The Anonymous Client

45

Judge Graves looked down from the bench. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. I am sorry for the interruption. We are ready to proceed. The objection has been overruled. The witness will answer. The court reporter will read back the question.”

There was a delay while the court reporter shuffled through the tapes. The question was way back, since he’d had to record the entire session in chambers. Finally he found it, and droned it out in an expressionless voice, ending with, “And did you know that when we compared your prints, two of them matched absolutely with the latent prints taken from the decedent’s apartment and introduced in evidence here in court.”

“Do you understand the question?” Steve said.

The witness took a breath. “Yes. I do.”

“Then answer it.”

She hesitated. “I don’t know. I can’t explain it.”

“You don’t know?”

“No.”

“You don’t know how your fingerprints could have got in Bradshaw’s apartment?”

“No, I don’t.”

“You were never in there on any occasion?”

“I-”

“Think. It’s important. You’re under oath. How could your fingerprints have gotten there?”

The witness’s eyes flicked around the courtroom. “I … I …”

“Yes,” Steve said. “Go on.”

“I remember now. I was in there once.”

Steve tried hard to keep his face from looking like he had just gotten a death row reprieve. A glance at the defense table told him Fitzpatrick was not doing quite that good a job. He looked positively ecstatic.

But Dirkson looked positively murderous.

“Oh, were you now?” Steve said. “And when was that?”

“Silly of me. It was a long time ago. Right after he moved in. I remember now. I met him in the hall. He called me in, asked me something about the previous tenant. I don’t remember what it was. Something about the apartment. Was some shelf in the kitchen permanent, or had the previous tenant put it in.”

“So you were in the kitchen of that apartment?”

“Yes. I guess that’s right.”

“And this was when Donald Blake, the man you knew as Bradshaw, first moved in?”

“That’s right.”

“You were in his apartment that one time?”

“Yes.”

“And you hadn’t been back in since? And you hadn’t spoken to him since, except to say hello in passing?”

“That’s right.”

“But you were in his apartment that one time?”

“Yes. I just said I was.”

“So when you said in your previous testimony that you had never been in his apartment, you were mistaken, is that right?”

“Yes. I was mistaken.”

“I see. And were you perhaps mistaken about any other part of your testimony?”

“No. I wasn’t.”

“The rest of your testimony is accurate?”

“Yes, it is.”

“You were mistaken about that one particular fact?”

“That’s right.”

“You simply didn’t remember, but you remember now?”

“Yes. That’s exactly right.”

“Before we proceed, I would like to give you a chance to think. Is there anything else that you didn’t remember, that you remember now?”

“No, there isn’t.”

“You remember now that you’d been in Bradshaw’s apartment on that one occasion?”

“That’s right.”

“And if you were in his apartment, you of course spoke to him at that time. I mean, more than just to say hello in passing?”

“I guess so.”

“Do you recall what you talked about on that occasion, the occasion when you were in Bradshaw’s apartment?”

“No, I don’t. Only what I just told you. It was something about the apartment. A shelf or counter or something. I didn’t even remember the incident until you reminded me of it.”

“You didn’t talk about anything else? Anything about his personal life? Or yours?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“And that, to the best of your recollection, is the only time you ever talked to Bradshaw other than to say hello in passing in the hall?”

“That’s right.”

“And you’ve never been in his apartment again?”

“No.”

“You’ve never talked to him again, other than the hello in passing we’ve just mentioned?”

“That’s right.”

“Did you ever talk to him on the phone?”

“No. Of course not.”

“You didn’t?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You never called him on his phone?”

“No.”

“He never called you on yours?”

“No.”

“Never?”

“Never.”

“Is that so?” Steve said. “I hand you back the clipboard marked Defense exhibit B, and ask you to look at the list.”

Steve extended the clipboard, but Margaret Millburn made no move to take it. “Go ahead. You can touch it. You’ve already admitted being in the apartment. Your fingerprints don’t matter now.”

Reluctantly, the witness took the list.

“Fine,” Steve said. “Now, referring to the paper attached to the clipboard, the paper marked Defense exhibit A, what do you recognize it to be?”

“It’s a list of names.”

“That’s right. A list of names. Now, would you please read the names out loud?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The names on the list. Read them out loud, please.”

Margaret Millburn hesitated. Then she looked down and read off the names in a slow, steady voice, placing no emphasis on any particular name.

“Thank you,” Steve said. He took the clipboard, walked back and set it on the defense table. As he did so, Fitzpatrick flashed him a glance of inquiry. Under his breath Steve said, “Hold on to your hat, Fitzpatrick. We’re goin’ for the gold.”

