by Parnell Hall
“And?”
“It’s the worst. They put the time of death last night between eleven and twelve.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. We’re in it now, so what the hell do we do?”
“Notify your detectives immediately.”
“I don’t know where they are.”
“That, of course, makes it harder.”
“Damn it, Steve, it’s not funny. What do I do?”
“I told you. Notify your detectives. Make every effort to reach ’em. That’s all you can do right now.”
“Steve, I don’t like it.”
“I hate it like hell, but there you are. They charge the girl yet?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Okay, keep digging.”
Steve hung up the phone.
“So?” Tracy said.
“They put the time of death between eleven and twelve last night.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“So what’re you gonna do?”
“You heard what I told Mark.”
“Yeah. So what about you? What’s your responsibility in this?”
“Absolutely none. I have professional privilege. I’m protecting the confidence of a client.”
“Is she a client?”
Steve sighed and shook his head. “Damn it. You know, you always ask the key questions. She was a client. And I have every expectation she’s gonna be calling me any minute. But the fact of the matter is, no, my job for her was finished and all this other shit I did on my own. Damn, why hasn’t she called yet?”
“Why wait?”
“What?”
“Why wait for the phone call? Why don’t you just go down there and see her?”
“As her attorney?”
“Yes.”
Steve sighed again. “That’s the whole thing, Tracy. I don’t know what her story is. It sure wasn’t what she told us—at least, not entirely. So what have we got? We’ve got some woman prancing around in the nude, extorting money from businessmen, having rendezvous with young playboys who wind up dead. I don’t know what’s going on, but until I hear her story I don’t wanna commit myself to being her lawyer. If it turns out she killed David Castleton, I don’t wanna have anything to do with her.”
“There may have been extenuating circumstances.”
“Maybe so. But you know, I don’t give a shit. Self-defense, maybe, but I still don’t like it. The guy’s unarmed and she plugs him with a thirty-two? She’d have to have a damn good story to get me to argue self-defense on that.”
Steve shrugged. “If she calls me up, it’s a different story. I’ll go down, listen to what she has to say. If I don’t like it, I’ll tell her to look elsewhere.”
“What if she doesn’t call?”
“I don’t know. We’re getting more information all the time. Sooner or later I’ll figure out what the hell I’m going to do. But right now I don’t know.”
The phone rang. Tracy picked it up, said, “Steve Winslow’s office,” listened a moment, said, “Hold on.” She covered the mouthpiece and looked up at Steve. “It’s her.”
17.
“I DIDN’T DO IT.”
Steven Winslow frowned. He looked at Kelly Blaine through the wire mesh screen in the visiting room of the lockup. “They charge you yet?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the charge?”
“Murdering David Castleton.”
“That’s what you didn’t do?”
Kelly frowned. “Why are you talking like that? Like you didn’t believe me? You’re my lawyer.”
“Hang on,” Steve said. “Let’s get something clear. I’m not your lawyer. I did a job for you. That job is finished. Now you’re consulting me again. I may take the case and I may not. That’s still up in the air. I’m not your lawyer till I tell you I am.”
“But—”
“Hold on. Let me finish. You’re now consulting me as an attorney. Whether I take the case or not, anything you tell me is confidential. It can’t implicate you, and I can’t divulge it. So there’s no reason to hold anything back. You can talk as freely as if I were your attorney.”
“I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t you take the case?”
“We have a slight credibility problem here. You come into my office, tell me a story. I act on it, get you a settlement. As it turns out, I have no idea how much of your story is true. All I know is, you gave me a phony name and address and then you didn’t cash your settlement check. Next thing I know you’re palling around with David Castleton and he’s dead.
“That’s in the debit column. You expect me to have any dealings with you, you better start filling in the credit side of the ledger.”
Steve took a breath. “Okay. Let’s start with your name. You told me Kelly Blaine. The cops have you down as Kelly Wilder. Which is it?”
“It’s Wilder.”
“And what’s Blaine?”
“Nothing. I made it up.”
“Why?”
“It’s a long story.”
Steve gestured at the surroundings. “Yeah, well it looks like you’re gonna have plenty of time. So start explaining.”
Kelly took a breath. “Well, I guess you could start with my name.”
Steve’s eyes narrowed. “It isn’t Wilder either?”
“No, it is. But it’s my married name.” She wrinkled her nose. “I was married two years. To an actor. A total creep. I don’t know why it took me that long to figure it out. It was just one of those things. Anyhow, I’m divorced. Almost a year now. I just haven’t gotten around to changing my name.”
“Yeah? So what?”
“My maiden name is Clay.”
Steve frowned. “Clay? Why is that name familiar?”
“My brother’s name is Herbert Clay.”
“Herbert Clay.” Steve’s eyes widened. “The bookkeeper for Castleton industries, went to jail for embezzlement?”
“That’s right.”
“Good lord. Do the cops know that?”
“I don’t know.”
“They’re sure as hell gonna find out.” Steve shook his head. “Jesus Christ.”
“What’s the matter?”
“What’s the matter? That’s the motive. Indignant sister of jailed brother wages one-woman war against industry that put him away.”
