Collins, Max Allan - Nathan Heller 07 (32 page)

Eventually Meyer Lansky became, as had Alfred de Marigny for too long a time, a man without a country: faced with federal indictments, he left the U.S.A. for Israel, which despite generous cash contributions eventually turned him away; after stops in Switzerland and South America, Lansky returned to the States, but was acquitted. He died in Miami Beach, just another retired business executive, in 1983.

One of the things that amazed me over the years, as I followed from a distance the fortunes and foibles of those involved in the Oakes case, was how seldom Axel Wenner-Gren’s name turned up anywhere. His public stance was that of philanthropist; however, one of his research foundations was (and is) devoted to the study of eugenics.

In 1960, a stewardess I was seeing invited me to fly with her to Nassau on some free tickets for a long weekend of (this is how she put it) “funning and sunning on the beach, and fucking and sucking wherever.” It was a sincere invitation, and I accepted. If this sounds like a low-life response to a vulgar suggestion, keep in mind I was fifty-five and she was twenty-seven, and how many more offers like that could I hope to get?

Out of either nostalgia or habit, I got reservations at the B.C. It hadn’t changed much, and in fact was looking a little long in the tooth; but then, so was I. One evening, after my stewardess friend (whose name was Kelly and who had green eyes and blond hair in a Jackie Kennedy cut) had kept her promises, we dined at the Jungle Club, which hadn’t seemed to change a bit from when Higgs brought me here, over a decade and a half ago.

We dined in the shade of indoor palms under a thatched umbrella at a green table, enjoying conch chowder and a meal that included grouper and a pepper pot, and one of the sweet young saronged things came over and said, “Are you Mr. Heller?”

“Yes?”

“A gentleman would like to speak to you.”

The waitress pointed to a table across the way.

“Oh. Okay.”

I didn’t recognize him at first—and why should I? I’d never met him, really.

He stood, as I approached, and smiled in a disarmingly boyish manner for a big, older man: fleshy, pink-faced, his hair stark white, eyebrows wispy and all but invisible, a soft oval face with a nose enlarged with age and small wet eyes peering from flesh pouches. He was casually dressed, in a pink-and-white short-sleeve sport shirt and white slacks. He looked sturdy for a man pushing eighty, but he also looked like a man pushing eighty.

“Ah, Mr. Heller!” he said in a melodious voice touched with what I took for a Scandinavian accent. “At long last.”

Who the hell was this guy? I studied him, knowing I’d seen him somewhere before.

Seated at his table was a dark-haired handsome young man in a cream-color suit with a dark tie. He looked vaguely familiar, too, but not as familiar as my old friend who was extending his hand, which I shook. It was a firm handshake, despite his age.

Then I remembered.

I remembered the benignly, blandly smiling portrait above the fireplace, among the Inca masks, in the round living room.

“Axel Wenner-Gren,” I said numbly.

“This is my friend Huntington Hartford,” he said, gesturing to the handsome younger man, who smiled tightly at me, and we shook hands. “Please sit with us.”

I did.

“How did you know who I was?” I asked. “We never met.”

“I’ve seen your picture in the newspapers, many times. So many interesting, important cases you’ve been involved with! You should write a book.”

“Maybe after I retire.”

“Ah, you’re much too young to even think of retiring. Me, I’m beginning to divest myself of material concerns. My friend, Hunt, here, is trying to talk me into selling him Shangri La.”

“You still live there?”

Wenner-Gren smiled and shrugged; his manner was avuncular. “Winters, only.”

His dinner guest—the A&P heir who was worth fifty to seventy million, roughly—excused himself and rose. I wondered if that was prearranged.

Still smiling, Wenner-Gren leaned in and he patted my hand; his hand was cold. Like a goddamn ice pack.

“I have kept track of you, over the years. From time to time, you speak of the Oakes case, don’t you? To the press.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“It will never be reopened, you know. Some foolish people tried, last year, unsuccessfully. Even now, that whole matter is an embarrassment to the Bahamas and to England, as well.”

“I know.”

“Then why continue discussing the case? I’m just curious.”

“It’s good publicity. I mention the Lindbergh case, too, sometimes. That’s why I have branch offices all over the country, now. Back in Chicago, we call it capitalism.”

