by Lionel White
“That isn’t for me to say,” Lieutenant Giddeon said. “No, that’s out of my department. But I can tell you this. If I were the defense attorney, and I believed my client might be guilty and did have a strong motive for the crime,-such as blackmail, well, I would advise him to tell the truth, seek a plea to a lesser charge and throw himself on the mercy of the courts.”
“You are assuming, of course, that my client is guilty?” I said.
“I am assuming he is,” the lieutenant said, quietly.
Application for bail was turned down and Charles Merriweather was bitterly disappointed. I tried to set his mind at ease, but there was little I could say to him to cheer him
up-
“They’ll never in this world get a conviction,” he said, “but that isn’t the point. I want to get out of here and as soon as possible.”
“Charles,” I said, “you must realize that there isn’t a chance of your getting out. Not as things now stand. That’s why I’m so anxious for you to cooperate. For you to tell me anything which you possibly can which might aid our case.”
“I’m telling you that I’m innocent. I’m telling you that I didn’t kill that man and that I haven’t the faintest idea of how he managed to wind up in the trunk of my car. Miss Grant was with me during the time he was killed. She will swear to that. The police have a circumstantial case and that’s all they have. They can’t prove I did it because I didn’t do it. What you must do is get this thing tried as soon as possible. And in the meantime, try to dig up witnesses. You know the ones with whom I played bridge; find the ones who saw me in the bar. If it is a question of money, well, my firm has sent a man around to see me and they are behind me a hundred per cent. I can get up several thousand dollars, at least ten or twelve, right away if I have to.”
I told him that it wasn’t necessary yet even to think in terms of several thousand, but that I would have certain expenses.
“And once again,” I said, “I should like to advise you to bring in a really first-class criminal attorney. A first-class courtroom man. I am doing everything I can and shall continue to, but a really top man in the field—”
He waved the idea aside.
“No,” he said, “I can’t agree with you. If I were guilty, I would agree. I would want the very best criminal lawyer in the business. But don’t you see, bringing in such a man would be a tacit admission of guilt. No, as long as I know I didn’t commit the crime, and as long as I know that it is utterly impossible for the police to prove that I did commit it, then it’s best to leave the professionals out of it. I am quite confident that you can do everything that has to be done.”
I told him how wrong I thought he was, but I agreed to continue.
For the next several days nothing much happened. I had to spend a certain amount of time with the routine work of my office and I talked with Ann only once on the telephone. Against my advice, she was back at Fairlawn, but she was staying inside and answering neither the doorbell nor the telephone. She said she would call me the first of the week.
Once Charles had been formally charged, the press lost interest in the case for a while. During those next three or four days even Lieutenant Giddeon seemed to disappear,
and I heard from no one except Glitz. But Glitz made up for all other inactivity. He was indefatigable, apparently, and each evening before I would leave my office, he would either telephone a report in or personally drop by to tell me of whatever progress he was making.
The man had some sort of pipeline into police headquarters and he seemed to know exactly what direction the official investigation was taking.
“They have it pretty well reconstructed,” he told me one afternoon when he dropped by just before I was about to close up my office and leave. “They know that the dead man was actually in the Merriweather house. At least they know that he was in both the garage and in the playroom, which opens off the garage. From what I gather, they found his fingerprints in both places. They figure he was shot in either one place or the other, and they’re betting on the playroom.”
“But how do they account for the fact that no one heard the shot?” I asked.
“You’ve been in the Merriweather’s playroom?”
“Often,” I said.
“Well then you know that Merriweather was a bug on hi-fi. That he had a high-powered set and a large collection of records. To be able to play his music loudly, as most hi-fi fans do, he had had the room sound-proofed. Heavy drapes covered the windows. The police are almost sure that Harbor was killed in that room. And no one could have heard a shot from the outside. It is very possible that Mrs. Merriweather herself, even without the sleeping pills, would not have heard the shot. The gun was pressed Ztf.2 against the dead man’s stomach when it was fired and that helped to muffle the sound.
“I can’t give you a blow by blow report on the line the district attorney will take in the prosecution, but I can give a good guess. He’ll contend that Merriweather was being blackmailed and arranged to see Harbor at his home, sometime very early on Monday morning. The police even believe that that was one reason he gave his wife the sleeping pills, so that she wouldn’t be awake when Harbor arrived at the house. They will probably try to prove that the Grant woman was in on the plot and that Merriweather set up the alibi story with her in advance. That he left his car in the woman’s driveway in order to substantiate the alibi, and used her car to drive back to his house to meet Harbor. After Merriweather killed Harbor, he put the body in the trunk of the sedan, planning to get rid of it up in New England while he was on the sales trip. He then drove the girl’s car back near to her place in Huntington and spent the remaining hour or so with her.”
“It sounds fine,” I said, “except it has a few holes. A lot of holes in fact. There is no proof to substantiate the blackmail theory. There is no—”
“They won’t even need the blackmail bit,” Glitz said. “They have the history of the Grant girl. They know by now that she was, at one time or another, a little more than just a friend of Harbor’s. From what I have learned, it is obvious that whatever was between them was over with and that neither Harbor nor Merriweather had any jealousy of each other. But the district attorney certainly isn’t going to bring that out or even necessarily believe it.
