by Parnell Hall
“Except for one thing. The doctor botches the diagnosis. He puts the cause of death down as coronary thrombosis. A natural death. Bad luck for the murderer. Here’s a perfect frame-up, only no one knows it’s murder.
“So, what happens? The murderer sweats it out, hoping the cops will get wise. When they don’t, as a last resort, we get the anonymous tip.”
Steve paused. Dirkson still said nothing.
“Now,” Steve said, “you’re not going to tell me anything. But assuming we got so far as to go to court—on the Phillip Harding murder, I mean—well, I’m going to be calling witnesses and cross-examining yours. And the thing I’m going to be bearing down on is that anonymous tip. And if there was one, I’m going to bring it out. And when I do, if it was a phone tip, the first thing I’m going to bring out is whether the tip was from a man or a woman. And when I do, I’ll bet you a nickel it was from a woman. That’s assuming, of course, it wasn’t a disguised voice.
“Then I’ll bring out my theory of the case. Wanna hear it? Well, I’ll tell you anyway. It’s an old story, really. An old fairy tale. Perhaps you’ll recognize it. Once upon a time, there was this sweet, beautiful, young girl. But she had this wicked stepsister. Recognize the story? Now the stepsister wasn’t as pretty, or as rich, or as young, or anything. Basically, she had only one thing going for her. And you know what that was? Prince Charming. Slight variation on the old theme. The wicked stepsister had Prince Charming. But then she started to lose him too. And to her worst rival, her beautiful stepsister. So this cold, repressed, unhappy woman plotted her revenge. She’d kill her stepfather, and set it up so her dear stepsister took the blame.”
Dirkson made his first comment. “Bullshit.”
“Oh is it?” Steve said. “Who do you think hired Miltner? Who do you think was keeping tabs on Marilyn Harding? I mean, come on. If she and Kemper were having an affair, who the hell do you think was keeping tabs on them?”
“You can’t prove that.”
“No, I can’t. We’re playing what-if here. And the what-if is, what if Marilyn Harding gets acquitted of killing Donald Blake?”
“That’s highly unlikely.”
“Is it? All right, let’s look at the Donald Blake case for a bit.”
Dirkson smiled. “I was wondering when you’d get around to that.”
“For the purpose of our discussion it’s somewhat incidental, but let’s look at it. Say Phyllis Kemper hired Miltner. She’s framed Marilyn for one murder, but it hasn’t come off. Now she tries to go for two.”
“Now you’re really stretching,” Dirkson said.
“Maybe, but let’s play with it a bit. Phyllis Kemper puts a tail on Marilyn. What she’s hoping to come up with is some hard evidence of the affair.”
“Stop right there,” Dirkson said. “If that was the objective, why not tail her husband.”
Steve shrugged. “We’re playing with theories here. I can give you two reasons, though. One, she didn’t want the detectives to know who was hiring them. If the detectives put a tail on her husband, the obvious person to be doing it would be the wife. She went to great lengths to disguise her voice, so it’s clear she didn’t want to be known. So she put a tail on Marilyn instead, which would work just as well, since all she’s interested in is her husband’s rendezvous with her. Second reason. Douglas Kemper’s a real estate salesman. It would be a large pain in the ass to have detectives tail him around all day as he drove clients from one property to another. With that many trips, and having to stake out the real estate office all the time, there’d be a good chance the detectives would be spotted. She also wouldn’t be too keen on having private detectives following her and her husband when the two of them went out for dinner. Under those circumstances, even the coolest person couldn’t help looking around a bit wondering where the detectives were.”
“That’s pretty thin,’ Dirkson said.
