McNally's Bluff by Lawrence Sanders, Vincent Lardo Read Free Book Online Page B

many of them?”
    “A dozen, give or take. If you think they hurt Marlena you’re barking up the wrong tree. They left right after their gig.”
    “What time was that?” Oscar went on.
    “I told them to quit at nine. Then I presented Marlena. Didn’t McNally tell you all this?”
    “Indulge me,” Oscar insisted.
    “I started the crowd picking names to match up for the search for the goal. You know about that?” Oscar nodded and Hayes continued. “Then Tilly came down and told me Marlena was feeling poorly and wanted to rest. She would come down for the buffet after we got back from the maze.”
    “Tilly is your maid?” Oscar put in.
    “Matilda Thompson,” Hayes said. “She’s been with us for a few years. Hired as Marlena’s assistant and stayed on after we sold the carnival and came here.”
    Oscar was consulting his notes as Hayes talked and I could discern no discrepancies between my version of the night’s events and what Hayes was expounding.
    “We were in the maze about an hour, wouldn’t you say, McNally?” Hayes now turned to me.
    “A little more than an hour,” I said. “It would have been after ten when we came back in.”
    “That’s when Tilly called down to say Marlena was gone. Just like that—gone. I went up and searched all the rooms on the second floor, including the attic which was locked from the outside, so how could she be up there?” Hayes sounded as if he were on the brink of hysteria. “And why would she be up there?”
    “Calm down, Mr. Hayes,” Oscar advised. “I don’t know any of the answers right now and I’m not insensitive to your loss, I’m just doing my duty. It’s best to get the facts when they’re still fresh than later when our imaginations or wishful thinking color the picture.”
    Somewhat mollified, Hayes told how search parties were sent to scour the house and grounds, “I hired McNally on the spot and he told me to call you which I did because you’re here, right?”
    The lieutenant glared at me and I could hear Al Rogoff suppress a chuckle. “You didn’t tell me you were working for Mr. Hayes,” Oscar griped.
    “It was a very informal hiring, Lieutenant,” I offered in defense of my omission.
    Hayes quickly jumped in with, “What do you need to make it formal, McNally? A down payment?” And I added acerbity to Hayes’s other endearing qualities.
    “We can discuss it at a more appropriate time, Mr. Hayes,” I stated with what dignity I still possessed.
    “So,” Oscar said, summing up, “the maid left Mrs. Hayes resting in her room and went to her own room for a break. When she returns an hour later to rouse Mrs. Hayes, she finds that Mrs. Hayes is not where she left her. In fact, Mrs. Hayes has disappeared.
    “You were all in the maze and the caterers were in the great room and the kitchen. No one could come down the stairs from the upper floor without being seen, and no one was seen coming down.”
    “So how did Marlena get in the maze?” Hayes demanded once again.
    Al Rogoff, whose ability to suffer fools had reached its limit, bravely said what we all knew to be the truth: “She either walked there alive, or was carried there dead.”

5
    I DIVIDE MY TIME between the family manse on Ocean Boulevard and a humble cottage in Juno. The amenities at Chez McNally include my beloved parents; our housekeeper-cook, Ursi Olson, whose culinary skills are a savory blend of haute cuisine and down-home scrumptious; her husband, Jamie, our houseman of few words and many hats; and last in order but not in rank, Hobo, the family canine. My digs are on the third floor beneath a leaky mansard roof.
    The Juno cottage contains Georgia O’Hara, whom I affectionately call Georgy girl, or just plain Georgy. She is a green-eyed blonde state trooper who is short on the domestic arts and long on sex appeal. If I ever find an accommodating genie in a bottle, I will ask him to grant me Ursi Olson in Georgy girl’s body. But askin’ ain’t gettin’, as