“Hell, no. But Tweeny does.”
Somehow I could not imagine Tweeny Alvarez reading anything but the Most Wanted list. Changing the subject without drawing attention to the fact, I said, “I imagine Bianca Courtney reads her, too.”
“So tell me what you were doing at Bianca’s?” Al asked.
I’m so clever it hurts.
“I was delivering a microwave oven,” I said, munching my third mozzarella stick. Well, they’re better than popping tranquillizers.
“Do I have to trust you with that one, too?”
I told Al everything, beginning with Binky’s housewarming and ending with my conversation with Bianca. “I went as a favor to Binky, you understand. The girl, as you know, is young and foolish.”
“The broad, as you and me know, is young and pretty,” Al said, delivering a death blow to the English language. But don’t ever mistake him for a fool. Many a felon has and lived to regret it for anywhere from ten years to life. “She told you about the barbell. It’s a laugh, Archy. She wanted us to dust it for prints. The guy lives in the house, for chrissakes, and if his paws weren’t on everything in the joint I would be suspicious.”
“But did you ask him why he was seen returning it to the exercise room the day after the accident?”
“Yeah. And he didn’t appreciate it. He knew Bianca was the snitch.
The barbell was in the garage holding down a stack of newspapers waiting to be picked up for recycling. The housekeeper confirmed this.”
Funny what people leave out of their stories when they’re trying to prove a point. Now I was committed to visit Antony without an h. Maybe I could talk Bianca out of the visit and into a midnight swim. “One more question, Al. What did the forensic people say about the head wound?”
“The old dame must have hit her head on the floor of the pool when she dove off the board.”
“Must have,” I pounced. “But could the wound have been caused by something else?”
Al dismissed this with a wave of his hand, which actually created a breeze. “But she was alive and well when she dove in the pool and dead when we carried her out. Conclusion, she hit her head in the pool.”
And who saw her dive in the pool, alive and well?”
“Her husband, that’s who.”
Anyone else?” I goaded.
Archy, the guy gets next to nothing from her death. You know that and so does Bianca. He was better off when his wife was alive. Okay, he had to dip his wick a few times a week, but in return he got treated like a prince. Now he goes back to pushing rich old ladies around dance floors.”
I must say Al’s description of the marriage bed had a certain flair.
Priscilla arrived with our grilled salmon, tossed greens and fries on the side. I took this moment to ask her if the family had heard anything from their cousin in California.
“Not a word,” Priscilla said, ‘and mom’s been on the phone with cousin Lucy daily, but she hasn’t heard a thing from her father since his last call.”
Covering his fries with ketchup from a plastic squeeze bottle, Al asked, “What’s this all about?”
I related the tale of Jasmine’s cousin and the diary of Henry Peavey.
“You know the name, Al?”
“Doesn’t mean a thing to me.” He removed a pad from his shirt pocket, and reaching further down he came up with the stub of a pencil. He jotted the name on his pad. “I’ll run it through the local and national police registers and see what comes up.”
“Thanks,” Priscilla said. “I’ll tell mom.”
I heard one of the men at the bar say, “It’s Troy Appleton.” Several people left their tables to get closer to the TV screen.
Curious, I called out, “What’s happening?”
“The local station is showing Troy Appleton speaking on the steps of the capital in Tallahassee,” Mr.
Pettibone announced. “They say he’s going to make a run for the U.S.
Senate.”
If he doesn’t run for cover first.
I knew the Appleton family secret and Richard Cranston claimed to know my secret. Did all the people watching the popular pol have a little secret of their own that only one other person was privy to? Then, did all the people who knew their little secret have one of their own that was shared by one other person? If so, no one was left out and no one was safe.
“How about another beer, Archy?” Al said.
“Why not, Sergeant? Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, even if the bloom is off the bud.”
Fourteen
Herb gave me a thumbs-up as I rolled past his glass closet and into my parking space. The signal meant that Mrs. Trelawney was asking for me. I knew he would be on the horn to inform her of my arrival before I was out of the car. Since my meetings with Appleton and Cranston, and especially with Cranston, I had become super sensitive to those who meddle in the affairs of others yrs. truly included. Electronic surveillance, hidden cameras in banks and offices and rest rooms, cell phones that are practically shortwave radios, and let’s not forget the old lady who lives across the street and the kid who delivers our takeout dinners. Al Rogoff took down a name and said he would run it through a national register to see what came up. Who hasn’t wondered what would come up were his name run through Big Brother’s ledger? The Internet leaves paper trails that are capable of delineating the life and times of everyone who was plugged in. Our biographies were being written as we lived them. Appleton arranges a meeting in a museum and Cranston in the backseat of his car. The museum was open to the public and at least three other people, Bianca, Mrs. Brewster, and the limo driver, had observed and recorded Cranston’s not so clever ploy.
“Rat on me and I’ll rat on you,” Cranston had intimated when we parted.
Well, Dickey boy, no man is an island because we’re all connected by that information highway which is swarming with pot holes, culs-de-sac, and sewer rats. And, as Al Rogoff might say, Archy ain’t got no credentials to present to the dame in Buckingham Palace.”
The case I had agreed to take on for Sabrina Wright had lasted less than forty-eight hours, defied a solution, included a cast of thousands, and left me clinically paranoid. I needed to relax and unwind. I needed that midnight swim with Bianca Courtney. I would even consider a few fifty-minute hours with our resident shrink, Dr.
Gussie Pearlberg, if I did not agree with Sam Goldwyn’s malapropism: A man who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.
When Binky stuck his head in my doorway a few moments after I had traversed it, I began to regret having gotten him a position at McNally
amp; Son. Like a potent narcotic, Binky should be taken in small doses between long intervals. Now I had him in my back pocket where I did not need more bulge.
“Thanks for the microwave oven, Archy,” Binky said.
News of my visit to Bianca had traveled faster than a microwave oven could reduce a hot dog to ashes. “Did Bianca Courtney call you?” I questioned.
“No. I went home for lunch and stopped in to see her. She helped me carry it to my kitchen and she’s going to show me how to work it.”
I paused briefly, mulling his phrasing, before intoning, “I believe it comes with instructions,” not mentioning my doubts about Bianca’s own knowledge. “And you don’t want to come on too strong with your new neighbor, Binky. It’s really not necessary to knock on her door every time you pass it. Familiarity breeds contempt, as some closeted extrovert once said, and you should play hard-to-get.”
Reflecting on this sage advice, Binky remarked, “I’m so hard-to-get I’ve never been gotten.”
This was true but not in the sense that either Binky or I had intended.
Moving right along, I advised the boy to tend to his own garden.
“You’ve just moved in. You’ve got a thousand things that need doing and courting your neighbor is not one of them.”
My words went unheeded as, unable to contain his excitement, he said,
“Bianca told me that you’re taking her case. Thanks, Archy. You know I’m available for legwork and reconnaissance, as usual.”