive suite where he protested my truancy to our leader’s girl Friday. Before getting into my Miata I answered Herb with a thumbs-down.

The master of Le Maze himself opened the door to me. This said he didn’t employ any full-time help except for Tilly, who was otherwise engaged this afternoon. It also said that Matthew Hayes coveted his privacy. Those who are not fortunate enough to have a domestic staff fail to realize that their presence turns the homestead into a fish-bowl. If you doubt this, just consider the number of butlers, equerries, security guards, etc., who have penned exposes of the English royal family.

Before inviting me in, the little guy shouted, “They arrested Tilly. I need a lawyer...”

Father’s words echoed in my head,
Don’t give him my name.

“Where have you been?” Hayes continued to rant. “I’ve been trying to get you all morning. What’s your cell number?”

When he ran out of breath, or questions, I said, “Tilly has not been arrested. She was taken in for questioning.”

“How do you know that?” he demanded.

“Because I provoked the police to do so.”

He started and touched his cheek as if I had slapped him in the kisser. This, clearly, was not the answer he expected. “Whose side are you on, McNally?”

“I usually root for the Dolphins,” I admitted.

“You’re fired,” he bellowed, loud enough for all of Ocean Boulevard to know I just got the sack.

“Good day, sir.” I touched the brim of my hat and turned to go.

“Just where do you think you’re going, McNally?” he cried, following me out.

“To the unemployment office. Where else?”

“Get your tail back in here, pronto, or I’ll fire you.”

“You just did,” I reminded him.

Suddenly he was all contrite. The little boy caught in the act of something devilish and promising never to do it again if I would only spare the rod. I feared that if I applauded his performance he would actually take a bow. This was all most unseemly for the front steps of an Ocean Boulevard villa in the broad light of day. My red Miata in the driveway was a sure giveaway as to the identity of the guy Hayes was indulging in a
pas de deux.
I thought it best to lead the little boy back into the house—by the hand if need be.

“Let’s take this from the top, Mr. Hayes,” I said, in the manner of a director requesting a retake. “I ring the front doorbell, you open the door and invite me in.”

“No need to be surly,” he had the nerve to accuse. He turned and headed back to the open door, and I followed.

No sooner were we in the entrance foyer than he attacked. “Why did you tell them to bring in Tilly? They’ve been questioning her for the past three days. She told them all she knows.”

“Are we going to stand here, in the hall, Mr. Hayes, or can we go into the den and play this painful scene in a modicum of comfort?”

With a pout and a shrug, Hayes buried his hands deep in the pockets of his corduroy trousers and led the way. (Georgy would say he “was doing” Jackie Cooper in
The Champ
.) We passed through the great room where those gaudy, giant four-color posters still lined the walls. I took it they were part of the permanent decor and were not hung just for the party. In the words of Lolly Spindrift, “It gives new meaning to the word gauche.” Forgive the cliché but if hindsight were foresight I would have paid closer attention to those garish placards.

Once in the den Hayes hopped onto the divan as if he were mounting a horse sidesaddle. He was shod in his elevator pumps and I wondered how high he stood in his stocking feet. Knee-high to a grasshopper I imagined, perhaps unkindly.

I took the seat I had occupied on my last visit and, before he could get on Tilly’s case, I got on his. “Your wife knew one of the guests at the party,” was how I began the interrogation of my diffident client.

If my intention was to shock, I failed miserably. Hayes simply returned my gaze and said, “You mean Carolyn? Sure, they went back a long ways. I knew her back then, too. Marlena and Carolyn were stewardesses...”

“They were cocktail waitresses in the Cockatoo Lounge, Mr. Hayes. Let’s cut the do-do and talk turkey. Okay? If not, I’ll quit before you fire me again.”

Still blasé, he uttered, “Gobble, gobble,” and chuckled. “Who told you that? Carolyn, I guess. I thought she didn’t want it known around this piss-elegant town where she came from. And what’s this got to do with Marlena’s death? That’s what I’m paying you for, McNally, not to dig up gossip like that Spendthrift guy.”

Was it possible that he truly didn’t know the connection? To give him the benefit of the doubt, I reasoned that he was new in town and he had not been lionized by the welcome wagon ladies. In fact, he and his household had been given the PBCS (Palm Beach cold shoulder) since he had announced the construction of his maze, his profession and what he had in store for Palm Beach.

Laddy Taylor’s accusations against his stepmother had never been put in print. Laddy griped to local insiders, who blabbed to each other—and outsiders, like Hayes, could very well be ignorant of the Taylor vs. Taylor scandal.

But Hayes was an actor. A superb actor, and possibly a writer and director as well. I must keep this in mind, but it wasn’t easy. I was always a sucker for the underdog but, this time around, would it suck me under? So many questions.

“Did you know that Carolyn Taylor and Marlena were meeting in secret?” I asked.

“Sure,” he told me. “I told you Carolyn didn’t want her relationship with Marlena known now that she’s a snooty Palm Beach rich widow and Marlena respected that, so they met outside the town. What’s the big deal?”