He will be looking for any possible motive that he can. And he would a lot rather have that for a motive than the blackmail angle.”
He paused for a moment and then went on, slouching down in his chair and speaking in a bored monotone.
“I have found out one thing I don’t think the police know about. Harbor very definitely came into a couple of big hunks of dough, about the time that Merriweather made those heavy withdrawals you told me about. He was over at a crap game in Jersey flashing a wad of money. It’s circumstantial, but there is every reason to believe he got the cash from your client. It could have been money Merriweather lost on race bets, but I doubt that very much. Merriweather, according to my investigations, was never a heavy better. And by the same token, Harbor never personally booked anything but petty wagers. When he took a bet for anything over twenty bucks, he’d lay it off with one of the big books.”
“You make it sound pretty bad, Glitz,” I said. “What are you trying to do, tell me that my client actually is guilty? ”
The detective looked up at me speculatively.
“Why, yes,” he said. “I suppose I am. Certainly everything I’ve dug up so far would lead me to believe so and if that’s the way it affects me, you can be damned sure how the D.A. feels.”
I looked at him helplessly.
“Well just what would you suggest that I do? What line of defense—”
“You want the truth? All right, then I’ll tell you. So 164
far, Merriweather, your client, has been lying through his teeth. About the only thing he has admitted so far is that he spent the night with Ginny Grant. And even that may turn out to be a lie.
“I’d suggest you have a nice, long, serious talk wit
h him. Try and bring him down to earth. Lay it on the line for him. Tell him^hat right now, the way things look, he’s headed for the electric chair—can’t possibly miss it. Make him realize that.
“If you can, if you can make him see the light, then also make him realize that he’s got to come up with a damned sight better story than he’s told to anyone so far. It can be the truth or it can be a pack of lies, but it’s got to hold water better than the line he has been handing out up ’til now.”
“The way you’re talking,” I said to Glitz, “there doesn’t seem to be much that he could come up with.”
The little man shook his head slowly from side to side.
“Wrong,” he said. “I can see you haven’t had much experience with this sort of case. No offense, of course. But the fact is, your client has several outs, all equally good and all of which a very clever defense can put across. First the blackmail business. If he can prove blackmail, there isn’t a jury in the world that wouldn’t go easy on him. People hate blackmailers. But there is an even better defense strategy.”
I looked up sharply.
“A better one?”/**
“Yes, a much better one. Only thing is, his wife, Mrs. Merriweather, will have to go along with it. And maybe
she isn’t feeling too friendly toward her husband right along about now.”
“Mrs. Merriweather will back her husband to the limit,” I said, a little coldly. “However, I fail to see—”
He held up one of those thin, long-fingered hands of his to stop me.
“It’s simple,” he said. “Merriweather has changed his story so often that once more won’t make any difference. Only this time, if he changes, he’s got to stick with it. He admits that he killed Harbor and put the body in the trunk.”
“Are you crazy?” I asked. “The man would be volunteering for the electric chair.’
“Not at all. You see, he admits it—but he doesn’t stop there. He goes on and tells why he killed him.”
“And why did he kill him?”
“That’s where Mrs. Merriweather comes into it. And again the blackmail. Only this time we switch it—it isn’t Merriweather who was being blackmailed, but his wife. Get it? The idea is that Harbor had something on Mrs. Merriweather—she can even admit having once had an affair with him. That always gets sympathy for the husband. And Merriweather learned that Harbor was blackmailing her. He came home and found Harbor threatening her. He lost his head and killed the man. And then in order to save her reputation, he tried to get rid of the body. Up to now, he hasn’t spoken, hasn’t told the truth, again just because he’s trying to protect he«s-|-eputation.”
“The whole thing is preposterous,” I said, with a certain amount of indignation. “Why who would believe—”
“That’s the point,” Glitz said. “That’s just the point. Maybe somebody would believe it. But then, maybe if he told that story, it might set up another series of theories. Maybe instead of believing that version, the jury might figure that Merriweather came home and found his wife was still having an affair with Harbor and he came on them unexpectedly and killed the man who had seduced his wife. Or even better, maybe they will figure Mrs. Merriweather had a lover’s spat with Harbor and killed him herself and that her husband is being a hero and taking the blame to protect her. So don’t you see—in either case, your client stands a good chance—”
This time I did stop him.
“Glitz,” I said, “you have a criminal as well as a filthy mind. How could you possibly suggest such a thing? There is absolutely no proof that Mrs. Merriweather ever even heard of Jake Harbor. She is one of the finest, most decent—”
“Now, now, Counselor,” he interrupted. “Now, now. I wasn’t suggesting that she did. I, for one, believe that she had nothing whatsoever to do with the thing. But that isn’t the point. You were asking me what I’d do if I were handling the defense. If I wanted to save my client’s life. I was merely giving you an idea—for what it’s worth.”
