Not I, Said the Vixen

by Bill S. Ballinger

  The great green eyes flickered, as if in pain. She said, very softly, “You’re drunk, Cyrus.”

  “Not yet,” I corrected her, “but soon—very soon!”

  “Why?”

  In my condition the audacity of her question stunned me. I managed to control my voice, stopping my shout. Reaching for the bottle, I uncapped it and took a deep draw—not noticing the taste any longer. I placed the whisky back on the dresser. Turning, I said, “I’ve listened to the last lie from your beautiful mouth. You’ve made a goddamned fool of me long enough!” Walking to the bed, I looked down at her. “I’m just passing through here to tell you I’ve had it!” The eyes, which were about all I could see now, merely stared at me. “Haven’t you anything to say?” I demanded.

  “Yes…She patted the bed beside her. “Please sit down.”

  “There’s nothing more I want to hear.”

  “You asked me to say something. Don’t you want to listen?”

  That same voice I’d heard at the door came up through the whisky and whispered “sit down.” I found myself on the bed beside her, hoping that perhaps there was an explanation about those checks. Aloud I said, in response to the voice, “And like an idiot you want to hear it.”

  “What?” asked Ivy. She stirred gently, rising partly to lean her weight on an elbow. When I didn’t reply, she lifted her free arm, and placed her hand on the back of my neck—beginning to knead it gently. I shrugged angrily, her hand dropped, and she made no effort to replace it. “Listen to me,” she began. “Please hear me all the way through…”

  So I sat and listened. Perhaps it was half an hour, perhaps longer. My anger began to cool as Ivy told me the story about the checks. The liquor inside me began to wear off, and I could see how her explanation made sense. When she concluded, she asked me very quietly, “And now?”

  I didn’t answer her question directly. Instead, I said, “I don’t understand why you didn’t tell me this… and everything else… before?”

  “I’m to blame,” she said, humbly. “I was frightened… back there at the beginning. I didn’t think… you’d understand.”

  “Am I such a goddamned Puritan? I’m still not even a reformed drunk! You’d gamble your freedom, perhaps your life, to prevent my suspicions?”

  “It was just too hard to explain about Arthea.” Ivy’s hand reached over again, taking my wrist, and her fingers rubbed the throbbing pulse on my wrist. Her low voice continued, “I thought I could use Arthea, and still keep her at a distance…” Then she added, firmly, “And I did!”

  “But you still didn’t have to use help from her,” I protested.

  “You don’t understand. I did. When I left New York, I was nearly washed up… my career as a model, practically finished. Out here, it was my last chance to start over. I needed all the help I could get.”

  “But your father…”

  She cut me short. “I lied about him, too. We had nothing. Back East, I’d… well, struggled up to a… nice sort of life. Out here, I wouldn’t have time to do it again… all by myself.” She took a deep breath. “And after I met Robert Knox, I deliberately decided to marry him.” When I turned to look at her, she asked, “And was that so bad?”

  I couldn’t answer that. I told her, “After all, this is still a man’s world and most of us justify our means to what we consider a desirable end. A woman can only use the means and methods which she possesses. It’s more a point of interpretation than condonement.”

  “And about Arthea?”

  “There’s no doubt in my mind about the kind of relationship Arthea wanted with you,” I replied. The touch of her fingers on my wrist were drying the words in my mouth. “But I also believe that you refused her…”

  “And you know, don’t you darling… know that I had no idea she was there that night… didn’t mean to kill her?”

  Ivy sat up and leaned toward me. The silk robe dropped forward in loose folds, and as I turned, she put her arms around my shoulders, and the scent of her breasts rose to my head.

  “Yes,” I assured her, and I leaned forward to meet her embrace.

  The next morning, the liquor bottle was still on the dresser. Untouched.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Before court convened, Bert Taylor drew Cyrus March aside. “What are you going to do?” Taylor asked quietly.

