A Nice Murder For Mom

by James Yaffe

  But even as I asked myself this question, I could hear Ann Swenson answering it. The point would be that witnesses can be discredited when they get on the stand, people’s memories are easily confused, a lot can be done just by hammering away at someone. And as for Fletcher herself—it wouldn’t be hard for Ann to point out to a jury that she was an infatuated woman who might say anything to protect her boy lover. In other words, if Ann wanted to take that route, she could make it all pretty damned messy.

  And if there was no other way to save her client, that would be the route she’d have to take.

  “Would you really be flushing your career down the drain,” I said, “if all of this came out?”

  She gave one of her sarcastic grins. “The academic world moves with the times, you understand. A generation or two ago, if a professor had an affair with a student, that was enough for both of them to get kicked out on their ears. Nowadays you can get away with it as long as you’re discreet and nobody talks about it. But getting it plastered all over the front page of the papers, in connection with a murder—that’s going to be frowned on even in our enlightened times! And when it’s a female professor and a male student who’s ten years younger—”

  “They can’t fire you for such a thing, can they?”

  “They won’t have to fire me for such a thing. That’s the big catch in the tenure system. Once you’ve got it, there’s almost nothing they can fire you for, but until then you’re strictly on probation, you get your contract from year to year, and the school’s under no obligation to renew it. All they have to do is tell you they don’t want you back. They don’t even have to give you a reason.”

  She watched me in silence a moment, then in a flat voice she said, “So I gather you’re going to bring Luis into this anyway. I’ll have to tell my story in court. All right, I don’t blame you. You have to do your best for Mike.” She sighed and raised herself to her feet. “When can I expect the roof to fall in? Will the public defender be giving a press conference, or throwing Luis to the district attorney, or what? Will it be tomorrow sometime? Morning or afternoon?”

  “I don’t know when it’ll be,” I said. “I have to talk to my boss. She has to put it up to the client.” I hesitated, then I said, “Maybe we’ll be able to come up with something else.”

  CHAPTER 23

  AT AROUND SEVEN I called home from my office. Mom answered the phone and told me she was keeping my dinner hot. I said I couldn’t take time for dinner just now, I’d have a cold snack later. Mom started to make one of her speeches about how I was ruining my digestion, but I cut her off by telling her about my talk with Samantha Fletcher. I could imagine her drinking in the details, carefully sorting them out in that brain of hers. She forgot all about my digestion.

  The reason I had to stay downtown was that I had just told Ann about Samantha Fletcher, and Ann had decided we’d better have an emergency conference right away. And the client ought to be in on it. I was to call Mike Russo and have him meet us in her office in the courthouse.

  The three of us were there in fifteen minutes. When I repeated Fletcher’s story to Mike, he squeezed his hands together in his lap and gave a big sigh. “Poor Samantha. She just doesn’t have a hell of a lot of luck with men, does she?”

  “The question is,” said Ann, “what are you going to do about it?”

  “I don’t know. Do I have any choices?”

  “Only three, as far as I can see. When the trial begins I can put Luis Vallejos on the stand and make him tell his story about going out to Bellamy’s house and finding the body. I can try to convince the jury that the case against him is a lot stronger than the case against you.”

  “But Samantha will testify that he’s got an alibi.”

  “And I’ll rip her testimony to pieces. And those other witnesses who saw her and the kid leave the Seafood Grotto—I can probably mix them up enough to plant a lot of doubts in the minds of the jury. That’s one choice you’ve got.”

  “Do you know what that would do to Samantha?” Mike said. “It would be all over the newspapers that she was having an affair with a nineteen-year-old student. The college would never give her tenure, she wouldn’t be hired by any college in the country. There has to be some other way. You mentioned a second choice—”

  “The second choice,” Ann said, “is Zorro.”

  Mike turned a little pale.

  “Sure, it’s a long shot,” Ann said. “The whole thing could very well be some kind of stupid practical joke. On the other hand, the joker might actually have something that’ll clear you and make it possible for us to leave Vallejos and Fletcher out of it.”