He smiled, more to himself; no teeth, just bloodshot apple cheeks. “You’re an amusing man. You have a reputation for a rough wit.”

“I also have a reputation for leaving well enough alone.”

He nodded. “Very wise. How very wise. You know…” And he patted my hand again. Cold! “I’ve wanted to thank you, for so many years.”

“Thank me?”

Now his face was somber as he nodded again. “For…eliminating that problem.”

“What problem?”

He licked his lips. “Lady Medcalf.”

I didn’t say anything. I was shaking a little. This smiling eighty-year-old philanthropist had me shaking.

“I know what you did,” he said, “and I’m grateful. And it gives me great pleasure to finally let you know, personally, that she was acting on her own devices.”

I nodded.

Then he smiled broadly. “Well, here comes Hunt again. Mr. Heller, I’ll let you get back to that charming young lady. Your daughter?”

“No.”

He beamed. “Isn’t that nice! Good evening, Mr. Heller.”

I said something or other, nodded at both of them, and walked numbly back to the table.

“Who was that?” Kelly asked.

“The devil,” I said.

“Oh, Heller—you’re so bad!”

“What did you say?”

She looked at me curiously. “I don’t know. What
did
I say?”

“Nothing. Nothing.”

She wanted to stay to watch the limbo contest, but I wanted out of there. That was the last weekend I spent with that particular stewardess; seemed I hadn’t been much fun, on our little getaway, after a certain point.

Axel Wenner-Gren died of cancer a year later. His fortune was estimated at over one billion dollars.

It wasn’t till 1972 that I got back to the Bahamas, this time with a woman closer to my own age, who I happened to be married to. In fact, it was our honeymoon and my wife—second wife, actually—had always wanted to see the Bahamas.

Specifically, she wanted to see Government House, because she’d been so taken as a girl with the bittersweet love story of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

Nassau hadn’t changed much, although the ways it had changed weren’t for the better: American fast-food joints on the fringes and, on Bay Street, interminable T-shirt shops and an offer of drugs from a ganja-reeking black guy every few paces.

But there was (and is) a time machine known as Graycliff, a large old rambling Georgian Colonial home near Government House that first opened its doors as a small hotel back in 1844. The honeymoon suite, by the poolside, is a small separate building amidst an exotic tropical garden. The hotel restaurant—you dine here and there on the main floor, but we preferred the porch—is five-star.

The first evening we were there, after a meal that included goose-liver pâté with truffles and a Hollandaise-smothered steak as thick as a phone book and as tender as a mother’s touch, we were served steaming hot soufflés in custard cups.

“I’ve never had coconut soufflé before,” my wife said.

“I have. And as good as this place is, they’ll never beat it.”

She was having a taste. “Hmmm. You better try some and see if you still feel the same way….”

I broke the light brown skin and spooned the orangeish white custard and tasted its sweetness, the shredded coconut, the hints of banana and orange and rum….

“What’s wrong?” She leaned forward. “Too hot, dear?”

“Yellow Bird,” I said.

“What?”

“Nothing. Waiter!”

He came over, a young handsome black. “Yes, sir?”

“Could I speak to the chef?”

“Sir, the chef is…”

“I have to compliment him on the dessert. It’s important.” I pressed a ten-spot into his hand.

My wife was looking at me like I was crazy; it wasn’t the first time, and it was hardly the last.

“Actually, sir, the chef doesn’t prepare the desserts and the pastries. His missus does.”

“Take me to her.”

My wife was confused, and half-standing.

“Please, dear,” I said, patting the air with one hand. “Just wait here….”

I went back by the kitchen and waited and in a few seconds that were an eternity, she came out, wearing a white apron over a blue dress not unlike the maid’s uniform she wore so long ago.

She didn’t recognize me at first.

“Marjorie,” I said.

Her face—her lovely face, touched by age but gently—looked at first incredulous, then warmed, and she said, “Nathan? Nathan Heller?”

I took her in my arms; didn’t kiss her. Just held her.

“I’m here on my honeymoon,” I said.

I let go of her and we stood apart, but rather close. Her hair was lightly sprinkled with white, but her figure was about the same. Maybe a little thicker around the hips. We won’t discuss my gut.

She smiled widely. “Only just now you get married?”

