SW06 - The Innocent Woman

by Parnell Hall

  “I’m sorry if I’ve bored you,” Dirkson said. “Perhaps we can liven things up later on. For the time being, do you have any comment on Branstein’s statement?”

  “I think you might thank us for bringing it to your attention.”

  “I was referring to the content of his statement.”

  “I’m afraid the man’s not that observant. Too bad. Might have been helpful.”

  “I don’t know. It still might,” Dirkson said. He yawned, stretched. “Well, I see no reason to hold Miss Garvin at the present time. That’s not to say I wouldn’t charge her later if it turns out she’s broken some law. But as you say, it’s late, we’re all tired, and I for one have work to do. So why don’t the two of you just run along.”

  “You mean you’re letting them go?” Stams said.

  “Oh, yes,” Dirkson said. “They’re free to go.”

  But his smile was still smug.

  24.

  “STILL MAD AT ME?” Tracy said, as they came out the front door.

  Steve Winslow glanced over his shoulder, spotted cops hanging out by the entrance. “Let’s get away from here before we talk.”

  They found an all night diner on Chambers Street, ordered coffee and took a booth in the back.

  “So,” Steve said, “you went back there to leave your fingerprints?”

  “Why not?” Tracy said. “You sent Amy back. I figured if it could work for her, it could work for me.”

  “It may not work for her,” Steve said. “Dirkson’s already sold on the idea that was her second visit.”

  “How come?”

  “A small petty cash drawer problem.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It was shut.”

  “What?”

  “Amy goes up there, calls the cops. They come, she tells Stams she went up there and found the office robbed and Fletcher dead. One small problem—she never looks at the desk, and somewhere between the time we were there and she came back, someone got into the office and shut the fucking drawer.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Not at all. Which brands her whole story false. In the worst possible way. There’s no chance that she is mistaken. She’s lying. Plain and simple.

  “And it doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out. The only reason she would tell such a stupid, obvious lie is because she thinks it’s the truth. Which means when she saw the drawer it was open. Which means she was there at another time.”

  “Good lord,” Tracy said. “When did you find this out?”

  “When I talked to her in jail.”

  “How come you didn’t tell me?”

  “I was pissed at you. About Branstein.”

  “Even so.”

  “It never entered my mind,” Steve said. “When it occurred to me just now, I was surprised to realize you didn’t know.”

  “Uh huh,” Tracy said. “So what’s the verdict? Did I make up some for the Branstein mess?”

  Steve exhaled. “Look. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be hard on you. Yeah, this was a good move. Under the circumstances, probably the best you could do. The Branstein mess is a mess, and don’t think it’s over. It’s just beginning. Why do you think Dirkson wanted us out of there? So he could go to work on Branstein. The guy may not be much of a witness now, but what do you want to bet by the time he gets on the stand it turns out he can positively identify Amy Dearborn as the woman and me as the guy?”

  “Which was the whole point of my calling on him,” Tracy said. “The guy saw a woman go in. He didn’t see her very well, and from his description it could have been Amy or it could have been me. He sat there looking me right in the face and didn’t bat an eye. We’re not sure if it was me, but still. But we know it was you. He didn’t recognize you either.”

  “Yeah, because of the way I was dressed. Of course, he remembers the way I was dressed, and he just described it to Dirkson. Because it’s different from the way I’m usually dressed, it makes an impression. Dirkson’s got it already, and you can bet he’s working that angle now. He knows it was me. He knows it was you. He knows what we’ve done. The only real concern, is whether he can prove it. Right now, the chance of that is relatively slim.” Steve frowned. “Which is what bothers me.”

  “Why does that bother you?”

  “Because Dirkson’s smug. He’s the cat that ate the canary. He can’t prove I was the guy, but he acts like he could. So either he can and I just don’t know it yet, or it’s something else entirely. Is there a pay phone here?”

  Tracy looked around. “Yeah. There’s one by the door.”

  “Do me a favor. Call Mark, see what’s up.”