  March told his partner. “Ivy has explained about the checks.”

  “Do you believe her?”

  “Yes. But there’s little point in cross-examining Curtis. The checks are there. To counteract Curtis’ testimony, I’m going to have to put Ivy on the stand.” March gestured—partly in irritation and partly in resignation. “I don’t like to do it.”

  Taylor cleared his throat. “Do you think Willard will wind up his case today?”

  Willard did wind up his case quickly. After March waived cross-examination of the banker, Curtis, the state introduced a handwriting expert to testify to the authenticity of Ivy’s signature on the checks. When March again waived cross-examination, Willard rested his case.

  March requested a brief recess, to review his pitiful handful of witnesses—there was so little help that they could offer. March, however, realized that he had to make the effort.

  The case for the defense began. The first witness was Sy Jefferson, Ivy’s agent, who did his best. Under March’s questions, the agent testified to the jobs he had secured for her, building up their importance, and predicting a successful future career for her.

  The second witness was Gordon Kerman, a commercial photographer of standing and repute. Carefully following March’s cautious leads, Kerman managed to conceal the paucity of Ivy’s assignments, although he firmly established that Ivy had been paid the rate of seventy-five dollars an hour for the photos which later appeared in national fashion magazines.

  Through the testimony of Jefferson and Kerman, March hoped to display Ivy’s financial independence of Arthea Simpson. As if contemptuous of March’s attempts, Willard made only a token cross-examination of both witnesses.

  The third and final defense witness for the day was Conrad Ishman, manager of the Silver Sands. Ishman was, however, little more than a character witness. He could testify only that Ivy Lorents had paid her rent promptly and had been a good tenant. To the best of his knowledge, she had thrown no wild parties, and he had never seen visitors—either male or female—in her apartment late at night.

  Fuhrman, undertaking the cross-examination for Willard, was unable to shake Ishman’s testimony. At the conclusion of Fuhrman’s examination, the court was adjourned.

  On the second day for the defense, March introduced two stronger witnesses. To himself, however, March feared that they were not enough. The first was Mrs. Norma Ulrich.

  Mrs. Ulrich testified that she lived in a building directly across the street from the Silver Sands. As her story unfolded, she disclosed that on the night Arthea Simpson was killed, she had been up and heard the shots. Mrs. Ulrich had been suffering from a migraine headache. Finding herself without medicine which her doctor had prescribed, she had left her building at about two o’clock, to have the prescription refilled at an all-night drug store. Her automobile had been parked on the street, in front of the Silver Sands, and as she entered her car, she heard the sounds of three rapid shots. Mrs. Ulrich was insistent that there had been no perceptible time lag between the first and second shots.

  “You are sure?” March repeated.

  “Oh, yes!” The witness was positive. “The sounds all ran together!”

  Under Willard’s cross-examination, however, Mrs. Ulrich did not fare too well. A nervous woman, she admitted that she suffered regularly from headaches, that when she heard the shots she wasn’t sure what the sounds were, and that it wasn’t until she had been interviewed by Tim Nordeen in behalf of March’s search for witnesses, that she had clearly recalled the happening.

  Next, March summoned William… Wild Bill… Arthur to the stand. In spite of the odd name, Arthur was an exper
t marksman who, during his nearly fifty years of shooting, had won and held numerous titles and championships for his marksmanship.

  Arthur, garrulous and assured, gave his testimony readily. In reply to questioning he described the shooting gallery he owned and the hundreds of ‘rank, ignorant beginners’ who had stopped to shoot at the beckoning targets. He had seen numerous amateurs… “never held a gun before in their life but who’d lay down two-bits for ten shots. Right off the bat, first time, they’d… zing in a bull’s eye. That’d please ’em plenty, but after that, they couldn’t even come close to the target… all they could do to even hit the back of the booth in the next fifty shots.”

