by Parnell Hall
The postmortem was conducted by me and Baby-Face Frost. But not in the conference room where I’d given my deposition—this time it was in his office. And this time we were alone. No police officer. No stenographer. Just me and Baby-Face, shooting the breeze and sorting things out.
“Okay,” Frost said. “We got flight, that’s an indication of guilt. If he doesn’t confess, what else have we got?”
“Right now, not much,” I said. “Just a theory. But you start checking that theory out, you’re bound to find some corroborating evidence. A witness. A fingerprint. Maybe even an incriminating phone call.”
“Come again?”
“What if he called Cliff McFadgen from home?”
“I doubt it.”
“So do I. All I’m saying is, if you know your theory’s true, you should be able to find things to support it.”
“Run through your theory again.”
“From the top?”
“Sell it to me the way I’ll have to sell it to a jury.”
“I’m not selling anything. I’m just telling you what I think.”
Frost nodded. “Good. Good. Humble and credible. I like it. Go on.
“This was a very simple crime. In fact, one of the simplest of crimes. Bradley Connely killed his wife. And why? For the simplest of motives. Another woman. “Why couldn’t he just divorce his wife? Because she was rich and he was poor.” I shrugged. “So there you have it. Two primal motives, lust and greed. What could be simpler?” I held up my finger. “Or more obvious. That was the problem. The crime was so simple, even a cop as obtuse as Sergeant Thurman could have figured it out. So Bradley Connely had to disguise it and make it look like something else. That’s why he invented the whole blackmail scheme.
“How did it work? Easy. First he hunted up an actor with whom he had no connection whatsoever. That couldn’t have been too hard. Probably just hung out at Actors Equity one afternoon, pretending to read the bulletin board until he spotted a likely candidate. Then followed him outside and struck up a conversation—‘Didn’t I see you coming out of Actors Equity? Are you an actor? Would you like to play a part?’”
I smiled. “See, that was key all along. What Bernice said.”
“Bernice?”
“Yeah. Cliff McFadgen’s girlfriend’s roommate. The one who acted the part of Patricia Connely in my little skit.”
“What about her?”
“When I questioned the girls, she told me about seeing Cliff flashing a wad of money. And when he realized she’d seen him, what does he do? He tells her he’s got an acting job he doesn’t want anyone to know about. Well, that could have been bullshit, just the sort of thing he’d tell her to cover up his role in the blackmail. Which is the first thing I thought when I heard It. But the actual explanation is, what he was telling her was the absolute truth. He’d been paid money to act a part. The part of a blackmailer.”
“And Patricia Connely?” Frost said.
I shrugged. “Here I’m only guessing. There’s two ways it could have gone. One, she was originally in on the play. That is, her husband sold her on the idea he was going to have her and Cliff McFadgen act out this blackmail scheme. Why he would have wanted that done—I mean what explanation he could have given her—I have no idea. I can’t even come up with a logical reason, and I doubt if he could either, and that’s why I think it didn’t happen that way.
“I think it happened the way I had Mark Cirrus and Bernice act it out onstage. In other words, Patricia Connely had no idea her husband was involved. Bradley Connely contacted Cliff McFadgen, hired him, and programmed him to hire her. To teach her her part, coach her on her lines.”
“Why?” Frost said.
“Because it saves explanations. If Patricia Connely knew her husband was involved, she wouldn’t do this without demanding an explanation. But she doesn’t know. And if she demands an explanation of Cliff McFadgen, he doesn’t have one. But he doesn’t need one. His explanation is, ‘A guy hired me to do this. He wants us to act these parts out. Why, I don’t know. But he’s paying us to do it.’ Now, coming from her husband, there’s no way that satisfies Patricia Connely. Coming from Cliff McFadgen, it would.”
Frost frowned. “That’s not evidence. It’s just speculation.”
“Of course it is. I told you, all I’ve got’s a theory.”
“You must have something to support it.”
