Anatomy of a Murder

by Robert Traver

  Parnell had given a copy of his brief to the grateful Martin Melstrand; he had explained to Martin why we had to get at the truth in our murder case; Martin, a shrewd if lazy lawyer, had clearly understood; Parnell had prevailed on Martin to phone Mary Pilant and reassure her on the will contest and divorce, and at the same time try obliquely (keeping us out of it) to soften her up on the criminal case. Martin had done so in Pamell’s presence, but the results had been inconclusive; Mary Pilant had said she was reassured on the will, but she seemed oppressed by the notion that Barney’s former wife might still upset the divorce and take anything. She was equally stubborn on conceding anything that might blacken Barney’s name or tend to show him guilty of the rape. (As Parnell ran on I kept sinking lower in my chair, as though I was listening in on a bizarre Hollywood story-conference.)

  Parnell had then concluded that the only way to remove Mary Pilant’s fixation on the Wisconsin divorce business was for him to go there. He had borrowed photostat copies of the alimony receipts and checks from Martin Melstrand. Then he had rented the car and taken off on the hundred-odd mile trek to Green Bay. He had had tire trouble practically all the way and it was daylight when he arrived. He’d snatched a few hours sleep in the car. He was clamoring at the door of the county courthouse when it opened and was soon hard at the files and records in the old divorce case.

  The original summons was missing from the file, as he’d expected; he’d next prowled in to the Sheriff’s office—“a fine upstandin’ broth of a man called Sullivan,” and after that the Sullivans and McCarthys had co-operated wonderfully. Parnell had pawed for hours over the sheriff’s old records and had finally found an old record showing that a deputy sheriff called Griffin had handled the summons in the old divorce case, the record failing to disclose, however, whether there’d been personal service or not. He’d then learned that old Mike Griffin, the deputy, was retired; yes, he was still living in Green Bay and Sheriff Sullivan would gladly drive Parnell there.

  “Wisconsin convention of the Ancient Order of Hibernians,” I murmured. “Up Ireland! Down with the blooming redcoats!”

  “Convention it was, boy, that it was,” Parnell said, pausing to sip his pop and then pressing on. Mike Griffin was a towering, alert, red-wristed Irishman of seventy. Did he remember personally serving a divorce summons on a Mrs. Barney Quill? Janice was her first name. Ah, did he remember her? You damn right he remembered that dame with the dyed red hair and livid scar on her right cheek who had sworn at him in everything but Arabian when he’d dared serve a divorce summons on her. Who’d ever forget such a noisy, foul-mouthed harridan? Certainly not old Michael Griffin … .

  The trio of happy Hibernians had then proceeded back to the sheriff’s office, sirens away, and Parnell had dictated a duplicate sheaf of affidavits, to which the affiant Michael Thomas Joseph Griffin had sworn on solemn oath and then laboriously signed his name. Then they had descended in a body upon the Green Bay lawyer of the ex-wife, a large, shrewd, red-headed lawyer.

  Parnell paused for breath. “And guess what his name was?” he said, his eyes twinkling.

  “Grogan,” I replied steadily. “Terence O’Toole Grogan, of course.”

  “You’re wrong, boy—it was Patrick Finkelstein!”

  “Abie’s Irish Rose,” I murmured.

  Parnell and the lawyer and Mike Griffin had closeted themselves; in due course they had come out and warmly shaken hands all around; the lawyer had thanked Parnell for his information and his brief and had notified him that he was dismissing the Wisconsin proceedings to set aside the divorce and was promptly withdrawing from the Michigan case.

  Parnell had then phoned Martin Melstrand the latest developments, and asked him to pass the word on to Mary Pilant, which her grateful lawyer agreed promptly to do. Then he had parted from his Green Bay friends and had started for home in his rented car. He had got caught in a series of thunderstorms, there was more tire trouble … .

  “I guess, lad, I spent more time under that haunted vehicle than in it.” He had tried twice to phone the office but couldn’t raise me. His last flat was only twenty miles out of Chippewa and he’d had to buy a new tire. “I guess I’ll have to buy me the damned trap to protect me invistmint, that I will,” he concluded, showing dire signs of his recent Hibernian exposure.