  Hand guns, the old man continued, were different from rifles. A beginner might accidently, entirely through luck, point and aim a pistol correctly, and if he squeezed off his shots quickly enough he might score two or three times before he moved his revolver. Wild Bill had seen that occasionally, too, in the “fast-draw” school he ran. It wasn’t likely, he admitted, but it could happen—and it did happen often enough that he wouldn’t bet a hatful of beans against it.

  When March quoted to Arthur the odds specified by Fletcher against Ivy hitting Arthea Simpson, the ancient marksman squinted his eyes, then shook his head. “Hell,” he replied, “there’re a lot of men dead who figured the odds wrong.” His reply amused the jury, but, unfortunately, March felt the time for laughs was past.

  Willard, however, had been unable to budge the witness. In a final heated exchange during which the D.A. had quoted Fletcher as an authority, Wild Bill offered to meet the state’s expert in a shooting contest. “Any kind he wants,” the old man had snapped. Shortly after that, Willard had dismissed him.

  March had considered calling Robert Knox back to the stand, but he had decided that Knox was too unpredictable. If Knox resented a second appearance, the ministerial scion might undo the help which he had extended already.

  Only Ivy, herself, was left now.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  The headline on the Register shouted: IVY TO TAKE STAND TODAY. An air of expectancy filled the courtroom when Judge Raleigh called the court to session, and I called Ivy to the stand.

  “My name is Ivy Lorents,” she stated in a clear voice.

  I stood close to Ivy and spoke to her as if exchanging conversation with a friend. Ivy replied to me in much the same way. I started the questioning by bringing out Ivy’s story of her activities the night of Arthea Simpson’s death—the theater and supper with Robert Knox, and their return to her apartment. Ivy’s account varied only in one detail from Knox’s version—she had returned at about one-thirty a.m. instead of one, or shortly after, as related by Knox. I led her to describe entering her apartment.

  “When you opened the door, did you turn on a light?” I asked.

  “Yes,” replied Ivy, “one lamp.”

  “And were you able to see in the living room?”

  “It was quite dark, but I could see… yes.”

  “And there was no one in the living room?”

  “No one.”

  “You are sure of that?” I pressed the point.

  “Absolutely,” Ivy replied firmly.

  “And you saw no signs, no evidence that anyone had been there earlier?”

  “No signs at all.”

  “All right. Now please tell the jury what you did next.”

  “After opening the door, and turning on the lamp,” Ivy continued, “I removed my fur stole and placed it on a chair—which was near the doorway.”

  “And you left the stole there?”

  “Yes. I didn’t hang it up.” Ivy then related in detail each activity as she undressed, showered, and prepared to go to bed. At no time had she heard anyone enter her apartment, or received any indication that another person might be present. She described her return to the living room to put out the lamp and switch off the music. It was then that she saw the strange and terrifying figure outlined against the window, and she told of her reaction—the shock and paralyzing fear.

  “Now,” I told her, “we’ve heard Mr. Robert Knox testify, and Miss Minnie Jackson, too, that you told them you had received anonymous telephone calls which threatened your safety. Is that correct?”

  “Yes. I had received them a number of times—before that night.”

  “And the calls frightened you?”

  “Terribly.”

  “So when you saw this strange… unexpected… figure, in the middle of the night, what did you think?”

  I watched Ivy as she brushed her forehead with the tips of her fingers and shook her head at the memory. “I… remembered the phone calls… the threats… and terrible things. And I was sure the person… whoever it was who’d made them… was there!”

  “And you feared for your life?” I hammered the point.

  “Oh, yes! Yes! I was petrified!”

  “And what did you do then?”

  Ivy related how she had taken the revolver from the chest beside her. And I asked her why she had moved the revolver from her bedroom to the chest near the living room. “Because I still continued to receive those… telephone threats. With Minnie… Miss Jackson no longer there… I felt safer, that’s all.” We went on, and Ivy told of firing blindly at the intruder, the arrival of the police, her trip to the hospital, and then to the station to make her statement.