“Well, this is the second time. I think this one’s going to last, or at least outlast me. And you’re married to the chef?”

“For twenty-five years. We got three little ones—well, not so little anymore. Got a boy in college.”

My eyes were getting wet. “That’s so wonderful.”

Her brow wrinkled. “How did you…?”

“That soufflé. One taste, and I knew you were responsible.”

“So you ordered that! It’s still good, isn’t it?”

“Still good.”

She hugged me again. “I have to get back to work. Where are you stayin’?”

“Right here. We have the honeymoon suite.”

“Well, I simply must meet your wife…if she won’t mind sharin’ you, just a little. You have to excuse me, now—”

“You know where to find us.”

She started to go back in, then turned and looked at me, and her expression was half happy, half sad.

“Tell me, Nathan—do you ever think of your Marjorie?”

“Not often.”

“Not often?”

I shrugged. “Only when I see the moon.”

We visited a little, during the week my wife and I were there. Not much—it
was
our honeymoon, after all.

But Marjorie told me something, in one of the few moments we had alone, that sent me whirling back in time just as surely as had that coconut soufflé, only not so sweetly.

It seemed she had run into Samuel, once—the missing night watchman from Westbourne—about ten years after the murder….

He had told her that on that awful night he had seen things and people at Westbourne that had scared him; and that Harold Christie had come around later to pay him and the other boy, Jim, to “disappear” for a while.

Everything Samuel had told Marjorie, and which Marjorie was now sharing with me, confirmed the story I had told Lady Diane Medcalf, so very long ago, in the aftermath of a tropical storm on Hog Island, during carnal hours, right before she shot me and I shot her.

Despite its extensive basis in history, this is a work of fiction, and a few liberties have been taken with the facts, though as few as possible—and any blame for historical inaccuracies is my own, reflecting, I hope, the limitations of conflicting source material.

The major liberty I have taken is in the telescoping of time; while the murder of Sir Harry Oakes did take place in July 1943, the trial of Alfred de Marigny did not end until November. I am purposely vague in
Carnal Hours,
implying these events took place within several months. Both the preliminary hearing and the trial itself have been compressed to spare the reader the countless delays and redundancies of the real proceedings; nonetheless, I have attempted to accurately portray what occurred.

Most of the characters in this novel are real and appear with their true names. Any readers intimately familiar with the case will realize that I have omitted a few players, chiefly Frank Christie, who was his brother Harold Christie’s business manager and who some theorists place in the thick of the murder and cover-up; in fact, Frank was among the first people Harold Christie called from Westbourne after the discovery of Sir Harry’s body. However, from my point of view Frank Christie served merely as an extension of his brother’s will, so certain things sometimes attributed to Frank (paying the native watchmen to disappear, for example) have been laid at Harold’s feet.

Another major missing player is Raymond Schindler, the legendary private detective whose role in this version of the Oakes case is given to Nathan Heller. Schindler did many of the things attributed here to Heller, including playing practical jokes on the cops and talking the Marquis de Visdelou into testifying for his friend Freddie. He also worked closely with Erle Stanley Gardner, whose role in this novel is largely factual.

So is that of Leonard Keeler, although some of the theories and discoveries Keeler makes are actually new additions to Oakes lore. With the help of indefatigable researcher Lynn Myers, who spoke to numerous fire marshals and forensics experts, two new theories were developed: the probable use of the bug sprayer as the makeshift blowtorch; and the use of a smaller-caliber revolver at close range, to produce the four wounds that were, absurdly, considered the work of a bludgeon by “expert” witnesses. Lynn’s expert witnesses included Sergeant Jake Baker and Detective Bob Warner of Carlisle Borough Police Department, and Fred Klages of the Pennsylvania State Fire Marshal’s office.

Ian Fleming’s involvement in the case is fanciful; however, British Naval Intelligence did indeed track the Duke of Windsor’s activities during the period Fleming was stationed in the Caribbean.

Diane Medcalf is a fictional character. In real life, Axel Wenner-Gren’s wartime affairs in Nassau were looked after by a baron and baroness—George and Marie Trolle; Baroness Trolle was Nancy de Marigny’s confidante during the ordeal of the trial. Private eye Schindler and his friend Leonard Keeler did in fact stay with the Trolles, even burning up some valuable furniture in their experimenting. However, Lady Medcalf’s fictional treachery is not meant to cast any suspicion on these real-life figures.