“As I said, they’re just theories. I don’t really want to argue. We’re playing what-if. What if Phyllis Kemper put a tail on Marilyn? Well, she’s expecting to have Marilyn rendezvous with her husband. But it doesn’t happen. Something else does. What? Marilyn calls on someone at a not too affluent address, not the type of place Marilyn would normally go. Very interesting. When Phyllis gets the report from the detective agency the next day, she investigates. Finds Marilyn has called on a David C. Bradshaw. Now things are popping real nice for Phyllis. She’s already called in a tip to the cops on Phillip Harding being poisoned, and that morning they act on it. The body’s exhumed, arsenic’s found. Marilyn has a tough morning with the cops. When they finally leave, Marilyn gets a phone call. Phyllis, thinking it’s a rendezvous call from Doug, listens in. But it’s not Doug, it’s Bradshaw. With a blackmail demand. Jackpot! Phyllis keeps listening. Better and better. Marilyn had already paid blackmail money. The detectives can swear Marilyn called upon Bradshaw. And Marilyn makes another appointment to see him. And Phyllis knows detectives will follow Marilyn there again.
“Well, no reason for Phyllis to tag along too. If she tried to, the detectives might spot her. But she knows where Marilyn’s going. She gets out of there fast, goes to Manhattan, stakes out Bradshaw’s apartment from across the street. Waits for the scenario to unfold.
“What happens? Marilyn arrives, slightly late, since she was held up waiting for Doug. Of course, Phyllis doesn’t know Marilyn was going to meet Doug, since she split right after the Bradshaw call. Had she known that, it might have altered her plans. But she doesn’t know.
“So Marilyn arrives, goes in, and comes out five minutes later. The detectives are trailing along behind. Great. The stage is set. Phyllis goes up, rings the doorbell, gets buzzed into the apartment, talks to Bradshaw. I don’t know what line she pulled on Bradshaw, but knowing he was a blackmailer, thinking up one couldn’t have been that hard. At any rate, she kids him along, picks up a knife, and zaps him in the back. Voila! Perfect frame.”
Dirkson shook his head. “Full of holes.”
“Such as?”
“What about the ten thousand bucks hidden in the hallway?”
“Phyllis does that. She knows Marilyn came to pay him off. She searches the body for the ten grand. Finds it. She doesn’t want to leave that money on the body, because why would Marilyn pay him off and then kill him? On the other hand, she wants the money discovered ’cause it will point to Marilyn. So she takes it and hides it in the upstairs hallway. The theory: Marilyn killed Bradshaw, then, trapped in the apartment and afraid she would be discovered with the money on her, hid it and got out. Not a great theory, but the best she could do. The bills have to be discovered to point to Marilyn, and hiding them is slightly more credible than leaving them on the body.
“Only, what Phyllis doesn’t know is the bills she removed from the body aren’t Marilyn’s, they’re Bradshaw’s, and Marilyn’s ten grand is still left in the money belt. But Phyllis had no reason to suspect there was another ten grand involved.
“And,” Steve said, “if you want to talk about weak theories, you’re the one dealing with the contention that Marilyn would have paid Bradshaw off, killed him, and then left the money on the body. Frankly, I find that hard to swallow.”
Dirkson smiled. “I don’t think I’ll have a problem. You’re forgetting the time of death, Winslow. The altercation? The witness? The phone call to the cops? If Phyllis Kemper did what you describe—and I’m not saying she didn’t—by the time she got up the stairs, Donald Blake was dead.”
“You’re splitting hairs, Dirkson. You’re talking minutes here. No medical examiner can be that exact.”
“There’s the witness and the phone call.”
“Sure there is. But how exact is exact? Those detectives who logged the times Marilyn went in and out. You think they got it to the minute?”
“That’s their job.”
“Yeah. That’s their job, and I bet they’re aces at it. They probably log everything the instant it happens. Probably set their watches by Greenwich mean
time every morning. Totally infallible, I’m sure.”
Dirkson waved his hand impatiently. “I don’t want to quibble. You save your arguments for the jury. I’m just telling you I don’t think they’re going to pull very much weight.”
“I don’t want to argue either. I told you, I didn’t come here to discuss the case.”
“You could have fooled me. I happen to be rather busy, Winslow. You got a point, make it. Otherwise, I got work to do.”
“All right, I’ll make it. If Marilyn’s found guilty on any count of the Bradshaw murder you’re going to turn around and try her for the murder of her father.”
“You keep saying me. Phillip Harding was killed in Nassau County. That’s outside my jurisdiction.”
“Yeah, sure,” Steve said. “But you know damn well you’ve got your hand in. If they haven’t indicted her for it, it’s ’cause they’re just waiting for your say so.”
