Beware the Curves

Chapter 15

A large part of the detective work in a murder trial consists of getting the backgrounds of the trial jurors. As soon as the case was set for trial, Bertha and I went to work on the venire from which the twelve jurors who were to try the case would be selected.

Bertha worked on the older men and the older women. I worked on the younger ones.

It was of course unethical and would have been a contempt of court to have talked with these people about the case, to have shadowed them so that they knew they were being shadowed, or to have engaged in any other activities that might be deemed to influence them.

However, there was no law against chatting casually with some of their friends or digging into the records and finding out where they had acted as jurors before, what kind of cases they were, and how they had voted.

It was a long tedious job but in the end we had a pretty good collection of condensed biographies.

Barney Quinn took these biographies and broke them down into short summaries. Then he took the short summaries and broke them down into an elaborate code. A short, straight mark at the top of a square opposite a prospective juror’s name meant he was honest and upright, but acceptable. If the mark leaned to the left, it meant he was so upright he’d lean over backwards. If the mark was down at the bottom of the square, it meant the man was obstinate, pigheaded and bigoted. If the mark was horizontal, it meant he would lie down when the going got tough.

In between times I’d keep checking on the facts.

The day before the trial Stella Karis gave me a ring.

“You don’t ever come to see me, Donald.”

“I’m busy day and night.”

“You have to eat.”

“I don’t eat. I gulp.”

“I could watch you gulp. I have something to tell you.”

“About what?”

“About the case you’re working on.”

“What about it?”

“Mr. Hale has been to see me.”

“The deuce he has!”

“Uh-huh, several times.”

“What does he want?”

She laughed seductively. “I’ll tell you, but not over the phone.”

“Honestly, Stella, I haven’t the time right at the moment for—”

“This concerns a witness in the case.”

“I’ll see you.”

“When?”

“How about tonight?”

“Dinner?”

“Make it after dinner,” I said. “I have a dinner date. Is nine o’clock too late?”

“No, come on in. I’ll be waiting.”

I put in the day cleaning up the last of the jury list, getting things ready, and dropped in to see Stella about five minutes to nine.

As she opened the door and bent toward me, the neckline of her dress disclosed curves, and as she turned to lead the way into her apartment, a tantalizing bit of leg showed from a generous split in the tight-fitting skirt.

We had coffee. Then we had liqueurs. Then she said, “Donald, Mr. Hale wants to manage my properties.”

“How nice!” I said.

“You told me I should have some bank—”

“Look here,” I said, “are you so absolutely crazy that you would turn your properties over to anything Hale was managing?”

“He’s organizing an investment company.”

“How very, very nice — for Cooper Hale!”

She said, “He’s very friendly. He hates you.”

“I can bear up,” I told her.

“He thinks that I hate you, too.”

“He does?”

“Uh-huh. I told him that you never came to see me any more. He wanted to pump me about you.”

“Go ahead.”

“And he told me something that he said no one knew anything about.”

“What?”

“A rancher by the name of Thomas Victor,” she said. “You remember the night Endicott was murdered?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You know Mrs. Endicott was supposed to have been at a gasoline station just at nine o’clock and the fatal shot was fired at exactly nine o’clock. Well, Thomas Victor was at that gasoline station at seven minutes to nine that night trying to get some gasoline and the station was already closed. He thinks the man who was running the station either closed up early or else his watch was fast.”

“Or else Victor’s watch was slow,” I said.

“Victor says it wasn’t. I thought I’d let you know, Donald.”

“Thanks.”

“Is it important?” she asked.

“That,” I said, “is probably not as important as the fact that Hale saw fit to tell you about it.”

“Why?”

“That,” I said, “is something I don’t know. Anyhow I’ll check. How’s the factory deal coming along?”

“Oh, they’ve signed the lease, and— You know something, Donald? You were right. It wasn’t a novelty company at all. When it came right down to brass tacks, it turned out to be a big roller-bearing company that makes a line of roller bearings in the East. It wanted this as a plant to take care of their western business.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Aren’t you thrilled?”