  I sat staring at the gallant old man. What were you going to do or say to a whale of a man like that? “Thanks, Parn,” I said. “After all the trouble you’ve gone to, I—I only hope it works.”

  Parnell shook his head soberly. “That’s just the point, boy. It surely won’t work if we leave it rest there,” he said. “That’s only the foundation. Only you can now really make it work.”

  “What do you mean, Parn? Why pick on me? I pay my taxes.”

  “You must go see Mary Pilant and personally plead your case —you’ve got to, boy. Don’t you see? It’s your case; it’s your man who is in danger; you are the only one who can make her see it.” He held out his pudgy hands. “I’ve passed you the ammunition—now you’ve got to go fight with it.”

  “Mary Pilant! Where, when?”

  “Now … tonight … . We can’t waste another moment … . Time’s a fleetin’, boy … . The trial will maybe be over and done with in another day or so … Don’t set there like a droolin’ leprechaun—grab up the phone, man.”

  The clock was striking one as I telephoned the Thunder Bay Hotel and asked the clerk to connect me with Miss Pilant. I half prayed she wouldn’t be in, that instead she would be out on the beach playing footsie with some brand-new lover boy.

  “Hello,” I said. “Is this Miss Pilant? This is Paul Biegler … . Yes, Lieutenant Manion’s lawyer. I’d like to see you tonight … . Yes, I realize it’s late, but tomorrow may be too late … . No, I can’t possibly explain over the phone … . I can leave at once and with luck be there in an hour … . Room two-o-two, you say? Thank you. Good-by.”

  “Ah, lad, she’ll see you,” Parnell murmured, and he rolled up his red eyes and his head nodded forward on my desk. In an instant he was asleep and snoring. I hurriedly bundled him into my bedroom and undressed him like a drunkard and put him in my bed and set out his new suit for our maid of all work, Maida, to sponge and press. Then I left a note that I’d see him in court next day and grabbed up my brief case and a toothbrush and a clean shirt and clattered hollowly down the wooden stairs. The rain had stopped, the sky had cleared; it was a beautiful starlit night with the moon coming full. I drove like Paul Revere. On my wild ride I jumped one coyote and nine deer. Good old Parnell was right; he had passed me the ammunition—now it was my turn to get in and fight.

  chapter 13

  The empty carpeted hallway had that dry, sour, starched, Chinese-laundry smell which seems peculiar to all hotels. The door to room 202 was slightly ajar. I knocked softly and Mary Pilant let me in.

  “Good evening, Mr. Biegler,” she said, smiling gravely and briefly shaking my hand. She led me in to a sort of darkened sitting room, the most striking feature of which was a large picture window overlooking Lake Superior. Through this window flowed a golden torrent of moonlight. I stopped in my tracks.

  “How incredibly beautiful,” I murmured, looking out across the vast lake. Whole rivers of liquid moonlight seemed to be coursing and flowing across the broad expanse of glittering lake; the scene was invested with a kind of awesome otherworldly grandeur.

  “Beautiful,” she said. “I never tire of it.” She paused pensively for a moment to watch and then took my hat and rumpled raincoat. “And now,” she went on, “what can I bring you to drink? You must surely be ready for one after your long late drive—” she paused “—and your other activities about which I have lately been reading.”

  “After drinking in this moonlight,” I thought, “no man in his right mind should ever want to drink whisky again.” “Whisky in a tall glass with lots of ice and water, please,” I said gratefully.

  As she left to prepare the highball I stood staring out at the lake
. I wondered what my strategy would be. Strategy? There was only one possible strategy left now, the purest of all—that of unvarnished truth. This was no time for any lawyers’ tricks or sly deceits.

  Mary Pilant came in with two drinks. Her dark hair was piled on top of her head and she wore a ruffled peignoir over some sort of silk lounging pajamas which reached high at the throat, Mandarin fashion, along with matching wedge-soled slippers with discreet pompons on the toes. It was hard to equate this poised and beautiful girl with the picture of hard and grasping womanhood she had compelled me to build up in my mind.