“Well—it’s a damned poor idea,” I said.
He looked at me and shrugged.
“You have a better one?” he asked.
CHAPTER TEN
Two weeks passed by and I took Glitz off the case. There was nothing more he could do. He had investigated Ginny Grant, but nothing he turned up was of any help. It was true that she supported herself as a model. But the rest of his material was harmful rather than helpful.
There was no doubt but that Charles had been having an affair with her for several months. Half of the time he had supposedly spent in New England covering his territory he had been with her. This was the sort of evidence, which, should it come out during his trial, would be almost sure to convince a jury that he would be capable of anything. Certainly capable of killing a man who had had a previous affair with the girl.
Investigation into Jake Harbor himself was also meaningless. It was almost a foregone conclusion that the money Charles had drawn from his savings account had gone to him. One thing, however, was peculiar. Shortly after Charles had withdrawn the first two thousand dollars, Ginny Grant had deposited a like sum of money in her checking account.
This fact was terribly damaging. I knew that the dis-168
trict attorney’s office would have the information and I realized the connection they would put on it. They would claim Charles had given her the money to perjure herself and supply him with an alibi.
The final report that Glitz made to me was the worst one of all.
Once more it was late in the afternoon and he was in my office, with the doors closed.
“This Lieutenant Giddeon,” he said. “I’m afraid he is really going to make things tough.”
“Yes?” I hardly had the heart to ask what had turned up. I was so used to bad news that I could expect almost anything.
“Yes,” Glitz said. “They’ve had the Grant girl down at the D.A.’s office again. Seems they are threatening to charge her with being an accessory before the fact unless she agrees to change her story and admit that Merriweather didn’t spend the entire night with her. I understand, though, that so far she is sticking by her guns. But they’ve let her know that in case Merriweather is convicted, she may also be in for a perjury rap. You never know with a woman of that type—she could cross Merriweather up at the last minute to save her own neck. Maybe you better have a talk with her.”
I told him that I would.
“And you better have that serious talk with Merriweather, also,” he said. “I can’t believe that he is not concealing something.”
I didn’t tell Glitz that I had already had that talk with my client. I didn’t want to admit that it had gotten me 169
exactly nowhere. But I determined to see Ginny Grant the following day. If I lost her as my key witness, I would have absolutely no case at all.
I paid him off, shocked at the amount of money he had cost us, and he said goodby, after telling me to call on him again anytime I might need him.
That night I saw Ann Merriweather for the first time since the day when I had had her come into Lieutenant Giddeon’s office. We met at the little restaurant where I had taken her to lunch on that day when she had first arrived at my office to tell me that she thought some one was trying to kill her.
She looked lovelier than ever, in spite of the thinness of her cheeks. My heart went out to her as I watched her come through the door and hesitate, looking around until she saw me, when her eyes lighted up and her lovely mouth lifted with the trace of a smile.
We sat at a table off in a secluded comer, and for a while I tried to avoid any serious conversation, telling her about a letter I had had from my son Gordon and dwelling on unimportant subjects. I even mentioned having met Miss Parsons, the first grade schoolteacher, on the street and reported that she had sent Ann her deepest sympathies and had asked if there was anything she might do for her.
“That was very kind of her,” Ann said. “Especially after the abominable way Charles behaved toward her that n
ight when she went into Billy’s room by mistake.”
For the first time I detected a note of coldness in Ann’s voice when she mentioned her husband’s name.
I shook my head.
“I never have quite been able to understand Charles’s attitude,” I said. “I know that the child’s death was a terrible blow to him, but it would seem that by this time he would have—”
I stopped, a little embarrassed.
“Charles has never forgotten,” Ann said. “He has never forgotten and he has never stopped blaming me for Billy’s death. I even think that it may have had something to do with that affair he had with the Grant woman. Sort of a way of punishing me.”
“Oh now, Ann,” I said. “I can hardly believe—”
“It’s no longer important, Howard,” she said. Nothing is important anymore. Only what is going to happen. What is going to happen when the trial comes up.”
“You are right, my dear,” I said. “And that’s what I wanted to see you about. You see—” I hesitated. I hated to give her depressing news, but there seemed nothing else to do and so I continued. “You see,” I went on, “we have reached a sort of stalemate. I have been trying desperately now, for the last two weeks, to get Charles to talk to me. Trying to get him to give me something on which to hinge a defense. And I am getting absolutely nowhere with him. He merely insists that he didn’t commit the murder, that he has an alibi to prove that he couldn’t have committed it and that he can’t believe the police can produce evidence that will convict him. I have talked to him until I get dizzy—and get nowhere. I have tried to tell him he must have a first-rate criminal attorney representing him, but he evades the issue. If you could only talk with him—”
/7/
“I talked with him this afternoon, Howard,” Ann said. “I also suggested that you might bring in a criminal expert to assist you. But Charles couldn’t see it that way.”
I shook my head, hating to go on with what I knew I must say next. But continue I did.