Steve straightened and turned back to the witness. “Miss Millburn. Last night, when you were shown that list of names, the list you’ve just read into the record, did any name strike you as significant?”

“No.”

“No?” Steve said. “That’s odd. Suppose I were to tell you that Tracy Garvin, the young woman who showed you that list, noted a definite reaction on your part to one of the names-would that jar your memory any?”

“No, it would not. I don’t know what that list is, I don’t know where it came from, I don’t know what it means. That list has no significance to me.”

“And none of the names on that list has any particular significance?”

“No. The names appear to be people involved in this trial. Why that should be important, I couldn’t begin to tell you.”

“There are many people involved in this trial,” Steve said. “But it is my contention that there is one whose name has a special significance to you. Would it change your testimony any to know that the investigator, Tracy Garvin, was convinced that you showed a definite reaction to the name, Phyllis Kemper?”

The witness stared at him. “It most certainly would not.”

“It would not?”

“No.”

“The name Phyllis Kemper means nothing to you?”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Has no special significance?”

“None whatsoever.”

“And it is not true that last night when you were handed the clipboard, you reacted to seeing the name Phyllis Kemper?”

“No. It is not true.”

There was a pause.

Steve nodded. “You’re right, Miss Millburn. I don’t think that’s true either.”

The witness blinked. Stared at him.

Steve shook his head. “No. I think the name you reacted to was the name Mark Taylor.”

There was a pause. A time lag in the court, while people caught up with that statement. Mark Taylor? It was clear that most of the people in the court couldn’t even place the name.

Most of the people.

On the stand, the witness blinked. Once. Twice. She wet her lips.

“That’s true, isn’t it, Miss Millburn?” Steve said. “It was the name Mark Taylor that you reacted to, wasn’t it?”

“No. No,” she said. “It wasn’t.”

“No?” Steve said. He raised his voice and picked up the pace. “Then perhaps I can refresh your recollection. You have testified, have you not, that you never spoke to the decedent on the phone-that you never called him on his phone and he never called you on yours. Is that right?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Is it, Miss Millburn? I ask you, is it not a fact that on the afternoon of Tuesday the eighth, the man you knew as David C. Bradshaw called you on your telephone in your apartment, and said to you words to this effect: ‘I have just left the building and I’m being followed by detectives. I don’t want them to know I’ve spotted them. Here’s what I want you to do. I’m going to leave here and walk down the block in front of our building. I want you to look out your window at the car that’s tailing me and get the license number. Then I want you to call so-and-so at this phone number and ask him to trace the plate. Tell him it’s urgent and to do it right now. Just get the information, and I’ll call you right back.’

“And is it not a fact, Miss Millburn, that you did as you were instructed? Is it not a fact that you got the information, and when Bradshaw called you back minutes later, you passed it on to him? Is it not a fact that what you told Bradshaw, when he called you back from a pay phone on the corner, was that the car that was following him was registered to a detective agency? And wasn’t the name of the detective who had registered the car, the name that you passed on to David C. Bradshaw-wasn’t that name Mark Taylor? Isn’t that why the name Mark Taylor has a special significance to you, and isn’t that why you reacted so visibly to seeing his name on that list?”

The witness’s eyes darted around the courtroom. “No. No,” she said. “It’s not true.”

“It isn’t? You deny receiving either of those phone calls?”

“Yes, I do.”

“And if the records of the telephone company should show that calls were made from those pay phones to your apartment on the day in question, those records would be in error, is that right?”

“Objection. Argumentative.”

“Sustained.”

“Do you deny receiving those calls?” Steve persisted.

The witness hesitated. Looked around. “I … I…”

“It’s a simple question,” Steve said. “Do you or do you not deny receiving those calls?”

“It’s not a simple question,” she said. “You ask me if I deny receiving any calls from David C. Bradshaw. I may have received calls from someone else.”

Steve shook his head. “Nice try, Miss Millburn, but it’s no good. You forget. Bradshaw was being followed by detectives. Those detectives were in Mark Taylor’s employ and reported back to him. And those detectives reported the times and places of Bradshaw’s phone calls. If you received those calls, they could only have been from him.”

Margaret Millburn bit her lip.