On the other hand, the theory that a minion (or minions) of Axel Wenner-Gren committed the crime has valid historical underpinnings.

Marjorie Bristol is a fictional character, although she has a historical counterpart in a housekeeper who worked at Westbourne.

My longtime research associate George Hagenauer, whose many contributions include slogging through volume upon volume of Nazi spy research, spent hours in libraries gathering book and newspaper references, and on the phone discussing with me the ins and outs of this convoluted case. George is a valued collaborator on the Heller “memoirs” and I continue to appreciate his contribution and friendship.

Lynn Myers, the nicest glutton for punishment I know, again dug in and did research rivaling George’s; he located the rarest of books and magazine articles and deserves much more than these simple thanks.

Going to great lengths, both Lynn and George found fragmented versions of the lengthy Hearst-syndicated coverage of the case by Erle Stanley Gardner, which together added up to one complete set of what became perhaps my single most valuable research tool. Gardner’s on-site observations of both Nassau and the trial’s participants give the lie to the general notion that Perry Mason’s creator was a limited stylist and poor observer; he was, instead, keen-eyed and insightful and capable of many a well-turned phrase. Also, a Gardner article, “My Most Baffling Murder Case”
(Mercury Book-Magazine,
January 1958), was a useful summary of his views on the Oakes affair. Tina Maresco of Spahr Library, Dickinson College, helped assemble the Gardner material.

Another person was instrumental in the writing of this book: my talented wife, writer Barbara Collins, who accompanied me on a research trip to the Bahamas in January 1990. While I would not bother denying even to the IRS that we had a pleasant time, Barb was her usual intelligent, diligent self in seeing to it that our primary pursuit was the ghost of Sir Harry Oakes. Like Heller, we stayed at the British Colonial, which at this writing is still owned by the Oakes family; the assistant manager of the B.C., Nigel Bethel, took time out of a busy schedule to help us in our efforts.

Unquestionably the most valuable research aid we discovered in the Bahamas was a remarkable individual named Romeo Farrington of Romeo’s Executive Limousine Service, who took us on a lengthy tour of New Providence, away from usual tourist haunts, to give us a sense of the real place, and the history surrounding it.

Of the handful of books published about the case, the most comprehensive is
The Murder of Sir Harry Oakes
(1959), published by the Nassau
Daily Tribune,
a collection of the contemporary coverage from that paper. Other books on the case were extremely helpful: James Leasor’s 1983
Who Killed Harry Oakes?,
which begins as nonfiction and takes a lengthy excursion into speculation, and is the source of the now widely accepted (and in my opinion erroneous) theory that Lansky was responsible;
King’s X
(1972) by Marshall Houts—a veteran of Gardner’s Court of Last Resort—which focuses on the trial, with later editions including a new chapter detailing Harold Christie’s successful efforts to have the book banned in the Bahamas; and
The Life and Death of Sir Harry Oakes
(1959) by Geoffrey Bocca, the only biography of the victim, with an excellent account of the case marred only by a naive endorsement of Harold Christie as an admirable, blameless individual.

Alfred de Marigny has written two autobiographies:
More Devil Than Saint
(1946), a picaresque account of his colorful life leading up to a rather sparse account of the murder and trial; and
A Conspiracy of Crowns
(1990), written with Mickey Herskowitz, which deals in detail with the case and with de Marigny’s subsequent life. Together they form one complete, fascinating portrait. Oddly, in his recent book, de Marigny does not mention having written
Devil
(and does not list it in the “selected bibliography”), and even tells of giving up his plans to write such a book, back in the forties, after murder attempts!

One footnote about de Marigny: after his acquittal and into the 1950s, de Marigny would say he owed his life to private eye Raymond Schindler; but in his more recent book, de Marigny dismisses Schindler’s contribution as minimal and complains at length that the detective charged an exorbitant fee. Other research tends to confirm his earlier opinion.

Also, de Marigny goes out of his way to praise and exonerate Christie in his 1946 book, but lays the crime at Christie’s feet in his recent one.

