“Okay,” she said happily. “This is the first date I’ve ever had.”
“You’ll have plenty more,” I assured her.
“Archy, I’ve finished my poem.”
“Wonderful! I can’t wait to hear it.”
After we hung up I went back upstairs to don a costume suitable for a picnic. Actually, all I did was change to black denim jeans, hoping they wouldn’t show grass stains. I knew where I’d be sitting.
I returned to our utility room and rummaged a moment before I found what I sought: a small insulated tote bag designed to keep things hot or cold.
I breezed over to West Palm to a takeout joint I had patronized in the past. Not great but fast. I bought a large pizza, half-cheese and half-pepperoni; four cold cans of Coke; a pint of pistachio ice cream; paper napkins and plastic spoons. I had the pizza tightly wrapped in aluminum foil. The cola and ice cream went into my insulated tote. I can be practical when the occasion demands.
By the time I arrived at Lucy’s Secret Place she was already seated on the grass and clapped her hands when I uncovered all the goodies I had brought. I flopped down beside her and we started our picnic, trying to eat delicately and making an enjoyable mess of it.
As we gobbled, she chattered—if one can chatter with a mouthful of cheese and sausage—about activities at school, what the teacher had said, a project being planned that would require Lucy and her schoolmates to write personal letters to the world’s leaders. Listening to her jabber, I realized this child was telling me things she should rightfully be relating to her parents. I could only conclude they lacked the interest to listen, and Lucy knew it.
We had begun working on our ice cream when she said, shyly, “Would you like me to read my poem now?”
“I surely would.”
She dug a much-creased sheet of notepaper from the pocket of her cotton pinafore, unfolded it, and began reading.
“ ‘To my Grandfather,’ ” she said, then looked up. “That’s the title.”
I nodded and she continued reading.
I wish with all my heart I could tell you it was a wonderful poem: simple, heartfelt, and touching. In all honesty I cannot. I wasn’t expecting Alfred, Lord Tennyson, you understand, but it was an awful poem. Just awful. Wasn’t it Oscar who said, “When it comes to sincerity, style is everything”? Well, someone said it.
She finished and looked at me expectantly.
“Lucy,” I said warmly, “it’s a marvelous poem. Absolutely marvelous.”
She ignited with happiness. “You really think so?”
“I certainly do.”
“I read it to Mrs. Bledsoe, and she said it was a beautiful poem, and then she started crying. Why did she do that?”
I could guess but didn’t answer. “Did you show it to your mother and father, Lucy?”
“No,” she said shortly, and we finished our ice cream in silence. I could see my mention of her parents had saddened her. She sat slumped over, cobwebby hair hiding her face. Finally she said, “I can’t come live with you, Archy.”
“Oh?” I said. “Why is that?”
“Mom and dad aren’t going to make a divorce. They’re going to stay married and we’re going to stay here. They told me so.”
“I’m happy to hear it. That’s good news.”
“I guess,” she said forlornly. “But I can come visit you, can’t I?”
“Of course. Whenever you wish.”
“Do you have a Secret Place, Archy?”
“Sort of. I have my own apartment at the top of our house.”
“Gee,” she said, “I wish I had like an apartment. I’ve just got this one little bitty room.”
I was beginning to be infected by her mournfulness and determined to wrench us out of it. “Would you like to hear another funny poem, Lucy?”
She brightened. “Oh yes!”
I recited, “ ’Twas brillig and the slithy toves/ Did gyre and gimble in the wabe...” By the time I finished she was rocking with merriment, her face alight, and I reminded God to give me a Merit Badge for good intentions.
I gathered up the refuse from our picnic, shoved all the trash into my tote, and rose to depart.
“Be happy, darling,” I said to her. “Will you try?”
“Okay,” she said with a smile as sweet as halvah.
What I planned next shriveled my heart. But I had promised Sgt. Al Rogoff I would attempt it, and I admit my incurable nosiness overcame my misgivings. Still, I knew it was going to be a touch-and-go confrontation, and I’ve never been much good at playing the inquisitor.
I found Mrs. Nora Bledsoe in the Forsythe pantry, working on her accounts. She looked up when I entered and gave me a wan smile. “I can’t believe you’re going to spend a lovely Saturday afternoon cataloging books, Mr. McNally.”
“Not quite,” I said. “May I speak to you in private, Mrs. Bledsoe? I suggest we adjourn to the library.”