“I have logical inferences. Like the one I just gave you. Either Bradley Connely had some incredibly elaborate scheme his wife thought she was party to, or else she had no idea he was involved. The simpler explanation is that she had no idea that her husband was involved, that her only contact was Cliff McFadgen. Who of course had no idea who Bradley Connely was, or that Patricia Connely was his wife.”
Frost frowned. “Does that work?”
“Perfectly reasonable,” I said. “You gotta remember, Bradley Connely was an actor too. No problem for him to slip into another character to deal with Cliff McFadgen. And that long hair of his—all he’s gotta do is tie it back and tuck it in his shirt collar to change his appearance enough that, even if McFadgen were to describe him to his wife, she’d never suspect it was him.”
“I’m not sure I buy that,” Frost said.
“Okay, but accept it as a premise. Then what happens next? Bradley Connely programs Cliff McFadgen who programs Patricia Connely. Patricia Connely comes and calls on me. Gives me the name Marlena Smith, tells the story of being blackmailed and asks me to buy the pictures back. And gives me the envelope that’s supposed to contain the money to make the purchase.
“Because it’s like I said onstage. The envelope’s supposed to be filled with hundred-dollar bills. But it’s actually a pack of ones with a hundred on each side. Just a stage prop, to convince me I’m actually part of a blackmail scheme.
“So I take the money, go out to the motel. There’s Cliff McFadgen, having the time of his life. Getting to play this wonderfully juicy role, an arrogant blackmailer, and getting paid for it too. And he follows his instructions to the letter. Dumps the money on the bed and makes sure that I see it, then tears open the envelope and shows me the dirty pictures. Pictures supplied to him by Bradley Connely.
“Which is why they led nowhere. The blackmail pictures, I mean. Because they weren’t blackmail photos at all. They were a prop, just like the money. Just a bunch of dirty pictures Bradley Connely picked up in a porn shop somewhere.
“Anyway, I take them back and give them to Patricia Connely. Who proceeds to play the scene of being very upset that the envelope has been cut open. Which is of course just an act—she knew it would be cut open, that was part of the script.
“What she doesn’t do is take them out of the envelope and look at them. At the time I wondered why. Now I know. It was just bad acting on her part. Like she blew her motivation. The pictures were a prop, and she forgot her character should be interested in that prop. That was a key clue right there. I mean, if those were real blackmail pictures, there’s no way she doesn’t look at them.
“Anyway, she leaves in a huff. Setting the stage for Act Two.
“And what is Act Two? Buy the pictures again. She contacts me, gives me the envelope, sends me on my way.”
I held up my finger for emphasis. “But this time I don’t go straight to the motel. Cliff McFadgen sends me running around all over town. The George Washington Bridge. Out to Queens. Then finally to the motel. Why the runaround? I’ve been to the motel before. What is the purpose of having me trotting around? From a practical point of view—in terms of the blackmail, I mean—absolutely nothing. But the actual reason for having me running around is to give Patricia Connely time to get to the loft in SoHo where I would eventually wind up, and to give Bradley Connely time to get there first and kill her.
“She gets into the loft with a key supplied to her by Cliff McFadgen. A key he hung on to from when he did the showcase production there. The loft was still vacant and the lock hadn’t been changed, so McFadgen
suggested it when Connely needed a place for the scene.
“So she’s there waiting for the private investigator to show up—waiting to play a scene with me. Only, when the door opens it isn’t me, it’s her husband. And he kills her.”
I looked up at Frost. “I’m sure he killed her first, by the way. That’s how the timing works out. He killed her while I’m playing phone tag with Cliff McFadgen. From there he went straight to Cliff’s. Whether he got there before or after the last phone call, I don’t know. It wouldn’t matter. Cliff McFadgen knew him. He was the employer, the money man, the gravy train. Cliff McFadgen would welcome him with open arms.
“Bradley Connely rings the bell, goes in. Asks Cliff McFadgen if he’s made the last phone call, sending me to the motel. If he has, fine, Connely takes out a gun and shoots him. If he hasn’t, he waits with him there till he makes the call. As soon as the call is done, bang-bang.
