A Handy Death

Chapter 3

“About this Billy Dupaul—”

Steve Sadler paused and decided to wait until he had all his ammunition at hand before continuing. He shoved his thick glasses back on his nose, opened his stuffed briefcase, and began to stack the contents in neat piles before him on the conference table.

Steve was a tall, thin, studious-looking young man in his early thirties, whose thick glasses failed to hide the sharp intelligence in his gray eyes. He had come to Ross’s law firm directly from Brooklyn Law School, had more than proven his ability and worth in the first year of his association with Ross, and had turned down many offers to change locations since. Nor had he ever mentioned these offers to Ross, who nonetheless heard of them from other colleagues in the profession. It was one more of the facts that bound them — along with the other members of Ross’s professional family — together in mutual respect.

Steve continued placing his papers to suit his planned presentation; he made Ross think of his old artillery captain arranging his firing gear for most effective loading prior to a barrage. Ross waited patiently; he knew Steve never needlessly wasted time. When at last the young lawyer had everything to his satisfaction, he drew the first pile of papers toward him, pushed his glasses back into place — a habit of long standing — and looked up.

“How do you want this, Hank?”

“Give me the general picture first.”

“All right. William Emerich Dupaul was arrested on July 25, 1964, and charged with assault and battery in connection with the nonfatal shooting of a certain Raymond Neeley. He was released on ten thousand dollars bail and came to trial—”

“Who put up the money? The Mets?”

“He put it up himself; he still had his bonus money then. He got it back when he appeared for trial, and it was part of the package that went back to the Mets.”

Ross nodded and leaned back. Sharon noted the question-and-answer location on the casette tape that was rolling as they talked. Steve shoved his glasses back on his nose and continued.

“Dupaul came to trial in the New York County Supreme Court on November fourteenth of the same year, 1964. The delay was partially due to a crowded calendar, but also due to the time it took the victim, Neeley, to recover. The presiding judge was the Honorable Joseph Demerest. Dupaul pleaded not guilty. The jury found for the prosecution and Judge Demerest sentenced Dupaul to four to eight years at Attica Prison.”

Ross nodded. “All right. Details.”

“Right. On what, first? Dupaul, personally, or the case? I put the Gunnerson agency on Dupaul Friday night, and they worked over the weekend. I got the latest report just a few minutes ago.”

“Better give me Dupaul first.”

“Right.” The sheet was replaced on its proper pile and a second stack drawn closer. “William Dupaul was born in Queensbury, outside of Glens Falls in upstate New York, on June 5, 1945. His mother’s maiden name was Mary Emerich, of an old upstate family. His father was French Canadian, Pierre Dupaul, who Mary Emerich met on a visit to Montreal. People in Queensbury are still amazed at the marriage—”

Ross frowned. “Why?”

“Apparently the Emerichs were an old family, not much money but lots of pride, and Pierre Dupaul turned out to be a drunk who worked around old John Emerich’s orchards for a while, but generally loafed.” Steve looked a bit embarrassed. “I know it’s gossip, but I told Mike Gunnerson to have his man go into depth. Sharon said the sky was the limit on expenses...”

“Well, not the sky exactly, but maybe Shea Stadium,” Ross said with a smile. “Go ahead.”

“Right. At any rate, the problem of Mary Emerich and her drunken husband was resolved when they got hit by a train in 1947, when Billy was two years old. Their car stalled on the tracks and I gather Dupaul was drunk, and at any rate they were killed. Billy was raised by his maternal grandparents, John and Carrie Emerich, now both deceased.

“He apparently was raised in normal fashion; his grandparents weren’t rich, but Billy never went hungry. He went through school with average grades, no trouble of any kind on the record, no police record other than a few tickets for speeding. He was active in sports — four letters in high school — and was the captain and mainstay of the Queensbury High School team that won the national baseball championship in 1963 in Denver. The Mets always scout the championship and apparently they were quite impressed by Dupaul, and in 1964—as soon as he graduated around the end of May — they brought him down to New York as their number one bonus baby. They paid him two hundred thousand dollars to sign, and planned on putting him with one of the farms until spring training, and if he worked out the way they hoped and expected, he would be pitching regularly for the Mets the following season.”