  Mike began to drum his fingers against the arm of the chair.

  “He says he’ll be in the park at midnight tonight,” Ann went on. “Dave will be there, too, and collect whatever there is to collect—and give him the book he wants from you.”

  Mike’s fingers stopped drumming and gripped the arm of the chair tightly. “You mentioned a third choice?”

  “That’s the easy one,” Ann said. “No time or effort required at all. Don’t do a damned thing, let them haul you off to the gas chamber.”

  Mike’s knuckles grew whiter and whiter, until suddenly he relaxed his grip and the blood flowed back into his fingers. “I’ll go home and get the book,” he said, in a very low voice.

  I could see Ann relaxing. “All right,” she said. “Wrap it up in something, brown paper maybe with a string around it. Have it ready for Dave, he’ll drop by your house and pick it up on his way to the park.”

  Mike nodded. He was trembling, I saw. He had made the great decision, and the effort seemed to have knocked all the strength out of him. He got to his feet a little shakily, murmured “Thank you” halfway between Ann and me, and moved with care to the door.

  A little later, when I got home, I told Mom I’d be going to the park again tonight. She didn’t let any of her qualms show on her face. She just said, very calmly, “So what about tonight’s dinner? Give me half an hour, and I guarantee it’ll be as good as new.”

  CHAPTER 24

  ON MY WAY DOWNTOWN I pulled up at Mike’s house. He must have seen me coming, because he was moving down the front walk as I got out of my car. He put a book-size package in my hands; it was wrapped in brown paper and a heavy piece of cord was wound around it tightly. His fingers seemed to cling to it for a second or two before he let me take it out of his grasp. I got the feeling he’d spent a few minutes inside the house saying a tender good-bye to it, as if it were a lover he was parting from forever.

  I drove on to Manitou Park. It looked darker, more deserted, more sinister, than it had looked two nights ago. The sinister part might be true, but not the deserted part. This was Saturday night: Chances were that a lot of complicated drug deals had been going on all night in those shadows. I took a quick look around, couldn’t see any cops (male or female) within walking distance, and went through the gates into the park.

  I headed straight for the general’s elm tree in the center, carefully ignoring any suspicious shapes or noises to my right or left. I was worried that the bench next to the tree might be occupied, by somebody or other engaging in a different form of madness than myself. But the bench was empty. I sat down on it, holding my package as conspicuously as possible on my knees.

  Zorro/Blood wasn’t as prompt this time. I had to wait five minutes past the chiming of the hour. Finally I felt that hard hand clamping down on my shoulder.

  “Glad to see you,” I said.

  The hand tightened on my shoulder. “Give,” said that muffled voice.

  I lifted the package, and the gloved hand shot out over my shoulder and pulled it away from me.

  “This is supposed to be a trade,” I said.

  The hand let go of my shoulder. A moment later I could hear something being set down on the bench next to me. Then came hurried footsteps and that rustling noise. Old Zorro moving into the bushes behind the bench.

  I looked down and saw a lar
ge rectangular package, also wrapped in brown paper and string, on the bench next to me. An envelope was fastened to the top of it with Scotch tape. Another one of those envelopes with “Mesa Grande College” printed on it.

  I opened the envelope and read the note inside, written on the same kind of word processor as the first two.

  Are you interested in knowing why I wanted that book? Not because I’m a collector. I can’t think of anything more stupid.

  I wanted it to prove a point. Russo is always saying he values that book more than his life, he’d let go of it only over his dead body. Bullshit. I always knew it was bullshit. Showing off for the gullible kiddies, like all those college professors. And it turns out I was right, doesn’t it?

  Now that I’ve shown the asshole up, he might want to know what I intend to do with his precious Emily Dickinson.

  Burn it.

  Best regards,

  The Shadow

  I put the letter in my pocket and picked up the package. It was heavier than I had expected.

