Murder Under the Palms (15 page)

“I never discussed it with Paul. The first I knew that he had found out was when I talked with you a short while ago.” Then it dawned on her. She spoke as much to herself as to them: “You think that I killed Paul as part of a cover-up?” She leaned against the back of the couch and raised her red-lacquered fingertips to her forehead “Oh, my God.”

“I’m not drawing any conclusions,” Maureen said. “But Mr. Feder’s discovery that you embezzled the funds does provide you with a motive for his murder. Were you at the party for the entire evening?”

“Yes. Of course I was. I was the chairman. The first I knew that Paul had been murdered was when my caterer, René Dubord of Château Albert, informed me of it at the beginning of the soup course.”

“You didn’t go out to the beach?”

Lydia stiffened her spine and carefully lifted a wave of fried, dyed hair away from her temple. Then she summoned every measure of dignity that society afforded the widow of a bumper king.

“I may have had an addiction that I couldn’t control,” she said, “but I am
not
a murderess.”

Charlotte pulled up in the Smiths’ circular driveway at five-thirty the next evening. She would be meeting Eddie at Château Albert at seven, but she had arranged to have cocktails beforehand with Connie and Spalding. The Smiths’ house was just around the corner from Villa Normandie: a big, rambling place in the Tudor style (what they used to call “stockbroker Tudor” in Connecticut) complete with half timbers, undulating slate roof, mullioned windows, and dovecote. Charlotte would have been willing to bet that it was the only Tudor in Palm Beach. It was a serious house and a far cry from most of the homes in Palm Beach, which had a fantasy element to their architecture that befitted the playground of millionaires. It was the type of house that one might expect to find clinging to a windswept Dorset cliff or overlooking a misty Scottish moor. It was, in fact, very similar to the Smiths’ house on the Cliff Walk in Newport. But then, so were Connie and Spalding out of sync with the local scene. That’s why she loved them. They could always be relied upon to react in an utterly predictable manner. They were prehistoric relics of another era.

The door was answered by Marianne, who was wearing a voluminous orange silk kimono that Charlotte remembered from her Kabuki collection of a few years back, and which was the product of Marianne’s liaison with a Japanese actor. Now that Charlotte thought about it, maybe that’s where her subconscious had come up with the image of the orange life vest.

Marianne was holding a leaf of Belgian endive heaped with dip. “Come in, dear Aunt Charlotte,” she said, gesturing with the endive, and proceeded to escort Charlotte through the center hallway into the living room, where Connie and Spalding were sitting with their cocktails.

Like Connie and Spalding, the room was predictable: tastefully and elegantly furnished with beautiful antiques, many of them family heirlooms from Spalding’s side of the family, who could trace their Rhode Island roots back to the founding of the state.

“Charlotte, you look lovely,” said Connie, rising to greet her with the obligatory kiss to the air on either side of her cheeks. “Is this the night of your date with Eddie?” she asked.

“Yes, it is,” Charlotte said as Spalding handed her a drink: her usual Manhattan, straight up. In a Manhattan glass, with a cherry.

“Ready and waiting, and just the way you like it, I hope.”

“Thank you,” she replied as she seated herself on the couch. Then she took a sip and looked up at Spalding. “Exactly the way I like it.” She turned to Connie. “Spalding’s arranged for us to eat at Château Albert for Normandy night, which I think is very fitting.” She turned to her host. “Thank you, Spalding.”

“Anything I can do for the sake of romance,” he said.

Marianne, who had vanished into the adjoining library, now reappeared with a rectangular box, elegantly wrapped in silver paper. She presented it to Charlotte: “This is to thank you for getting me out of a tight spot.”

Charlotte looked up, surprised.

“Don’t say you didn’t do anything,” Marianne warned as she sat down next to Charlotte.

“But I didn’t,” Charlotte protested. Setting down her drink, she proceeded to open the present. “Someone would have thought of the jewelry angle eventually. Besides, if that hadn’t done the trick, the new information provided by your daughter certainly would have.”

“Meanwhile I would have been rotting away in jail,” Marianne said, adding, “It’s not the first scrape you’ve gotten me out of.”

“Nor will it be the last,” Spalding interjected cynically.

Marianne shot him a dirty look.