  Tracy went and made the call. Steve sat, sipped his coffee, tried to think.

  She was back in a minute.

  “Nothing doing?” Steve said.

  “Machine’s on. Mark went home. Message says if it’s an emergency call him at home, otherwise leave a message after the beep.”

  “Shit. Any way to pick up his messages?”

  “Not from here. I mean, there would be if I knew it—I know how to pick up mine—but it’s different for each machine. With Mark’s, it’s never come up before, so I don’t know it. I could find out, but I’d have to call him and ask him.”

  Steve waved it away. “Let’s not go nuts over this. It will be morning soon enough. What time is it now? Jesus Christ, three o’clock.” Steve stretched. “Okay, let’s try this again. Tracy, I’m putting you in a cab. This time, I strongly advise you go home and get some sleep.”

  25.

  “SEARCH WARRANT?” Steve said.

  Taylor nodded. “Yeah. That’s the word.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Sometime last night.”

  “And you didn’t get it till now?”

  “It was on the machine when I got in. I hung out till one in the morning, Steve. The place was dead. Absolutely nothing happening. I packed it in and went home.”

  “I should have had this report.”

  “If I’d got it, you’d have got it.”

  “I understand. I’m saying you should have got it.”

  “How the hell could I?”

  “I’m not blaming you, Mark. I’m just saying the report should have come in.”

  “Maybe it just happened.”

  Steve shook his head. “No way. Dirkson was smug.”

  “What?”

  “Last night when I talked to him Dirkson was smug. I wondered why. This has to be it.”

  “You spoke to Dirkson last night?”

  “You didn’t get that either?”

  “Hey, give me a break.”

  “What about the fact the cops picked up a suspect?”

  “What, are you nuts? I was here when you got the call.”

  “Not Amy. Tracy.”

  Taylor’s mouth dropped open. “The cops picked up Tracy? What, just for seeing that witness?”

  “No, for contaminating a crime scene.”

  “What the hell?”

  Steve brought Mark Taylor up to date on the meeting with Dirkson.

  “Holy shit,” Taylor said. “You mean Tracy went back there to account for her fingerprints?”

  “Certainly not,” Steve said. “She went there to give information to Sergeant Stams.”

  Taylor winced. “Steve, why do you have to tell me this? It’s bad enough I’m doing this at all. You’re feeding me information I could lose my license for.”

  “You keep asking for it.”

  “That’s my job. Collecting information. But why’s it got to be so bad?”

  “There’s a saving grace, Mark.”

  “What’s that?”

  “When Dirkson comes after us, he’ll nail me and Tracy first. At best, you’d be an afterthought.”

  “You’ve made my day.”

  “Face it, Mark. When you heard it was Tracy, you bought in. Now, I’ll protect you all I can. But take it for granted it’s a bad situation all around.”

&n
bsp; “No kidding.”

  “So what you got on the warrant?”

  “Just that, and the fact it was served.”

  “You don’t know what they got?”

  “I don’t even know if they got anything.”

  “Oh, they got something all right. Son of a bitch.”

  “Dirkson?”

  “Yeah. The bastard was playing with me.”

  “Any idea what it is?”

  Steve shook his head. “Not a clue. But the thing is, I sent Amy home. She wasn’t supposed to go home, just go to her neighborhood and take a cab back. Before she quote “found the body” unquote.”

  “So?”

  “So, what if she didn’t? What if, before she grabbed the cab, she ran up and ditched something she found at the murder scene.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. How about the murder weapon?”

  Taylor’s eyes widened. “Are you kidding me?”

  “No, Mark, I’m playing what-if.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Taylor said. “But you saw her. Talked to her. Wouldn’t you have known if she was carrying a gun?”

  “I didn’t strip-search her, Mark. I didn’t even look in her purse.”

  “But you don’t really think that’s it?” Taylor persisted.

  “I’m guessing, Mark,” Steve said. He added pointedly, “Because I can’t seem to get any concrete information to go on.”

