12-Scam

by Parnell Hall

  That one I recognized. It was a picture of the young woman—Marla Melons, Lucy Blaine, Laura Martin, or whatever her name was—lying in her living room in a pool of blood, just as Sergeant Belcher and I had found her.

  “See that?” MacAullif said. “Crime-scene unit photo, right? Now, never mind the body, look at the bookcase in the back.”

  I looked at the picture again. The body was lying in front of a couch. To the left of the couch was a bookcase.

  “So what?” I said.

  “Second shelf from the bottom. Left side. What do you see there?”

  I looked. My eyes widened.

  “Resume photos?”

  “Bingo, right on the button,” MacAullif said. He handed me another picture. “Here’s a closeup on the bookcase. If you look there, you can see they’re not only resume photos, they’re this resume photo.”

  “Yeah, well, so what?” I said. “I told you I didn’t see it.”

  “Yeah, but you told me wrong,” MacAullif said.

  I looked at him. “What?”

  “Guess whose fingerprint is on the resume photo on the top of that pile?”

  My mouth dropped open. I blinked. My head felt very light.

  “No way,” I said.

  “Oh, yeah,” MacAullif said. “You want me to tell you the way? It’s pretty fuckin’ easy when you stop to think about it.”

  “MacAullif.”

  “You want me to tell you how it is? It starts with, you don’t know your ass from a hole in the ground. You look at this picture, you don’t know it’s the girl. And that’s the key—if you don’t know it now, you didn’t know it then. I know that for sure. Sergeant Belcher must have figured it was a good bet.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m telling you how it happened. I’m telling you the only way it works. Your fingerprint is on that photo, which means you’ve seen it before. Remember when we were sayin’ Belcher couldn’t frame you on this one, because you hadn’t touched anything, and how could he frame you with a fingerprint lift? Well, this is better than a lift. You take an identical piece of evidence from one place and drop it in another.”

  “You mean ...?”

  “Sure. You’re at the talent agent’s going over resume photos. And guess what? When you look at photos, you touch ’em. You saw this at the talent agent’s, but you’re a moron, it don’t mean nothin’ to you, so you leave it there with the rest. Then you find this dead girl. Belcher looks at the crime scene, sees the stack of resume photos, and, bingo, light bulb goes on. A photo like that, why wouldn’t her talent agent have it? Well, what if she did and the photo was different enough from the girl to have been overlooked.” MacAullif snapped his fingers. “Bingo. Jackpot. Perfect frame.”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” I said. “Even if Belcher made that leap of logic, it took me hours to go through those photos. How would he have the time?”

  “Easy,” MacAullif said. “You didn’t know what you were lookin’ for. He did. Laura Martin. I don’t know about the photos at her home, but weren’t the files in her office alphabetical?”

  I sighed. “Christ, yes.”

  “There you are. He goes to her office, looks under M. Ten minutes later he’s lookin’ at this. He dusts it for fingerprints, lookin’ for yours. Bingo, he gets a match.”

  I rubbed my head. “I’m starting to feel sick.”

  “I don’t blame you,” MacAullif said. “You know how I got this stuff? You know how it came to me? Well, I know this ADA, good guy, who happens to know the ADA handling this. Belcher came in with the shit after your arraignment went down, saying new evidence had come in and they should push to rescind bail. Same old song. Old news, and not gonna happen, but there you are. Belcher would like nothing better than to go out and drag you back in handcuffs again. Because I’m stickin’ up for you, so gettin’ you would humiliate me. That’s the way he sees it, that’s the way he’ll play it, that’s the way it’s gonna be. Meanwhile, he’s runnin’ around manufacturing evidence like there was no tomorrow.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “Yeah. So how’d it go?”

  “What?”

  MacAullif jerked his thumb. “You and them. The boys at the company. Did you get arrested or what?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Well, that’s something. But you went up there?”

  “I sure did.”

  I filled MacAullif in on the events of the afternoon. As he listened, the frown lines on his forehead grew deeper and deeper.

  “So,” he said. “The babe gets it all. Interesting.”

  “Yeah. But not what I was looking for.”

  “How do you know it’s not? She could be the answer just fine. You look at the thing, you say, who gained the most?”

  “Yeah. But not from his death. The shares went to the widow, who voted the other way.”

  “Yeah, but could she know that?”

  “She doesn’t have to know that. She’d have to think some way they’d come to her.”

  “Maybe she did.”

  “Unlikely. Plus, if it’s her, what’s the original scam?”

  “How should I know?”

  I made a face. “Well, it’s your damn theory, MacAullif. I mean, you wanna throw these things out, you can at least defend them. But if it’s her, how does setting up Cranston Pritchert make sense? What, does she think he’s her most likely rival? How does she know that? She knows nothing about the company. Of course, that would explain how she could get such a wrong idea. But even so. Of all people, why the hell hustle him?”

  MacAullif spread his arms. “Once again, we have no facts from which to make deductions. You have a brand-new development here to check out. Which is good. This morning you were upset ’cause all you had was a dead girl. Now you got a live one.”

  “It’s not the same thing.”

  “You’re hard to please. So anyway, you did all that and didn’t get arrested?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Interesting. You talk to the same people as last time?”