Steve gave her time to think. He bored right in. “You see, Miss Millburn, it’s no use. We can prove you got those calls. Through the phone company, and the testimony of Mark Taylor’s men. If you want to try to deny what was said on those calls, that’s entirely up to you, but we can prove you got them all right. If we give you enough time, I’m sure you can come up with some plausible explanation for what was said during those calls, but you know and I know what was said, and it’s just what I told you. Bradshaw called you, told you he was being followed, and asked you to find who was doing it. Which you did.

“And if you did, it means you and Bradshaw were no casual strangers, as you would like to make it seem. You knew Bradshaw. You knew him well. You knew him before he even moved out here. When the apartment across the hall was about to be vacated, you called him and he snapped it up.

“Now, you’ve done a good job of keeping your relationship a secret. I happen to know that that was at his insistence, and I happen to know why.

“The fact is, you knew Bradshaw very well, you were in fact intimate with Bradshaw, and you’ve been in his apartment many times. Is that not a fact?”

“No. No, it’s not.”

“And is it not a fact that you knew all about the blackmail of Marilyn Harding? That you were in fact Bradshaw’s partner in the blackmail of Marilyn Harding?”

Margaret Millburn’s face was ashen white. “No. No, it’s not.”

“Oh isn’t it? I think it is. I’m going to tell you what happened, and then you can deny it if you like. You and Bradshaw were close. Damn close. You were his partner. You helped him out. Like tracing the license plate for him. You worked with him. You were a team.

“But no one knew it. Bradshaw insisted on that. Here he moved in across the hall from you and you thought everything would be hunky-dory. Except he didn’t want to be seen with you. He wanted your relationship to be a secret. You accepted it. You bought the reason he gave you-that if your relationship was known it would ruin some scam or other.

“But after a while that wore thin. You demanded to know the real reason. And after a while you found out why.

“He was two-timing you, wasn’t he? He had another woman on the side. And that wasn’t all. He was also cutting you out. He was two-timing you as a woman, and cutting you out as a partner. He was raking in money he wasn’t telling you about, and spending it on another woman. When you found out you were furious, and for good reason.”

Steve broke off the attack. He stood there looking at the witness for a moment. Then he shrugged his shoulders and said gently, “And that’s why you killed him.”

Margaret Millburn sat stunned. Steve’s casual, flat statement was harder to deal with than a shouted accusation would have been. Then she could have shouted her denial back. But what he’d said wasn’t even a question. It was just a simple statement of an assumed fact. She was like a batter expecting a fast ball and getting a change-up. Suddenly off-stride, she had to supply all the power, put all the force into her denial. “No!” she said. “I didn’t!”

Steve immediately jumped back on the attack. “Yes, you did, and I can prove it. I’ll tell you how you did it.

“You knew he was shaking down Marilyn Harding. That was one of the things you managed to find out, but you didn’t know for how much. But you knew she was calling on him. And you knew she was being followed by detectives-Bradshaw had spotted them when she came to his apartment, and he’d told you that much, probably as another reason why you shouldn’t be seen with him. So you knew Bradshaw had the goods on her, and you knew he was still shaking her down, and so you waited for your chance.

“Which brings us to the day of the murder. From the window of your apartment you saw Marilyn Harding enter the building. You even spotted the detectives she had on her tail. You listened at your door while she called on Bradshaw. You heard her go in. And you heard her go out. And that’s when you knew you had the perfect frame. Marilyn Harding was being blackmailed-she called on the blackmailer and she killed him.

“It was too good to pass up. As soon as Marilyn Harding left, you knocked on Bradshaw’s door. He let you in, of course. You made some excuse about wanting a drink, went in the kitchen, got the knife, and killed him.

“Then you searched the body. You knew he’d been shaking Marilyn down, and you knew he’d been holding out on you. You wanted your share.

“You found ten thousand dollars in one thousand dollar bills. You wanted that money, but you were scared. You knew the cops would be coming. And you knew the numbers on those bills could be traced. You didn’t dare keep those bills on you.

“So you took a chance. You hid them in the upstairs hallway, hoping they wouldn’t be found. If the cops didn’t find them, you were going to retrieve them later. If they did, well it was just too bad, but at least the bills could be traced to Marilyn, and that would clinch the case.

“And that’s when you pulled your masterstroke. That’s when you did the one thing you thought would frame Marilyn Harding and exonerate you of the crime.

“You called the police. You called up and reported an altercation in Bradshaw’s apartment. That would get the police there right away and fix the time of death as just about the time the detectives would have to testify Marilyn Harding had gone to the apartment. And you, having reported the altercation, would be the last person the police would suspect. It was brilliant.

