Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 07 (21 page)

“She did give a charming performance for the Red Cross,” the Duchess admitted, “although, frankly, I’m afraid David was a little embarrassed. But I was impressed by the funds she helped raise.”

“She should be doing another benefit right now.”

“Really? Where?”

“Cleveland. She opens there tonight, according to a postcard I just got from her—and I know her policy is that the first Saturday of every engagement is a Red Cross benefit.”

“What a sweet girl,” the Duchess said.

A description Helen deserved but rarely got.

“Diane tells me you’re a good friend of Evalyn Walsh McLean,” the Duchess said.

I nodded, smiled sadly. “I haven’t seen her in years—but we were close, once. Close enough that I petted her pooch while he was wearing the Hope Diamond around his neck on a dog collar.”

She laughed again. “Ah, poor Evalyn. How did you happen to meet?”

“The Lindbergh case.”

The violet eyes narrowed. “Ah…she
was
fascinated by that, wasn’t she? I hear from a mutual friend that she’s similarly fascinated by our local Oakes tragedy.”

She turned to Di, took one of her hands in both of hers.

“Lady Medcalf, I must thank you for opening Shangri La’s gates once again—giving our hot little island a cool breath of sea air. You know, I keep expecting to turn and see Axel and that wonderful smile of his.” She sighed. “Since Harry’s death, social functions have been at a standstill. I must say, New York will be a relief.”

The band suddenly shifted from its Cole Porter kick and went into a lilting waltz. The Duchess’ face, already radiant, lit up.

She said, “You’ll have to excuse me—they’re playing ‘The Windsor Waltz’….”

Then she moved gracefully away, going near the bandstand to join the sandy-haired sad-eyed little man in a double-breasted white jacket and black tie who used to be the King of England.

And they waltzed, with the dance floor to themselves as the other guests looked respectfully on, two tiny celebrities smiling at each other in what might have been great love or just a practiced public pose. Either way, there was something bittersweet about it.

I turned to Di. “You had the perfect opportunity to tell her what I’m doing here.”

“You mean, by saying Evalyn McLean recommended you to Nancy?”

“That’s right. Don’t you think the Duchess will be irritated with you, when she finds out who I really am?”

She smirked and shrugged. “I can get away with murder where those two are concerned. I’ve known David longer than Wallis has, remember.”

“Well, when this waltz is over, would you introduce me to ‘David,’ and then spirit Wallis away? I want a word with the Duke.”

“You have but to ask.”

“Lady Diane, why are you so good to me?”

“No offense, but it’s not you, Heller: it’s Nancy. I want her to get her husband back. I lost mine a long time ago, and it still hurts.”

“Sorry. Where
is
Nancy, anyway?”

“She wasn’t invited; neither was Lady Oakes. It’s easier for you to do what you have to without those two around reminding the room about what they’re all here to forget.”

When the waltz was over, and the applause had died down for the Duke and Duchess, who nodded their recognition of the crowd’s kindness, Di took me over to them and said, “Your Royal Highness, this is…”

“Nathan Heller, isn’t it?”

His voice was soft, gentle.

“That’s right, Your Royal Highness.”

He extended his hand and I took it and the handshake was so brief it seemed almost not to have happened.

He turned his disappointed little boy’s gaze on his wife. “This is the detective whom Sir Harry hired to follow de Marigny. He’s working for Nancy Oakes, now.”

Not Nancy de Marigny: Nancy Oakes.

Wallis winced, ever so slightly, at this news, and when she smiled at me, it was a little chilly.

“Mr. Heller and I met, but he didn’t mention that fact.”

I tried to smile it off. “Seemed an unpleasant topic of conversation, Duchess. Forgive me if I seem to have misled you.”

“Not at all. David, Mr. Heller worked on the Lindbergh case for Evalyn McLean.”

“Is that so?” the Duke said pleasantly but skeptically. “Do you know Charles?”

“Once upon a time I did,” I said. “I haven’t seen Slim in years.”

His eyes flickered. I’d just used a nickname only Lindbergh’s closest friends were privy to.

“Duchess,” Di said, “Rosita Forbes has been dying to say hello, all evening.”

“Oh, well, I’d love to chat with Rosita. Lead the way, dear.”