Dirkson frowned. Said nothing.
“But that’s neither here nor there. The point I’m making is this. If she’s convicted of this crime, she’ll be charged with that one. You know it and I know it. But consider this. If she’s acquitted of this crime—the Bradshaw murder—then someone better take a long hard look before they charge her with the murder of Phillip Harding. ’Cause then you got no prior conviction to throw in her face. And when you think about it, that was really going to be the key evidence against her. Sure, you can show she had an opportunity to tamper with the sugar bowl. But so did her stepsister. And if Marilyn had poisoned her father, do you really think she’d be stupid enough to leave the sugar bowl full of arsenic around for a whole month until the cops thought to look for it? I’d like to see you try to argue that one. And if Phillip Harding’s body was exhumed because of an anonymous tip, think of the argument I’ll be able to make. Think of the doctrine of reasonable doubt. And then ask yourself what chance you’d have of getting a conviction.”
Dirkson met Steve’s eyes steadily. A good poker player, giving nothing away. “Is that it?” he asked.
Steve sighed. “Yeah, that’s it.” He got up, smiled. “See you in court.”
40.
FITZPATRICK WAS ANIMATED.
“I like it,” he said. “I really like it. Oh sure, I’ve known Phyllis Kemper for years, I’m upset about all that. But damn it, she’s not my client. I really like it.”
“Well, don’t get too excited,” Steve said. “It may sound good, but it happens to be a bunch of bullshit. It’s one thing to try to sell a D.A. a bill of goods, but you don’t have to start swallowing it yourself.”
“But damn it,” Fitzpatrick said, “it all makes sense.”
“That Phyllis hired the detectives, yes. I think that’s a good bet. That she killed Bradshaw happens to be a hell of a stretch.”
“Maybe not. The way you spelled it out for Dirkson sounds logical.”
“A lawyer’s job is to make things sound logical. It doesn’t mean they are. It’s just a theory, Fitzpatrick. Let’s not go off the deep end over it. Remember this. We have the benefit of Douglas Kemper’s story. The police don’t. Of course, I didn’t bring that up with Dirkson. But if Douglas Kemper’s story is true—or rather, if my interpretation of how Douglas Kemper lied to me is true—he was in the apartment right on the heels of Marilyn Harding. Of course, if he’s not lying, he was in there right before Marilyn Harding. That means he either found Bradshaw dead or killed him. And the same goes for Marilyn.
“The problem is, we got two clients here, and despite whatever finespun theories I might try to lay on Dirkson, the fact is one of them probably killed him. The best I can see with this Phyllis Kemper thing is, we got a red herring to play with.”
Fitzpatrick frowned. “Well, at least that’s something.”
Steve stood up, stretched, yawned. “Well, just wanted to fill you in.”
Steve glanced around the sumptuously furnished Wall Street office of the law firm of Fitzpatrick, Blackburn, and Weed. “Nice place you got here, Fitzpatrick. Suppose you’ll miss it if I get you disbarred.”
Fitzpatrick’s grin was somewhat forced.
Steve took a cab back to his office. On the ride uptown he got to thinking about what he’d just said, about what he’d told Fitzpatrick. “One of the two of them probably did it.” Yeah, that was true. And now they were both his clients. He was charged with getting both of them off. Regardless of who did it. Regardless of who actually committed the crime.
That bothered him. That bothered him a lot. Shit. What had he come to? When he’d defended Sheila Benton, she’d asked him point blank if he’d defend her if he thought she was guilty. And he’d told her no. And he’d believed it. Just as he’d believed what he’d told her about the case he’d handled for Wilson and Doyle, the case that had got him fired, the case where he’d tricked the hit-and-run accident victim into identifying someone other than his client, and then it had turned out his client was actually guilty. Sheila had asked him if he’d have done it if he’d known, and he’d said no. And he’d believed that too.
So what the hell was he doing? Here he was defending two clients, one of whom was almost certainly guilty. How could he justify that? Why was he doing it?
Well, he knew why. He was doing it because some idiotic, romantic fool had sent him an anonymous retainer from some plot ripped off from a storybook, and he’d been placed in a position where he had to either defend him or risk being disbarred. That was why.
