SW01 - The Baxter Trust

by Parnell Hall

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I know what you’re doing.” Max’s voice had fallen to a whisper. “My detectives have told me. You’re looking for Sheila’s father. You’re planning on springing the idea that he isn’t dead on the jury. That would make for a lot of sensational headlines, get you a lot of publicity, and maybe even get her off.” A pause for another spell of pain. “You don’t have to do that now. Stop looking for Sheila’s father. Go to the D.A. and explain what happened here. Except of course, what I just told you. But everything else. You handle it right, and he’ll drop the case.”

  Steve frowned. “Yeah, maybe,” he said dubiously.

  Max looked at him, and almost managed a grin. “I know what you’re thinking. That way you lose your ... your brilliant courtroom finale. But that way Sheila never has to know. You save her a lot of unnecessary grief. A lot of grief.”

  Max coughed and almost lost consciousness. He rallied, and locked eyes with Steve, taunting him, challenging him to do the right thing. “Can you do that, counselor? Whose interests come first? Your client’s or your own?”

  Max’s eyes glazed over and his head fell back.

  Steve touched his wrist, feeling for a pulse. He wasn’t sure how to do it, but he was sure that there would be none.

  He slowly got to his feet. He stood there on the roof, not looking at either of the two bodies, just looking off into space.

  So, it had come down to this. If he went back into court, he could clear the case up in spectacular fashion. He could make a name for himself. He’d be the hero, the winner, the courageous attorney who’d figured the whole thing out, who’d gotten his client off.

  But at a price. It would take time. It would drag on. And meanwhile there was a chance those trails he’d started in California would be followed up, if not by the police then by zealous reporters sensing they hadn’t gotten the whole story. They’d follow the leads in California and find out what he had—that Sheila’s father was someone from the East Coast. A whole area of speculation would open up. And maybe—and Steve knew it was a slim chance—just maybe the real truth would come out.

  If he did what Max said, if he took his story to the D.A., it would work. Steve was sure of it. The trial would be over. Sheila would be released, the case would be solved, and the cops would grab all the credit. And that would be the end of it. There would be no reason for anyone to ever find out about the California end of it at all. Sheila would be safe.

  But for a price. Because the press and the public would be left with the image of Steve Winslow that he had adopted in his client’s behalf. The clown. The fool. He would remain a joke. The inexperienced young attorney whose client would have been convicted if the police hadn’t happened to break the case. It would be, to all intents and purposes, the end of his career.

  Steve sighed. Yeah. That was the choice.

  There came the clang of a metal door banging and a voice said, “All right! Hold it right there!”

  Steve looked around to see the fat cop attempting to flatten himself against the stairwell as he leveled a gun on him.

  Steve suddenly felt exhausted, too tired even to raise his hands. If the cop shot him, that was just tough.

  He smiled, slightly. “It’s all right officer. They’re both dead.”

  51.

  DISTRICT ATTORNEY HARRY DIRKSON LEANED back in his chair and exchanged glances with Lieutenant Farron. Farron’s face was cautiously neutral, giving nothing away. Dirkson had known it would be—Farron was waiting to follow his lead. Dirkson gave it to him now—an ironic smile. Farron tried to match it, but to Dirkson it seemed a trifle forced, which suddenly made his smile seem forced too.

  Dirkson didn’t let on, veteran campaigner that he was. Having chosen his course, he plunged ahead. He cocked his head at Steve Winslow and said, “That’s a fantastic story.”

  “It happens to be true,” Steve said.

  “Yeah, sure,” Dirkson said. “Now that Max and Teddy are dead you can make up any stories you want about them.”

  Steve was sorely tempted to walk out. It was bad enough giving it to these guys, without having to force it on them.

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “Why should I?”

  “Okay. You tell me why Uncle Max and Uncle Teddy decided to go up on the roof and blow each other’s brains out.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Even if Teddy did kill Sheila’s mother, it doesn’t mean he killed Greely.”

  “Sure it does. Look at the evidence.”

  “What evidence?”

  “The blackmail letter, for one thing.”

  “What about it?”

