SW01 - The Baxter Trust

by Parnell Hall

  He headed over to Lexington and spotted a phone on the corner. A woman with a huge load of fancy shopping bags was making for it. Steve Winslow cut in ahead of her. He knew from experience she would take forever, and he was in no mood to be a gentleman.

  Steve punched in 411, and asked for the listing. The operator said, “Certainly,” he heard the click and the recording began. Oh hell, the worst of these recording information services, where the hell was a pencil?

  He dug in his pockets, pulled out a whole bunch of junk, and finally, an old ballpoint pen. He tried it on an old envelope. It worked.

  By that time the recording had already given the phone number and instructed him to stay on the line if he needed further assistance.

  An operator clicked on. “Yes?”

  “The phone number for the Taylor Detective Agency.”

  “We just gave you that number.”

  “I missed it.”

  “All right.”

  There was a click, and the recording began again.

  He got it that time. He broke the connection, got a dial tone and dialed the number.

  A female voice answered. “Taylor Detective Agency.”

  “Mark Taylor, please.”

  “Who’s calling, please?”

  “Steve Winslow.”

  “One moment please.”

  There was a click, and Steve was on hold. He hated that. At least there was no recorded music. Another click, and Mark Taylor’s slightly Brooklyn twang said, “Steve, hi. Good to hear from you. Where you been keeping yourself?”

  “It’s a long story. Listen, Mark. I got some work for you.”

  “Oh yeah? What kind of work?”

  “A murder case.”

  “No shit. I thought Wilson and Doyle fixed it so you’d never work again.”

  “I got lucky. Now look. A man was found murdered in a Miss Sheila Benton’s apartment this afternoon.”

  “Yeah. What about it?”

  “You heard about it?”

  “Can’t say that I have.”

  “Well, you will. It happens to be the biggest thing going.”

  “Oh yeah? And why is that?”

  “Because Sheila Benton happens to be Maxwell Baxter’s niece.”

  Taylor whistled. “You mean to say you got a piece of that action?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Who’s the client?”

  “Sheila Benton. ”

  Taylor whistled again. “How the hell’d you get involved?”

  “That can keep. The thing is, I need information, and I need it fast. The police haven’t identified the body yet. When they do, I want you to go to work on him.”

  “How strong?”

  “As strong as you can. I want to know everything the police know, and some things they don’t know. Get men started. Work round the clock, if you have to.”

  “That’s gonna run into a lot of money.”

  “Don’t worry. I got a huge retainer.”

  Steve hung up the phone. He walked over to a townhouse, sat on the front steps and opened the file folder. Inside, as Baxter had said, was a copy of the provisions of the trust. Steve sat on the steps and read it through.

  It was simple and straightforward. Sheila’s entire fortune was in trust until she reached the age of thirty-five. Maxwell Baxter was designated sole trustee. In the event of his death, the power of trustee reverted to the bank, which was to administer the trust under guidelines specifically laid out in the document, which included the amount of money Sheila could receive each month. The only provision under which she could receive more was in the event of a medical emergency, or if she wished to attend school.

  The morals clause was there too, just as Baxter had said: “... be convicted of any crime, or engage in any illegal, immoral or unethical act which should, in the estimation of the trustee, bring disrepute upon the family name, the entire trust is forfeit, and ...”

  Steve skimmed through the rest of the document and found the passage he was looking for: ‘This trust is held inviolate. No lien of any kind upon the said Sheila Benton shall be payable from or shall in any way reduce the amount of this trust. No judgment in any court of law against the said Sheila Benton shall be payable from this trust or shall in any way reduce the amount of this trust. Any debts incurred by the said Sheila Benton are hers and hers alone, and have no bearing upon this trust, nor shall any creditor of Sheila Benton have any legal recourse....”

  It went on in that manner for another page and a half Steve read it through three times, looking for a loophole. In the end he was forced to admit that Baxter was right There was no way he was going to get a dime.