And that left me with the Duke, standing to one side of the bandstand, where the musicians were taking a break while a piano player noodled Gershwin. We were standing near a potted palm and a pedestal with a bronze statue of an elephant with the mandatory erect trunk.

“Would you mind if I asked you a question, Your Highness?”

“By all means,” he said, and smiled, but his eyes were cold.

“Why did you call Melchen and Barker in to handle the Oakes murder, rather than go to Scotland Yard, or just leave it to your own local police?”

He twitched another smile as he plucked a glass of champagne off the tray of a blond waiter. “Mr. Heller, we had a riot here last year—perhaps you’ve heard about it.”

“Actually, yes,” I said, wondering what this had to do with my question. “I understand natives, hired to help build airfields, discovered they were being paid much less than the imported white American laborers doing the same work. Am I close?”

“More or less. Things got out of hand, Bay Street was a shambles, a pity all the way ‘round. As it happened, I was in the United States on a diplomatic mission…and, frankly, I was, and am, unhappy with the performance of the Nassau police in that matter. If they had been
tougher
, they might have contained the problem.”

“I see.”

“In addition to which, our police department does not have the proper fingerprint equipment. Captain Barker is an acknowledged expert, you know. And, frankly, the Nassau department is simply altogether too black.”

He sipped his champagne.

“With all due respect, sir, Scotland Yard isn’t ‘too black.’”

“Very true. But this is wartime—with the transport problems we have, Mr. Heller, it might have taken weeks for a London detective to reach Nassau. I knew Captain Melchen to be reliable—he’s been my bodyguard in Miami, on several occasions—and I knew he was literally minutes away.”

“I see.”

He smiled again, tightly. “Now, I simply must circulate. I wish you luck with your inquiries, despite my own antipathy toward the Count de Marigny.”

“Your Highness—forgive me. But I’ve tried to make appointments to see you, and haven’t gotten anywhere. Could you chat with me for just a few minutes more?”

The smile was lost in the folds of a face that for all its boyishness seemed prematurely old. “This is hardly the place for such a conversation.”

“Who else but you can explain why I’ve been denied access to official records of those coming and going to Nassau? And why I’ve been stopped from searching for a blowtorch? And…”

“My dear fellow, you are not an official investigator on this case. Your role is to aid the defense of Count de Marigny—a gentleman who I personally find indefensible, but that’s of no consequence.
Excuse
me….”

He moved away, and there was no following him. Soon he was at his bride’s side again, as they chatted pleasantly with Di and several other guests.

Out on the patio I spotted Christie and Mrs. Henneage, down by the elephant fountain, having a heated little discussion; she seemed worried, he was placating her. I’d rattled them. Good.

She came up the stone stairs first, while I faded into the background; but when Christie emerged onto the patio, I approached him.

“Mr. Christie—beautiful night. Speaks well of these islands of yours.”

He frowned. “Yes. It is a lovely night. Excuse me.”

I put a hand on his arm. “Let’s just step over here and talk for a moment.”

“You’re hurting my arm.”

I guess I was gripping it a little tight. I let go. “Sorry. Say, you remember my mentioning a fellow named Lansky, in your office last week?”

“Not really. Excuse me….”

I grabbed his arm again; just as hard as before. “You’re not still denying you know him, are you? I have friends in Washington, D.C., who say otherwise.”

He shook free of me, then smiled perhaps the least convincing smile I’ve ever witnessed. “Perhaps I did run into a man of that name, back in my rum-running days.” And now he chuckled just as unconvincingly. “You know, a lot of people around here prefer having lapses of memory where those days are concerned….”

“I hear Lansky’s Hotel Nacional in Havana is running into some trouble. Seems his dictator pal Batista is on shaky ground, lately.”

“I really wouldn’t know.”

“Expanding into the Bahamas with gambling would be a nice way for Lansky to hedge that bet….”

He sighed heavily. “Gambling will come into the Bahamas after the war, Mr. Heller. But if you think any of this has anything to do with Sir Harry’s death, I’d say you’re gravely mistaken.”

“You mean, Sir Harry wasn’t against gambling here?”

Christie snorted. “He couldn’t have cared less about it. Now, good
evening,
sir.”