Steve reached for another sheet of paper, pushing back his glasses.

“In New York he established residence at the Clairborne Hotel on East Eighty-sixth Street. On the night of—” Steve paused, eyeing his chief through his thick glasses. “Anything more on Dupaul personally? I have about everything here except his fingerprints.” He smiled suddenly. “As a matter of fact, I have those, too.”

“Just a few things,” Ross said, and nodded to Sharon. She noted the footage on the tape and prepared to put the question and answer in her book. Ross turned back to Steve. “Was he an only child?”

“Yes, he was.”

“Any girlfriends?”

“He was popular in high school, of course; the big hero, in fact. Lots of girlfriends at that period, but none that were mentioned during the trial as having been met after he came down to New York. Actually, he wasn’t here very long before he got into the jam. I can get Mike Gunnerson to put someone on it if you think it important.”

“Not at this stage of the game,” Ross said. “How about old friends? Did he come to New York alone?”

“No,” Steve said. “He drove down here with another boy from the same championship team. The two of them roomed together at the Clairborne. Dupaul used his influence to get this other boy — his name is Marshall — a tryout with the Mets. They gave him one of the morning tryouts they have during the season, but he didn’t make it.”

“His full name?”

“Jim — James, that is — Marshall.”

“And what happened to him?”

Steve shrugged. “He went home, I guess, when he missed out. His name came up in the pretrial depositions, but I imagine he was gone at the time Dupaul got into this trouble.”

“All right,” Ross said. “Let’s get into that trouble.”

“Right. Well, on the night of July 25, 1964, Billy Dupaul went out on a binge. Probably to celebrate signing the contract with the Mets for that much money. After all, two hundred thousand is a bit of change for a boy of nineteen to lay his hands on. He started off in his hotel room, apparently, and then went down—”

Ross interrupted. “When did he actually sign the contract?”

Steve dug into his papers and came up with a glossy photograph.

“Here’s a print from the newspaper shot that was in the Daily News showing the actual signing. It’s dated—” he turned the five by seven print over, “—July twentieth. Mr. Quirt is in it, too, standing back of Dupaul while he’s signing the contract.”

Steve handed the photograph over. Ross laid it aside without studying it.

“Steve, if Dupaul signed his contract on the twentieth, why did he wait nearly a week until the twenty-fifth to celebrate the event?”

Steve frowned. It was a point he had not considered.

“Maybe he wanted to wait until the check cleared. Until he actually had the cash?”

“No,” Ross said definitely. “To begin with, if you’re known you can draw against a check the minute it’s deposited, and against a check signed by Charley Quirt of the Mets — in front of a roomful of newspapermen — you can draw the full amount and the bank will even give you an armed guard to see you don’t get rolled on the way home. And secondly, how much money do you need to go out on a drunk? You certainly don’t need any more than most men carry in their pockets when they aren’t going out on a drunk.”

He nodded to Sharon to note the discrepancy and turned back to Steve.

“Was anything said or brought out during the trial as to Billy Dupaul’s reason for going out and getting drunk that night? By that I mean that particular night?”

“No,” Steve said, “only that he did. Is it important?”

“It’s too early to say what may be important and what may not be. Still, anything unexplained is always potentially important. Maybe Billy Dupaul wasn’t celebrating; maybe he was commiserating with himself for one reason or another. Feeling sorry for yourself is a far more common reason for getting drunk, especially among youngsters, and especially among youngsters who are athletes and don’t drink as a general rule.”

He looked at Sharon. She read the footage of the tape, marked it down, made a note in her book, and bobbed her head. Ross turned back.

“All right, Steve, let’s go on.”

“Yes, sir. Of course,” Steve said, “as far as Dupaul’s reasons for getting drunk that particular night, we can always ask him when we get around to interviewing him at the Tombs.”

