This Game of Murder

Chapter XIII

Henry Quillan had a prolonged whispered conference with Betty before rising to approach the witness stand.

“You didn’t finish your story, Miss Thomas,” he said. “What happened after the remark you allege the defendant made?”

“Nothing. She turned around and walked out.”

“She made no threats?”

“Just with her eyes. If looks could kill, I’d be dead. I warned Bruce she was going to do something—”

“Confine yourself to answering my questions,” Quillan snapped. “Did the defendant at any time say anything to you which you haven’t already repeated?”

“No, sir.”

The defense lawyer stood with a brooding expression on his gaunt, Lincolnesque face for a moment before saying, “You mentioned that you were Bruce Case’s mistress for two years, yet you’ve only lived here four weeks. Will you explain that?”

“Sure. We met in Buffalo two years ago and he always came there to see me. It’s only thirty miles. He wanted me to move here so it would be more convenient. So I came down and got a job and rented an apartment.”

Quillan said, “You may step down,” and went back to his table.

The district attorney said, “We have no more witnesses to present at this time, Your Honor.”

“Does the defense now wish to present any witnesses?” the judge asked.

“Just a moment, if the court pleases?” Quillan said, and went into another conference with Betty. After a few minutes he said, “I wish to place the defendant on the stand, Your Honor.”

It seemed obvious that Quillan had hoped not to have to subject Betty to the prosecution’s cross-examination, but had decided the only hope of counteracting Gail Thomas’ damaging testimony was to get Betty’s version of the meeting into the record.

He asked no questions at all about the night of the shooting. Marshall recognized this as a maneuver to restrict her cross-examination to events preceding that night. Since the D.A. could cross-examine only on subjects brought out in direct examination, he was automatically barred from asking her anything about the shooting. Presumably Quillan felt that Chief Meister’s testimony had brought out her excuse for shooting her husband well enough, and preferred to leave it at that.

“How did you discover your husband was having an affair with Miss Thomas?” the lawyer asked.

Betty’s face was pale, but her head was erect and her voice entirely calm. “I had suspected another woman for some time because he so frequently had out-of-town business trips. There were also the usual signs. Lipstick on handkerchiefs, match folders from Buffalo night clubs when he had made no mention of being in Buffalo. Then a couple of months ago a friend told me she had seen him at a buffalo night club with a blonde on a night he was supposed to be in Albany. He was very discreet, I later learned. Even after his mistress moved to town, he never saw her anywhere but in Buffalo, except when he visited her apartment.”

Quillan asked, “Did you confront your husband with your knowledge?”

“Yes. He flatly denied it. My friend was certain she had made no mistake, so I knew he was lying. I also knew he was continuing to see the woman, because he was almost never home nights and I was always finding lipstick on his clothing. In recent weeks I even suspected she had moved to town, because sometimes he came home late at night wearing different clothing than he had left in. The only explanation for that was that he kept some clothing at her apartment.”

“How did you finally discover that this woman was Gail Thomas?”

“On last Thursday, the day before I visited Miss Thomas, the same friend called me to say she had gone to Dell’s Beauty Parlor for an appointment. She had never been there before, but because she was unable to get an appointment with her regular hairdresser and had to go to a banquet that night, she was forced to have her hair done elsewhere. She recognized one of the operators as the girl she had seen with my husband in Buffalo a couple of months before and inquired who she was. When my friend gave me her name, I looked in the phone book, but it wasn’t listed. Thinking perhaps she might have a phone anyway, but hadn’t been here long enough to be listed in the book, I called information. She did have a phone and I was able to get her address from information.”

“I see,” Quillan said. “What was the purpose of your visit to Miss Thomas?”

“Just feminine curiosity. I wanted to see what she looked like. She imagined my icy stare. I was really quite courteous to her, though perhaps a bit formal.”

“Did you mention this visit to your husband?”

“Yes. And this time he didn’t bother to deny it, because he knew it was useless. I told him I wanted a divorce and he agreed to give me one.”

“Were actual plans under way for this divorce?”

“Yes. Bruce said he would arrange everything so that all I’d have to do was sign papers.”

“Your witness,” Quillan said to Ross.

The district attorney rose and gave Betty a pleasant smile. “Mrs. Case, you said you learned that even after Miss Thomas moved to town he never met her anywhere but in Buffalo, except when he visited her apartment. How did you learn this?”

“He told me,” Betty said. “He seemed rather proud that he had been able to keep the affair secret in a town this size for two full years.”

“Did this admission anger you?”

“Not enough to kill him,” Betty said quietly. “It made me more eager for a divorce.”

“I see. Now your visit to Miss Thomas was last Friday, two days before he died. When did you tell him you had seen Miss Thomas?”

