Beware the Curves

Chapter 16

Bertha heaved, grunted, groaned and cussed when she got my call, but she was ready by the time I drove by and we made time to Santa Ana.

Quinn was locked in his office. There were circles under his eyes. The place was filled with cigarette smoke, the ash trays were cluttered up with half-smoked cigarettes. He was jittery.

Bertha strode across the office, heaved herself into a chair, said, “Young man, you’re making a goddam wreck out of yourself.”

“It’s the case that’s making a wreck out of me,” he said. “I’ve sent for Elizabeth Endicott. She should be here any moment. If it’s okay by you, I’ll wait and tell you the sad news after she gets here, then I won’t have to tell it twice.”

“Is it sad?” I asked.

“It’s sad,” he said, and crushed a half-smoked cigarette in the ash tray.

“I can add to it,” I told him.

“All right. Go ahead. We may as well catch it all at once. We—”

Knuckles sounded on the door.

Quinn strode across the office, opened the door, and Mrs. Endicott said, “Good evening, Barney.”

“Come on in, Betty,” he told her. “I’m sorry I had to call a night conference, but the fat’s in the fire.”

“What fat?” she asked. “And what fire?”

“Sit down,” Quinn said.

She dropped into a chair.

Quinn faced her. “You told me a great story,” he said, “about John Ansel being psychic, about knowing when he got in the house that you weren’t there, about having an idea that Karl Endicott was going to murder him. You said that when Karl stepped in the other room, John Ansel had a sudden feeling that Karl was getting ready to kill him and then plant a gun on him.”

“That’s the truth,” she said.

“Is that the truth?” he asked, “or is that the story that you thought should be told, and you’ve been drilling it into John Ansel so that he would tell it that way?”

Her face was without expression. “It’s the truth.”

“No, it isn’t the truth,” Quinn said. “It’s the story John told me the first couple of times, but we’re getting down to brass tacks now. He’s going to go on the witness stand, and when he goes on the witness stand he’s going to be cross-examined by a mighty smart district attorney.”

Elizabeth Endicott said, “John Ansel is truthful. His story is founded on fact.”

“Founded on fact, my eye!” Quinn blazed. “John went down to Citrus Grove intending to face Karl Endicott with the facts. He intended to kill Karl. He had a gun with him. Karl was the one who was psychic. Karl took one look at John and maneuvered him into the upstairs den, and then excused himself for a moment and went into the other room. It was a bedroom. You were in there.”

“I was?” she asked.

Quinn nodded. “You said one thing that was true in the story you told. John had been down in the jungle. He’d been living away from civilization. He’d been fighting a battle with life and death where his senses had to be alert.

“You were in that room. When Karl opened the door, the perfume that you use came to John’s nostrils. Then Karl closed the door. When he did that, he said something to you in a low voice.

“Suddenly John realized that you were Karl Endicott’s wife, that you’d been living with him as his wife. A feeling of revulsion possessed him. He started to become nauseated. The gun that he was holding in his hand he pitched out the window. It fell in the thick hedge. He felt he was going to be ill. He dashed out of the door and ran down the stairs, and out into the night air.”

Quinn quit talking, stood with his feet apart facing her, the accusation in his manner hitting her with almost a physical impact.

She didn’t cry. She waited. She looked at him steadily but she seemed to keep getting smaller.

Finally she said, “I told him he must never, never tell that story.”

Quinn said, “Ansel is a poor liar, when you start ripping into him. He doesn’t like conflict. I’d always accepted his story at face value, but we’re going to trial tomorrow, and he’s going to have to get on the stand. They’re going to rip him to pieces with cross-examination. So this morning I decided to cross-examine him myself just to see how he’d stand up.”

There was a moment of tense, dramatic silence.

“I found out,” Quinn said bitterly and turned away.

“I’m sorry,” Elizabeth Endicott said, dry-eyed and steady-voiced.

“You should be,” Quinn snapped at her.

“Were you in the room?” I asked Elizabeth Endicott.

“No,” she said quickly but without emphasis.

“That’s a hell of a denial,” Quinn said. “You’re going to be on the stand. Put some feeling into it.”

“No!” she said.

“That’s better,” Quinn said.

I said, “Your alibi depends on a man by the name of Walden who was closing his service station at nine o’clock.”

She said, “It’s a good alibi.”

I said, “The district attorney has a rancher by the name of Thomas Victor who drove past that service station at seven minutes to nine. He wanted to get gasoline. The station was closed.”

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “Victor’s watch was wrong.”

Barney said, “Good Lord, Lam! There can’t be anything wrong with that alibi. Walden testified at the inquest, and they really poured it to him. Victor is the one who’s making the mistake.”

I kept looking at Elizabeth Endicott. “She’s playing poker with us,” I said to Quinn.

Quinn whirled back to face her. “Betty, we’re going to trial tomorrow. You can’t afford to lie to us. We’re your friends. We’re the ones who are faced with the responsibility of saving everything you want in life. It you lie to us, you are cutting your own throat. Tell us the truth.”

“I’ve told it to you,” she said.

Quinn turned to me. “What do you think, Donald?”

“I think she’s lying.”

Bertha Cool said, “Donald, you can’t—”

“The hell I can’t,” I interrupted. “Look up Section 258 of the Probate Code, Barney. Read it to her.”

“What section is that?” Barney asked.

“Section 258,” I said.