Charlotte removed the wrapping paper to reveal a box from Feder Jewelers. She looked at Marianne. “Whatever it is, you shouldn’t have done it.” Then she opened the blue calfskin lid. Inside was the cloisonné
minaudière
that Marianne had been carrying the night of the benefit, before she dropped it in the sand.

“I got it back from the police,” Marianne said, her deep-set brown eyes smiling. “Fresh from the evidence locker. I thought you ought to have it. Or rather, Mother did. It was her idea.”

“We’re very grateful, Charlotte,” Connie said.

“Oh, Marianne,” Charlotte exclaimed as she removed it from the satin lining of the box and examined the multiple compartments. “I love it,” she said, adding, “You shouldn’t have.”

“But I did, so there,” Marianne said, sticking out her tongue. “Now we want to hear the latest. Dede’s only told us the basics. Lydia Collins turns out to be an embezzler! I don’t know her, but Mother and Spalding do.”

“I’m shocked,” Connie said, shaking her head in disbelief. “I can’t believe that someone would betray a public trust like that.”

Connie belonged to the old school, and still believed that anyone who would devote their energies to the public interest could do no wrong.

“Historic preservation,” Marianne snorted. “Lydia preservation is more like it. What did she need the money for? I thought she was married to the bumper king of Flint, Michigan.”

Charlotte related what she had discovered about Lydia’s purchase of the Dupas panels coming just after the date of her biggest raid on the coffers of the preservation association. “But it turned out that she needed money in general. Apparently her late husband had made some bad investments.”

“That explains why she puts the house up for rent,” Connie said. “She lists it every season with Barclay’s, for thirty thousand a month. When she originally told us about it, she made it sound as if it made no difference to her. But I wondered. Who would rent unless they had to?”

“She admitted that’s why she rents it,” Charlotte said.

“She’s rented to the same person every year: a German industrialist, who’s actually very nice. But we were worried. After all, she
is
our next door neighbor.” Connie looked over at her daughter. “Do you remember what happened a few years ago on Jungle Road?”

“Oh, Mother,” said Marianne dismissively.

“What happened?” Charlotte asked.

Marianne explained. “An heiress whose money was tight rented her house to a porn magazine publisher who used the grounds to shoot-nude photo layouts. The town was outraged. They live in never-never land here,” she added.

“That’s the way we like it,” said Connie. “We don’t want our precious island turned into another Forty-second Street.”

“Then why did every little old lady in Palm Beach go out and buy the magazine when it came out?” Marianne asked. “Including you, Mother dear.” She explained to Charlotte: “Main Street News was sold out.”

“I was just curious,” Connie said defensively. She turned to Charlotte. “You were saying?”

“It turns out that Lydia owes money all over town,” said Charlotte, conveying the latest, which she had found out from Maureen just that morning. “Including to Feder Jewelers, which may have been what tipped Paul off.”

“As if embezzling a hundred thousand dollars in a single shot wasn’t enough all by itself,” said Marianne. “What do you think of Dede’s theory that Lydia killed Paul to prevent him from exposing her as an embezzler?”

“I think it’s a good theory,” Charlotte said. “But I don’t think she could have done it herself. No one saw her leave the premises. Someone would have had to do it for her.” She turned to Connie and Spalding. “Which is why I wanted to talk with you, as a matter of fact.”

“Why?” asked Connie, puzzled.

“I wanted to ask you about the admiral. At the time of the murder, I was out on the deck with Eddie. We saw him go out to the beach.”

“But what would his motive have been?” Connie asked.

“A grand passion?” Charlotte suggested.

“For Lydia Collins?” exclaimed Connie incredulously. “Charlotte, there’s nothing between him and Lydia. He’s a walker: he’s with a different woman at a different party every night of the week. I’ve even been out with him a couple of times myself when Spalding’s been away.”

“What’s he like?” Charlotte asked.

“Very charming, very gracious. Though I’d have to say that he’s guarded. He doesn’t reveal much about himself. He’s a widower. He had a distinguished career in the Navy, from what I understand.”

“He was awarded the Navy Cross during the Korean War,” offered Spalding.

“He’s a very good dancer,” added Connie.

“Could he have done it because he needed the money?” Charlotte asked.