  “Actually, no. I talked to Rothstein—that’s the one made the play for the widow—and Jenkins—he’s the bookkeeper. I didn’t talk to Kevin Dunbar.”

  “Why not?”

  “I dunno. When this thing came up about the girl, Amy Greenberg, I wanted to talk to her.”

  “Uh-huh. And how was she?”

  “Hostile. She kept backing away and threatening to call the cops.”

  MacAullif shook his head. “Tough being a murder suspect.”

  “You wouldn’t believe. Anyway, that’s why I didn’t talk to Dunbar. Besides, I heard the story twice already. I couldn’t think of a question to ask him I hadn’t asked the others.”

  MacAullif nodded. “In other words, you fucked up.”

  “Hey.”

  “Anyway, it’s interesting. You talked to everyone but him and didn’t get arrested. Can we conclude it was him who called the cops the first time?”

  “I dunno. Can we?”

  “Well, it’s something you can ask him, if you ever decide to talk to the guy. Ordinarily, it would be a good deduction. Only in this case …” MacAullif chuckled. “It’s perfectly possible someone called the cops, but Belcher was too busy framin’ you with the fingerprint evidence to show up.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “No, it’s not. That’s why you gotta start laughing if you wanna stay sane.”

  I put up my hand. “Don’t. Don’t do it, MacAullif. I passed punchy one whole murder ago. I’m at the state now, everyone I talk to asks me what’s wrong.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with you solvin’ a murder or two wouldn’t cure.”

  “How about three?”

  “Now you’re talkin’.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Solving the crimes would be fine. Would go a long way toward restoring my mental health. Only I really think I’m at the point that wouldn’t quite do it.”

  MacAullif frowned. �
�What do you mean?”

  “It wouldn’t quite be enough, just getting off the hook.” I took a breath, blew it out again. Held up my hand for emphasis. “I’m at the point with this son of a bitch Belcher, where getting even with the motherfucker seems more important than getting off.”

  MacAullif nodded his head, raised his eyebrows. “Now you’re really talkin’.”

  45.

  “INTERESTING,” RICHARD SAID.

  I wanted to kill him. I just knew he was gonna say that.

  “Oh, is that right, Richard? You find it interesting that I’m being framed?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I find it more upsetting than interesting, Richard. If you must know, it pisses me off.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “It also scares the shit out of me.”

  “I see. It’s big on bodily functions. Does it also make you want to throw up?”

  “Richard.”

  “You have to admit, it’s skillful,” Richard said. “I mean, to take a piece of evidence from one crime scene and insert it into another.”

  “It wasn’t necessarily from a crime scene.”

  Richard waved it away. “Right, right. It might have been from her New York office rather than where she was killed. No matter, the principle is the same. Well, what a neat idea. You have a serial killer committing a series of crimes. A cop wants to frame you for it. So he invites you to one crime scene, lets you handle some evidence. And it’s something there happens to be an identical copy of at another crime scene. So he switches the two pieces of evidence, making it look as if you’d been there.”

  “I’m glad it pleases you so much.”

  “Well, why not? It’s artistic as hell. This is some cop, this sergeant what’s-his-face. And an ex-partner in the evidence room—these guys are gonna go far.”

  “Can you prove it?”

  Richard looked at me, cocked his head. “Oh, dear.”

  “What?”

  “Is that why you’re bringing me this? Is that what you’re looking for now?”

  “Richard.”

  “You expect me to prove these cops are framing you?”

  I gawked at him. “Of course not,” I said, sarcastically. “I’m just going to sit back and be framed.”

  Richard put up his hand. “Temper, temper. Did I say that? I didn’t say that at all. All I said was, that wouldn’t be our line of defense.”

  “Why not? Attorneys do it all the time—my client was framed, the evidence was fabricated by the cops. They use it all the time.”

  “Sure they do. And you know why?” Richard held up one finger. “Their clients are guilty. That’s the bottom line. They’re defending some miserable motherfucker that the cops got dead to rights. So, what do they do? They claim their client was framed by corrupt cops. If he’s black, he was framed by racist cops. If the client’s a woman, she was framed by sexist cops. It doesn’t matter, it’s the same old song.”

  “Yeah, but it works.”

  “Sure it does. You know why?” Richard smiled. “Because it isn’t true. It’s a lie. The lawyers made it up. There are no such corrupt, racist, sexist cops who framed whoever the hell it was. A fabrication of the evidence did not take place. The lawyers can rant and rave, point fingers, make allegations of all kinds, and there’s not anything anyone can do about it, because it’s all a crock of shit. The cops can’t disprove it because it has no foundation whatsoever—it’s very hard to prove a negative. ‘I didn’t take this piece of evidence.’ ‘Oh, yeah? Prove it.’ It works very well in those cases. Nothing’s proven either way, but the point has been raised. And in some asshole juror’s mind, that constitutes reasonable doubt. So some scumbag miserable son of a bitch who ought to rot in jail, walks the streets.”

  “This, from a defense attorney?”

  “Hey, I’m a negligence lawyer. Think of me arguing damages against the State of New York when some punk freed by the system harms a client.”