And he moved quickly into the ballroom.

I stood in the breeze, wondering what the hell Lansky could have to do with this, if casino gambling wasn’t in the picture. Of course, Christie might be selling me swampland; wouldn’t be the first time for a real-estate agent like him.

By shortly after midnight, the guests had all gone home, and I’d found my way to the guest cottage that was my Nassau home, now. The cottage was one big room with bath, not unlike Marjorie Bristol’s, but bigger, with a living-room area, a fancy console radio and a fully stocked wet bar. I got out of my tux and sat on the soft cushions of the wicker couch; I was in my shorts with my shoes and gartered socks on, drinking a rum and Coke of my own design, and figured the night was over. I’d already thanked Lady Diane for possibly the hundredth time.

But I’d had a few too many drinks tonight to make much sense of the various conversations I’d had. What the hell had I accomplished? Christie seemed guilty of nothing more than boffing Mrs. Henneage; HRH David Windsor actually had acceptable reasons for bringing in the Miami dicks; and Harold Christie claimed Sir Harry didn’t give a shit if gambling came to the Bahamas.

“Heller?”

She was silhouetted in the side doorway.

“I’m not decent,” I said.

“I know that,” she laughed, and came on in, a bucket of iced champagne in her arms, two glasses in hand.

She was wearing a sheer robe over a sheer nightgown; you could see everything and nothing, the swell of her breasts, their rosy tips, sort of, a dark blond triangle between her legs, maybe. She came over, set down the bucket on the bamboo coffee table before us, and poured herself a glass.

“There was bubbly left. Want some?”

“No thanks.” I raised the rum and Coke. “I’m all set.”

She clinked her glass against mine, turning my gesture into a toast.

“How did you do tonight, Heller?”

“I’m not sure. Anybody indicate they were unhappy with you for having me as a guest?”

“No one dared. Not even David. I’m a law unto myself, you know.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

She smelled good; it was a familiar scent.

“What’s that perfume?” I asked.

“My Sin.”

Marjorie had worn that, the day we met.

I stood. I walked over to the double glass doors along one side of the cottage and studied the dark shadows of the palms and ferns. Listened to the caw of exotic birds and the roar of the ocean beyond.

Then she was at my side, touching my arm. “You look charming in your shorts, Heller.”

“The shoes and garters
are
a nice touch, don’t you think?”

She slipped an arm around my waist. “You’ve got a nice body.”

I swallowed. “All the girls think so.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing.”

She took me by the chin and reached up and kissed me; it was a hot, sticky kiss, lipstick and booze and cigarette smell, kind of sickening and wonderful at the same time. Those soft, bruised lips of hers played my mouth like a cornet.

When the kiss was over, I said, “It’s just too soon, Di.”

“Too soon for us?”

“You don’t understand. I’m…I’m not ready. I’m trying to get over somebody.”

“Well, you know, my brother used to play rugby.”

“Really.”

“And he told me what a good coach always says.”

“What’s that?”

“Pick yourself up, get back into the game.”

She dropped to her knees and her hand slipped inside the front of my shorts and she took me out and held me. Stroked me. Kissed me.

“Oooo,” she said. “What a sign of good luck
this
trunk makes….”

“I…I’m not sure you should…”

“Shut up, Heller.” Stroking me. “I just love a man on the rebound.”

And then I was in her mouth. And then more of me was in her mouth, and she worked me, and worked me, and worked me some more….

Then I was panting like a winded runner, looking down at her and she was looking up at me smiling whitely, and it wasn’t her teeth.

She stood, smoothed her robe out primly, withdrew a handkerchief from a pocket and touched it to her lips, dabbing politely, as if she’d just finished a petit four.

Then she regarded me with amused eyes.

“They say once a woman does that for a man,” she said, “she owns him.”

I could hear the surf crashing out there. A bird cawing.

“Okay,” I said.

Under a cloudless midafternoon sky, on the patio balcony behind the ballroom at Shangri La, a pleasant-looking if intense middle-aged man in a tropical sport shirt, tan slacks and sandals knelt over a hairy coconut about the size of a man’s head, holding high above it, in one tight hand, a white fence picket, its pointed tip pointed down. Modestly handsome, with dark hair, a high, scholar’s forehead and round, wire-rimmed glasses, the slender figure seemed about to perform some strange native ritual, the picket poised like a spear about to strike.