Countless books have been written about the Duke and Duchess of Windsor; I used primarily the following:
King of Fools
(1989), John Parker;
The Woman He Loved
(1974), Ralph G. Martin;
The Duchess of Windsor: The Secret Life
(1988), Charles Higham; and
The Woman Who Would Be Queen
(1954), Geoffrey Bocca. Two books on the Duke’s time in the Bahamas were particularly helpful:
The Duke of Windsor’s War
(1982), Michael Bloch; and
The King Over the Water
(1981), Michael Pye. Incidentally, Sally Rand’s Red Cross Benefit performance, which embarrassed the Duke, is chronicled in several of these volumes.

Biographies that helped me shape the portraits of characters include
The Life of Ian Fleming
(1966), John Pearson;
Sally Rand: From Film to Fans
(1988), Holly Knox;
The Case of the Real Perry Mason
(1978), Dorothy B. Hughes;
The Case of Erle Stanley Gardner
(1946), Alva Johnston;
Vesco
(1987), Arthur Herzog;
Meyer Lansky: Mogul of the Mob
(1979), Dennis Eisenberg, Uri Dan and Eli Landau;
Lansky
(1971), Hank Messick; and
Little Man: Meyer Lansky and the Gangster Life
(1991), Robert Lacey. Two autobiographical works proved useful:
A Unicorn in the Bahamas
(1940), Rosita Forbes; and
My Political Memoirs
(undated, but post-1983), Sir Henry Taylor.

The elusive Axel Wenner-Gren’s stultifyingly vague philosophical/political tract,
Call to Reason
(1938), provided an epigram and, between the lines, glimpses of an idealized world state—“reason,” in Axel Wenner-Gren’s view, was a synonym for “science.” A more coherent portrait of Wenner-Gren was found in “The Sphinx of Sweden,” a chapter in
American Swastika
(1985), Charles Higham.

Various magazine articles on Raymond Schindler were perused, but more helpful were
The Complete Detective
(1950), a biography/casebook of Schindler written by Rupert Hughes with an Erle Stanley Gardner introduction; and
Great Detectives
(1966), Robert Liston, which has an excellent Schindler chapter.

“The Reluctant Heiress,” a chapter in
How to Marry the Super Rich
(1974) by Sheilah Graham, influenced the characterization of Nancy Oakes de Marigny.

Good discussions of the Oakes case were found in
The Encyclopedia of Unsolved Crimes
(1988), Daniel Cohen;
Great Unsolved Mysteries
(1978), James Purvis;
Unsolved: Great Mysteries of the 20th Century
(1990), Kirk Wilson; and
Unsolved! Classic True Murder Cases
(1987), edited by Richard Glyn Jones. “The Myths About the Oakes Murder,” a 1959
Saturday Evening Post
article by John Kobler, provided information unavailable elsewhere. Perhaps the best single account of the case, however, including the book-length ones, is “Who Killed the Baron of Nassau?” by Alan Hynd, collected in
Violence in the Night
(1955).

The wartime Nassau depicted in this novel may exist only in the author’s imagination—and, with luck, the reader’s; but the following books gave my imagining a grounding in reality:
The Bahamas Handbook
(1927), Mary Moseley;
Bahamas: Isles of June
(1934), Major H. MacLachlan Bell;
Circling the Caribbean
(1937), Tom Marvel;
Paradise Island Story
(1984), Paul Albury;
The Caribbean Islands
(1968), Mary Slater;
Historic Nassau
(1979), Gail Saunders and Donald Cartwright;
A History of the Bahamas
(1986), Michael Craton;
The Caribbean
(1968), Selden Rodman;
Bahama Islands
(1949), J. Linton Rigg;
Islands in the Wind
(1954), William T. Redgrave;
The Caribbean Cruise
(1935), Harry L. Foster;
The Pocket Guide to the West Indies
(1935), Sir Algernon Aspinall; and
Ports of the Sun
(1937), Eleanor Early. Also a 1939
National Geographic
article, “Bahama Holiday” by Frederick Simpich.

Finally, I would like to thank my editor, Michaela Hamilton, and her associate Joe Pittman, for their enthusiastic response to this novel, and for suggestions to improve it; and my agent, Dominick Abel, for his continued support, both professionally and personally.