  “Fine, Richard,” I said, impatiently. “How about the fact I’m being framed?”

  “I was trying to explain,” Richard said. “The main problem with that defense is the fact that it’s true.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah. Like I said, if it isn’t true, you make the allegation, no big whoop, and the odds are you get off. In this case the allegation’s true, which is another matter entirely.”

  “Why?”

  “Think about it. You start yelling corrupt cop, well, here’s the corrupt cop you’re yelling about, sitting there and hearing you yelling it. He doesn’t like that, so he does two things. One, he covers up. Two, he strikes back.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know how. But I know this. The guy is an expert at pulling a frame. You think the evidence looks bad right now, check out what the guy can do if you piss him off.”

  I blinked. “You’re scared of him?”

  “Scared is the wrong word,” Richard said. “I’m not the one going to jail. I would think you would want me, as your attorney, to be prudent regarding the length of your stay.”

  “Stay?”

  “Just a figure of speech,” Richard said. “Anyway, that’s the situation. If you cry wolf and there’s no wolf, no harm done. But if you cry wolf and the wolf is there, you piss the wolf off. Which puts you in a very vulnerable position if you can’t prove the wolf’s a wolf.”

  “Jesus, Richard.”

  “Hey, no reason to get upset. We are months away from trial, and you’re out walking around. You are in no immediate danger, unless they rescind bail, which hasn’t happened or we would have heard.”

  “Belcher’s pushing for it. He brought it to the ADA.”

  “How do you know?”

  “From MacAullif. That’s how he heard about it.”

  “What about the ADA?”

  “From what I hear, he’s not buyin’.”

  “There you are,” Richard said. “Your bail’s set, there’s no problem, we got plenty of time.”

  “Time for what?”

  “Figure a scheme by which you can beat the rap.” Richard shrugged. “Either that or prove who did it. No matter how good the frame is, an ADA will have a tough time convicting you with the actual killer in jail.”

  “No shit. Any suggestions who that might be?”

  “The field’s wide open. Pick a killer, any killer. There’s so little to go on, who could prove you wrong?”

  “Unless I happen to pick the right one, in which case I’ll piss them off?”

  “I’m glad you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”

  “I have, Richard. I’m just way beyond punchy. You planning on solving this case for me, or do I have to do it myself?”

  “What, it’s not enough I should keep you out of jail?”

  “That’s what I thought. But if I’m gonna do it myself, you have any suggestions? I’m going slightly batshit and I can’t think straight.”

  “I’m not sure thinking straight would help.”

  I groaned. “Please. I’m in enough pain without you going cryptic. You got something to say, say it.”

  “An analysis of all the facts we know so far yields absolutely nothing. This is significant—it indicates the facts are wrong. Knowing that, this shouldn’t be that hard to figure out. Complicating the issue is getting framed by a crooked cop.”

  “I’ll say.”

  “No, no. You don’t understand. Yes, of course, it complicates your life and makes it hard for you to think. But that’s not what I mean. I mean when you try to figure out what happened here, the solution is, a cop framed you. That’s the solution you arrive at—not who committed the crime, but who committed the frame. Seeing that as your solution blinds you to seeing the true solution.”

  “True solution?”

  Richard waved his hand again. “No, no, no. I’m not saying the cop didn’t frame you. That could be perfectly true without being the true solution to the crime. The solution to the crime is, never mind the co
p framed you, who killed these people?” Richard looked at me. “Unless you think he did that too?”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “Silly? Isn’t that the solution in some of those books you read? In some of those murder mysteries? The policeman did it—isn’t that a popular unexpected dramatic surprise solution?”

  “Richard, the cop didn’t do it. This all started way before he was involved.”

  “How do you know?”

  I blinked. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Not at all. You just told me flat out the cop wasn’t involved—I just want to know how you know.”

  “Look when he entered the case. It wasn’t until Cranston Pritchert was dead.”

  “So? Maybe he knows him from way back. Or maybe he knows the topless dancer or the talent agent. You happen to know that isn’t true?”

  “Richard, this isn’t helping.”

  “Oh? Sorry. I thought you asked for my opinion.”

  “I did. I didn’t think this was it.”

  “It isn’t. It’s merely one possibility. I have no knowledge, all I can do is throw out possibilities.”

  “Yeah, well throw out that one. You got anything else?”

  Richard didn’t appear ruffled. He put his elbows on his desk, put his fingers together, pursed his lips. “Well,” he said, “from the beginning I am struck with how convenient everything is.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “From the minute you’re given the case, up until Cranston Pritchert is dead, nothing is a problem. For instance, he brings you an extortion note. Piece of cake. In no time at all, you manage to prove that he sent it to himself. Then there’s the girl. Is she hard to find? Not at all. You find her by going to just that one bar. She isn’t tough to find at all.”

  “Sure,” I said. “If Cranston Pritchert’s the one who hired her, it’s just like the extortion note. He asks me to find her, makes her easy to find.”

  “And why does he do that?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “And what is the original scam?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “No, you don’t. You also don’t know who is being scammed, although you suspect it might be you.”

  “Is there a point to this, Richard?”