  Taylor put up his hands. “Hey, I’ve been on the phone with my source, he’s doing the best he can. He’ll get back to me as soon as, but if the cops wanna play it close to the vest, there’s not a hell of a lot I can do.”

  Steve sighed, exhaled. “You got any coffee, Mark? I’ve had about three hours sleep.”

  “I got a coffee maker in the outer office.”

  “It any good?”

  “It sucks. But it ain’t decaffeinated.”

  “That’s for me,” Steve said.

  He stood up just as Tracy Garvin came in the door with a paper bag.

  “Hey, gang, coffee and doughnuts,” she said.

  “Saved by the bell,” Taylor said.

  “What about the phones?” Steve said.

  “Relax. Call-forwarding’s on. And the only message was to call here.” Tracy pulled a cup of coffee out of the bag, handed it to Steve. “Here. Drink this. Make you much less grouchy.”

  “I’ve got a right to be grouchy,” Steve said. “Dirkson served a search warrant.”

  “What?”

  “That’s right.,” Taylor said. “They searched Amy Dearborn’s apartment last night. We have no idea why or what they found, and we’re waiting to hear.”

  “Would Amy know?” Tracy said.

  “Yeah,” Steve said. “That’s one way to go. I could rush down to the lockup, ask her what is there in her apartment she wouldn’t want the cops to find that would absolutely clinch the case against her. Interesting as hell to hear what she says to that.”

  “You really think it’s that bad?” Tracy said.

  “Dirkson was smug. At the time I thought it meant he could nail us. Now, I hear this, I figure he must have got the goods on her.”

  “So what’s the word, Mark?” Tracy said. “What’s your source giving out?”

  Taylor shook his head. “Lid’s on tight. I didn’t even get the report they picked you up.”

  Steve fished a doughnut out of the paper bag, dunked it in the coffee, took a bite. “So what have you got, Mark? How we doing on the other fronts?”

  Taylor shrugged. “I got a lot of information coming in. But it’s not that helpful. The partner, Marvin Lowery, lives in Great Neck. He was home last night. At least from eight-thirty on. Which isn’t good enough. So far there’s no word from the medical examiner, so we don’t have a time of death. But there’s no way eight-thirty’s going to do it. Let him out, I mean.”

  “How long’s the drive to Great Neck?”

  “Under an hour. Say, forty-five minutes.” Taylor flipped a page of his notebook. “And I can do better than that, actually. Lowery’s car’s in a garage on 48th Street. According to the attendant, he picked it up somewhere around seven-thirty, quarter to eight.”

  “Wait a minute,” Steve said. “Why’s his car on 48th Street?”

  “It’s near his office.”

  “Yeah, but he wasn’t at his office. He was in court. He spent the whole day downtown on Centre Street. So why would he park there?”

  “I have the answer,” Taylor said. “Because it’s paid for. He has a monthly rental. The way I see it, he drives in from the island, parks near the office, goes up, checks the answering machine and the mail. Though, probably the mail’s not there that early, but still. According to the garage he parked between eight-thirty and nine yesterday morning, same as usual. When’s court, ten? So I figure he went up to the office, took care of business, then took the subway downtown to court.”

  “Interesting,” Steve said. “No matter how you slice it, if his car’s in that garage, that puts him in the neighborhood when the crime took place.”

  “Right,” Taylor said.

  “And, as you say, the mail probably hadn’t arrived when he was there in the morning, so what would be more natural than that he would go there and check it after court?”

  “Sound’s good to me,” Taylor said. “I haven’t made a pass at him directly because he’s on the other side. But if you want me to try it, just say the word.”

  Steve shook his head. “No, he’ll just clam up on you. That’s the type of thing, I’d rather spring it on him in court.”

  “Okay,” Taylor said. “Anyway, that’s Lowery. Now the detective—what’s his name?—Macklin—he’s another story. He’s a bachelor, lives alone, claims he was home last night.”

  “Claims?”

