The Anonymous Client

17

Tracy Garvin could hardly contain herself. She was seated across the table from Steve Winslow in a small diner three blocks from the courthouse. Steve had brushed aside all her questions, even after Mark Taylor, who didn’t want to hear the answers, had hailed a cab and beat a hasty retreat back to his office. Now she waited in mounting frustration while a tired waitress plodded over and slid cups of coffee in front of them.

As the waitress departed, Tracy looked up at Steve and said, “Now?”

Steve dumped cream in his coffee. “Yeah, now.”

“What happened?”

“You first. You heard it on the news, right?”

Tracy gave him an exasperated look, but realized argument would be futile. He wasn’t going to talk till she did. “Yeah. I’d gone home, and I told Mark Taylor to call me if anything happened, but he hadn’t called, and I was listening to the radio, you know, in case they had more details about the Harding thing. Then the news came on about Bradshaw. I called information and your number was listed, so I tried to call you. Of course, you weren’t there. So I figured he’d called you and you’d beat it to Bradshaw’s apartment. So I hopped a cab and went over there.”

“And what happened?”

“You know what happened. I walked into a trap.”

“How?”

“I was stupid. When I got to the building there were no cop cars, nothing. I couldn’t understand it. I mean, this was a murder site. I thought maybe I got the address wrong. I went to a pay phone on the corner and called information, asked them if they had a David C. Bradshaw at that address. They did. I went back to the building. I went up the steps. And I tried to get in.”

“How?”

“What do you mean?”

“What did you do?”

“I rang the bell.”

“Good.”

“What do you mean, good.”

“Dirkson is going to try to prove you were trying to break into that apartment. If the cops have to testify you were ringing the doorbell, it weakens their case.”

“What case?” Tracy cried. “Look. Please. I can’t take it anymore. Just tell me what is going on.”

He did. He told her all of it. From finding Bradshaw’s body to his interview with Marilyn Harding to his dinner with Mark Taylor. The only thing he left out was the part about typing the note on Bradshaw’s typewriter and throwing it out the window. He wasn’t about to make her an accessory to concealing evidence.

She listened, fascinated, till he was finished. “So that’s why Mark Taylor didn’t mention the letters.”

“Yeah. He wasn’t happy about it, but he did it.”

“Why are the letters so important?”

“They’re the key to the whole thing. I’m withholding evidence from the police. So are you. We’re doing it by relying on the law of privileged communications. Well, you can’t have a privileged communication without a client. Those letters show I haven’t got a client.”

Tracy frowned. “Right. We’re right back where we started. Who the hell’s the client?”

Steve shrugged. “You got me. I was all but convinced it was Marilyn Harding. I went out there and started questioning her. She could have told me to go to hell, but she didn’t. She answered all my questions, and some of them were pretty damn impertinent. The way I saw it, the only way that made sense was if she sent me the letters.

“So I sprung the Bradshaw murder on her. That hit her hard. But she tried to pull an innocent act. Then I told her about Miltner’s detectives. I figured that would break her. I was all set for her to reach down the front of her dress and pull out the torn half of a dollar bill. Instead, she went to the phone and called her lawyer, who advised her to throw me out of the house. You could have knocked me down with a feather.”

“Is it true what you said? That as your secretary, I don’t have to testify?”

Steve shrugged. “It’s fine line. They can’t make you testify as to confidential communications. Going to Bradshaw’s apartment is something else. You are an active participant. You did something, and they can question you about it.”

“Then eventually I’ll have to talk?”

He shook his head. “No. That’s why it’s a fine line. I’ll argue that the reason you went to Bradshaw’s apartment was because of something you learned from a confidential communication from a client, and therefore asking you why you went there is the same thing as asking you to reveal that confidential communication.”

“But there’s no client.”

“Right.”

“So what’s going to happen now?”

Steve took a sip of coffee. “Now we wait.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know. But I wouldn’t be too surprised if Dirkson drags me in front of the grand jury and tries to get me indicted as an accessory.”

“How could he do that?”

“He’s going to claim I took some evidence out of Bradshaw’s apartment and managed to ditch it somewhere in the building. He’ll claim I sent you to get it.”

Tracy’s face fell. “Shit. It’s all my fault.”

To a certain extent it was. And Steve had uncharitably been thinking that very thing. But faced with Tracy’s distress, he wasn’t about to say so. And she had clammed up on Dirkson.

“Don’t be silly,” he said. “That’s what he’s going to try to do. He can’t prove it, and I think he knows it.”

“Oh.”

Steve pushed back his coffee cup. “Come on. Let’s go.”

Tracy looked at him. “Where?”

Steve looked at his watch. “I’m putting you in a cab. It’s nearly two, and I need you to open up the office tomorrow morning.” He smiled. “After all, I still have twelve days left of your services.”