Her expression of alarm was fleeting—or perhaps I merely imagined it. “If you wish,” she said warily.
She rose and preceded me through that maze of hallways. I finally decided why Mr. Forsythe’s grandmother had committed suicide: the poor dear was lost and couldn’t find her way out.
I closed the library door carefully and ushered Mrs. Bledsoe to the leather armchair alongside the desk. I took the swivel chair but wheeled it out so we were facing each other closely, no barrier of clunky furniture between us. I hoped it might help create a mood of intimacy. I didn’t intend to browbeat the woman.
“Mrs. Bledsoe,” I started, “as you’re probably aware I have been assisting the police in their investigation of Mr. Forsythe’s murder. He was an old and valued client of McNally and Son, and we want to do everything we can to help solve this horrible crime.”
She nodded. She sat upright, face set, hands clutched tightly on her lap. I knew she feared what was coming—almost as much as I did.
“The police have a number of suspects,” I continued. “I must tell you that your son is one of them. They’ve been unable to pinpoint his exact whereabouts at the time of Mr. Forsythe’s death.”
If she was shocked her expression didn’t reveal it. I think she had been expecting to hear her son accused.
“Tony is innocent, Mr. McNally,” she said, her voice low but steady.
“I hope he is,” I said. “But apparently the authorities are basing their suspicion on rumors that he is a heavy drinker.”
“That’s rubbish!” she said, flaring. “My son has a single glass of wine or one beer at the most. He is not a boozer. I can testify to that, and so can everyone else in this house.”
“Glad to hear it,” I said, leaning toward her. “But it’s also been reported he is prone to violence, has an ungovernable temper. Is that also false?”
That shook her, I could see. She bit her lower lip, twisted her linked fingers.
“Tony does get angry at times,” she finally admitted. “But it never lasts long. He says things he doesn’t really mean and sometimes he does things he’s sorry for later. But my son is a good boy, Mr. McNally.”
That last was a plea. She wouldn’t be, I reflected, the first mother who didn’t know her own son and whose opinion was in direct conflict with the judgment of others. You may think me a wimp, for instance, but my mother believes me to be an admirable combination of Tom Swift, Robert E. Lee, and Noel Coward.
The first portion of my interrogation was finished and I was convinced Mrs. Bledsoe had answered my questions honestly; nothing she had said was irreconcilable with what I had already learned. But the most difficult part of my discreet inquiry remained.
“Mrs. Bledsoe,” I said softly, “I must also tell you the police are aware of your relationship with Griswold Forsythe. Your past relationship. Need I say more?”
Then she began weeping. Not noisily, not sobbing, but quietly and steadily, tears wet on her cheeks. I was not proud of what I was doing, you understand, but it was necessary. And I had more pain to administer.
“I’m not surprised,” she said, her voice suddenly thick. “After Griswold died I knew it would all come out eventually. Yes, it’s true. Tony is Mr. Forsythe’s son. But I won’t hear a word said against the father. He saved me—
saved
me!—when I thought there was no future for me but walking into the sea. He was the dearest, sweetest, most gentle and most understanding man who ever lived.”
I found that hard to believe. I’ve made it plain I thought Griswold Forsythe II had been a stuffed shirt, a long-winded bore, a skinflint, and a man so convinced of his own omniscience I’m sure he would offer advice to the surgeon about to perform a quadruple bypass on him.
But then who of us is one and complete? I mean we all present different faces to different people, do we not? And they react accordingly. A woman might be a saint to her lover and a devil to her husband, or vice versa. So it was not too surprising that Mrs. Bledsoe saw qualities in the father of her son to which I was totally blind.
“One more question, Mrs. Bledsoe,” I said. “I would not dare ask if it were not so important. You may find it offensive and a gross invasion of your privacy, but I
must
ask it.”
“What do you want to know, Mr. McNally?”
“Did you continue your intimacy with Griswold Forsythe after you came to work for him and lived in his home?”
She lifted her chin. Eyes blazed. She was no longer the defeated woman she had been moments before.
“Yes!” she said defiantly.
I rose and thanked her for speaking so frankly. We shook hands and I resisted a desire to kiss her cheek. We separated in the hallway. I returned to the Miata, schlepping my tote bag containing debris from the picnic with Lucy. I don’t wish to get fancy-schmancy about this but it seemed to me I was also carrying the detritus of an entire family: all their sins and wicked secrets.
