by Parnell Hall
Yeah. Richard wouldn’t have minded a bit.
But I would.
The thing was, I was still protecting Barbara and Harold. Trying to keep them out of it. And I was still trying to keep MacAullif out of it, whether he’d held out on me or not. So, all things considered, I didn’t want to talk to Richard any more than I wanted to talk to Barnes and Preston.
Maybe even less.
“Not at the present time,” I told Barnes.
“Fine,” Barnes said. “Please make a note of that, Preston. Suspect was offered an opportunity to contact his attorney, and declined. Now,” he said to me, “having also been duly warned that you don’t have to talk to us, I would like to point out that now might be an excellent time for you to do so. Particularly with regard to explaining the presence of your fingerprints on Nubar’s wallet. Do you have anything to say?”
I wondered what would happen if I said no. I also wondered what would happen if I tried to explain. I had no idea. But I had a feeling in either case, whatever happened wouldn’t be pleasant.
I’d like to have you think that it was my iron will and steel resolve that kept me from cracking then. But actually, it was simply that faced with the two unpleasant alternatives, saying no seemed by far the easiest.
“I have nothing to say,” I told him.
Barnes nodded, as if that were exactly the answer he had been expecting. They got up, chained me to the wall again, and walked out.
After that, Barnes and Preston went through another incarnation. They became Greek Furies, flying in the door every now and then to torment the tragic hero, chained to the post.
“Floyd Watson,” Preston said, poking his head in the door.
“What about him?”
“We checked up in the log of Aided Accidents, and it’s just as you said. The guy fell down the flight of stairs in the casino.”
“There you are,” I said.
He shrugged. “Yeah. You told us you came down to Atlantic City because Floyd Watson fell down the stairs, and damned if he didn’t fall down the stairs.”
“I told you so.”
“Yeah. Only thing is, the date of the accident. Floyd Watson fell down the flight of stairs the day after you got here. So, we’re wondering how you knew this guy was going to fall down the stairs.”
Preston grinned at me and ducked out.
Barnes ducked in a short while later.
“Julie Blessing,” he said.
“Who?”
“The secretary at Nubar’s. She identifies you as the man who called on Nubar at the office yesterday.”
I stared at him. “Identifies?” I said. “What do you mean, identifies? No one’s been in to see me. How the hell could she identify me?”
“I’m sorry,” Barnes said, “but, you see, we have no facilities for line-ups here at Major Crimes, so we do it with pictures. Miss Blessing picked your mug shot from out of a group of six.”
“I see,” I said.
“Yeah,” Barnes said. “She says you came in, gave the improbable name Phil Collins and then decided not to wait.”
“Oh.”
Barnes smiled, innocently. “She said you must have decided to see him later,” he said and ducked out.
Preston was next.
“Felicia Holt.”
“Who?”
“Receptionist at Minton’s Detective Agency. She I.D.’s you as the man who came in twice looking for Joseph T. Steerwell, the last time on the day of the murder.”
“Oh.”
“She says you came to the agency for the first time, three days ago, spoke to Minton and hired Steerwell to do a job for you.”
“She what!?” I blurted.
“She I.D.’s you as the guy who hired Steerwell. She assumes it had something to do with the pictures.”
“Son of a bitch!” I said.
“Anything the matter?” Barnes said, coming in the door.
“I don’t know,” Preston said. “I was just telling him how the Holt woman identified him as the guy who hired Steerwell, and he went bananas.”
“They do that sometimes when they get I.D.’d. It’s ’cause they realize they’re caught.”
“Bullshit,” I said. “That goddamn woman is full of prunes. I never hired Steerwell. I—”
I realized I was blowing it. I stopped myself.
“Too bad,” Preston said. “I thought he was going to tell us something.”
“Guess not,” Barnes said.
They turned and headed for the door.
“Wait a minute,” I said.
They stopped.
“Yes,” Barnes said.
“This guy who hired Steerwell. Did he talk to anyone else at the agency?”
“Oh, sure,” Barnes said. “According to the secretary, you spoke to Minton himself. Then Minton passed you along to Steerwell.”
“Well, there you are,” I said. “Why don’t you ask Minton if I hired him?”
“He’s in Las Vegas,” Preston said. “When he gets back, we certainly will.”
“When’s he coming back?”
“Tomorrow.”
I groaned. “Great.”
The Furies smiled at me and went out the door.
I sat there, cursing my fate. Ordinarily being mistaken for a thirty year old would have been flattering, but not now. All right, both Harold Dunleavy and I had dark hair and blue eyes and were about the same height and weight. And maybe he looked a little older than he was, and maybe I always do feel I look a little younger.
But Jesus Christ.
That damn fool woman.
I was still thinking this when my Furies returned. They came in together this time, so it must have been something good. I braced myself.
“Priscilla Martin,” Barnes said.
“Who?”
“Steerwell’s next door neighbor.”
“Oh.”