  “The letter was cut from the newspaper so it couldn’t be traced. But the envelope was typed on Greely’s machine. Greely’s a smart blackmailer. He had to be, to keep doing it and have no police record. Do you really think he’d make a dumb slip like that? Of course not. Uncle Teddy typed the envelope on that machine because he wanted the letter traced to Greely so it would prove Sheila’s motive for the murder.”

  Dirkson frowned. “Yeah, but if this was all Teddy’s idea, how did Greely get involved in the first place?”

  Steve shrugged. “Hey, I can’t do all your work for you. But if you were to dig into Greely’s background far enough, I bet eventually you’d find a connection.

  “And besides, Greely wasn’t really involved. At least, he had no idea of what was really going on. I’m sure Teddy was the one who sent the letters. He may have had Greely make the phone call—he probably did—but what Teddy told him to get him to make it, I have no idea. But there’s no reason to think it was the truth.

  “Greely was a patsy. Teddy’s fall guy. Teddy set him up. Teddy had killed his sister. He was scared to death that Sheila was going to blab to Uncle Max about Phillip being in Vermont on that day. He knew if that happened Max would figure it out. He had to stop her. So he framed her for murder.”

  “That’s all very nice,” Dirkson said. “But if that’s true, then how does John Dutton fit into all this? He knew Greely. You want me to believe that was just an outrageous coincidence?”

  Steve shook his head. “Not at all. The way I figure it, he triggered the whole thing.”

  Dirkson frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Well,” Steve said. “Uncle Teddy and Greely are both dead, so we’ll probably never know, but we can make a pretty good guess. The way I see it is this—Let’s assume Uncle Teddy and Greely knew each other from way back. It would have to be from way back, because Teddy wouldn’t want to take a chance on his connection with Greely ever coming out. But say they knew each other. Not that unlikely a supposition, when you think about it. Greely was a blackmailer. Teddy, in his youth, was a confidence man. So assume the connection.

  “All right. Uncle Teddy’s favorite line was that he’d been screwed out of his inheritance—that he would be a wealthy man if he hadn’t made one mistake and his father hadn’t cut him out of the will and put all the money into trusts. So Greely would have known about that, and would have known that Teddy’s son, Phillip Baxter, and his niece, Sheila Benton, had a lot of money tied up in trusts. Being a blackmailer, he would have filed that information away.

  “So what happened? Say six months ago Greely is playing in a poker game, and some young stud named John Dutton, who is a pretty boy and an egotistical asshole, is shooting off his mouth about how he’s got a thing going with an heiress. And Greely, who’s always on the lookout for something like that, tunes right in and finds out the girl’s name is Sheila Benton.

  “Which rings a very big bell. So Greely asks a few questions and pokes around some, and finds out this John Dutton is very much married. So now Greely has an heiress with a trust fund playing around with a married man, music to the ears of a blackmailer.

  “So Greely goes to Uncle Teddy and says, ‘Hey, I got all this dope on your niece. You know all about how her trust is set up. If you can figure any way we can shoot this information, I’ll go
halves with you.’

  “And Uncle Teddy tells him it’s hopeless. Sheila has no money of her own, there’s no way she can touch the money in her trust, the only one who can get the money out of the trust is Uncle Max, and if he knew about it Sheila would lose the trust, so what’s the point?

  “Now, this is all conjecture, but I would imagine at this point Greely considers blackmailing Dutton. But Dutton doesn’t have that kind of money—he’s a fortune hunter himself, figuring he can retire a millionaire in ten years by hooking up with Sheila. So Greely and Uncle Teddy figure that’s not worthwhile, and Uncle Teddy convinces Greely that they should hang onto the information and then maybe the situation would change and they could shoot it at a later time.”

  Steve shrugged. “So that’s it. The matter drops. They let it slide.

  “And then something happens. What happens is, Sheila sees cousin Phillip and kids him about the time they played doctor together. And Phillip tells Teddy. And the key part of the story is the fact that it happened the same day Sheila’s mother was killed. Because Phillip went everywhere Teddy went. And Teddy was supposed to be in New York that day. But he wasn’t. He was up in Vermont, tampering with the brakes of his sister’s car so she’d go off the road and he’d inherit the whole bundle.