“Except I like to have independent evidence whenever possible. Clients, even clients facing a life sentence, often lie. They think they know better than their defense counsel what can help them and what can hurt them. As witness Billy Dupaul changing counsel in midstream, going from Louie Gorman to Al Hogan. I don’t love Gorman, but compared to Al Hogan he has to look like Clarence Darrow.”

“Yes, sir,” Steve said. He returned to his sheet of paper. “Well, speaking of this drunk he went on, he started in his room. He had a bottle there and he testified to having a few drinks before going downstairs. Then, downstairs in the hotel bar, he ordered another drink—”

Ross raised his hand, interrupting.

“I know it’s legal at eighteen in New York, but did anybody in the bar ask him for any identification?” He smiled and tilted his head toward Sharon. “When Sharon first came to work here she was — well, past eighteen — but whenever we went out to eat, the waiter wanted to bring her a Shirley Temple or Coca-Cola with her meal.”

Sharon laughed. “I had some time!” She wrinkled her nose. “Unfortunately, they never ask any more...”

“Nobody asked him for identification. If you’d seen him, you’d know why. I never actually saw him myself, but I’ve got his statistics here, and they’re impressive. He was a big kid, and I imagine he’s a big man now,” Steve said.

“Okay,” Ross said, and looked at his watch. “Let’s get on.”

“Right. In any event, Dupaul had a drink at the hotel bar and then went out on the town. He stopped at a place called Marco’s on Lexington near Eighty-fifth and had a couple of drinks there. The bartender says he was talking to some character and then wandered out. The bartender also said it was a good thing he did, because in his state he wouldn’t have served him any more. Then, about twenty minutes to a half hour later, according to the timetable established, he was in a spot called the Mountain Top — it’s actually in a basement — on Fifty-fourth between Seventh and Eighth.”

“Quite a distance,” Ross commented, and frowned. “Odd.”

“Plenty of time to get there, especially in a cab.”

“I don’t mean that. Usually, when a person goes out on a binge, or even a simple, everyday pub crawl, he sticks to bars that are fairly close to one another. He doesn’t jump around. He doesn’t take cabs. There are certainly enough bars around Eighty-sixth and Lexington to satisfy the most demanding thirst.” He frowned and looked up from the pencil he had been twiddling. “Did Billy Dupaul claim to have any particular reason for going over to this Mountain Top Bar?”

“There’s nothing about it in the transcript.”

“Sharon, make a note of that. All right, Steve, what happened next?”

Steve Sadler shuffled some papers together, straightened his glasses, and shook his head.

“I’m going to have to give you two different stories now, Hank: the one told by Dupaul on the stand and the one told by Neeley. What I’ll be giving you now will really be the summation of many transcripts of testimony, together with the conclusions drawn from this testimony — not conclusions on my part, but on the part of the prosecution on the one hand, and of the defense on the other. And, as I said before, it will give you two completely different stories told by the two men.”

“And the jury believed Neeley’s story.” It was less a question on Ross’s part than a statement.

“I’m not so sure,” Steve said. “What I mean is that I think if I’d been on that jury, I would have had to find the boy guilty no matter whose story I believed. It’s a question of credibility. I know that old Mr. Hogan was blamed for poor defense by a lot of people after the trial, but they must have been people who got their information from the newspapers, people who didn’t really follow the trial at firsthand very closely. On the weight of the evidence...” His voice trailed off.

“Well,” Ross said in a reasonable tone of voice, “let’s assume we’re the jury here in this room. Let us hear the two versions.”

“Right,” Steve said. “Well, first, here’s the Dupaul version. Actually, of course, Neeley testified first, since he was a prosecution witness, but I’ll give it to you in this order.

“In this Mountain Top Bar, Dupaul said he sat down at the bar and found himself sitting next to a woman. He said she was pretty old; his exact words were ‘middle-aged, in the neighborhood of thirty or thirty-five’ but remember, at the time he had just turned nineteen. He said she was very good-looking and very sexy. He said they got talking and she told him her name was Mrs. Neeley, but he could call her Grace. She also said not to let the Mrs. bother him as her husband was away on a business trip. He also said he thinks he remembered that other people in the bar called her by the name Grace—”

Ross interrupted with a frown, the twiddled pencil still.