Connie shook her head. “I think he probably has enough money. He lives fairly modestly. He has a condo down by the Brazilian Docks. He does have a fishing boat, the
Sea Witch
, that he docks there. I imagine it must be quite expensive to maintain, but what else would he need money for?”

“To cover the high cost of living in Palm Beach?”

“Charlotte, a man like that—charming, handsome, accomplished, available—wants for
nothing
in Palm Beach. There are rich widows by the dozens who are happy to pay his way for the pleasure of not having to go out alone.”

“And hostesses by the dozens who are looking to balance their unevenly balanced dinner tables,” added Marianne.

“The only thing a man of polish like Jack McLean needs to spend money on in Palm Beach is a well-cut tuxedo. Once he’s done that, it’s a free ride for the rest of his life.” Connie paused for a moment, and then said, “I’m making him sound more calculating than I think he is.”

“What do you mean?” Charlotte asked.

“I think he and the other men like him here enjoy the life. They aren’t squiring rich widows around because it’s a free ride, but because they enjoy the company of attractive, sophisticated older women.” Connie straightened up and batted her cornflower blue eyes.

“Women such as ourselves, you mean?” Charlotte teased.

“Exactly. Paul was another man who lived that way,” Connie went on. “But for him it was good business as well: getting to know prospective customers.”

“Well, I know how I’ll get by if you kick the bucket before I do,” said Spalding with a good-natured chuckle.

“You’d have to take lessons at Arthur Murray first, dear,” Connie twitted, then turned back to Charlotte. “Have we demolished your theory of Jack McLean as a murderer?”

“Totally,” Charlotte said.

“Now what?”

“I don’t know,” she replied.

After thanking Marianne for the
minaudière
and saying goodbye to the Smiths, Charlotte got back into her rental car and headed for Château Albert, where she was to meet Eddie. She was as nervous as a schoolgirl on her first date and at the same time oddly calm. She had the feeling that the whole scenario was being orchestrated by a
deus ex machina
, one with an ironic—if not to say somewhat cruel—sense of humor. Charlotte had met Eddie when her marriage to her first husband was breaking up, a casualty of her sudden ascent to stardom. Her second husband, whom she had loved very much in an affectionate sort of way, had died prematurely of a heart attack. Then had come her notorious affair with the cowboy actor, Linc Crawford, who had been the love of her life. He had also died of an apparent heart attack. After a number of other love affairs, she had made the mistake of marrying her third husband, a drunkard and a womanizer, from whom she had been divorced only six months later. Finally she had married for the fourth time, a man she had thought to possess all the old-fashioned virtues, but who had turned out instead to be just plain boring. It was as if this god with the cruel sense of humor were saying, After doling out a lifetime’s worth of pain and anguish with regard to men, we’re now going to set you up with a wonderful guy whom you could have been with all along, had the timing been a little different.

Or maybe she was just building castles in the air.

On her way to Château Albert, Charlotte took a detour past the admiral’s condominium. By Palm Beach standards, it was modest, just as Connie had said. His fishing boat, the
Sea Witch
, was docked across the street. It was goodsized—Charlotte would have put it at fifty feet or more—and it certainly hadn’t come cheap. The docking fees must also cost a pretty penny. But the boat appeared to be the only indulgence in an otherwise unpretentious lifestyle, and surely the financial resources of a retired rear admiral would be sufficient to support a boat. Another argument against the admiral dismissed, she thought as she drove on.

Ten minutes later, she arrived at Château Albert, which was located in a charming off-street plaza of quaint offices and apartments across the road from the police station. As she pulled up in front of the club, Charlotte was greeted by a tanned young valet, who promptly whisked her car away. Where did they park all the cars? she wondered, imagining them all lined up in some gigantic parking lot in West Palm Beach. A minute later, she had passed through the opening in the tall ficus hedges that shielded the club from the plaza, and was immediately transported to Normandy, France.

The building was in the style of a Norman country inn, with a first-floor façade worked in a complex pattern of brick and stone, and a second floor façade of half-timbered oak. The roof was steeply pitched and broken up with dormers, turrets, and overhangs. Carefully grouped pots of red geraniums rested on the sills of the tall windows on the first floor, and the tricolor flew from a flagpole in the cobblestoned entrance courtyard.