  “So when Teddy hears this he’s hysterical. He knows if Sheila tells Uncle Max, Uncle Max will start thinking and figure out what happened.

  “So he’s got to shut Sheila up. So he figures to involve her in a mess, ’cause if her life is all screwed up, and she’s in a position where she has to protect herself, she won’t be needling her Uncle Max with any cutesy-poo childhood memories.

  “So he remembers Greely. What if he had Greely blackmail her? Wouldn’t that do the trick? Sure. But he realizes that’s not good enough. Because there is no way to blackmail her, and Greely would eventually find that out, and wonder what the hell was going on. And Teddy’s not going to tell Greely the real reason he wants to do it.

  “So he gets another idea. What if he frames her for murder? Of Greely? Great. No problem there. Greely’s dead, so he can’t find out the blackmail was bogus. Or get caught and blurt out his connection with Teddy. It’s perfect.

  “So he calls Greely and tells him he’s figured out how to make the blackmail work. While Greely’s in the john, or out buying beer, or whatever, Teddy types the envelope. He tells Greely his scheme, which is just a bunch of bullshit. But Greely doesn’t know that, and he has no reason to suspect anything. He thinks he’s going to make a killing. So Teddy gets Greely to make the anonymous phone call. And he arranges to meet Greely at Sheila’s apartment, presumably to make the shakedown. He lures him up there, and he kills him.

  “And the beauty of the thing is John Dutton. Because Greely met John Dutton at that poker game, Teddy knows that if the cops start trying to trace Greely’s background, they’ll trace him back to Dutton, not to him. Which they did.”

  Dirkson frowned. “Yeah, but ...” He stopped. Tried to think of a “but.” Got one. “But why go through all that? Teddy, I mean. If he wanted to shut Sheila up, why not just kill her?”

  Steve sighed. He shrugged and smiled. “I don’t know. Your guess is as good as mine. This isn’t some TV show where the plot threads get tied up nice and tidy. The principals in this case are all dead, so we’ll probably never know.

  “You want theories? I can give you theories. I talked to Teddy Baxter. I think in spite of everything, he had genuine affection for Sheila and couldn’t bring himself to kill her.”

  “But he didn’t mind framing her for murder,” Dirkson said sarcastically.

  “Don’t like that one? Try this—He knew if Sheila were killed, Uncle Max would move heaven and earth to find out who did it, and he was afraid the trail would lead back to him. Whereas, he figured no one would ever connect him with Sheila killing a blackmailer. Particularly when he knew the blackmailer could be traced back to John Dutton.”

  “Aw, you’re just making up stuff off the top of your head,” Dirkson said. “You’ve got nothing but wild guesses.”

  “Right,” Steve said. “You got anything better?”

  Dirkson rubbed his forehead. He carefully avoided looking at Lieutenant Farron. He was a poker player, playing them close to the vest. “You got anything else to support this?”

  “Sure. The key in Greely’s pocket. There was nothing else in his pockets. Why? Because Teddy took everything out of his pockets except the key. Why? Because he wanted to make sure the police would investigate the key and find out that Greely had the key to Sheila’s apartment.”

  “But the locksmith says Greely was the one who copied the key.”

  “Sure. Uncle Teddy gave him a key to copy. Check up and you’ll find that some time or other when Sheila took a vacation she gave Uncle Teddy a key to feed her goldfish, or whatever. At any rate, he had a key.”

  “But you can’t prove Teddy Baxter killed Greely.”

  “Uncle Max told me he did.”

  “That’s hearsay.”

  Steve grinned. “No, it’s a dying declaration. Read your law.”

  Dirkson looked at him narrowly. “Surely you don’t intend to put yourself on the stand to testily to what Max told you.”

  “I don’t have to,” Steve said. “You see, we’re sitting here, and you’re asking me my theories, and I’m giving ’em to you, and you’re telling me they’re bullshit, and that’s all well and good. But the thing is, when we get into court, I don’t have to explain everything, you do. You have to prove Sheila guilty beyond all reasonable doubt. Fat chance. Wanna know how it’s gonna go?”