“He testified he thinks he remembered?”

“His testimony was full of ‘I think’ and ‘I’m not sure, but I seem to recall’ and ‘if I’m not mistaken’ and phrases like that.” Steve shrugged. “Naturally the prosecution tore him into little shreds on a good part of his testimony, but the boy freely admitted he was very drunk and therefore extremely hazy as to details.”

“Great!” Ross said in disgust. “All right. Go on.”

“Well, despite Dupaul’s testimony, the bartender in the place said he never heard of a Mrs. Neeley — Grace or any other name — and he didn’t notice the boy with anyone in particular, or anyone at all. The bartender said he cut Dupaul off after three drinks because he was obviously out on his feet. Dupaul denied this—”

“Were there any other witnesses to these events?”

“None that the defense called. The prosecution didn’t need to call any others.” Steve added, “In that regard, Hogan can be criticized, I think. I don’t believe he truly tried to find any corroborative witnesses.”

“All right,” Ross said. “I’ll try not to interrupt so much.”

“Right.” Steve referred to his paper, shoving his glasses back. “Dupaul’s story was that he was with Mrs. Neeley and in fact even bought her a drink and paid for it. The bartender said that lots of people, after being cut off, try to pull the gag of pretending to buy a drink for someone on an adjoining stool, but he still had no recollection of any woman. He also testified he was working the other end of the bar when Dupaul left and therefore couldn’t say if the boy went out alone or not. The place was busy and the bartender said he couldn’t keep track of every drunk around.

“At any rate, Dupaul’s story goes on that they went to an apartment on West Sixtieth Street by taxi — the taxi records were checked by the prosecution and no record of a trip to that address that night was found, but that doesn’t mean too much — it could have been a gypsy. Dupaul stated that he thought he remembered the woman leading him to a mailbox and pointing out the name ‘Neeley’ on it; the prosecution had a lot of fun with that, since the letter box is behind the stairs and out of the way, and why would the woman do it? Not that they denied that Neeley lived there.

“Anyway, Dupaul said he thought he remembered going up in an elevator and going into this apartment. He said he remembered sitting on a bed while the woman undressed him, and he remembered feeling very dizzy—”

Ross said, “Do you have his direct testimony there?”

“Right here. Do you want it?”

“No. Just give Sharon the page numbers. I may want to check it out later.”

“Right,” Steve said. He dug through one of the stacks, checking page numbers. “Pages 116 through 122. It starts — the part I’m describing now — on line 5 of page 118. Okay?”

Sharon nodded and marked the footage on the recorder meter. Steve went back to his notes.

“Well, to sum up his testimony, he said he wasn’t feeling well, but this woman obviously wanted to make love and he figured she was a prostitute, and then all of a sudden she let go of him and made this funny noise and there was a man with a suitcase standing in the doorway. The man started to swear at him and dropped the suitcase and started to go through a dresser drawer looking for a gun—”

Ross interrupted. “How could he know what the man was looking for?”

Steve reddened slightly.

“Well, actually he didn’t say that; he said the man was going through the dresser drawer and brought out a gun, and then the woman was pressing another gun into his hand and telling him the man was going to shoot them both, and when the man raised the gun he’d taken from the dresser drawer, Dupaul didn’t think, he just pulled the trigger.”

“And then?”

“The man fell down, bleeding, and Dupaul proceeded to get sick. He went into another room and threw up. When he came back the man was unconscious, lying on the floor and bleeding badly from the mouth, and the woman was gone. He started to get dressed and then ran out of the place with the rest of his clothes in his hands. He ran down the steps and right into the arms of the police. And that was that.”

Ross frowned. “What did he do with the gun he’d used?”

“He said he just dropped it after the shooting and before he got sick; he didn’t know what happened to it. The police later found it on the floor next to the bed.”