  Wouldn’t you know it? He was hurting for cash right now. He checked in his pockets. Thirty-six bucks. Nothing in the bank. And the rent coming due.

  Shit! Not only that, but he was late for work.

  Steve drove a cab. This was another carryover from his acting days, just like his long hair and his answering service. Out-of-work actors waited tables or drove cabs. Steve had never had the temperament to wait tables, so as an out-of-work actor he’d driven a cab. And then, as an out-of-work lawyer, he’d driven a cab.

  And he was due to drive one now.

  With a sigh, Steve shoved the document back in the folder, got up and went back to the phone. He fished in his pocket, dug out another quarter and dropped it in. It rang three times, then a voice answered.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello, Marty. It’s Steve. Listen, can you drive for me tonight?”

  “Sorry, pal. I got a date.”

  “Listen, Marty, it’s important.”

  Marty chuckled. “So’s the date.”

  The phone clicked dead.

  Steve sighed and hung up the receiver. He picked it up again, dug out another quarter and dialed.

  “Hello?” growled the voice of the dispatcher.

  “Hello, Charlie. It’s Steve. Listen. I can’t drive tonight.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m sick.”

  “So get a replacement.”

  “I tried. No one’s free.”

  “Then you gotta drive.”

  “I’m sick.”

  “Yeah. I’m sick too. Look. Show up or get a replacement. You don’t show up, you’re fired.”

  The phone clicked dead.

  Steve hung up the phone. Shit What was it he had? Thirty-six bucks? The cabbie job was his lifeline, the thing standing between him and eventual eviction. If there were any chance, any faint hope of getting a retainer ... but he’d read the trust, and he knew enough law to know what it meant.

  He couldn’t afford to lose his job.

  Which is why Steve Winslow, attorney for Sheila Benton in a premeditated-murder case, spent the first night of his employment driving a cab.

  17.

  MARK TAYLOR WAS SEATED AT HIS desk talking on the phone when Steve Winslow walked in. It was three in the morning, and Taylor looked it—stubble on his cheeks, and circles under his eyes. Steve, who had slept late and shaved late, looked better, if you discounted his clothes.

  The stubble on Taylor’s cheeks was red, and matched the curly red hair that framed his chubby face. Taylor was a man who had spent his twenties resisting the onslaught of fat, and now in his thirties had given up. Half a sandwich from the all-night deli lay unwrapped on his desk. Next to it was the inevitable cup of coffee, which, after years of being black was now laced with cream and sugar.

  Mark Taylor had been Steve’s roommate their freshman year at Yale. Steve had gone on to major in drama. Mark had majored in economics, but that had been out of the necessity of majoring in something. To Taylor, Yale had meant just one thing: football. At six foot, two hundred twenty pounds, all muscle, Taylor had been an exceptional linebacker with not unrealistic professional aspirations. A knee injury that wouldn’t heal right his senior year shattered the dream. He emerged from Yale with a “gentleman’s C” in a subject that held little interest for him, and with limited pro
spects.

  His salvation had been his beef, which landed him a job with a Manhattan detective agency run by the father of one of his former teammates. Taylor liked it fine, picked it up fast and within five years was running his own agency.

  When Steve, who’d kept in touch, had gone to work for Wilson and Doyle, he’d promised to try to throw some work Taylor’s way. Only Steve hadn’t lasted long enough to do it.

  “Hi, Steve,” Taylor said. “Just a second.” He spoke into the phone. “Okay. Good work. Call me back as soon as you know.” He hung up the phone. “Steve. How you doing?”

  “Hi, Mark. Any luck?”

  “Yeah. The police just identified the body.”

  “Oh yeah? How?”

  “Traced the laundry mark.”

  “Good for them. Who is he?”

  “Don’t know yet. I’ve got a pipeline into headquarters, though, and he’ll call me just as soon as he can get the information.”

  “Good work.”