On the drive home, to dispel my melancholy, I sang, “Toot, Toot, Tootsie!”
It helped.
W
HAT A JOY IT
was to see Connie Garcia that evening! After the Sturm and Drang of the Forsythe household, Connie came on vibrant, bubbly, and full of hope. As warned, she was clad in tight jeans and a snugger T-shirt. More importantly, she wore an elfin grin. My spirits ballooned.
The Pelican Club was filling rapidly with frenetic Saturday night merrymakers, so we hustled into the dining room to grab our favorite corner table. Priscilla told us the special that night was barbecued pork ribs with a Cajun sauce. Oh yes, we went for that, with garlicked shoestring potatoes and a Mt. Everest of coleslaw.
We nattered nonstop as we gluttonized, exchanging gossip about friends and acquaintances, and who was doing what to whom—and why. Connie told me an amusing story about my pal Ferdy Attenborough. It was rumored that he had been arrested, while somewhat in his cups, for attempting to create an obscene sand sculpture on the beach, complete with a turret shell planted in an upright position.
“Somewhere a mother’s heart is breaking,” I said sorrowfully.
While we dawdled over our sublime dessert-chunks of pineapple soaked in Captain Morgan’s Coconut Rum—I asked Connie what she had learned about the breakup between Geraldine Forsythe and Timothy Cussack.
“As I told you, Archy, I was able to learn only half the answer. Everyone agrees he dumped her for another woman. But no one seems to know who the other woman was—or is. Sorry I couldn’t do better.”
“You did just fine,” I assured her. “It’s exactly what I need. You’re becoming a real female shamus—called a shamusette.”
“You made that up,” she accused.
“I did indeed,” I admitted. “May we leave now and have a quiet, thoughtful evening in your digs while we discuss Heisenberg’s discovery of the uncertainty principle?”
“Is that really what you want to do?” she asked.
“Not quite,” I said.
Less than an hour later we were lolling in her snug little condo on the shore of Lake Worth and there was no uncertainty about our actions. We discussed, while recuperating, our coming jaunt to Freeport on the following weekend. We both asserted, vowed, swore we would gamble a limit of a hundred dollars each in the casinos. Absolutely. No more than a hundred. Then we almost strangled with laughter, acknowledging what liars we were.
I departed, regretfully, shortly after midnight and wheeled home in a mellow mood. I did not sing during the drive, as was my wont, but questioned for the umpteenth time what my life might be like were I to be married to Consuela Garcia, that estimable woman.
Not idyllic; I was not such a dolt as to imagine that. Our wedlock would have its pluses and minuses I had no doubt. But the bottom line, I reckoned, would not be written in red ink. Still, there was that damnable cowardice of mine which I blamed on a faulty gene that caused me to break out in a rash at the thought of being shackled by the holy bonds of matrimony.
And if that were not enough, my discreet inquiry into the affairs of the Forsythe clan had given me fresh insight into the perils of conjugality. They had made unholy messes of their marriages. And even though I knew they were probably in the minority, their shocking example was enough to give second, third, and fourth thoughts to any young bachelor contemplating a lifetime commitment.
My mind is a Dumpster of remembered tunes; old films; ancient jokes; actors, poets, singers, and clowns long gone. That night before sleep whisked me away, I was still mulling the pros and cons of hubbyhood. I recalled a line from an Andy Hardy movie I had caught at a grungy rerun cinema. The son (Mickey Rooney) is asked by the judge (Lewis Stone), “Don’t you ever intend to wed?” The reply: “Why should I marry and make one woman miserable when I can stay single and make so many women happy?”
Ah, yes.
I awoke the next morning with no firm determination of how I wished to spend the day. I peeked out the window and it looked okay: hazy sun, pallid sky, a few cumulus clouds that didn’t seem to be going anywhere. One of the problems of living in South Florida is that you expect every day to be perfect. They aren’t, of course, but even the ones categorized as “not half-bad” can be enjoyable. That Sunday appeared to be one of those.
By the time I arrived downstairs my parents had gone to their church and the Olsons had gone to theirs. I inspected the fridge for breakfast possibilities. After the pizza and barbecued ribs of the previous day I decided a little abstention might be in order so I limited my intake to a glass of cranberry juice, a toasted English muffin coated with Dundee grapefruit marmalade, and two cups of black decaf. I felt very virtuous. And very hungry.