Ross studied Steve’s face. He said, “You’re not giving me all of it, Steve. On the basis of that testimony — a young boy, drunk, sick, scared to death, being handed a gun and told to use it for what he obviously considered self-defense — not only his own defense but that of a third person, and a woman at that — I’m surprised he received more than a suspended sentence. Even Al Hogan, drunk as a lord, should have been able to do better than that for the boy. But you apparently feel, from what you said before, that the jury was justified in finding Dupaul guilty on the basis of his story. So what are you leaving out?”

“I’m not leaving anything out,” Steve said with a grin. “I just haven’t finished putting everything in. Not yet, I mean. I still haven’t given you Neeley’s testimony, for instance.”

“True,” Ross conceded, and leaned back in his chair. “Fire away.”

“Well,” Steve said, “Neeley, to put it in a nutshell, says that Dupaul’s whole story is a fairy tale. Neeley says there is no Mrs. Neeley and there hasn’t been since they were divorced ten years earlier, and that her name isn’t Grace but Rose, and if he had come home and found his ex-wife entertaining a stranger in bed he would have given that stranger a prize, because it would have gotten him off the hook on the alimony payments he was making—”

Ross smiled. “Whatever gave him that idea?”

“I’m merely reporting what he said. Anyway, the ex-Mrs. Neeley was brought to court and denied ever having seen Dupaul, and Dupaul was equally emphatic that this was not his pretty, sexy Mrs. Neeley.

“The prosecutor more or less hinted, without coming right out and saying it, that Dupaul’s story had been composed, words and music, by Al Hogan — probably in one of his drunken states — and was patently ridiculous. He pointed out that even Mr. Hogan should have remembered that the police had found only the one gun in the room—”

Ross sat a bit more erect, interrupting.

“They only found the one gun?”

“Yes, sir. The one Neeley supposedly had taken from the dresser drawer was gone. Incidentally, the suitcase he supposedly had brought into the room also was not there.”

“How did they know the gun found beside the bed was the gun used in the shooting?”

“Actually, they never had to prove it. Dupaul never claimed it wasn’t.”

Ross shook his head. “Al Hogan should have done better! Well, go on.”

“Yes, sir. Hogan claimed the woman must have taken the second gun away, but the prosecutor pointed out that even Mr. Hogan would have to admit puzzlement that the woman — had she existed and had she taken a gun from the room — would almost certainly have taken the gun she gave Dupaul, rather than the unfired gun belonging — supposedly — to Neeley. Actually, the prosecution had a lot of fun on that score.

“Neeley further not only denied having walked into the apartment with a suitcase, but claimed he didn’t own a suitcase. He—”

“The woman could have taken it away, as well as the gun,” Ross pointed out.

“I suppose she could have, if there would have been any reason for her to do so,” Steve acknowledged. “But why on earth, in a panic situation, would a woman stop and pick up a suitcase before running out?”

“I have no idea,” Ross said flatly. “Go on.”

“Anyway, I’m merely giving you the testimony as it appears in the transcript. We can draw our conclusions later. Neeley said what actually happened was that he was on his way home—”

“From where?”

“He said he’d been to a movie. The defense questioned him about that and the details seemed to fit, but nobody made a big point of it.”

“It seems there were lots of points nobody made a big point of,” Ross said sourly. “Go on.”

“Neeley said he was passing the Mountain Top Bar when young Dupaul came staggering out and collared him the way drunks do, telling him what a miserable, lousy place New York City was, they wouldn’t sell a man a drink, and so on and so on. Neeley said he could see it was just a big kid in his teens and he felt sorry for him, so he told him to come up to his place and have some coffee and sober up.

“He said they walked — no taxi — on to the apartment on West Sixtieth Street, and when they got there, he went into the kitchen and put up some coffee — incidentally, there was fresh coffee on the stove when the police got there, whatever that proves — and when he came back the boy had wandered into the bedroom, taken off his jacket, tie, and shoes, and was stretched out on the bed, sound asleep.

“He says he woke the boy up and the kid wanted a drink, and when Neeley told him there wasn’t any liquor in the house — Neeley said there was, of course, but not for the kid — the boy didn’t believe him and started to get abusive.