  “Thank you,” I said, taking my drink. “This was very thoughtful of you.” I fought back a yawn. “I sure needed it.”

  She indicated a settee facing the window and herself took a chair nearby, resting her glass on a small table between us, sitting straight as a little girl. I gratefully sat down and then guiltily arose and nodded and took a big swallow of my drink, my first since I had given up being a non-union drummer boy.

  “And now, Mr. Biegler,” she said coolly, “tell me how you expect me to help your case?”

  “You see, Biegler,” I said to myself. “How can a mere man expect to outwit a clever dame like this?” I took another gulp of my drink and, with her nodded assent, lit a cigar. Then mentally holding my breath I took the plunge. “I’ll try to tell you …” I began.

  In a rush of words I told her about the problems of my case and the mortal danger I still believed Lieutenant Manion to be in. I told her of my earlier interview with her bartender at Thunder Bay, about which she of course knew, and of my conviction that he was then being evasive and holding back; and, worse yet, how that now in court he was being even more evasive and still holding back. I explained why I considered it so necessary and pressing that we be able to get before the jury the true story of Barney’s drinking and possession of pistols and all the rest; I explained how, because of the will contest, I thought I understood why she had been so reluctant to let word of Barney’s behavior and drinking get abroad and how I hoped the apparent need for all that had now passed. I told her how old Parnell had worked to brief the subject; how he had gone on alone to Green Bay and broken the case wide open; how he had got home, wet and dog-tired, just before I had phoned her; and how only an hour ago I’d tucked him away in my rumpled bed. I even told her about the coyote and nine deer I had seen on my wild moonlit drive to Thunder Bay.

  Mary Pilant sat listening thoughtfully, occasionally sipping her drink. The thought occurred to me that if she was in league with the prosecution and Claude Dancer that surely the stuff was now in the fan; that this could, in fact, be the little man’s biggest break of the case. But it was too late for that now, there was no holding back, and I took another drink and pressed on with my story as though I were pleading to a jury of one. I told her how important I considered the proof of the rape to the proper defense of the case; that in my opinion the biggest remaining element of doubt of the rape was that a sober man could have gone out and done what Barney had done.

  She got up quietly and, nodding, took my empty glass away while I relit my forgotten cigar and paced up and down in the golden path of streaming moonlight. I felt suddenly old and saddened that I should be here on such a night, bent on such an errand, instead of paying earnest court to this dark and secretive creature. “Steady, Polly,” I thought. “The moonbeams’ll get you if you don’t watch out.”

  “Thank you,” I said huskily, my hand trembling as she brought me a fresh drink but none for herself. She sat down and lighted a cigarette. Thoughtfully she blew the smoke across the path of moonlight, where it hung in a streaming moted haze of pure gold.

  “How,” she said quietly, “how can you be so sure that Barney”—she paused—“that he did this thing to this woman?” She looked at me curiously. “Has it never occurred to you that he might not have?”

  I looked at her. She sat very still and white in the moonlight, staring out over the lake. Good God, I thought, can it possibly be that this woman still cherishes the notion that he didn’t? Or possibly the hope? “Play it true, Polly,” I thought. “Play it true.” I spoke slowly. “At first I did have my doubts,” I said soberly. “And grave ones. I no longer have.”

  She was looking at me now, studying me. “Why?” she said in a low voice. “Please tell me why?”

  Once again I was away. I told her about the caretaker and his story of the Ohio tourists being awakened by hearing a woman’s screams at the main gate just before midnight. Then, taking a gulp of my drink, I told her of the lie-detector test Laura Manion had taken and how I was morally certain that it showed she had told the solemn truth about the rape.

  Mary Pilant crushed out her cigarette and finished her drink. Did her hand tremble ever so little or was it a trick of the moonlight? “Then,” she said evenly, “if you have all this information why should you need anything from me?”