  “And at the police station, you did not know that you had shot Arthea Simpson?” I asked.

  “No. I had no idea who it was.”

  “Will you explain why you didn’t know?”

  “Because I hadn’t had a good look at whoever it was… I hadn’t seen her face. I didn’t know…” Ivy struggled briefly with her voice, then added softly, “I thought it was a… man.”

  I swung to the offensive against Willard. I knew that in his cross-examination he would make a point of Ivy’s first denials of friendship with the slain woman. I hoped to counter this, in advance, if possible. “Several days later, after the police informed you that the deceased was Arthea Simpson, you were reluctant to say more… other than you had known her. Please tell the jury why you felt that way.”

  “I was shocked by the accident… and I was very frightened by what might happen to me, even though it wasn’t intentional…” Ivy lowered her head.

  “That’s understandable. Now what was it you feared? As you say… ‘might happen to you?’”

  “I didn’t know if I’d be arrested… and then, well, I knew there’d be a lot of gossip about Arthea and me.”

  “Gossip based on Arthea Simpson’s reputation of making love to women?”

  Ivy’s voice was very low, “Yes.” Then she raised her head and repeated her reply clearly. “Yes.”

  “You knew of Arthea Simpson’s reputation?”

  “I knew of it…”

  “And knowing it, you continued to see her. Why?”

  Ivy turned to look levelly at the jury. “She was one of my first friends when I came out here. I didn’t know about her reputation then. She had lots of other friends, too, and there was never anything, any physical… intimacy… between us. Not ever!”

  “So you continued to see her occasionally, and talked with her on the telephone, the same as you did with many of your other friends?”

  “Yes. We understood… between us… there’d never be anything… well, sexual… Arthea knew that. And really, she never mentioned it, or brought up the subject.”

  I nodded. “And when you started to see Robert Knox and went out with him, Arthea Simpson made no objections?”

  “None at all. I’d gone out with other men before I met Robert Knox. Arthea had no claim on me whatsoever.” She added firmly, “It was none of her business who I saw.”

  “After you had seen Robert Knox for some time, you told Arthea Simpson that he had discussed marriage with you?”

  “Yes. I told her.”

  “What did Arthea Simpson say to your news?”

  “She congratulated me.”

  “An
d again she made no objection? Made no threats to break up your engagement or prevent the marriage?”

  “No. No objections or threats.”

  Until the court recessed for lunch, I continued to direct the questioning to establish a complete lack of motive for the killing.

  At two o’clock, the court convened and Ivy returned to the stand. Although pale, she was still composed as she once more began to answer my questions. “You have told us,” I started out, “that you and Arthea Simpson were friends… social friends. Now did you at any time discuss business with her? And if so will you please tell the jury about it.”

  Ivy crossed her hands in her lap. She appeared relaxed as she began to explain the damaging evidence of the checks. “Well… after I’d been in Hollywood a short time, I discovered that many of the girls… and women… in show business, owned no furs. I don’t mean the important or successful girls, but the ones starting out… trying to get established. Fur pieces… capes… stoles… not to mention fur coats, were fewer than they were back East. I suppose there’re less chances to use them because of the climate. But still, there were occasions… parties, openings, events… when it’d be nice to wear one.” She glanced at me, and I nodded. She continued to the jury. “So I had an idea to buy up some capes and stoles… and rent them out for an evening at a reasonable charge.”

  “And you discussed this idea with Arthea Simpson?”

  “Yes. She agreed it might be a good idea. Arthea didn’t need the money, but she knew I could use it. She said that she’d lend me the money, and I could pay her back.”

  “And how would you pay back the money?”

  “We agreed that once I started the business, I’d pay her fifty percent of everything I collected from the rentals until she was repaid. Of course, from my share I had to see the furs were cleaned and insured. And I’d have to attend to renting them out, and collecting for them… and all that.”