“But then things started going wrong. First, the police found the ten grand you’d hidden in the hallway. All right, it cost you the money, but it would crucify her. Only it didn’t. Bradshaw had pulled a fiddle, and that money wasn’t Marilyn Harding’s ten grand at all. Marilyn Harding’s ten grand was found in a money belt on the body. The money found in the hallway was money Bradshaw had withdrawn from the bank himself.

“Of course, that didn’t make any sense. Not in terms of your frame-up. Marilyn might have killed Bradshaw, then panicked and ditched the bills in the hallway because she was afraid to have them on her. But why would she have paid Bradshaw, killed him, and then left her ten grand in his money belt? And if she had, who left the ten grand in the hall? It didn’t add up, despite what the cops might think.

“It was getting complicated. You’d thought the case against Marilyn Harding would be open and shut. Suddenly it wasn’t. Nonetheless, the police took the evidence at face value and arrested Marilyn Harding for the crime.

“That’s when you started getting cold feet. You didn’t want to go on the stand. You didn’t want to submit to the cross-examination you’re submitting to now. You knew you couldn’t stand up to it, just as you’re not standing up to it now.

“And that’s when you did a smart thing. Or so you thought. You wanted the prosecution to play down your testimony. In fact, if possible, you wanted them not to call you at all. You knew they were trying to make a case against Marilyn Harding. So when they asked you about the altercation, you told them it was a man’s voice you heard in the apartment. You figured if you said you heard a man, it would damage the prosecution’s case, so they’d try to keep you out of it.

“And it might have worked, except for one thing-Douglas Kemper. The police theory, as it turned out, was that Marilyn Harding and Douglas Kemper were acting in concert. Therefore, your hearing a man’s voice didn’t bother them at all. And therefore they put you on the stand.

“But you didn’t hear a man’s voice, did you? You didn’t hear any voice at all. You testified to a totally spurious altercation. It never happened. You made it up. You killed Bradshaw, and then you tipped over some furniture so it would look like there’d been an altercation. Then you dashed back to your apartment and you called the police. That’s what you did, isn’t it, Miss Millburn?”

“No. It’s a lie. I didn’t.”

“Yes you did, and I can prove it. Miss Millburn, do you have a safe deposit box?”

The change of subject was so abrupt the witness said, “What?”

“A safe deposit box. Do you have one? Perhaps one you rented within the last month?”

Margaret Millburn looked at him. Her eyes were wide.

Dirkson came to her rescue. “Objection, Your Honor. Incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial.”

Judge Graves, observing the witness’s manner, rather reluctantly said, “Objection sustained.”

“Miss Millburn,” Steve said, “I can lay the foundation and ask that question again. But I don’t have to. I’m just going to tell you how I can prove you killed Donald Blake. You see, when you killed him, you searched the body, and you found the ten thousand dollars, but you found something else too. Bradshaw had a lot of irons in the fire, and he’d pulled another scam. You didn’t know about it, and the police still don’t know about it, but I know about it. And I can prove it.

“You know what you found? You found twelve thousand dollars in small bills.”

Margaret Millburn reacted.

“That’s right, Miss Millburn. You found it, and you took it, and you kept it. You didn’t dare keep the ten grand. That was in big bills that could be traced. But the twelve grand was in small bills. You figured no one would have the numbers. So you took a chance. You hid it in your apartment. It was right there in your apartment when you called the cops. You figured they wouldn’t search your apartment, and you figured right.

“But you didn’t want to leave it there, not after the case broke open, not after things started going wrong. See why I asked about a safe deposit box? Either your bank account will show a twelve thousand dollar cash deposit, or you’ve got a safe deposit box somewhere with twelve thousand dollars in it. And if you do, after the showing I’m going to be able to make, a court order will open that box.”

Margaret Millburn’s mouth moved, but no words came out. She swayed slightly.

Steve bored in.

“You killed Bradshaw. You killed him and you took the money. It wasn’t in self-defense. It wasn’t in the heat of passion. It was a cold-blooded, premeditated crime. It was murder for profit. You set up Marilyn Harding, and you killed Donald Blake. You coldly, ruthlessly, intentionally-”

Margaret Millburn struggled to her feet. “No, No!” she cried. “I swear! I didn’t! It was an accident! …”

Time stood still.

Margaret Millburn froze, petrified by what she had just said.

No one moved. No one spoke.

An electric silence hung in the air.

No one in the courtroom could quite believe what had just happened.

Steve Winslow could hardly believe it either.

“Son of a bitch,” he murmured. “A courtroom confession.”