Finished We 1/16/19
I found this on the shelves and I was looking for a shorter novel to read before I started this month's selection for the Contemporary Book Club. I am familiar with MacDonald's work and I was surprised to learn that this was not part of the Travis McGee series. And, I was shocked to learn that this was MacDonald's first novel from 1950.
NOTES:
Clifford Bartells is an insurance investigator, Security Theft and Accident Insurance Company, Florence City, Florida. It's February, warm, and later the temps drop as the novel takes place over about a week. Melody Chance, her niece, has been in town for two weeks, but living apart from her aunt. The aunt was trying to set up Melody with Furness (Furny)Turnbull. He's a rich, spoiled young man 'on the circuit'- Hangs with the wealthy, but he doesn't have anything but connections.
Elizabeth Stegman, a rich older single woman from Boston is in Florida with cash, lots of expensive jewelry, The Franklin's- her chauffeur, Horace, and his wife, Letty- the maid.
The title is explained- As a young man (before WWII as Bartells is a vet) Cliff was hitchhiking through southern Illinois and was jailed in this coal mining area. They called the perks behind bars (cigarettes, whiskey, etc) a 'cupcake'. Years later Cliff was a police detective in Florence and he refers to his detective badge as 'the brass cupcake'. He was busted down to foot patrol because he wouldn't take payoffs. The entire police department was corrupt, so he quit and went with the insurance gig.
THE CRIME-
Elizabeth is found murdered in her room and the cash and jewelry are missing.
In the insurance game the company will beat the price that a fence with offer the thieves. If the loot is worth a million, the crooks might only get $500,000 from the fence, so Security Theft and Accident might offer $550,000 for the stolen merchandise. Everybody wins- the crooks get more for the loot and the insurance company saves because they don't have to pay out the million on the insured jewels.
Bartells has connections to the underworld and finds the fence, but the operation stinks because real pros would not have killed the old woman.
WHAT HAPPENED:
Horace, the chauffeur, set up the theft. He didn't tell his wife. He was going to fence the jewels and had no intention of killing his employer. Elizabeth was found blindfolded by Furny on the night of the robbery. Furny decided that if he just killed Elizabeth he could take what was left. Because Melody would inherit, he wrote up a phony codicil to her will saying that Melody couldn't get the bulk of the inheritance unless she married Turnbull.
Cliff tells different people how much the insurance company would offer for the exchange. $400,000 is what he told the Franklins, and this is the figure that the fence mentions, so he knows the Franklins are at least in on part of the crime.
Another husband and wife are employed at the handoff- the insurance company's money for the jewelry. The jewels are recovered, but the corrupt police department steals the cash and they kill the man.
INTERESTING IDEA:
The money that the insurance company uses in the exchange has been irradiated. By using a geiger counter the authorities can follow the money. In the end they find it in the offices of the commissioner and the police chief. And, one of the bent officers even has some of it in his wallet.
Cliff Bartells becomes the acting chief. Melody seems to want more out of life than living in a backwater Florida town- she has inherited Elizabeth's wealth. But, in the end, Cliff says that he'll take three months to clean up the department, and then he and Melody will take four months off to travel the globe. They're both strong willed, but it seems like 'love will keep them together'.
A nice read and very typical of 'the hard-boiled sexy police genre'.
There was a surprising amount of sex in a novel from 19560. I thought it very odd (even by today's standards) that Cliff has a sexual encounter with Letty, the chauffeur's wife. The couple like to play shuffleboard at a local tavern. Cliff meets them at the bar and gets Letty drunk on beer and then has sex with her. He only wanted to find out the couple's involvement in the crime. She later almost guns Cliff down outside his apartment. Fires numerous times, but fails to hit him. He doesn't press charges because he's probably guilty that he used her.
I loved the book and I'm thrilled that I actually had a copy of MacDonald's first book!!!
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