And then with sudden, surprising force, it did strike—only the picket splintered, leaving the coconut intact, its hair barely mussed.

“You see!” Professor Leonard Keeler wore a triumphant little smile. He pushed his glasses up on his nose. “And I guarantee you the mastoid bone is stronger than that coconut’s shell.”

“Could
any
blunt instrument have caused those four wounds behind Sir Harry’s ear?” I asked. “What if a demented old miner Harry screwed over in the Klondike sneaked in, and took four swings with a pickax?”

Keeler, shaking his head no, said, “His whole damn skull would have shattered!”

Coconut in hand, he took a seat next to Erle Stanley Gardner at one of the wrought-iron tables with a view of the elephant fountain and the brilliantly colorful tropical garden that surrounded it. Tropical birds were calling; a humid breeze was whispering.

I had run into Gardner at Blackbeard’s pub, where I’d spent the morning chatting with several prosecution witnesses—Mrs. Clark and Mrs. Ainslie, as well as the American Freddie, Freddie Ceretta—who were sympathetic to the defense. All of them confirmed that they had been taken to Westbourne for questioning on the 9th of July, and all of them confirmed de Marigny’s assertion that he’d been taken upstairs by Melchen at eleven-thirty a.m., contradicting police testimony placing that time at three-thirty p.m.

This was good, to say the least: all I had to do now was talk to Colonel Lindop, which I intended to do later this afternoon. If Lindop confirmed Freddie’s time, we would not only cast doubt on that Chinese-screen fingerprint, but on Barker and Melchen themselves.

Wearing a Western shirt with a string tie, Gardner had sauntered up to me like a pudgy pint-sized gunfighter, surrounded by his three wholesomely pretty secretaries, the fresh-scrubbed trio of sisters to whom he dictated his daily columns as well as radio scripts and chapters in his current novel, in a suite over at the Royal Victoria. They were taking a lunch break, and I was alone in the booth, now.

“Girls, this is the dimestore detective I’ve been telling you about,” he growled good-naturedly. “Still ducking me, eh, Heller? Don’t you know every good Sherlock needs a Watson?”

“Which role do you see as yours?”

He had laughed in his gargling-razor-blades way, and I asked them to join me for lunch—I was already having the pub’s specialty, the Welsh rarebit.

“Thank you, son,” Gardner said, sliding into the booth next to me; the trio of smiling curly-haired girls squeezed in across from us, without a word. They were like mute Andrews Sisters.

After some food and chitchat, Gardner finally said, “Come on, Heller—give an old man a break.”

He probably had all of seven years on me.

But he pressed on: “Like the used-car salesman says, you can trust me…. Anything you say or do that you don’t want me to put in my articles, all you got to do is say so. Just don’t exclude me from the fun.”

“All right,” I said, pushing my plate of mostly eaten food aside. “How would you like to meet the inventor of the lie detector?”

His pop-eyed grin reminded me of a kid being offered his first peek behind the hootchy-kootchy show curtain.

And now Gardner—minus his “girls”—was spending the afternoon with me at Shangri La, as I got my first in-depth appraisal from Len Keeler on the evidence he’d been going over and the tests he’d been making.

Despite his relative youth, Keeler had indeed invented the polygraph, an improvement on a German device that measured changes in a suspect’s blood pressure; Len’s device also monitored respiration rate, pulse and the skin’s electrical conductivity during questioning.

“Do you know what mastoiditis is?” Keeler asked us.

Gardner and I were seated at the wrought-iron table, on which were a pitcher of limeade with glasses, the splintered picket, the coconut, and various death-scene photos, fanned out like a hand of cards. In Sir Harry’s case, a losing hand.

An old friend of mine via Eliot, Keeler—Director of the Chicago Crime Detection Lab at Northwestern University Law School—was more than just the top polygraph man in the country; he was also an authority on scientific crime detection in general. Including fingerprints….

But the subject now was the cluster of four wounds, which the prosecution claimed had been produced by a “blunt instrument.”

“To treat mastoiditis, a surgeon has to take a hammer and chisel to break through the thickness of bone,” Len told us, “and even then, the thinner bones around the mastoid would tend to shatter with the impact.”