That would be Miss Busybody. I’d been wondering when they’d get around to her.
“Miss Martin,” Barnes said, “identifies you as the gentleman she saw at Steerwell’s house on the day of the murder.”
No surprise there. I’d been sure that she would.
“Yeah,” Preston said. “She says you were the man she saw running in and out of the house just before she saw the woman come out with the gun.”
21.
RICHARD HIT TOWN like a tornado. Also like a high roller. The first inkling I got of his arrival was hearing a buzz of voices from the outer room, in which the only identifiable word was stretch-limo. I later found out Richard had also taken a helicopter and a Lear jet. With all of that, he probably shaved a good fifteen minutes off the time it would have taken him just to drive down.
I’d called Richard right after Barnes dropped the bomb about Miss Busybody. Call me a coward if you will, but somehow that was just more than I could take. The thing was, the thought flashed through my mind: “New Jersey doesn’t have the death penalty, does it?” And I figured if I was thinking along those lines, maybe it was time to call a lawyer.
I had trouble getting through. Wendy/Cheryl wasn’t too keen on connecting me, what with me missing calling in and all. But after she’d bawled me out a good bit, Richard got on the phone to bawl me out too.
“I got arrested,” I said.
That calmed him right down. “What’s the charge?”
“I’ve been indicted for grand larceny.”
“Oh,” Richard said, and I could hear the interest oozing out of him. “I’m really rather busy at the moment, and—”
“And now I’m being held on suspicion of murder.”
“I’ll be right there.”
He was, too. It seemed an eternity to me, but that wasn’t because of any failing on Richard’s part. Everything that could have been done, he’d done. For a man who begrudged me every roll of film on my expense account, he’d certainly gone all out.
Right after the stretch-limo murmur, I heard a door slam and then a familiar, high-pitched nasal bark, after a few
minutes of which, Richard strode into the room, followed by a rather dazed-looking Barnes and Preston.
Richard took one look at me and stopped dead. He wheeled on the officers.
“Chained?” Richard said, with an inflection I couldn’t even begin to imitate. “Chained to the wall?”
“Well, you see,” Barnes said. “We have no holding cells here, so—”
Richard wasn’t about to listen.
“I need to confer with my client,” he snapped. “I need to confer with him alone. You will provide a room. I hereby serve notice that if that room is bugged, or if one word of that conversation is overheard in any way, it will constitute a violation of my client’s rights, and he will walk on any charge whatsoever, up to and including murder.”
The thing about Richard is, I don’t think he really knows that much law, I think a lot of what he says is bullshit, but when he says it, people listen. Two minutes later we were sitting in a small room with a closed door.
“All right,” Richard said. “What’s the story?”
“You gotta understand,” I told him. “I’m protecting someone.”
“Who?”
“Clients.”
“You work for me.”
“Yeah, but I’m on vacation and I got some clients, and that’s who I’m protecting.”
“Who are they?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“I’m your lawyer.”
“I know that.”
“And you’re in deep shit.”
“I know that, too.”
“So this is not the time to play button-button-who’s-got-the-button. What’s the story?”
I told him. I told him the whole thing. I just didn’t give him Harold and Barbara’s names. I didn’t mention MacAullif at all.
Richard listened without interruption until I was finished. Then he blinked and said, “That’s incredible.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No, I mean it. It’s really incredible. You have two clients, the man and the wife, who are not acting together. In fact, part of your job is trying to protect the wife from the husband. They are both murder suspects, and one of the two of ’em probably did it. And these are the people you’re protecting.”
“That’s right.”
Richard leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “This,” he said, “is why I confine my practice to litigation.”
“If you’d prefer me to call another lawyer—”
“No, no, no,” Richard said. “I can handle it. I can’t follow it, but I can handle it. You see, any situation can be resolved by proper analysis. For instance, my analysis of this situation leads to one inescapable conclusion: the man and the wife may be your clients, but it is obvious neither one of them hired you.”
“This is true.”
“So who did?”
“No one.”
“What?”
“No one hired me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m doing this as a favor for a friend.”
Richard cocked his head at me. “Do you mean to tell me that this whole deplorable situation is the result of you doing a favor for a friend?”
“I suppose so.”
Richard shook his head. “I was right. You’re a total moron.”
“Thank you.”
Richard sighed. “All right. Setting aside for the moment the fact that the entire situation is utterly absurd, let’s examine it rationally for a moment.”
“You’re welcome to try.”
“Thank you. Aside from the grand larceny charge, of which you have the advantage of actually being guilty, your problem is simply a case of mistaken identity. Which, incidentally, would help me immensely if I really wanted to find out who your clients were. I’d just look around town for a married couple where the husband was a fortyish douche-bag with dark hair and a goony-looking expression.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“Don’t mention it. At any rate your problem is simple. Or as simple as it can be, seeing as how you didn’t kill either of these people. The only thing that ties you to Nubar is the fingerprints on the wallet. And the fact you made inquiries about him. The fingerprints mean nothing. They’re not dated. They could have been made at any time. I’d have fun arguing the point. They’re damaging, I’ll admit, but they’re not enough to hold you on. And the nice thing is, they have a much better case against you for killing Steerwell.”