  “Yeah, my man spoke to him directly.” Taylor shrugged. “Only way to do it, really. The guy lives in a brownstone, no doorman to verify it with. And his agency’s a one man show. So who you gonna ask? He happens to be the only source of information on his whereabouts. Which cuts both ways. He’s got no alibi on the one hand. On the other, it’s hard to prove he doesn’t.”

  “Was he cooperative?” Steve asked.

  “Yes and no,” Taylor said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Well, it’s not like he was cooperative, but he gave a lot of information.”

  “How is that?”

  “Well, my man played it smart. Calls him up, asks him if he’s the Samuel Macklin just did a job for F.L. Jewelry. Macklin’s suspicious, wants to know why, my man says he heard he’d just got a raw deal in court. Macklin falls all over himself agreeing with that. Before you know it, he’s spilled his guts.”

  “Good work, Mark.”

  “Yeah, but what have you got? According to Macklin, he left right after court, didn’t go uptown with Fletcher and Lowery. Don’t jump to conclusions—he doesn’t know if they went uptown. He’s just saying he split from the court, doesn’t know where they went and doesn’t care. According to him, he went home, hot, tired and pissed off, changed, showered, put on sloppy clothes, then got some Chinese takeout and rented some video tapes.”

  “Any help there?”

  “Not a lot. The clerk in the video store knows him, thinks he was in around eight o’clock. Chinese restaurant doesn’t know him and doesn’t remember. Not that it would do any good, since it was right around the same time. Giving him plenty of time to have bumped Fletcher off for making him look like a fool in court. Though if that’s the motive, I don’t see why he’s not killing you.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  “Then we got the boyfriend.”

  “Boyfriend or friend?”

  “He says he’s the boyfriend. I don’t know what she says, but according to him they’re an item. Anyway, he’d like to help but can’t. He had dinner with her, was supposed to go to the movies with her, something came up and he had to work. He left her at the restaurant, took a cab and went home.”


  “I thought he had to work.”

  “He works at home. An apartment on East 84th Street. Set up like an office. He had a client with a problem, so he agreed to meet him there. He left her right around seven-thirty, which will probably screw us when we get the autopsy report. For what it’s worth, he’s willing to shade the time.”

  Steve Winslow looked at him sharply. “Oh?”

  Taylor held up his hand. “Hey, don’t blame me. He volunteered it. Apparently, the guy’s really sold on her, willing to do anything to get her out of a jam.”

  “Did you encourage him in this manner?”

  “I didn’t do squat. In fact, I haven’t even talked to him, it was one of my men. But he’s home now, in case you want to talk to him.”

  “Sure do.”

  26.

  LARRY CUNNINGHAM WAS ON the phone when Steve and Tracy got there. He was a bookish looking young man with short brown hair and horn-rimmed glasses. He met them at the door with a phone glued to his ear. He ushered them into the living room at the same time he was advising a client on a stock transaction.

  It was actually more office than living room, dominated by a huge computer setup, boasting a printer, a modem, a fax machine, and other electronic equipment the purpose of which Steve and Tracy could only guess at.

  While they stood gawking, Larry Cunningham moved papers to unclutter chairs, and gestured to them to sit, never once missing a beat in his phone conversation. He finished his call, sat on the couch, and said, “Isn’t this awful.”

  “It is,” Steve said. “But it’s not the end of the world. An arrest is not a conviction. I’m sure Amy is innocent, and we’ll find a way to prove it.”

  “But in the meantime she’s in jail.”

  “It shouldn’t be long,” Steve said.

  “Oh? What are you doing about bail?”

  “I’m considering my options.”

  Cunningham frowned. “You are going to push for bail?”

  “Frankly, I’m not sure.”

  “Why wouldn’t you?”

  “In a case like this, there’s two ways to go. Either get the defendant out on bail and stall like crazy, or leave her in and push for a speedy trial.”

  “I want her out,” Cunningham said.

  “Of course you do. We all do. The question now is how best to achieve that.”