“Then what could have produced those holes?”

He pushed his glasses up again. “A small-caliber gun…at the very largest, a .38, but
not
a .38 Special; more likely a .32.”

“Were there powder burns?” Gardner asked.

“Somebody played tic-tac-toe on the corpse with a blowtorch,” I said, “and you’re wondering if anybody noticed powder burns?”

“You can’t tell from these photos,” Keeler said, fanning them out some more. “Even so, smokeless powder doesn’t leave burns. As for these triangular entry wounds, bullets fired at close range tend to make larger, irregular holes because of escaping gases.”

I tapped a photo of Sir Harry and the four holes in his head. “Then these are gunshot wounds—no question?”

“No question,” Keeler said flatly.

Eyes narrowing with thought and Bahamian sunshine, Gardner said, “Might this old shyster offer the defense a piece of free legal advice?”

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll pass it along to Godfrey Higgs.”

“Don’t introduce this evidence,” Gardner said somberly. “If you do, the prosecution will shrug it off somehow, explain it away.”

“What do you suggest?” Keeler asked.

Gardner shrugged. “Let them try to convict your client for bludgeoning the deceased. If they get their guilty verdict, you’ll have this new evidence in your pocket, to help get you a new trial.”

Keeler was smiling, nodding. “That’s a Perry Mason stunt, all right—but I agree with you. I see no advantage in contradicting their ridiculous assertion that four holes in the toughest part of the skull, an inch apart, are
stab
wounds.”

“You’ve had a chance to go over the fingerprint evidence,” I said. “What do you think?”

Keeler smirked. “I think as a fingerprint expert, Captain Barker would make a swell traffic cop. Whole sections of the room were never checked for prints—that infamous Chinese screen was carried out into the hall by three cops before it was even dusted! God knows how many grimy paws clutched that thing before Barker got around to it a day later.”

“Not to mention those bloody handprints being washed off the wall,” I said, “because they seemed too small to be de Marigny’s—mustn’t have facts muddying up the case, after all.”

Keeler was shaking his head. “Unbelievable. Barker did dust some of the bloody fingerprints, you know—
before
they were
dry
, ruining ’em forever.” He looked toward Gardner. “And do you gentlemen of the press realize that these Miami geniuses didn’t even have any of the blood in the room analyzed, to see if it was Oakes’ type?”

Shaking his head in amazement, Gardner muttered, “It’s a goddamn botch.”

“No,” I said. “It’s a goddamn frame.”

Gardner gave me a doubtful look.

“Consider this,” Keeler said, eyes bright. “Barker was called in as a fingerprint expert, but all he brought with him was a small portable kit—and
no
fingerprint camera.”

A special camera was required for fingerprint shots, with a lens you held flush with the surface of the dusted print, almost touching.

“No
fingerprint
camera?” Gardner said. “Didn’t the local boys have one he could borrow?”

“No,” I said. “Of course, he could have got one from the RAF….”

“But he
didn’t,”
Keeler said ominously. “He just dusted the prints, lifted ’em and filed ’em away.”

“Destroying the sons of bitches,” Gardner said, wide-eyed.

Keeler shrugged. “In some cases, lifting ’em with Scotch tape
might
leave enough of the print behind to dust again and take a photograph…but Barker was out of Scotch tape, too.”

“What?”
Gardner said.

“He used rubber,” I said. “And that does remove the print from its original surface—destroying it in the act of its supposed preservation.”

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter where Barker says it came from,” Keeler said, picking up the photo blowup of the fingerprint. “There’s not one chance in ten million this came from that screen—I’d swear to that on a stack of Bibles.”

“Just one Bible will do,” I said.

“How can you be so certain?” Gardner asked him.

Keeler stood. “See for yourself.”

He led us into the ballroom, where on the same parquet floor on which the Duke and Duchess had waltzed last weekend, a cream-color six-panel Chinese screen stood.

“But isn’t that…” Gardner began. “No, it can’t be—it isn’t scorched….”

“I found the shop where Lady Oakes purchased the screen,” I said, “and bought another. The painted design is different, but otherwise it’s identical.”