  Taylor shook his head. “What a case. Sheila Benton, for Christ’s sake.” He took a sip of coffee. “How the hell’d she come to hire you, anyway?”

  Steve grinned. “Picked my name out of the phone book.”

  “What?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You shitting me?”

  Steve shook his head. He sat in one of the clients’ chairs, stretched out and rubbed his eyes. “When Wilson and Doyle fired me,” he said, “I was up against it. No other firm would touch me, not with their recommendation. I made the rounds for a while, but it was no use. So there I was with a law degree and nowhere to practice. I had no money. I couldn’t rent my own office. I couldn’t afford to advertise. So I did the only thing I could think of. I got an answering service, and listed the phone number in the yellow pages under ‘Lawyers.’”

  “You’re kidding.”

  Steve shrugged. “It’s a big city. I figured with the law of averages, eventually someone would call me. It took a year.”

  Taylor nodded, chuckled, shook his head. He was amused, but he also seemed to be preoccupied with something, and Steve had a pretty good idea what it was.

  Taylor picked up the half a sandwich, took a bite, chewed it and cocked his head at Winslow.

  “So the girl hired you?” Taylor said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Not the uncle?”

  “No. The girl called me.”

  Taylor nodded. Swallowed. Pursed his lips. “I’ve dug up some information on Sheila Benton. Not much, but some. And as I understand it, her money is all tied up in trust.”

  “That’s right. Her uncle is the trustee.”

  “That’s what I heard. So she couldn’t very well hire you without her uncle’s consent.”

  “She’s over twenty-one. She can hire anyone she wants.”

  “True. But she can’t pay them. Unless her uncle authorized it.”

  “What’s your point, Mark?”

  “Well, as I understand it, a lawyer from Marston, Marston, and Cramden showed up at the D.A.’s office inquiring into the case.”

  “Oh. Sure. That’s Maxwell Baxter’s attorney. Probably trying to keep a lid on publicity.”

  Taylor seemed uncomfortable. “Could be. The way I heard it, the lawyer claimed to be representing the girl.”

  Steve smiled. “Yes. He would. Maxwell Baxter is a little impulsive. Wants to do everything himself. Don’t worry. I straightened him out.”

  Mark Taylor was surprised. “You spoke to him?”

  “I went to see him. Last night, at his apartment. Just between you and me, the man is a royal pain in the ass. But that doesn’t concern you. As far as you’re concerned, I’m your client You leave Maxwell Baxter to me.”

  “Well, that’s a relief,” Taylor said. He didn’t seem terribly convinced, but he let it drop.

  “So what have you got?” Winslow asked.

  “Well, if you’re representing the girl, nothing good. Of course, we got nothing on the dead man yet, ’cause they just made the I.D. Which leaves us with the physical evidence.”

  Taylor reached for a yellow legal pad on his desk. It was covered with what appeared to be indecipherable scrawl marks. Taylor proceeded to decipher them.

  “Autopsy report. According to the medical examiner, the guy died between twelve-thirty and one-thirty. That is not good because ...” Taylor ran his finger down the page, located another scrawl. “... the police located the cab driver who drove her back to her apartment. The guy picked her up on Madison Avenue and Fifty-eighth Street at a little after one o’clock and dropped her off in front of her apartment at around one-twenty. So even if she happens to have an alibi from twelve-thirty on—which no one can confirm she has, by the way—it’s still no good, ’cause she could have got home at one-twenty, found the guy in her apartment, killed him and then called the police.”

  Steve frowned and digested the information.

  “The saving grace,” Taylor went on, “is that the cab driver’s recollection is hazy, at best. He doesn’t give receipts. He doesn’t write down the exact times on his trip sheets. So you can probably make mincemeat of him on the witness stand.”

  “For all the good that would do,” Steve said. “What about the identification?”

  “There you’re in trouble,” Taylor conceded. ‘The identification will probably stick. The way I get it, the cabbie’s a young guy, fancies himself something an ass-man. I understand this Sheila Benton is something of a dish. I don’t think there’s a chance in hell you’re going to make a jury believe this guy didn’t take a real good look at her.”