“Are you?”

“I’m making a lot of money out of it.”

“Do you like making money?”

“Frankly, Donald, I don’t. I would like to go back to drawing and painting. I suppose I’m only a second-rate artist, but it’s creative. It’s my life!

“I like the people I meet who are in that field. I can talk with them about light, perspective — things like that — and they not only know what I mean but we’re talking about something worthwhile.

“Nowadays it seems to be all a question of leases and securities and net returns and all of that kind of stuff.

“Donald, would you manage an investment company for me?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I’d be working for you.”

“Is there anything wrong with that?”

“Yes. It would be like running around on a leash. To hell with that stuff. I’m doing all right the way I am.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.” She thought for a while. “Cooper Hale doesn’t feel that way,” she said at length.

“He wouldn’t!”

“Do you think if he should organize an investment company that I should let him manage my securities? He guarantees me a very nice income.”

I said, “My only advice to you is to put your securities in the trust department of a reputable bank. Let them manage things for you so that you get a low but safe yield. Get rid of all of your real estate holdings and everything that requires personal management. Put the money into a portfolio of blue ribbon securities. Then start painting. Go to Europe and study art over there if you want to. Try to do something really worthwhile.”

“Yes, I suppose so,” she said.

“Been married?” I asked her.

“Yes. I told you that that first night I met you in Reno.”

“What happened to the marriage?” I asked.

She followed the design on the davenport with the tip of her forefinger. “It broke up. I’m a divorcee.”

“Why didn’t it work?”

“I don’t like to be owned. I think that people who have a truly creative temperament chafe at the idea of... of being possessed.

“I think that’s the reason actors and actresses can stand matrimony for only so long at a stretch. People talk about the immorality of Hollywood and it really isn’t immorality, Donald. It’s just something bigger than you are. It doesn’t keep you from falling in love, but after the love part gets to a point where you try to conform to conventional standards and you feel someone owns you, you start fighting, not against the person, but against the idea of being possessed.”

“Want to get married again?” I asked.

“Is this a proposal?” she asked me.

“No, it’s a question.”

“Not particularly. I think there are some people I could... well, sometimes I have symptoms of falling in love.”

I said, “You’re a great mark for a fortune hunter right now. How much property do you have?”

“That’s none of your damn business.”

“Keep it that way.”

“What way?”

“It’s none of anyone’s business how much you have. If you want my advice, put your property in securities, go back to New York and live on two hundred dollars a month. Make up your mind that, no matter what happens, you won’t spend more than two hundred dollars a month for anything.”

“Do you know I’ve been thinking of doing that very thing.”

“Think of it some more,” I told her. “And now I’m on my way. I’m busy.”

“I don’t see anything of you any more,” she pouted.

“I don’t see anything of myself,” I told her, “except for the few brief minutes I’m looking at my face in the mirror when I’m shaving in the morning.”

“After this case is over, will I see you some, Donald?”

“I don’t know.”

She laughed and said, “You’re worse than I am. You don’t want to be possessed. You don’t want anyone to have any strings on you.”

“You may be right,” I told her, “but right now I’m going to have to hit the hay because I have a hard day ahead of me.”

I yawned a couple of times, kissed her good night, got the hell out of there and called Barney Quinn on the phone.

Quinn’s voice was tense and urgent. I started to tell him that I’d picked up a live lead, but I never had the chance. “Look, Donald,” he said, “I’ve been trying to locate you all afternoon. How soon can you get down here?”

“Right away. Bertha and I have been out all day checking jurors.”

“Okay,” he said. “I couldn’t reach either of you. Bring Bertha.”

“That bad?” I asked.

“Worse,” he said.

I said, “I can tell you a little something about the other side of the case. They’re checking on the time element of that gas station.”

“What gas station? Oh, I get it. Well, that’s a minor matter now. Come on down.”

“It may take a little while to round up Bertha,” I said.

“Then you come on down, and let Bertha come later. This is important. All hell’s loose.”