“And when Neeley threatened to call the cops and throw him out, the boy got real nasty and started to tear the place apart, starting with the bed. Neeley grabbed him to try and shove him out of the apartment, at which — according to Neeley — the boy pulled a gun and said something to the effect of, ‘Do I get a drink or do you get shot?’ Neeley says he insisted there was no liquor in the place, at which the boy said something like, ‘I’ll find it easier without you,’ and shot him down in cold blood.”

Ross scribbled a note on the pad before him. Sharon looked at him, surprised he had not asked her to include it in her notes. Ross smiled at her.

“Just something that strikes me as being a bit odd,” he said, and turned to Steve. “By the way, what was the exact nature of Neeley’s wound?”

“The bullet struck him in the corner of the mouth on the right side, catching a bit of the lower lip. It apparently shattered on his jawbone and the fragments were pretty well scattered. The doctors managed to get most of them out, but it seems the one that eventually killed him was either missed by the operating physicians or was inoperable.”

“Was any testimony given at the time to indicate there was still a fragment remaining that was inoperable?”

“No, sir,” Steve said. “Still, Neeley was lucky at that. If it had been a thirty-eight instead of a twenty-two, he wouldn’t have had those extra eight years of life.”

“I’m not so sure,” Ross said thoughtfully. “A thirty-eight probably wouldn’t have shattered in the first place. It would probably have smashed the jawbone and gone out the side of the cheek, taking out a lot of teeth but not necessarily killing him. There are a lot of records of cases where the damage done by a small caliber bullet is far greater than would have been done by a larger caliber, mainly because of shattering.”

He thought a moment, his fingers drumming on the desk blotter, and then went back to Steve’s exposition.

“You referred to Dupaul saying he was hazy because of drink. When he was booked at the precinct, did they do a blood alcohol on him?”

Steve rustled among his papers, coming up with the proper one.

“Yes, sir. It was high — very high. Zero-point-three-five percent. That’s the equivalent of 3.2 milligrams. Rated as ‘almost incapable’ in the police tables.”

“How about Neeley? Had he been drinking? Did they run a blood-alcohol test on him as well?”

Steve shook his head with a faint smile. It wasn’t very often he had a chance to catch the boss off base.

“It wouldn’t have indicated a great deal, when they had to transfuse him with six pints of blood.”

“They still could have done a urine analysis,” Ross said shortly. “They didn’t transfuse him with that, did they?” He shook his head. “Well, I’ve seen some poorly handled cases in the years I’ve practiced law, but this strikes me as one of the worst. No one attempted to check witnesses, in the bar or on the street. For instance, was there any attempt to verify if anyone saw Neeley, with or without Dupaul, on the street that night? Were any advertisements placed in newspapers asking witnesses to come forth?”

“No, sir.”

“Did anyone bother to check the apartment-house tenants to see if anyone there saw anyone in the lobby or the elevator? Or the hallway?”

“The tenants were checked, but only desultorily as far as I could see by reading the transcript. None of their testimony was on record, just the testimony of the investigating detectives who checked.”

“Hogan must have been drunker than usual,” Ross said, and added, “rest his soul!” He checked his watch and looked at Steve. “All right — one last question and we’ll break for lunch. But I wouldn’t be able to enjoy my meal if I didn’t ask it—”

“Right,” Steve said, smiling, anticipating the question.

“What’s the big secret you’re holding up your sleeve? To make you so sure Billy Dupaul should have been found guilty and rated the four to eight no matter whose story the jury believed? If Neeley was telling the truth, I admit the boy comes on as a rather nasty piece of goods. But if the boy’s story was the right one, he should have walked out free and clear. And without one witness on either side, you’d think he would have been given the benefit.”

“Except there was one witness. Of sorts,” Steve said, and grinned.

“There was? You didn’t mention him.”

“I mentioned it. The gun. The one Billy Dupaul swore the woman had shoved into his hand. There had been no attempt to obliterate numbers or hide identification. I have a photostat of the registration with me here—” He gestured toward his papers. “It. was registered in Glens Falls. In the name of John Emerich, Dupaul’s grandfather...”