“And what is the result? Instead of a simple husband/wife murder, and him the guy with the big motive who stands out like a sore thumb, instead we have two people killed as the result of a blackmail scheme.
“And look at the beauty of the thing. We have two people who never knew each other, whom no one could connect together. Except for yours truly. The poor dipshit P.I. who’s been led on the scene like a lamb to the slaughter to tie the two deaths together and expose the blackmail scheme.”
“What if you hadn’t done that?” Frost said.
“What do you mean?”
“You started in by clamming up. I’m sure you’ll recall. You spent a night in the drunk tank as a result of it.”
“I seem to remember that.”
“So, what if you decide not to cooperate?”
“Well, then I would imagine I go from being the prime witness to being the prime suspect in the case. I would imagine also, if that happened, you would have gotten an anonymous tip, telling you all about the blackmail on the one hand, and the fact I was holding out on it on the other. As it happened, and as I think you’ll agree was most likely to happen, I came clean. So you knew all about the blackmail from the word go, and there was no need.”
“What about Jack Fargo?”
I shook my head. “I feel really bad about that. Not that it was my doing. Bradley Connely chose him, not me. But I still feel partly responsible.”
“Why?”
“I called on Bradley Connely that day and showed him the program from the showcase Cliff McFadgen was in. I didn’t point Jack Fargo out, or anything of the kind. What I did do was advance a theory of the case, one I’d been working on.”
“What theory?”
“The idea that Cliff McFadgen and his wife were in cahoots. That rather than him blackmailing her, they were actually working together as part of a more elaborate scheme. I didn’t know what that scheme was. In fact, what I thought it was, was the two of them grooming me to fleece some third party, perhaps the woman in the blackmail photos. Anyway, that’s the theory I advanced to him—that the two of them were working together. I’m afraid that’s what killed Jack Fargo.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Indirectly, I mean. See, that theory was right on. It hit too close to home. Cliff McFadgen and Patricia Connely were working together. Not the way I doped it out, but still they were. As part of Bradley Connely’s scheme. When he saw me headed in the right direction, he panicked. He wanted to do something to draw attention away from that theory and back to the whole larger blackmail scheme.
“So what did he do? When I gave him the program, he picked the name Jack Fargo. Picked it at random. Actually, I’m sure he’d never heard of him. But that didn’t matter. All he needed was to give me one clue, one lead I’d follow up.
“Which I did. I called on Jack Fargo. Asked him some questions. None of which revealed a damn thing. Except for the fact he got vaguely uneasy when I mentioned porno pix. I thought that implied guilty knowledge. That he was involved in the pornography end of the blackmail.
“I’m now convinced I was way off base. It was just that Fargo was gay and must have had something to do with gay porn when he was young.
“Anyway, Fargo knew nothing, had absolutely nothing to do with it. He was an innocent bystander who just happened to have had the misfortune to have once been in a showcase with Cliff McFadgen. No matter. That was enough of a connection.
“That and the fact I questioned him.
“When I left Bradley Connely’s, I went straight to Jack Fargo’s. Connely followed me. As soon as I left, he went in and killed him.”
I spread my arms. “And there you have it. A crucial witness with key information is silenced before he can talk. Proof positive the perpetrators of this nefarious blackmail scheme are still at work.”
I shook my head. “I have to admit, that was a flash of brilliance. A spontaneous, unrehearsed, off-the-cuff murder. Which is why the means was different. The first two he’d planned out. He had the guns. This one he hadn’t planned, hadn’t intended, so he had no murder weapon to use. Which is why he used whatever came to hand.”
“Fine,” Frost said. “I still got nothing. Except flight. And even that’s shaky. The guy stormed out because he was upset about how you were portraying his wife.”
“Bullshit. It was flight.”
“Okay, why did he flee? Sell it to the jury.”
“I don’t know if I can, but I know I’m right. I know he fled because I expected him to flee. I played for it to happen.”
“How?”