  “It doesn’t matter anyway. The police are going to have no problem proving she was in the apartment.”

  “Her alibi’s no good?”

  “I didn’t say that. What else you got?”

  “Fingerprints. The girl’s fingerprints are on the murder weapon.”

  “Figures. It was her knife. Naturally her prints would be on it.”

  “Try telling that to a jury.”

  “I will. What else?”

  “Well, as you said, it was her knife. Came from a rack on her kitchen wall. There were three other knives in the rack. Different sizes. Same make. Not much question that it was her knife.”

  “I could raise the point.”

  “Sure,” Taylor said flatly.

  “What else?”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  “You mean that’s all you got?”

  Mark Taylor stared at him. “What the hell do you want? I just got on the job today. The police identified the body about a half hour ago. Must have rousted some poor cleaner out of his bed and shook him down for his records. As soon as I get the name, I’ll start working on it, but, for your information it’s three in the morning and there’s not going to be that much I can do.”

  “What about the girl?”

  “What about her?”

  “What have you got on her?”

  Taylor stared at him. “Shit, Steve, you didn’t say anything about the girl. You said find out everything I could about the dead man. And why the hell would you want to hire me to investigate your own client?”

  Steve smiled and shook his head. “You’d know if you met her.”

  The phone rang. Taylor scooped it up.

  “Taylor ... Yeah ... Great. Thanks.”

  He hung up. “Okay. We got it The name is Robert Greely.”

  “Mean anything to you?”

  “Not a thing. I'll go to work on it.”

  Taylor snatched up the phone again and started to dial.

  “Another phone I can use?” Steve asked.

  Taylor pointed to a desk in the corner. Steve went over, pulled out his address book, picked up the phone and dialed.

  The phone rang six times before the groggy voice of Sheila Benton said, “Hello?”

  “Hi, Sheila. Steve Winslow.”

  “What?”

  “It's Steve Winslow. You know. Your lawyer.”

  “Jesus Christ.�
�

  “No. Steve Winslow. The cops identified the dead man. Just thought you'd like to know.”

  “What? What's that? They identified him?”

  “That's right. The name is Robert Greely. That mean anything to you?”

  “No. Who did you say?”

  “Robert Greely. You sure you never heard of him?”

  “Sure I'm sure. What the hell time is it, anyway?”

  “Three o'clock.”

  “Jesus Christ. Couldn't you have waited till morning?”

  “If you're lying to me about knowing Greely it won't make any difference.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cause you'll be arrested within the next hour.” Steve hung up the phone.

  18.

  SHEILA BENTON CAME DOWN THE stairs and checked her mailbox. As expected, the mail had not come yet. Damn, she thought. She really could have used a hit of coke, what with how things were, what with how much sleep she'd gotten.

  At least Johnny would be back. God, she needed him. He'd been so strong and understanding on the phone last night, when he'd called her. And so sorry about the mix-up about the hotel. Though that wasn't really like him, to make a mistake like that. He was usually so precise about everything, which was surprising, considering how much he liked to kid around. Well, it just showed he was human. Told the wrong hotel to her and to his secretary. Because he'd stayed there before, and he'd confused the names. Could have happened to anyone. And he was a real brick on the phone. Not to worry about anything. He'd be there and he'd take care of it.

  Sheila couldn't wait to see him.

  She came out the front door, started for the car and stopped.

  Steve Winslow was coming up the street. He was wearing the same clothes he'd worn the day before. He'd shaved, but his hair was poorly combed, his eyes were bloodshot and his jacket looked as if he'd slept in it.

  He raised a hand in greeting. “Good morning, Miss Benton.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Oh, I was in the neighborhood, I just thought I’d drop by.”

  “You look like hell.”

  “I don’t feel so hot either. It happens that I’ve been working while you’ve been getting your beauty sleep.”

  “Oh?”