“That’s a nice thing?”
“Absolutely. Because that makes it the main case. The one they concentrate on. The one they try to build on. So if we can knock it down, their whole theory about the two murders collapses.”
“I see,” I said. I didn’t really, but Richard had paused there, and was looking at me, and I realized that was what I was supposed to say.
“Now, let’s look at the case they have against you for killing Steerwell. The damaging witness is the one you call Miss Busybody. That’s the one who says she saw you run in and out of Steerwell’s house at about the time of the murder.”
“That’s right.”
“The guy who actually did go in and out—she get a good look at this guy?”
“Obviously not. She’d seen me up close earlier in the day. Then she saw this guy run in and out. She didn’t get a good look, but she assumed it was me.”
Richard nodded. “She shouldn’t be too hard to break on cross-examination if it came to that. What kind of car does this guy drive?”
“Why? You trying to find my client through his automobile?”
“No. I’m trying to break down the identification. What kind of car do you drive?”
“A Toyota.”
“This other guy drive a Toyota or anything like it?”
“Not even close.”
“See, that should do it right there. If this witness had really been paying attention to this guy, she’d have seen what car he got in. Then I could show it wasn’t yours. How could she have made that mistake, by the way? If as she says, she was so interested in this guy, she’d have watched him till he drove off.”
I thought a minute. “When I was there, Steerwell wasn’t home. There was no car in the driveway, so she could have seen my car just fine. When the other guy was there, Steerwell’s car was in the driveway. So if the guy parked in the street, slightly beyond it, Steerwell’s car would have blocked it from view.”
Richard nodded. “Still, she should have seen it, and I’ll bet I can crucify her with it. That’s all well and good. But it’s only useful if the thing comes to trial. And that’s what we are attempting to avoid.”
I felt that was a less than completely sincere statement. Richard would have loved to go to trial.
“So,” Richard said. “The other witness, from the Minton Agency. How well did she see you?”
“Barely at all. Both times I was in there she was typing. The first time she glanced up once briefly just to tell me to get lost. The second time she never looked up at all.”
“But she swears you were the guy who was in there the day before, talked to Minton and hired Steerwell?”
“Right.”
“Then the situation is simple,” Richard said.
He smiled, got up and walked out of the room.
I sat and waited.
About an hour later the door opened again. I looked up expectantly, but it wasn’t Richard. It was Barnes and Preston.
“Where’s my lawyer?” I said.
Preston shrugged. “He went back to New York.”
My heart sank. “What?”
“He had business to attend to, and he’d already wasted half a day. He’s on his way home. He asked us to make his apologies.”
I couldn’t believe it. Richard quitting just like that. It was just another in the string of emotional shocks I’d been getting lately.
I got another.
Barnes said, “You can go.”
I blinked. “What?”
“You’re free to go.”
One thing about me is, besides being a coward, I am not really emotionally stable. I hold together as long as I can, and then I crack up. And in this case, I was way overdue.
I started giggling. I couldn’t stop. I just sat there, giggling uncontrollably.
Barnes and Preston just stood there staring at me. Neither said a word. They both looked as if they were observing some totally weird phenomenon, which, I guess, they were.
Finally I got control. “I’m sorry,” I said.
“Are you all right?” Barnes asked.
“No, but I’m as all right as I’m going to be. I’m sorry. I just don’t quite understand.”
“Well,” Barnes said. “Your attorney—this Rosenberg—is quite a character, if you don’t mind my saying so. And he makes a very interesting case. He implies, without actually saying so, that your silence in this matter is not because of any guilt on your part, but because you are protecting some unnamed client. It’s good he implies that rather than states it, because frankly, we wouldn’t like that at all. But setting that aside, here’s the situation.
“Your attorney claims that it is possible that you had some dealings with Frederick Nubar—which he is not willing to admit—which would account for your fingerprints on his wallet. However he categorically denies that you killed him. He claims that this whole situation is a result of mistaken identity. That apparently you and the man who hired Steerwell and who ran in and out of his house are somewhat similar in appearance. He dismisses the fact that both witnesses picked your photo out of the line-ups. He claims that had the photo of the other man been in there, both witnesses would have unerringly picked him.”
Barnes grinned. “And here’s where it gets interesting. I must say this guy has a flair. He says since we’re in Atlantic City and gambling’s legal and all, he’ll bet his whole case on the fact that when this Minton, who was the only one who had a good look at the guy, gets back from Vegas, he’ll say it wasn’t you.”
“And,” Preston said, “then he says, ‘Charge him or release him.’ And he points out if we charge you, and then this guy Minton comes back from Vegas and blows the identification, we are going to look like the two stupidest cops in New Jersey.”
