McNally's Chance Read Free

almost, but not quite, let down her guard. “Very cleverly put. We’re going to get along just fine, Mr. McNally.” “I told you, I don’t take domestic cases.” “And I told you, this is not a domestic case.” I had finished my drink but refrained from signaling Chauncey. I thought a quick retreat rather than involvement in a family squabble the better part of valor. But, like a good mystery you hate to abandon without knowing who done it, I wanted an answer to my question.
    “Is Gillian your husband’s daughter?” I repeated. This time I got the phony smile, which was wearing thin. “He is not, Mr. McNally, but unlike a Sabrina Wright novel, Gillian and Robert, my husband, did not flee in tandem, so to speak. She ran off with a young man of her own of whom I do not approve.”
    And there was the case, a domestic one to be sure, in the proverbial nutshell. “She eloped,” I stated.
    “She did not,” the lady insisted.
    “Then why did she leave home?”
    “Why?” Sabrina Wright echoed. “Because I told her I was her mother.
    That’s why.”

Two
    The explanation, direct and to the point as was the lady’s style, prompted not only another question but another drink with which to wash it down. As I awaited both, I became uncomfortably aware that Sabrina and I were being observed by the patrons of Bar Anticipation, like a couple of germs on the stage of a mad scientist’s microscope. Someone had obviously recognized Sabrina Wright and the gallery was abuzz with sibilant whispers. The fact that these early-afternoon imbibers were bending elbows with a bona fide celebrity had them pickled pink.
    Chauncey, who had been paying more attention to his manicure than to Sabrina and me, was suddenly all over us like a cheap suit. When he replenished my drink he also whisked away our dish of peanuts and replaced it with one of macadamias and shelled pistachios. Such are the rewards of celebrity hood
    Picking up the scent but lacking a tail full of colorful feathers to unfurl for her audience, Sabrina reached into her purse and pulled out an onyx cigarette holder into which she fitted a black-tipped, king-size cigarette. The result was a pipe slightly shorter than the span of the Golden Gate Bridge. The ever-hovering Chauncey struck a match for Sabrina and as the pair made eye contact over the flickering flame, I fought the temptation of lighting an English Oval and lost.
    As Sabrina basked in the glow of recognition I recalled that my only previous encounter with the literary set was with the poet Roderick Gillsworth whose book, The Joy of Flatulence, was ignored by the reading public and therefore lauded by the critics. Our relationship was cut short when Mrs. Gillsworth was murdered and I fingered Roderick for the crime.
     
    Enthusiastically indulging our vices, Sabrina told me her story, that was old and trite but, as she stated, “It’s new when it happens to you.” What happened was a brief encounter with a college boy when Sabrina was eighteen, resulting in the birth of Gillian some nine months later. Once again borrowing from Hollywood royalty, Sabrina put her baby girl in an orphanage and then legally adopted the infant.
    “And the father?” I questioned.
    “The father was the scion of American nobility, their coat of arms consisting of crossed oil wells over a sea of gilt-edged securities. To form an alliance with the likes of me would have been his ruin. Besides which, he was engaged to a young lady who was Main Line Philadelphia or Back Bay Boston, I forget which, but I do know it was rumored that her family kept in their safe-deposit box a splinter from the deck of the Mayflower.
    “He paid me handsomely to keep a low profile. Very handsomely, Mr.
    McNally. I was able to brush up my Shakespeare, as the song goes, live comfortably, and travel extensively. London, Paris, Antibes, Monte Carlo in and out of season, Zurich, and Rome were my playgrounds. I rubbed shoulders, among other things, with the