Max Collins - Carnal Hours

My hat was in my hands. “Mrs. de Marigny, please allow me to offer my condolences on the death of your father.”

“That’s very kind, Mr. Heller.”

God, I felt uneasy. She was pointing her toes at me again, and I didn’t know what the hell I was doing here!

“Would you mind if I locked your door?” I asked. “It makes me uncomfortable, thinking some reporters might get wind of you, and start hounding you….”

She was bending at the knees, now. “Go ahead. But I’m registered under an assumed name. No one knows I’m here.”

I locked the door, threw the nightlatch. “Speaking of which…how did you happen to recognize me? And know where to find me?”

“To answer your first question, the hotel manager pointed you out, at my request.”

Despite her continued exercises, she didn’t seem to be breathing hard, though small beads of sweat gleamed on her wide forehead like jewels.

“As for your second question…Mr. Heller, my father owned the British Colonial Hotel. You left the Miami Biltmore as your immediate forwarding address.”

“True. But how did you even know about me? What do you know about me?”

“You were hired to get the dirt on Freddie,” she said casually. She might have said, “The Astors will be taking tea with us later.”

I didn’t know what to say. She had turned her pretty backside to me again, arching her leg at the opposite wall.

“My husband’s attorney, Mr. Higgs, told me about you,” she continued. “You gave a statement placing Freddie near Westbourne about the time of the crime.”

“Well, yes….”

“Would you do me a favor?”

“Okay.”

“Sit on this chair. I need to do some stretching, and I don’t think those phone books are enough support.”

I sighed, went over, moved the phone books and sat down. She was looking right at me, her eyes dark and intense and as naive as a four-year-old child’s.

“Uncle Walter admitted he hired you,” she said.

“Uncle Walter. Foskett? The attorney?”

This close up, I could tell that she actually was breathing a bit heavy; just a faint huff and puffing.

“That’s right,” she said. “I saw him yesterday, at the funeral.”

“But you were here yesterday.”

“I arrived yesterday evening. The funeral was in the morning.”

“I see…” But I didn’t.

“I wanted to be at my husband’s side as soon as possible…allowing time to make contact with you, of course. I take a Pan Am flight to Nassau this afternoon.”

“You believe in your husband’s innocence, then.”

“I have no doubt.” And she didn’t seem to. Her eyes, her expression, were unwavering. Also, unnerving, as she faced me, leaned in to me, while she stretched each long limb behind her, one at a time of course.

“You see, Mr. Heller, while I may not have made a study of it, I know human nature-I’ve lived with Freddie, and he may not be perfect…but he is my husband, and he is no murderer.”

“That’s an admirable attitude for a wife to have.”

“Thank you. I want you to do a job for me.”

“A job? What sort of job?”

“I want you to clear Freddie, of course. Would you like a cup of coffee? Or orange juice? I think even Miss Graham would agree I’ve done enough of a workout for one day.”

She pointed me to an area where picture windows overlooked the Biltmore golf course, and I sat alone at a carved wooden table shaped like a large seashell and sipped coffee she’d provided from a silver service on a stand nearby.

She emerged in a white terry-cloth robe, belted over her workout clothes, and smiled her multimillion-dollar smile and said, “Would you like breakfast? I can have some brought up.”

“No. Thank you. I already ate.”

She sipped her orange juice. She looked calm, poised, but it was a mask. Her eyes had the same red filigree as Marjorie Bristol’s. Yesterday she had reminded me of Merle Oberon; today I was thinking Gene Tierney….

“Your friend Sally Rand really is quite a gifted ballerina,” she said.

“Yes she is. A lot of people don’t notice that, though.”

“Lovely dancer.” Her smile seemed confident, but I sensed vulnerability. “Well, Mr. Heller? What do you say? Will you take the case?”

“No.”

Her wide eyes widened. “No?”

“No. Mrs. de Marigny, it’s impossible. I’m a material witness…for the prosecution!”

She smiled wickedly. “So much the better.”

I shrugged. “I don’t think it’s a bad idea, getting a private investigator to work with this attorney…Higgs, is it? I can tell you, frankly, that I’m not impressed with what the police down there are doing, either the Nassau boys or the imported Miami variety.”

She rolled her eyes. “I know that all too well.”

How? I wondered. But I didn’t ask.

I just said, “Really, I apologize, I’d like to help, but…”

She locked onto me with that unwavering gaze. “Mr. Heller-I checked with the person who recommended you to my father-an old friend of yours: Evalyn Walsh McLean. She speaks warmly of you, and assures me you are the man for the job.”

Evalyn. There was a name from the past…one of the queens of Washington society, the owner of the famed, cursed Hope Diamond, she’d been at my side during much of the ill-fated Lindbergh investigation. We’d parted rather bitterly-oddly enough, after all these years, it felt good to know I’d been forgiven….

“She claims you solved the Lindbergh kidnapping,” Nancy de Marigny said.

“Oh yeah. That one worked out just peachy for everybody.”

Her smile was wistful, her eyes glazed. “You know, it’s funny…that’s one of the reasons why my father moved to the Bahamas….”

“What is?”

“The Lindbergh kidnapping.”

“It is?”

She smiled, laughed sadly. “Oh, I know-everyone thinks Daddy moved to Nassau strictly to dodge the Canadian taxes. Well, I’m sure that was part of it. But after the Lindbergh baby was kidnapped, Daddy received several notes, extortion notes, threatening that I would be the next ‘rich brat snatched,’ if he didn’t pay. We lived near Niagara Falls at the time…sort of in the same part of the country as the Lindberghs-Mother and Father were friends of theirs, you know. Anyway, for something like two years we had armed guards walking our grounds. I know it was probably only a relatively short time, but in my memory it seems that I spent my entire childhood accompanied everywhere I went by armed guards.”

I didn’t know what to say; so I just nodded sympathetically.

“But in Nassau, Daddy had been told, even the richest man in the world could go to sleep, and leave his doors unlocked….”

And now, finally, she began to cry.

She found some tissues in her robe pocket and dabbed her eyes; I rose and went to her and touched her shoulder. After a while, she nodded that she was better, and gestured for me to sit down again.

I did.

“Mrs. de Marigny-I really do wish I could help.” And in a way I did, but really I didn’t: I just wanted to get back to Chicago. Between Nassau and Florida, I’d had my fill of palm trees, and I sure didn’t need to travel to the tropics to find knuckleheaded American cops to tangle with.

“Then you decline?” She took one last swipe at her eyes.

“Yes.”

“In that case, I’ll have to speak to Mr. Foskett.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well…you’ll need to refund my father’s ten-thousand-dollar retainer.”

“What?”

“I think you heard me the first time, Mr. Heller.”

“That was a nonrefundable retainer….”

“Do you have that in writing?”