“First off, by playing the scene between Cliff McFadgen and his wife. That was a key element—the conspiracy theory. The same idea that made him uncomfortable enough to go out and kill Jack Fargo.
“Next, I finessed him into playing the private investigator in the motel scene. He doesn’t want to do it, but he can’t think of a way out of it, and suddenly he’s up there onstage playing me.
“What drove him over the edge was when he realized I was playing him. I walked out onstage and started giving Mark Cirrus direction. That’s when he suddenly realized what was happening. I wasn’t just directing the scene, I was playing a part in it. He was playing me, and I was playing him. The director. I was coaching Mark Cirrus on how to play a blackmailer in the scene with him, just as he’d coached Cliff McFadgen on how to play a blackmailer in the scene with me.”
I shrugged. “Realizing that had to be like getting hit by a thunderbolt. He suddenly knew that I knew. He felt naked, like I could see right through him. That’s why he ran.”
Sergeant Thurman stuck his head in the door.
“He’s confessing.”
“What?” Frost said.
“Yeah. Bradley Connely. I thought you’d want to know.”
“Damn!” Frost said.
Thurman put up his hand. “No, no. It’s according to Hoyle. He was Mirandized up the wazoo.”
“What about his lawyer?”
“He’s there. The guy’s still talkin’.”
“Why? What’s the deal.”
“We brought in the girlfriend. This Sharon Renzler. Connely’s goin’ noble. Sayin’ it was all his doin’ and she’s got nothing to do with it.”
A grin spread over Frost’s chubby face as if his mama’d just given him a bottle. “Is that so?” he said. “What’s his story?”
“He hired Cliff McFadgen to set up his wife.” Thurman jerked his thumb. “You’d better get down there. The guy’s so eager to talk, he spilled half of it before we could get a stenographer in place.”
“Shit,” Frost said. He hurried out the door.
Thurman started out too. In the doorway he stopped, turned back.
“Damned if you weren’t right,” he said.
Then he was gone.
I stood there alone in the office of A.D.A. Baby-Face Frost, looking after him.
Yeah, Thurman.
Damned if I wasn’t.
58.
Yeah, I know. You’re not happy with the ending. Because I let Sergeant Thurman in on the play. A
nd he beat me up and threw me in the drunk tank. And you wanted to see me stick it to him. Solve the crime without him, and then rub his nose in it.
Well, I felt that way too. But when it came right down to it, I just couldn’t do it.
Because life isn’t a storybook, and everything isn’t black and white. The good guys, the bad guys. It’s not that easy.
Sergeant Thurman may be a schmuck, but he doesn’t know it. He doesn’t walk around saying, “I’m a bad guy, I’m gonna go beat up private eyes and make their life miserable.” He has his own code of ethics, and he does what he thinks is right. And he doesn’t like crooks, and he gives them a hard time.
All right, he beat me up and threw me in the drunk tank. But why did he do it? He did it because I was a witness to a murder and I wouldn’t talk. Now that’s no excuse, but still. When you come to think of it, why did I refuse? I refused because I had something to hide. What was that? My participation in the blackmail scheme.
Because that’s what I was doing, wasn’t I? Whether Richard said I had a right to or not—and he didn’t really say I had a right to, he was hedging his bets—the fact is, I was involved in it.
Funny how things get to you. How they come back to haunt you. MacAullif, when he was laying out his theory of how things were, telling me I was the blackmailer. That was the first kick in the head.
Then there was Mrs. Gardner. What she said when I showed her the photograph. “What is this, blackmail?”
Those two things taken together tell me just what it was I was up to. Yes, I meant well. The valiant P.I., protecting his client, going out and fighting insurmountable odds. Helping the poor, defenseless woman who was being blackmailed.
But what was I really doing? Aiding and abetting. Being an accessory to a blackmail. Compounding a felony and conspiring to conceal a crime.
Yes, with perfectly laudable motives.
But still.
See? Everything’s not black and white.
So, yes, I can resent Sergeant Thurman throwing me in the drunk tank. But when push came to shove, I realized I couldn’t get any satisfaction out of revenge.