“The big deal, sir, is that Tilly claims she saw Carolyn upstairs just before Marlena gave her last performance as Venus.”

Finally, I got him in the solar plexus and he flinched. I followed with a jab to the jaw. “Just about the time Tilly had filled the perk for Marlena’s tea and left it to attend to Marlena.”

He appeared more perplexed than ever. Shaking his head, he asked, “Tilly told you this?”

“She did, sir. When I was here yesterday, Tilly passed me a note, requesting that I meet with her in our local bookstore. I did, and she told me what I’ve just told you.”

He took this in, seemingly amazed, before posing in awe, “But why didn’t she tell me? I don’t get it.”

“Why didn’t she tell the police, sir, is more to the point. However, Tilly believes, or so she said, that your wife and Carolyn Taylor were meeting in secret. That is, without your knowledge. If Tilly told you about Carolyn Taylor’s alleged trip to the second floor that night, she would be forced to tell you about those meetings and did not want to betray her mistress, or even the memory of her mistress.”

Quickly sizing up the situation, Hayes immediately began defending Tilly. “She’s a good kid. Always has been. Appreciates how we got her out of that diner and took her on the road with us.”

He began waving that imaginary baton as he did when addressing his guests the night of the gala that ended in murder. It was a gesture more attuned to a crowd than an audience of one. There were moments when I felt the need to duck.

“Sure,” he was proclaiming, “she wouldn’t know that Marlena and Carolyn were old friends, and Marlena and I never discussed Carolyn in front of Tilly, and that’s a fact. Poor kid. It was weighing on Tilly, so she came to you because I hired you to look into Marlena’s death. She did right in my opinion.”

“She would have done better telling the police what she saw.”

“In our business, McNally, we don’t go to the police. They come to us.”

I refrained from telling him that Tilly’s reason for shunning the police was fear of implicating Carolyn Taylor because I didn’t believe it. Also, it would compel Hayes to again extol on the virtues of innocent Tilly.

Instead, I lectured, “I told the police because it’s my duty to help, not hinder, their investigation. I work with the police, Mr. Hayes, I told you that when you hired me. But before going to the police, I went to see Carolyn Taylor and told her what Tilly was claiming she witnessed that night.”

Grinning, he said, “And Carolyn denied it.”

I nodded. “Who do you believe, Mr. Hayes?”

He sank back into the divan and his elevators rose from the floor. He opened his arms, looked at the ceiling, folded his arms across his chest, then opened them again. A mime depicting bewilderment. “Why would Tilly lie, but why would Carolyn want to do in poor Marlena?”

“Do you know Laddy Taylor, sir?”

He began by shaking his head before looking up and exclaiming, “Tilly’s guy. Right?” Making a fist, he tapped his forehead as one would knock on wood to avert trouble. “He’s Carolyn’s stepson and they’re at each other’s throats over the old man’s will. Tilly’s mentioned it but I don’t pay much attention to girl talk. I’m sure Marlena knew all about it from Carolyn but she never told me. So what’s this got to do with anything, McNally?”

Right here, I decided that Matthew Hayes had just over played his hand. The competent actor had crossed the line from drama to farce, probably because farce was the main stay of his repertoire. He didn’t listen to girl talk? Sure, and Macurdy’s cameraman had disappeared along with the unseen footage of the maze. Everyone is lying and no one is telling the truth now becomes, one lies and the other swears to it.

To utter yet another cliché,
What a can of worms.
But I must say I find clichés remarkably satisfying. They say it all in the fewest possible words—and everyone understands what you mean.

As they had taught me in drama class at Yale (before they asked me to leave), if you find yourself in a farce, play it for all it’s worth—so going for the Tony, Obie and Oscar, I told Hayes all about Laddy and Carolyn and Marlena and digitalis, leaving out nothing including Laddy’s try at exhuming his father’s body.

Hayes, with eyes like saucers, shook his head in disbelief. When I had done, he pronounced it, “Manure in its purest form.”

Although I wasn’t sure how he would react, this denouncement of Laddy caught me off guard. I was confused, at the very least, but wasn’t confusion the hallmark of farce, as well as that of a three-card monte dealer?

“Marlena wouldn’t do murder,” Hayes protested. “She was into the occult scam but I think she was beginning to believe she really had the gift, and she helped girls in trouble. Abortions, if you must know. It’s not illegal. She used a tonic an old Waco Indian woman gave her when we camped outside of Enid one season. If it contained digitalis, I never knew it. So if Carolyn put her husband to rest, she did it without Marlena’s help.”

“Then Carolyn would have no reason to harm Marlena.” I quickly got it.

“Of course not,” Hayes responded. “But...”

I waited in silence and when I was sure he wasn’t going to continue, I prompted, “But what, Mr. Hayes?”

“Look,” he said, leaning forward, his feet touching the floor, “I taught Marlena all the tricks of our craft and she was a quick learner. Maybe too quick. She was pulling off things I would never sanction. Foolish stuff. Too risky. I’ve been thinking that’s what got her done in. Some old score, coming home to roost. Marlena got greedy, McNally, and now I’m wondering...”