Shadows (11 page)

“The girls were a delight, beautiful and musically talented like their mother. They all had a sense of joie de vivre. Diana always dressed them in white. They had those bright blue eyes like Pierce, and his black hair.”

“Ever hear rumors that one or more of the girls might've been pregnant or had a child out of wedlock?”

“Outrageous!” Temple jerked back in his chair at the thought, his expression indignant. “Absolute nonsense, sir! They were very young. Pierce was protective of those girls, loved them so dearly. I doubt if a young man could get neah them. I nevuh saw a better father. He gave up politics to spend more time with them. Took them on trips, taught them to swim himself, used to carry them on his shoulders when they were little.”

The detectives perked up, exchanging glances.

“And as they got older?” Burch said.

“Traditionally the father presents his daughter to society, has the first dance, and then the young man who is her escort cuts in. But when Summer, the oldest, came out, well, the young man nevuh had a chance. Pierce just waltzed and waltzed that beautiful girl around the floor until her head was spinning. What a beautiful picture that was.”

“Yeah, I bet,” Corso said.

“A pity,” Temple said sadly, “that so many glorious traditions become lost to time.”

“Have you been in touch with Nolan's widow through the years?” Burch asked.

“A few letters as Pierce's estate was being settled, but it ended there. She was high spirited, energetic, and active, her husband's death a terrible shock. Especially the manner in which it happened. I don't believe she ever recovered. Any thought of returning to Miamuh for even a visit was probably far too painful. I don't believe any of the children ever returned heah, either.

“Apparently she decided to cut all ties. Never heard from her again. The last I knew, she lived in San Francisco. Wasn't sure she was even still living until I read in the financial section of the newspaper that the Shadows had been sold to a developer and she was listed as the seller.”

He sighed. “Miamuh was a kinder, gentler place then, before all the immigration, drugs, and crime. To that community, Pierce's murder was the crime of the decade, the crime of the century. Even more so than the Mosler murder later. Everyone was in a state of shock. If a man of Pierce's stature could be killed, then no one was safe.”

“Who do you think killed him?” Burch asked. “And why?”

“That's a question I would dearly love to see answered before I die. His death is one of those nagging, unanswered enigmas that preys on my mind late at night. Who? Why? I do have one simple suggestion for you gentlemen. Instead of covering the same turf so thoroughly plowed by your predecessors, it might be more beneficial for you to branch out, be more original, and seek other avenues of investigation. In simpler words, why waste your efforts in a berry patch already picked dry?”

“Any original avenue or new berry patch you'd like to suggest?” Burch asked.

The old man shook his head thoughtfully. “You're the trained investigators, gentlemen. That's your department.”

Temple struggled out of his chair, leaning on his ornate cane as he saw them to the door.

“Ain't he in for a shock when this story hits the headlines,” Corso said outside.

“I need to talk to the widow before it does,” Burch said.

 

Diana Nolan's officious secretary was persistent. She insisted she had to know the precise nature of their business with her employer before putting the call through.

“Her husband's murder,” Burch said bluntly.

The Widow Nolan sounded wary. “Why would you call about that after all these years?”

“There's been a new development in the investigation,” Burch said.

She said nothing.

“Mrs. Nolan?”

“Yes, I'm here.”

“We'd like to interview you and your daughters.”

“Brooke is here in San Francisco. I've been estranged from the others for years.” Her voice sounded brittle.

“And your son?”

“Sky rode away on his motorcycle one day. He hasn't kept in touch.”

“How long ago was that?”

“I don't recall precisely. Sometime in the early 1980s, I think.”

“More than twenty years ago?”

“That sounds about right.”

“And you don't know the whereabouts of your older daughters, either?”

“I didn't say that. My attorney must have their addresses. We've been in litigation.”

“What sort of litigation?”

“Various family matters over the years, too personal to discuss with strangers. I'm busy now. Is there anything else?”

“The new development in the case—aren't you curious?”

“Oh,” she said, as though absentminded. “Certainly.”

“It was triggered by your sale of the Shadows.”

Silence.

“The house is about to undergo demolition. So we went out to take a look, hoping to find some new clue to your husband's murder.”

“And?”

“We did. In a box, in the basement.”

She said nothing.

“Do you remember that box in the basement?”

“I never liked going down there. I was afraid of rats.”

“Do you know what we found in it?”

“I'm not really interested. How would it have anything to do with my husband's death?”

“We hoped you could tell us.”

“Frankly, I have no idea what you're talking about. I haven't set foot in that house since August 1961. If you have any further questions, you can direct them to my attorney. I'll give you his number.”

“Something wrong, Boss?” Corso caught Burch's expression as he hung up.

“Nah, just shell shock from talking to the Mother of the Year.”

 

“Admittedly, they are not your typical family,” said Mark Sanders, Diana Nolan's San Francisco attorney. “They keep me busy.”

“Any criminal matters?” Burch asked.

“No. Any reason to believe there might be some now?”

“A good chance,” Burch said. “A very good chance. We need your client to be more forthcoming.” He asked about her history of litigation.

“All in the family. Paranoia, accusations, spite suits, and countersuits. They've been at it since my father first represented her thirty-five years ago. No sign of a truce. They'll fight to the death and the survivors will sue the estate.”