  Steve leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs and cocked his head at Dirkson. “When you rest your case, I’ll call Uncle Max as my first witness. Then you can explain to the jury why he isn’t available.”

  Steve paused while Dirkson thought that over. He watched Dirkson, and he liked what he saw. He smiled, and shrugged his shoulders. “Then I’ll rest my case right there and we’ll proceed to the argument. The judge will instruct the jury that if I can explain the facts of the case by any reasonable hypothesis other than that of guilt, they must find the defendant not guilty. I’ll give them a reasonable hypothesis.”

  This time Dirkson couldn’t help exchanging glances with Farron. Neither man liked what he saw.

  “If that’s what you want, fine,” Steve went on, airily. “Sheila will get off anyway, the police will look like a bunch of incompetent bunglers and it probably won’t do your political career any good. I, on the other hand, will come off smelling like the proverbial rose.”

  Steve let that sink in, then changed his tack. He uncrossed his legs and leaned in to Dirkson. “But if you want to get smart,” he said in an almost conspiratorial voice, “dismiss the case and release the girl. Then call in the press and issue a statement about how you, working in conjunction with the police department, cracked the Benton case. It’d be a hell of a story. Make you guys look real good.” Steve paused, smiled. “Probably get you reelected.”

  52.

  SHEILA BENTON ENTERED HER APARTMENT flanked by John Dutton and Steve Winslow. Each had a hand on her shoulder and a hand on her arm. The hands were for guidance, rather than support. Sheila could walk, she just seemed to have no real idea where she was going.

  Sheila was a mess. Her blond hair was wet and stringy. Her eyes were red and dull and glassy looking. Her face was lined and caked with tears. She looked like an accident victim, which, in a way, she was.

  They led her over to the couch and sat her down between them, Dutton on her right, and Steve on her left. Dutton immediately installed himself in the role of chief consoler, putting his arm around her shoulders. Steve withdrew his arm.

  “There you are,” Dutton said softly. “It’s all right now. It’s all right.”

  Sheila blinked and looked around. For a moment she was all right. Then her lip contorted, and the tears came again.

  Dutton put his other arm around her and hugged her to him. “
Easy,” he said. “Just take it easy.”

  She lay on his chest for a few seconds, then twisted away and sat up.

  “No,” she said. “I’m all right. I’m all right.” She took a deep breath and exhaled. “It’s just hard to believe.”

  “Easy now,” Dutton said.

  “It’s just I’ve known Uncle Teddy all my life. To think he killed my mo—” She broke off, crying again.

  Dutton put his arm around her again, but she pushed it away.

  “No,” she said. “No, I’m not going to cry. I’m all right.” She turned to Steve. “I have to know. Uncle Teddy really framed me for the murder?”

  Steve nodded. “Yes. The story you told Phillip scared him to death. He knew if you told Uncle Max, Max would suspect what had happened. He had to get you out of the way.”

  “But Phillip knew too,” Dutton said. “How was he going to silence him?”

  “He didn’t have to. Phillip was away at college most of the time, anyway. And Phillip, the diligent student, would never have repeated a conversation of that sort to his straight-laced old uncle. On the other hand, it was just the sort of thing Sheila would love to throw in Max’s face.”

  “And I did,” Sheila said miserably. “Poor Uncle Max. I guess he meant well. But he wanted me to fire you. And now you got me off.”

  “I didn’t get you off,” Steve said. “Uncle Max got you off. If the case had gone to the jury, you would have been convicted. That would have happened if Uncle Max hadn’t figured it out.”

  Sheila looked up at him. Distracted as she was, she was still sensitive enough to pick up on what he had just said, and it puzzled her. “Why are you running yourself down? You figured it out too.”

  “Uncle Max figured it out from what you told him. I figured it out from his reaction to what you told him. What you told me he did. Jumping up and running out. That wasn’t a shocked and embarrassed reaction. That was the reaction of someone who’s had a revelation, who’s just realized something. And as soon as I realized that, I knew what the revelation had to be. Even then, I was too late. If he hadn’t had to go home to pick up his gun, I never would have caught up with him.”