Or was it?
He’d risked disbarment before. He wasn’t a squeamish guy. If he thought he was right, he’d wade right in and let the chips fall where they may. So he wasn’t in this just to cover his ass. That was too easy an explanation. Too easy a way out. Too pat an answer to a moral dilemma. If he was in this, he was in it by choice. He’d chosen to defend these two people. To try to get them off.
Well, why not? Everyone’s entitled to representation. A lawyer isn’t a judge and jury. It isn’t a lawyer’s place to try to decide if a client’s innocent or guilty. Legally, ethically, morally, Steve had every right to do what he was doing.
So why did he feel like shit?
Steve paid off the cab and took the elevator up to his office. Tracy Garvin would be manning the desk. Steve felt a twinge of resentment. She’d want to pump him for information, and he just didn’t feel like dragging through the whole story again.
Steve realized he was being unkind. Tracy Garvin might be a young, silly, twit of a girl, but why shouldn’t she be interested.
Steve Winslow pushed open the office door and knew at once that he’d been reprieved. Tracy Garvin’s face was animated.
“I tried to reach you at Fitzpatrick’s. Mark Taylor called. Said it was urgent.”
“Get him,” Steve said.
Steve walked into his office, flopped down at his desk. One light on the phone was on, so Steve picked it up and pushed that button. He heard Tracy Garvin’s voice asking for Mark Taylor, and seconds later Taylor came on the line.
“Taylor.”
“It’s Tracy. Hold on for Steve.”
“I’m on,” Steve said. “What is it, Mark?”
“I got something hot I’d rather not talk about on the phone. You in your office?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll be right down.”
Steve Winslow hung up the phone. Thank god, he thought. Let it be a break. Something. Anything. Get me off the hook.
Minutes later, Tracy Garvin opened the door.
“Mark Taylor’s here.”
Taylor pushed by her into the room. Tracy trailed in behind him with a steno pad.
“You’ll be wanting notes?” she said.
Steve was about to say yes, largely due to the uncharitable thoughts he’d had toward her earlier, when Mark Taylor said, “No. I’m sorry, Tracy, but this is something I’ve got to talk to Steve about alone.”
Tracy bit her lip, pouted, and went out, closing the door.
“I think you just blew your love life,” Steve said. �
��What’s so important?”
Mark Taylor took a breath and blew it out again. He shook his head. He did not look happy. “Steve, look. I’m working for you. You’re my client. I gotta protect you. But I got a moral dilemma here.”
“Well, let’s have it.”
“Look, Steve. You know I got a pipeline into police headquarters. Well, that man is very important to me. So important, I don’t want to use his name, if you know what I mean. Well, he gave me some information and it’s hot. The thing is, it’s too hot. It’s burning. And because of that, no one’s supposed to know about it.”
Steve looked at Mark impatiently. “So?”
“So, if I tell you, you’ll know. And if you use it, people will know you know. And they’ll want to know how you found out. And the thing is, this information is so protected, there are only a few sources it could have come from. You see what I mean? There’s a good chance my man’s cover could be blown.”
Steve frowned. “I see.”
“Look,” Mark said. “I know you’re a lawyer. You can’t make any promises. You gotta do what’s best for your clients. But I’m begging you. If I tell you this, if there’s any way you can, don’t use it.”
Steve shook his head. “Jesus, Mark.”
“I know, I know,” Mark said. “It’s a bitch. So?”
Steve shook his head. “You said it yourself. I can’t make any promises. You wanna tell me or not?”
Mark sighed. “I can’t hold it out. It’s a murder case. If I didn’t tell you, and your client was convicted, I couldn’t live with myself.”
“All right, Mark, you understand the situation. You got the information. You wanna shoot, shoot.”
“O.K.,” Mark said. “Pauline Keeling.”
Steve stared at him. “Who?”
“Pauline Keeling,” Mark said. “She’s the best kept secret in this whole case. Well, Pauline Keeling happens to be—or perhaps I should say, claims to be—Bradshaw’s common-law wife.”
“What?”
“That’s right.”
“How’d the cops find her?”