“Is her son a litigant?”

“No, oddly enough. He ran, escaped the madness. I don't think he's spoken to any of them in years. It may stem from the trauma of the father's murder. People react to tragedy in different ways. Instead of making this family closer, it tore them apart. Sad, isn't it?”

Summer, he said, had pursued an acting career after the move to California. “Appeared in quite a few movies during the late sixties and seventies. Never the lead, but had some impressive credits.”

“Anything I'd know?”

“A Western with Richard Widmark, the title escapes me, a horror flick starring Vincent Price, and a small role in an Elvis movie, among others. Her screen name was Kathryn Ashley.”

“Why didn't she use her real name? Summer Nolan sure has a ring to it.”

“My client,” he said proudly. “We sued to prevent it. She didn't want the family name disgraced. You know, emotional distress and all that. Probably wasn't a winnable action but my client insisted, and it delayed Summer's pursuit of her first movie role long enough that her agent advised her to simply acquiesce and change it.”

“Sounds pretty small and petty.”

“That's nothing, for them.

“Summer was a gorgeous woman in her prime. Still was when I last saw her in court. They all were. My dad always said it was a shame they were all so unhinged. He used to try to gather them together in one room for mediation. Talk about hormones, he said. Whoooh.”

Spring, he said, now lived at the Villages, a huge self-contained retirement community in central Florida. Summer lived in San Antonio and Brooke, the youngest, in San Francisco. “But don't presume by that that she and her mother speak. They have a love-hate mother-daughter relationship. At each other's throats, filing defamatory lawsuits today, dismissing them and taking a cruise together tomorrow.

“With the sale of the Miami property injecting an infusion of forty million dollars into the mix, I'm clearing my calendar for the next round of complaints,” he said happily.

 

Maude Wells was society editor at the
Miami News
in 1961. They found her in a Miami Beach nursing home.

“I remember them so well,” she said from her wheelchair. “A beautiful family, exquisite lineage except, of course, for Pierce Nolan's father, that rascal of a rumrunner. But even at that, it was a fascinating marriage of Florida pioneer stock and New York society aristocracy. Stunning creatures, the entire family. The cameras just loved them. At every event photographers just flocked around them. The girls went to Cushman School. Excelled in everything.”

“Ever hear any nasty rumors? Any gossip?” Corso asked.

She raised her eyebrows.

“Everybody we've spoken to said if anything was going on in Miami back then, you knew about it,” Burch said.

“That's not the sort of column I wrote, young man,” she said, smiling coquettishly. “But that doesn't mean that my ear wasn't always to the ground.

“Pierce broke a lot of hearts. Every eligible girl in Miami was writing to him, baking him cookies and sending packages when he was in the service during World War II. And when he came home wounded, everybody wanted to play nurse. But then he went off to New York and came home with his beautiful bride.”

“Did their daughters miss a lot of school?”

“Only when they traveled, but they were top scholars nonetheless. Diana taught them so much. She was so accomplished.”

“How did the girls and their father get along?” Burch asked.

“Those darlin' girls were all little tintypes of their mother. Pierce couldn't have loved them more.”

“Now, that's what we're talking about,” Corso said. “You think Pierce Nolan might have been…having unhealthy relationships with his daughters?”

“Oh, dear God, no!”

“Ever hear any talk about his sex habits?”

“I'll have you know that Pierce Nolan was no sexual predator, although I can assure you that most girls and women in Miami would have been absolutely delighted to accommodate him had he been.”

“Did you attend his funeral?” Burch asked.

“Of course. Everybody who was anybody did. Heartbreaking, not a dry eye. Diana looked beautiful in black. The poor thing was so devastated she had to be held up at one point. The girls all wore white. People couldn't stop talking about the murder. It was such a sensational story. Some friends were upset that the widow left town so quickly, just a week or so after the funeral, and didn't stay to keep up the Shadows the way Pierce would've wanted. He loved that place. But it was understandable under the circumstances. Diana wasn't from here to begin with, didn't share his roots. And she hated gossip. I'm sure she hated the idea of people pitying her and the girls, talking, and watching their every move.”

 

“I thought she was gonna stroke out when I asked if he was having sex with his daughters,” Corso said in the parking lot.

“That's the problem with that whole damn older generation,” Burch said. “They all live by that old axiom about only speaking well of the dead. If a guy's a son of a bitch, they're too damn genteel to say it. They're covering for him.”

“Or,” Corso said, “somebody else was diddling his daughters.”

 

Summer answered her own phone.

“I was only sixteen at the time,” she said.

“Builders are about to demolish the Shadows,” Burch told her.

“Sad,” Summer said. “How much did she get for it?”

“No secret,” Burch said. “It's public record that your mother sold it for forty million dollars.”

“Unbelievable.”

“How was your relationship with your father?”

“Ask my mother.”

“How is it that you're estranged?”

“Ask her,” she said, and hung up with a bang.

 

Burch called Spring, at the Villages, and asked the same question.

“Ask my mother and sisters,” she said peevishly.

“I already talked to your mother and Summer,” he said impatiently. “Now I'm asking you.”

“What did they say about me?” she demanded.