“That’s not true.”
“I didn’t say it was true. I just told you how it’s gonna sound. But we’re not talkin’ true here. Which from you would be a real innovation. So far, all I’ve had from you is a bunch of bullshit. Start at the beginning and tell me what the hell happened.”
“You know about my brother?”
“I know he worked for Castleton Industries, went to jail for embezzlement. That was about two years ago, right?”
“Right. I was in California. Married to a schmuck.” Kelly shook her head. “Alan Wilder. The great Alan Wilder. Teen heartthrob, rising screen star. What a fool. There I was, working, supporting both of us. And there he was, making the rounds, going to Hollywood parties alone to further his career. Snorting cocaine and screwing starlets. And I shouldn’t stand in his way, his chance to make the big time. I don’t know why it took me so long to wise up.”
Steve shifted restlessly.
Kelly held up her hands. “All right, all right. Anyway, the point is, I was in California when it happened. The thing with my brother, I mean. I knew about it, I knew he was in trouble and all that. But I was a million miles away, and I had my own problems.
“But I knew Herb. I knew he wouldn’t do anything like that. I figured it was all a big mistake, and everything would get straightened out. Next thing I know he’s in jail.
“Well, I wanted to do something to help, but like I say, I had my own problems.
“And that’s what did it. What woke me up, I mean. Because I wanted to come here, see Herb, see if there was anything I could do to help, and Alan wouldn’t hear of it. What was I thinking of, going to New
York? We didn’t have the money. He didn’t have the time. He couldn’t come with me, he didn’t want me going alone. And he didn’t want me calling attention to myself. He had his career to think of, for god’s sake. He didn’t want people associating him as the guy married to the sister of an embezzler.
“Anyway, that was the beginning of the end. We separated, we eventually divorced, and I started saving money to come out here. Which wasn’t easy. New York is not cheap. I got a one-room apartment—lucky to get it—that costs me close to a thousand a month.
“I hit town about four months ago, went to see Herb.”
Her eyes misted over and her lips trembled. “Jesus. I couldn’t believe it. What jail had done to him. Oh, nothing physical. He wasn’t beat up. He wasn’t even thin. But his eyes. They were dead. Defeated. Yeah, he was glad to see me and he was animated, but it lasted about a minute. After that there was nothing but dull resignation. Hopelessness.”
“So what?”
Kelly’s eyes widened. “So what? What do you mean, so what? This is my brother we’re talking about. He’s in jail and he didn’t do it.” Kelly’s jaw tightened. “Yeah, go on, look at me like that. I’m telling you he didn’t do it. I don’t care what you think, I know.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know.” Kelly held up her hand. She took a breath. “I know, that’s no answer. But it is for me. I know my brother. If he’d done it, he’d have told me. Look, you want the truth? My brother’s no saint. He’s been in scrapes before. But he wouldn’t try to lie out of it. Not to me. He wouldn’t say, ‘I didn’t do it, you gotta help me.’ He’d say, ‘Kelly, I did this, I’m in a mess, now what can I do?’ You understand? If he’d done this, he’d tell me everything he’d done to see if there was anything we could do about it. If he tells me he didn’t do it, I gotta believe him.”
“He was found guilty in a court of law.”
“Yeah, sure,” Kelly said contemptuously. “Probably the first time the courts ever made a mistake.”
“What was the evidence against him?”
Kelly’s eyes shifted.
“Well?” Steve prompted.
“Well, he was in charge of the books. And ...”
“And?”
Kelly took a breath. “Well, my brother is weak. He likes to gamble.”
“Oh?”
Her eyes blazed. “See? You made up your mind already. Just like the jury did. Which wasn’t fair. All right, I’ll tell you. Herb liked to play the ponies. It was a weakness with him. He tried to control it, but it was always there.
“Anyway, he was in charge of the books, so if he was a little short until payday, he’d sometimes dip into the petty cash to cover his losses. It wasn’t that much, and he always made good by Friday when he got paid.”
“That came out in court?”
“Yeah. He got arrested on Thursday. He was short, as usual. A couple of hundred bucks. Anyway, there’d have been no trouble the next day, but as it was he was screwed.”
“He didn’t go to jail for two hundred bucks.”
“No. That was the tip of the iceberg. It was over a hundred thousand.”
“How was that possible?”
“Stocks had been manipulated, transactions misreported, entries carried on the books that weren’t accurate. Over a hundred grand of investors’ money had been siphoned out of the company.”
“And the bookkeeper in charge had a history of playing the ponies and dipping into petty cash to cover his losses?”
She took a breath. “Yes. I know it sounds bad. Hell, the jury didn’t have to hear any more than that. They brought in a verdict without even thinking. But the fact is, he didn’t do it.”
Steve held up his hand. “Fine. Let’s not argue the merits of the case anymore. What has this got to do with you working for Castleton?”
She looked at him. “Isn’t it obvious? To get my brother out of jail. To find something to prove he didn’t do it.”
Steve looked at her skeptically. “Wasn’t that a hell of a long shot.”
“Not at all. I knew exactly what I was looking for.”
“What was that?”