  I have to admit, my curiosity was almost too much for me. For a moment there I almost tore off the string and wrappings so I wouldn’t have to be in suspense another minute. But my better instincts won out—also my nervousness about hanging around Manitou Park any longer than I had to. It wouldn’t be fair to get a glimpse in ahead of Mom.

  I lugged the package to my car. Still no sign of a cop. It was Saturday night, business was especially heavy in the park, so naturally the local patrol people were miles away.

  I got back to the house, and the front door flew open before I could use my key.

  “So let’s see it,” Mom said.

  I brought it into the living room and put it on the coffee table in front of the couch. I was reaching for the string when Mom said, “Wait a second. Don’t open it yet. First I’ll tell you what’s in it.”

  CHAPTER 25

  SO WHAT WAS I supposed to say to that? The suspense was killing me, but in the fifty-three years I’ve known my dear mother, I’ve never been able to walk away from one of her challenges.

  “There’s no way you could tell me that, Mom,” I said.

  “Maybe so, but suppose I try.”

  She stared down at the package for a while, as if she could see through the wrapping with her X-ray vision. And then she started in, “You know what bothered me most about this murder, right from the start. It was that phone call.”

  “I can understand that,” I said. “It is sort of grisly, to hear a man being killed over the phone.”

  “Grisly I wasn’t thinking of. People murdering people is always grisly. There’s no nice, pleasant way to do it. If I worried about grisly, I couldn’t take an interest in murders in the first place. What’s been bothering me about that phone call is, why did Stuart Bellamy make it?”

  “I don’t see the problem. He told Samantha Fletcher he’d look up this quotation, to settle their argument, so when he finally found it—”

  “A quotation that proved her point and didn’t prove his. Fletcher and Russo, they both told you it wasn’t in character for him to admit he was wrong like that.

  “Another peculiar thing about that phone call. If he was going to admit he was wrong, why did he pick this particular time to do it? In the middle of a party yet! He knew there had to be people crowding and pushing around the phone, he knew the room would be noisy and a phone conversation wouldn’t be easy to carry on. So why, I’m asking myself, didn’t he call Fletcher at some other time, maybe at her own house when she’d be alone?

  “And the things he said, the words he used—didn’t they also strike you as peculiar? When you picked up the phone, Davie, and said hello, his exact words were, ‘Stu Bellamy here. Samantha Fletcher, please.’ He never said hello back to you, he never asked who he was talking to, he never asked if he could speak to the host, maybe to inquire from him how the party was going, maybe to express his regret for not being there. He never even said, ‘Could I speak to Professor Fletcher, please?’ or ‘Would you kindly call Samantha Fletcher to the phone?’ or some such phrase, which would have been natural under the circumstances. All he said was her name, ‘Samantha Fletcher, please.’ Short and quick, rude almost—and didn’t Van Horn say to you that Bellamy usually had very good manners?”

  “I don’t see your point,” I said. “He was busy writing his article, he wasn’t in the mood for polite conversation.”

  “But he was the one that made the phone call. If it was such a nuisance for him to talk, why didn’t he call up the next day or later? It wasn’t exactly a matter that couldn’t wait till his article was finished.

  “And his conversation, when Fletcher finally came to the phone, was also a big puzzle. He was short and quick with her just like he was with you. He didn’t try to make small talk. He didn’t describe his state of health. He didn’t apologize for pulling her away from the party. When she said who it was, he waited a couple seconds, then he jumped right in. ‘All right, Samantha, you win. Here’s the last paragraph of Black Boy.’ And then he starts reading it—she interrupts, she makes comments, but he goes on reading it without paying any attention to her. And as soon as he says the last word of it, there’s a bang, there’s a gasp, there’s a busy signal, and after that he’s supposed to be dead.”

  “Why do you say ‘supposed to,’ Mom? Three people heard him reading that paragraph, and heard the blow being struck. Your own son was one of them. You don’t suspect me of lying, do you?”

  “If you never lied, what kind of a detective would you be? But you’re right, to your mother you wouldn’t lie, that I’m sure of.”

  “Well, there you are.”