  I explained to her that the Ohio tourists were no longer here and that I might have grave trouble getting in the proof of the screams. I also told her that the results of lie-detector tests were not admissible in Michigan or indeed any Anglo-American courts and that I would doubtless encounter even more trouble trying to bring that out. “That’s why I had to come to you,” I said quietly. “All that I want, all that the Manions want, is but a small measure of truth.” I paused. “As for the tourists hearing the screams and the lie-detector test—didn’t you know about them?”

  She turned toward me and mutely shook her head, and her eyes—there was no mistake of moonlight this time—glistened with tears. “Mary—Miss Pilant,” I said, awkwardly half rising, “let me get you a drink. I—I—” She shook her head and quickly arose and took my glass and hurried from the room. I went over close to the large window and stood staring out upon the lake. After a time I heard the soft tinkle of ice and Mary Pilant was standing at my side, solemnly handing me my drink. I nodded and we stood there for a long time looking at the lake. She did not speak; I did not speak. I had said my piece—what more was there to say? Finally I said, “I will go now if you prefer it that way.”

  She laid her hand on my sleeve. “Wait,” she whispered. “Please wait. I want to think.”

  We two stood there until Mary Pilant began quietly to speak. Her voice had the curious quality of a child—a small and lonely child. She told of how she had come to Thunder Bay as a vacationing schoolteacher; of how attracted she had been by the lake and the pines and the wild natural beauty of the place; of how kind and thoughtful Barney had been to her and her friends; of how run-down the hotel was becoming under the reckless and carefree Barney. She told how his dining-room hostess had quit during the height of the tourist rush and of how she had finally consented to fill the breach. She told how Barney had begged her to stay on when the summer was over, promising to raise her salary far above what she could ever earn as a country schoolteacher, promising her a free hand. She dropped her voice. “And he kept his promises.”

  She again touched my arm lightly and I glanced down at her small white face. “Whatever you may have heard, Paul, and whatever Barney may have been with others, he was a perfect gentleman to me. Always. I regarded him almost as a father.”

  I nodded and stared out at the flaming lake.

  She quietly told me of how hard she had worked building up the hotel; of how well things had gone, despite Barney’s occasional erratic behavior and bouts of drinking; of what a witch Barney’s ex-wife had been; of how she had finally met Barney’s daughter; of how attracted and deeply attached she had become to the shy and troubled child. She paused and was silent for a time. “Perhaps my heart went out to the child because I too came from a broken home.”

  “I didn’t know,” I said. “I didn’t know any of these things.”

  “And then this summer the Army came. It seemed to mark the beginning of the end.”

  I looked at her questioningly and she motioned for us to sit down. I moved from the window and sat and sipped my drink and waited in wondering silenc
e.

  She continued to speak in a low voice. She told me that, as she said I doubtless knew, Barney had been the king pin of Thunder Bay until the advent of the Army; that with the coming of the crowd of young, handsome, hard-drinking, hell-for-leather soldiers and officers she had noticed a change come over Barney; that not only had he become increasingly difficult with his drinking and attentions to women, but that what had once passed for camaraderie and fairly excusable braggadocio had that summer taken on alarming overtones of outright neurotic behavior; that finally only he seemed able to reason with Barney, that he seemed to look up to her as his sole loyal champion, his one remaining grasp upon reality … .

  “I finally persuaded him to go to a doctor in Iron Bay,” she went on. “I thought perhaps there was something organically wrong with him. He went, but there was nothing wrong with his body.” She paused and shook her head. “What was wrong with Barney lay in his head—there and in his terrible consuming ego … . It was then that he took out two large insurance policies for his daughter and me. Perhaps he had a premonition of things to come.” Again she paused. “You will have to believe me when I tell you that I knew nothing of the insurance or of his will until—until after that horrible night.”

  “I believe you,” I said.

  She smiled sadly. “I suppose you must have thought I was terribly grasping over this estate business. I can’t much blame you. But my impulse was to flee the whole thing, especially when Barney’s ex-wife started to make trouble. Then I thought of all the work I had done here and of how proud Barney was of the place. So when that really grasping woman started her will contest I determined to stay and fight, for Barney’s daughter as much or more than for myself.”