Lawrence Sanders - McNally's luck

"The firemen figured things didn't look kosher and went searching for him. They found him in the tub of the downstairs bathroom, the one next to his den. He was fully clothed. There was a bloody single-edge razor blade on the bath mat alongside the tub. Both his wrists were slashed."

"Both?" I said. "If you slit one wrist, do you then have enough strength in that hand to grip a razor blade and slit the other wrist?"

"Don't ask me," Rogoff said. "I've never tried it. We're going to need a forensic pathologist on this one."

"Did the body show any other wounds?" father asked.

The sergeant looked at him admiringly. "Yes, sir, it did," he said. "On the back of the head, high up. The hair was matted with blood. But after he slashed his wrists he could have slipped down in the tub and cracked his head on the rim. In fact, there's a bloody mark on the rim that looks like he did exactly that. It's" one of the questions the ME will have to answer."

"What's your guess, Al?" I said. "Suicide or homicide? I'm not asking what you're absolutely certain about, but what's your guess?"

He hesitated for just a brief instant, then he said, "Homicide."

"Of course!" I said triumphantly. "No one is going to slit his wrists in the middle of preparing dinner-unless he finds worms in the crab cakes."

"That's not my main reason for calling it homicide," Rogoff said. "Suicides sometimes do goofy things before they work up their courage to take the final exit. No, it's something else that makes me think someone cut Gillsworth's wrists for him. Archy, do me a favor. Show me how you'd slit your wrists if you were determined to shuffle off to Buffalo."

I stared at him. "You want me to pretend to slash my wrists?"

He nodded. "Use your spoon."

I picked up the spoon from my saucer. I held it in my right hand, gripping it by the bowl, the handle extended. I held out my left forearm and turned it palm upward. I was wearing a short-sleeved polo shirt; my arm was bare.

"I feel like a perfect fool," I said.

"Nobody's perfect," Al said, "but you come close. Go ahead, slit your wrists."

As my father and the sergeant watched intently, I drew the spoon handle swiftly across my left wrist, just hard enough to depress the skin. Then I transferred the spoon to my left hand and made the same slashing motion down across my right wrist. I admit the playacting gave me the heebie-jeebies.

"Uh-huh," Rogoff said. "That's what I figured."

"What did you figure?"

"You cut from the outside of your wrist down to the inside. You did it on both wrists."

I looked at my forearms and then tried slashing with the spoon handle from the underside of each wrist up to the top.

"Of course I did," I said. "It wouldn't be impossible to cut in the other direction, but it's awkward and you wouldn't be able to apply as much force. It would be like a backhand tennis stroke versus a forehand."

"For sure," Rogoff said, nodding. "I've seen slit wrists before, on suicides and would-be suicides. The slash is always made from top to bottom. But the cuts on Gillsworth's wrists looked like they had been made from the underside of the wrist to the top. That was my impression anyhow, but I admit I could be wrong. But there's another thing: Gillsworth's wrists showed no hesitation marks. Those are scratches and shallow cuts a suicide sometimes makes before he finally decides to go for broke. Gillsworth's wrists had single deep slashes. Hey, I've got to get back. Thanks for the coffee, it juiced me up."

"Thank you, sergeant," father said, "for being so forthcoming. I assure you that Archy and I will keep what you've told us in strictest confidence."

"Yeah," Rogoff said, "I'd appreciate that."

They shook hands, and I accompanied Al out to his pickup.

"Got just a few more minutes?" I asked him.

He looked at me a sec, then grinned. "Something you didn't want your father to hear?"

"That's right," I said. "Or he'd have me committed."

"Sure, I got a few minutes," Al said. "Gillsworth isn't leaving town."

I climbed into the cab of the pickup with him. He pulled out a cigar and I pulled out a cigarette. We got our weeds burning, and I turned to face him.

"Remember before you took off from your place last evening I said I had something important to tell you? Well, I went to a seance at the Glorianas' on Wednesday night."

He didn't seem surprised. "So? Did you talk to your old friend Epicurus?"

"No, but I talked to Lydia Gillsworth. The medium contacted her through Xatyl, a Mayan shaman. He's Hertha's channel to the spirit world."

"Uh-huh. Makes sense to me."

"It does? Anyway, Al, I heard Lydia talking. I know the words were being spoken by Hertha, but I could have sworn it was Lydia. But Hertha knew her well, and if the medium has a gift for mimicry, which she obviously has, she could have imitated Lydia's voice."

"That does make sense. What did you and Lydia talk about? Did you ask who offed her?"

"Of course."

"And what did she say?"

"She became hysterical. She screamed, 'Caprice! Caprice!' over and over again."

That shook him. He turned his head slowly to look at me, and his expression was a puzzlement.

"You're sure that's what she said?"

"I'm sure. First it was screamed in Lydia's voice, then Hertha kept shrieking 'Caprice!' in her own voice. You know what she meant, don't you?"

"Yeah, I know. Mrs. Gillsworth's car was a Caprice. She drove it from the seance to her home the night she was murdered."

"That's right. How do you figure it?"

Al was silent a long time. He turned away to stare fixedly through the windshield.

"I'll tell you something, Archy: I suspected Roderick Gillsworth might have killed his wife. He says he talked to her from your place, was told she had just arrived, and immediately drove home to find her dead. He called nine-one-one, and I got there about fifteen minutes later. Tops. After I heard his story, I went out to the garage and felt the engine block on her Caprice. I didn't think it was as hot as it should have been if she had just driven home from the seance. But that was a subjective judgment. Also, she was killed on a warm night, and no one in South Florida drives around in late June without turning on the air conditioning. The interior of Lydia's Caprice wasn't as cool as it should have been if she had just arrived home-another personal judgment. It was nothing I could take to the State Attorney, but I began to wonder about Roderick Gillsworth."

"What about the grandfather clock that was toppled and stopped at the time of death?"

"Doesn't mean a thing, Archy. Anyone could have set the clock at any time desired and then pushed it over to stop it ticking. An easy alibi to fake."

"So far, so good," I said. "But he did call his wife from my father's study."

"I know he did," Al said almost mournfully. "There's no getting around that. And then, last night, Roderick gets iced-if it was homicide, and I think it was. That helps eliminate him as a suspect, wouldn't you say? It looks like someone, for whatever reason, crazy or not, wanted to wipe out the entire Gillsworth family, wife and husband. But now you tell me the psychic, speaking in the murdered woman's voice, yelled, 'Caprice! Caprice!' So I've got to start thinking again if Lydia's car really does provide a clue to her killer. Maybe I was right in the first place about the lack of engine heat and no air conditioning inside the car. Listen, Archy, I've really got to get back to the Gillsworth place. There's still a lot to do."

"Sure," I said and started to climb from the truck cab. But he reached out a hand to stop me.

"I'm going to be tied up with this thing for the next few days at least. Will you check on Otto Gloriana and the catnapping?"

"I intend to."

"Good. One more thing: that Atlanta detective said Otto is a nasty piece of work."