“As soon as I got home. He had just come from his office.”

“Did all this discussion about a divorce take place then?”

“Yes.”

“I see,” the D.A. said. “Your husband amiably agreed to this and said he’d take care of everything. All you had to do was sign papers. Is that right?”

“I don’t know that he agreed to it amiably, but he agreed to it. I told him that if he didn’t, I would drag his mistress into court as corespondent and divorce him. He didn’t want that, therefore he agreed to arrange things so that I could have an uncontested divorce.”

Ross smiled benignly. “Mrs. Case, are you familiar with the divorce laws of New York State?”

“Somewhat. I know the only ground is adultery.”

“Exactly. In order to divorce your husband, you were going to have to prove adultery. You have already stated that he didn’t want his mistress involved. How were you going to prove it?”

Betty said, “Bruce agreed to arrange everything. I suppose he was going to hire some woman to act the part of Miss X, and furnish me the evidence. I understand that’s done all the time.”

“Not legally,” Ross said. “Another thing. Do you know there is an interlocutory period in this state?”

“Yes. One year.”

“In other words, you were aware that even if the divorce went through you would be legally tied to this man for a full year after the initial decree, and that it might be some months before that was even issued.”

“Yes, but I didn’t have to live with him during that period.”

“Did you ever see any of these papers your husband was to prepare for your signature?”

“We discussed it Friday evening,” Betty said. “His law office isn’t open on Saturday; he died Sunday night. He hardly had time to start drawing them up.”

“That’s all,” the district attorney said. “You may step down.”

There was another three-way conference between the two lawyers and the judge. This time it was very brief. When the two attorneys returned to their tables, Arnold Ross had a smile on his face and Henry Quillan was frowning. Marshall knew the decision even before the judge spoke.

He ordered Betty held for grand jury action and remanded her to the women’s section of the county jail without bond.

The report on the preliminary hearing made the wire services and went to all parts of the country. As the pending trial had all the elements which appeal to tabloid readers, reporters began to converge on the town. Here was an alleged jealousy murder involving wealth, beauty and social position on one hand, sex and a love nest with a beautiful blonde in it on the other. On such things are newspaper circulations built, and the major newspapers in the country wanted to be in on the ground floor.

It would be two weeks before the next session of the grand jury, so there was little on the actual development of the case which could be reported. To satisfy the avid reading public, visiting newsmen began digging into every facet of the principals’ lives. Reams of material about Betty Case’s and Gail Thomas’ backgrounds began pouring over the wires from coast to coast.

Gail Thomas made particularly good copy; she was willing to grant interviews at any time of the day or night and would pose for photographs at the drop of a flashbulb. She tried and convicted Betty in the press three times over, in the meantime getting herself nationwide publicity, much of it via cheescake photographs.

She had visions of a Hollywood career, Marshall thought sourly, and was playing the publicity bit for all it was worth.

The argument between Bruce Case and Kirk Marshall at the country club only hours before the shooting inevitably came to light and the tabloids made the most of it. When it was discovered that Marshall and Betty had been sweethearts all through school and up to the moment she suddenly married Case, the yellower journals immediately made a love rectangle out of the affair, where up until then it had been only a triangle. There was some speculation in print that Kirk Marshall might have been a factor in Betty’s desire to free herself of her husband without having to wait out an interlocutory decree.

Meantime Marshall visited Betty daily at the women’s section of the county jail, twenty miles south of Runyon City. She continued to appear calm, but already he saw that she had lost weight and her lovely face was faintly drawn.

George Reed had found it necessary to return to his Rochester bank, but his wife had stayed on to care for Bud. Each morning Marshall phoned Audrey for a report on the boy’s welfare so that he could relay it to his mother.

Betty refused to see any reporters other than Marshall. As a result, Marshall found himself nearly mobbed by out-of-town reporters when he left the jail after his first couple of visits. But his curt refusals to answer any questions whatever about how she was taking it and what she had said soon discouraged them. Thereafter they merely regarded him silently as he came down the jail steps and climbed into his car.

He saw little of Lydia during this period, except at the newspaper office. He had lunch with her a couple of times just after the hearing, but when the story linking him with Betty broke, he decided that for Lydia’s own protection he ought to stay away from her for a while.

“They’ve already built it up from a love triangle to a rectangle,” he said bitterly. “Let’s not give them grounds for making it a pentagram.”

“But everyone in town knows we’ve been going together for two years,” she protested.

“Apparently the visiting gentlemen of the press haven’t yet run across that item,” he told her. “It won’t be long. As soon as the grand jury acts on Betty’s case, they’ll forget all these side issues and it won’t matter who sees us together. But I don’t want your name splashed from coast to coast. I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.”