  “Where am I? You’re telling the truth about what you heard—but what exactly did you hear? You heard Bellamy’s voice reading from that book. But did you hear him?”

  A long pause. Then, slowly, I said, “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

  “Those peculiar things I just mentioned—I can think of only one way to explain them. He didn’t ask you who you were when you picked up the phone, because he couldn’t be sure who would pick up the phone. Anybody at all could’ve picked it up.”

  “I don’t follow you, Mom. Whoever picked up the phone, Bellamy would’ve used that person’s name as soon as that person identified himself.”

  “But this is the point. This is exactly what Bellamy couldn’t do—he couldn’t carry on a conversation with somebody, even a short conversation, where he had to use the person’s name.”

  “Why couldn’t he?”

  “Because Bellamy wasn’t Bellamy at all. Like I said, it was only a voice. It was only a tape recording of Bellamy’s voice.”

  I didn’t have anything to say to that. I was letting it sink in.

  “Can you have any doubts about it?” Mom went on. “Bellamy’s voice was recorded earlier, and that tape was what you heard over the phone. So the voice couldn’t ask you for your name, it couldn’t make any small talk, it couldn’t ask questions about the party, make apologies, talk about his illness, stop in the middle of reading the quotation to acknowledge Fletcher’s comments. A live human being could do such things, but not a voice on a tape that was recorded ahead of time. Nothing could be on that tape except a quick greeting, ‘Samantha Fletcher, please,’ ‘you win,’ ‘Here’s the last paragraph,’ and then the quotation itself.”

  “Wait a second, Mom. That really was Bellamy’s voice on the phone—Fletcher and Van Horn both swear to it. So how could it be a tape recording—unless Bellamy himself was in on it?”

  “Absolutely not. Why did he have to be? All somebody had to do was call up Bellamy earlier in the day and ask him, for some reason or another, to read the paragraph from Black Boy over the phone. This conversation would be taped, and afterward it would be snipped and pasted and so on—edited, is this what they call it?—with the snipper-and-paster’s voice cut out and with pauses left between Bellamy’s speeches. And also with sound effects at the end—bang, thud, groan, very realistic.


  “This is another explanation why Bellamy sounded rude. What that other person got him to say over the phone could be snipped and pasted in plenty different ways, but nothing could be added to it. Whoever fooled around with the tape had to use the words Bellamy actually used. So instead of saying to you, ‘Could you ask Samantha to come to the phone?’ the voice says, ‘Samantha Fletcher, please.’ Because Bellamy, in the earlier conversation, the one that was put down on tape, never said anything like ‘Could you ask Samantha to come to the phone?’ But he did say her name maybe, and he did use the word ‘please,’ and the snipper could put these two together.”

  “Yes, it could have been done that way,” I said. “There’s nothing against it technically.”

  “It’s being done all the time. Haven’t you had the experience lately, you answer your phone and you’re listening to a recorded voice which is trying to sell you something? Such an aggravation! You can’t even relieve your feelings by getting mad at the salesman!

  “So the same type thing could’ve been done with this tape. You take a tape recorder, with the snipped-up tape in it, and you attach it with wires to a telephone. And to this you also attach a timer, like for turning your lights on and off when you don’t want the burglars to know you’re away for the weekend. So a second or two before seven fifty-five the timer turns on the tape recorder, the phone automatically rings at a certain number, and as soon as the person at that number picks up the receiver the voice from the tape begins to talk. I was reading last week a Reader’s Digest at the hairdresser’s, and there was an article how, in our country today, at least a hundred thousand bright high school students know how to fix up all kinds electronic contraptions a lot more complicated than this. All they need is the right equipment.”

  “But what was the point of going through such a rigmarole?”

  “Davie, Davie, you don’t see it yet? The point was for an alibi. Bellamy wasn’t killed at five minutes to eight. He was killed earlier in the evening. Then the murderer came to Van Horn’s house for the party and stood around in full sight of a dozen witnesses at exactly the moment—which was proved by the phone call—when Bellamy was being killed. Could any alibi be more perfect?