Elizabeth Endicott looked at me. “Are you a lawyer?” she asked.

“He used to be,” Bertha Cool said. “He’s had a legal education. He’s one smart little bastard. If you’re lying, dearie, you’d better get it off your chest.”

Quinn turned the pages of the Probate Code.

“Got it?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“Read it to her,” I said.

Quinn read the section. “ ‘No person convicted of the murder or voluntary manslaughter of the decedent shall be entitled to succeed to any portion of the estate; but the portion thereof to which he would otherwise be entitled to succeed goes to the other persons entitled thereto under the provisions of this chapter.’ ”

Quinn looked at Mrs. Endicott, then he looked at me. His face was pasty. “My God!” he said.

“Go ahead,” I told Elizabeth Endicott, “let’s have the truth.”

Her eyes met mine. “You’re working for me,” she said. “You have no right to say I’m lying.”

“The hell I haven’t! I’m working for you. I’d like to salvage something before it’s too late.”

“I wasn’t in the house when the shot was fired,” she said.

“Where were you?”

“On the road to San Diego.”

“Let’s try it again,” I told her.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll tell you this. I was on the road to San Diego but I can’t prove it. Walden, who ran the service station, was mistaken. He thought he closed up at nine o’clock. He hadn’t wound his watch that day. It stopped about seven o’clock. He tuned in his radio in order to get the time. The program was over at seven-fifteen. He thought it was over at seven-thirty. He set his watch fifteen minutes fast. He didn’t realize it until after he had testified in the inquest. He was absolutely positive his watch was right. He said at the inquest that he had set his watch by the radio less than two hours before he closed. Everyone took it for granted that he had set his watch with a time signal. He hadn’t. He’d set it with a program. He’d made a mistake of fifteen minutes on the program.”

“He found this out?” I asked.

“Yes. He found it out after the inquest. But Bruce Walden has confidence in me. I told him that it wouldn’t make any difference, that I actually was on my way to San Diego and he believed me. So he has never said anything.”

“Where’s Bruce Walden now?” I asked.

“He was running a service station then. Now he’s a gasoline distributor for the entire county.”

Quinn looked at me.

I said, “They have this man Victor. Victor’s positive the station was closed at seven minutes to nine when he drove by.”

Elizabeth Endicott said, “If they should start digging, Mrs. Walden would also testify that her husband was mistaken. He got home at five minutes past nine. He couldn’t have done that if he actually closed the station at nine. She took it for granted he’d closed up early. Nothing was said. It wasn’t until after the inquest that she began to put two and two together. She asked him about setting his watch. He told her how it had happened. She’s the one who pointed out to him that he was fifteen minutes off on the time.”

Quinn looked at me and threw up his hands.

Bertha Cool said, “Fry me for an oyster!”

“All right,” I told Quinn. “We’ll start from here. One of the first things to do is to find that gun before the D. A. finds it. Remember this: the D. A.‘s in a spot. He’s prosecuting John Ansel for first-degree murder. He doesn’t want to back up and dismiss. Even if he could prove Walden closed that station fifteen minutes early he still hasn’t proven Elizabeth Endicott guilty of killing her husband. That’s bothering him right now. That’s raising hell with his thinking.

“We’re going out and find that gun if it’s still there.”

“But don’t you see,” Barney Quinn said, “when Ansel gets on the stand he’s going to have to tell the truth. He can’t lie successfully, and now that I know his story, I can’t put him on and let him tell a lie. He has to tell about that gun.”

I said, “He doesn’t have to get on the stand.”

“If we don’t put him on the stand, we’re licked,” Barney said.

“No,” I told him. “We’ll let the district attorney play into our hands.”

“How?”

“We’ll give him a witness.”

“Who?”

“Helen Manning.”

“Who’s she?”

“She is a discharged secretary who came to Elizabeth Endicott and told her what a heel her husband was. She’s the woman who told Elizabeth for the first time that Karl had deliberately sent John to his death. She’s the woman who made Elizabeth Endicott think about killing her husband. She’s the woman who first put the idea into Elizabeth’s head.”

Elizabeth Endicott sat perfectly still, her face an absolute mask. “What are you trying to do?” she asked. “Send me to the gas chamber?”

“We’re trying to get the district attorney straddling a barbed-wire fence,” I said, “one foot on one side, one foot on the other.”

“You can’t do it with that guy. He’s smart,” Quinn warned.

“All right,” I said, “what are you going to do with him?”

Quinn didn’t have the answer to that one.

I turned to Elizabeth Endicott. “There’s only one thing for us to do. We don’t dare use flashlights. We can’t make the search by daylight or someone would tip the police off. Cooper Hale owns the property next to your estate so we’ll have to wait until well after midnight. We’ll go out to your house. We’ll ease out of the side door. Then we’ve got to get down on our hands and knees and search every inch of that hedge by feeling.”

“But what will we do if you find it?” Barney Quinn asked.

“We’ll keep it,” I said.

“It will be evidence,” Quinn pointed out. “It’s a crime to conceal evidence. It’s unprofessional conduct. They could disbar me for that.”

I grinned at him. “You won’t be there, Barney. Tomorrow be sure to ask me if we found a gun in the hedge. Come on, Bertha, let’s go. We’ll see you at your place in a couple of hours, Mrs. Endicott. Leave the back door open for us. You can fortify us with coffee and assure us the coast is clear.”