“Well, you gotta understand. The way Herb tells it, he knew something was fishy with the books long before this happened. It was all somewhat complicated, he couldn’t be sure what was going on, but the way the entries were coming in, he had a suspicion everything wasn’t entirely kosher.”
“So?”
“So, about two weeks before his arrest he wrote a memo to Milton Castleton, telling him this.”
“Was that brought out in the trial?”
“Yes and no. Herb claimed he wrote the memo. His lawyer subpoenaed Castleton’s files. Of course, it wasn’t there.”
“I see.”
“No, you don’t. They were making a case against him. If the memo had been in the files, they’d have destroyed it.”
“Did his lawyer point that out?”
Kelly sighed. “In a halfhearted way. He was just going through the motions. Look, I have to be honest with you. The way Herb tells it, his lawyer thought he was guilty too.”
“Yeah, fine,” Steve said. “But what’s the point? Of you working there, I mean? If the memo was destroyed, what good was it gonna do?”
“That’s the thing,” Kelly said. “Herb remembered something. He hadn’t during the trial. Probably because his lawyer was a piece of shit and didn’t believe in him to begin with. But I talked to Herb. Drew him out. I know how to do it. And I got something.”
“What’s that?”
“He faxed it.”
“What?”
“The memo. He faxed the memo.”
“To whom.”
“Milton Castleton. Look, you gotta understand the setup. This was two years ago. Milton Castleton was still head of the company then. He hadn’t stepped down yet. He was still running things.
“But he was sick. His health was bad. I don’t know what he’s got, no one seems to know, he’s real quiet about it. But the last year before he stepped down, when his health got bad, he stopped going into the office. He ran things from his apartment on Fifth Avenue. Had his office set up there.
“Well, fax machines were the new craze, and of course Castleton had one, to get reports directly from the company. Herb remembers he faxed the memo to him.”
“What difference does that make?”
“It’s recorded. There’s a record. See, Castleton Industries is all computerized. The latest state-of-the-art equipment. Very sophisticated. We’re not talking a desktop computer here. Castleton’s got a setup in his office like they got in the Pentagon. You could run an army with it.
“And it’s tied into everything. Including the fax system. When a fax comes through, it’s automatically copied.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I’m not just a typist. Back in California—when I was supporting the schmuck—I was working as a computer programmer.”
Steve’s eyes widened. “So that’s why you took the job.”
“Of course. See, after I pumped Herb for everything he could give me, I knew what I had to do. I went out and investigated Castleton Industries. I was looking for some way to get a job, to get in.
“I managed to make friends with one of the secretaries there. What she told me wasn’t that promising. The only thing I’d be able to get would be in the typing pool, the girls in the pool wouldn’t have access to anything. It’d be a hell of a long shot. Still, it was better than nothing.”
Kelly lowered her eyes. “Then she told me something else. She’d heard rumors about Milton Castleton. His memoirs, the whole bit. She said he advertised in the New York Times, just like it was a regular job. But when girls answered the ad, well, you know.”
Kelly shook her head. “Well, it was so bizarre I couldn’t believe it. Or I didn’t want to believe it. But I kept watching the Times. Five days later, there it was. Secretary wanted to type memoirs. Castleton’s name wasn’t mentioned, but
it gave the address and it was his building.
“Well, I had to think about it, but not too long. It certainly wouldn’t hurt to go to the interview.
“I called the number. Phil Danby answered. I gave him the name Kelly Blaine. I rattled off a list of qualifications. Some I made up, some were actually mine.
“He asked my age. When I told him, he said fine and set up an interview.
“It was at Castleton’s apartment. The morning I went, there were four other women there. Two of them were rather plain. Danby took them first. He was the one conducting the interviews. Castleton was not in evidence. Anyway, we were all sitting in a drawing room. Danby came in, smiled at one of the women, led her off. Was back two minutes later to get the other.
I doubt if he even took them into the office. Just told them in the hallway they weren’t suitable and sent them home. Anyway, they never came back.
“The next person he took was me. He led me to the office—the one where I worked—and explained the situation. It was just like the secretary said. There was a window in the wall with a one-way glass to Castleton’s office, he was eccentric and liked his secretaries to work nude, for which he paid a hundred bucks an hour, and if I had any problem with this there were no hard feelings and he was sorry he’d wasted my time, but did I want to hear more?
“Well, I was willing to listen. And he explained the setup. I would work there in the office at a word processor. I’d be typing up dictation from a microcassette. I would be in a locked room and no one would disturb me. I’d make eight hundred bucks a day.”
Kelly looked up at Steve with pleading eyes. “Well, it’s not the sort of thing I would have done. I mean, what the hell did I want to be in a locked office for. If I could have worked in his office, if there had been an opportunity to be alone, to have access to the files. But to run around naked in front of that dirty old man ... well, there was no way I was going to do it.”
She paused. Took a breath. “Except for one thing. The word processor. The first thing I noticed was it didn’t have a printer. I asked him about it, aren’t I supposed to print out what I type? He said, no, that wasn’t necessary. The word processor was hooked up to the main computer in Castleton’s office. Everything I typed would be monitored and printed out there.