Len had a hand on it even now, studying the enigma of its wood-grain surface; the photo of the print was in his other hand. “I’ve taken samples from every nook and cranny of this damn thing…and every time, I come up with a print with a wood-whorled background.”

I nodded.
“Not
that pattern of circles in the background of their blowup of the print supposedly from the screen.”

“That pattern’s either flattened beads of moisture,” Keeler said, patting the Chinese screen as gently as an infant, “or a very different surface than this.”

“Their print is a forgery?” Gardner asked.

“No,” I said. “It’s a substitution.”

The writer stood with hands on hips like a rancher surveying his spread. “How so?”

I took the photo of the print from Len. “That’s Freddie’s right pinkie, all right,” I said. “A perfect specimen they lifted elsewhere. I spoke to Freddie yesterday about this….”

In his cell, Freddie had shrugged when I asked him if he’d handled anything during the interrogation.

“Well, I did pour Melchen a glass of water,” de Marigny had said. “From a glass pitcher….”

“Did he specifically
ask
you to pour it for him?”

“Yes,” de Marigny said, nodding forcefully, then he winced with thought. “Funny…. Right after I poured the water, the tall one…Barker…he was standing watching from a distance. He called over and asked, ‘Is everything all right?’ And Melchen called back, ‘Just dandy.’”

Now, a day later, Keeler was suggesting the circles in the print’s background might be flattened moisture drops….

“Do you realize what you’re saying?” Gardner asked us, dumbfounded. “That your client’s in the middle of a police frame-up, engineered by the Duke of Windsor’s handpicked sleuths?”

I shrugged. “It’s not news to me. I caught ’em coercing a witness a week or so ago.”

Disturbed, Gardner turned to Keeler. “Professor—have you given de Marigny a polygraph test yet?”

Keeler looked at me and smiled humorlessly, shook his head.

“The court has forbidden it,” I said. “Even for our purposes, let alone admitting it as evidence. They won’t permit us to use it on any other witnesses, either.”

Keeler grinned. “How I’d love to get ahold of Christie….”

“What a waste of your talents,” Gardner said almost sorrowfully.

I put a hand on the writer’s shoulder. “Len’s got plenty of other talents, as you’ve already seen. He did more burn tests on those remaining bedclothes scraps, and confirmed our conclusion that the killer stayed on the scene for around an hour.”

“And, I’m afraid, destroyed a valuable piece of furniture in the process,” Len said, chagrined. “I don’t know why Lady Diane hasn’t kicked me out already, let alone give me a room to stay in. Ah! Let me show you my latest discovery….”

He walked over to the table where not long ago cracked crab and caviar had been arrayed. Now—on its white cloth, which was dotted with strangely familiar scorched circles—there was an insecticide spray gun, and a glass jar of the sort you might put up preserves in, filled with clear liquid, its screw top off. There was also a box of kitchen matches, with a few burnt ones scattered.

“I’ve found something you’ve been looking for,” Len said smugly.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“This spray gun is similar to the one found in Sir Harry’s room.”

“I’d say identical,” I said.

“But the flit gun couldn’t have figured in the killing,” Gardner insisted. “After the prosecution suggested it might’ve been used to set Sir Harry on fire, Higgs himself established the spray gun was found half full of ‘Fly-Ded,’ exactly as the maid had left it.”

Keeler merely smiled as he lifted the spray gun and screwed loose the can of insecticide below, removing it, setting it on the table; then he hefted the glass jar, as if making a toast.

“Your hunch, Nate,” he said, “was that the flammable material spilled on the floor, not to mention Sir Harry, wasn’t a petroleum product, as has been assumed…but alcohol.”

“Right,” I said. “A gas fire would’ve scorched the ceiling to shit.”

“And left a stronger odor behind,” Gardner added.

“There are a lot of uses for alcohol in the tropics,” Keeler said casually, screwing the glass jar onto the bug sprayer, “besides drinking it, or rubbing it on yourself or a friend. It’s used for lamp fuel, for instance, cooking on boats, and for cleaning paint brushes…you’ll probably find a jar or bottle or can of the stuff in any toolshed, like the one by where that construction’s going on next door to Westbourne. Take those matches, Nate, and light one, and hold the flame to the end of this spritzer….”