The Case of the Runaway

Chapter 8

The police car pulled in to the curb and as Mason was escorted into the building, a tall man with a good-natured grin came forward and extended his hand.

“Perry Mason?”

“That’s right.” Mason said, taking the proffered hand.

“I’m Talbert Vandling,” the man said. “I’m the district attorney here in Fresno. Looks as though I’m going to be trying a murder case with you on the other side.”

Mason sized the man up. The cool, steady eyes, the easy, relaxed affability which emanated from him.

“I think,” he said, “you might be rather a dangerous antagonist.”

“I’d try to be,” Vandling told him. “Now what’s all this about you opening a letter up in Butte County?”

“Am I supposed to have opened a letter?” Mason asked.

“The D.A. up there thinks you did.”

“Was it a crime?”

“Well,” Vandling said, “that depends on how you look at it.”

Mason smiled at him. “I take it you have troubles of your own down here in your county.”

“You can say that again.”

“Then I take it it won’t be necessary for you to borrow any problems from Butte County in order to keep yourself comfortably busy.”

Vandling threw back his head and laughed.

Mason said, “I understand you’re holding Mrs. Edward Davenport here. She’s my client. I want to talk with her and advise her as to her rights.”

The smile left Vandling’s face. “There are some things about that case I can’t understand, Mason. Now I don’t want to prosecute anyone who isn’t guilty. According to her story she knows nothing about the murder. In other words, she’s innocent.”

Mason nodded.

“Unfortunately,” Vandling said, “there are some circumstances which make it impossible for me to accept her story at face value.”

“How about the corpse climbing out of the window?” Mason asked.

“That’s one of the things I was coming to,” Vandling said. “I’m going to put my cards on the table and I’d like to have you put your cards on the table.”

“Well,” Mason said, “let’s not do it all at once. You put down one of your cards and I’ll see if I can match it.”

“All right,” Vandling said. “The police made an investigative blunder. I’ll be perfectly frank in telling you that.”

“How come?”

“The man who saw the figure, apparently clad in pajamas, climb out of the window and drive away has slipped through our fingers.”

“How did that happen?”

“He gave a fictitious address and presumably a false name to the officers.”

“And the officers let it go at that?”

Vandling said, “Figure it out for yourself. He was registered there at this motel. He wasn’t alone. The couple was registered as husband and wife. He told the officers about having seen the figure in pajamas getting out of the window and driving away in the automobile. The officers asked for his name and address. He gave them the name and the address under which he was registered. The officers checked that. They found that he’d registered the night before under that name and they let it go at that. They didn’t ask to see his driving license. They didn’t check the number of his car. They didn’t ask for any identification. It was a hell of a blunder. The only reason they were so lax was because at that time they felt certain there wasn’t any corpse, that a man who had been locked in was making a getaway from an unattractive wife.”

Mason’s eyes hardened. “Go on.” he said.

“Evidently this man started doing a lot of second thinking. He realized that if he was going to be a witness his real identity and perhaps that of his companion would come out. So he got away from there fast.”

“And the officers don’t know who he is?”

“Haven’t the faintest idea. They have the name that he gave them, but I’m pretty certain it isn’t his right name. The address is fictitious and the license number of the automobile that he put on his motel registration was false.”

“How do you know?”

“We’ve checked the owner of the automobile that’s registered under that license. He’s in the southern part of the state, he’s married, has a family, and there’s no question that he isn’t the man we want. Moreover, he hasn’t left his home in the past forty-eight hours and neither has his automobile. He hasn’t loaned the car to anyone and it couldn’t possibly have been up here in this part of the state.”

Mason said, “That man in the motel has become the most valuable witness for the defense.”

Vandling nodded.

“If that had been a witness whose story had been of value to the prosecution,” Mason said, “I don’t think he’d have slipped through the fingers of the police.”

Vandling said, “Well, there are certain implications in what you say and in the way you say it that I don’t like.”

“There are certain implications in what has happened that I don’t like.”

Vandling’s infectious smile came back. “Are you going to be hard to get along with?” he asked.

Mason’s lips smiled at the man, but his eyes remained cold and hard. “Yes,” he said.

“I was afraid of that,” Vandling told him. “Of course, Mason, let’s be fair about this. If the man had been a witness for the prosecution his statement would have indicated that a murder had been committed. Right?”

“I suppose so.”

“So the officers would have known that they were working on a murder, that they’d be dragged over the coals if the witness slipped through their fingers and they’d naturally have taken steps to check his identity and make sure they had the means of locating him as a witness.

“But as it was, this man’s story indicated that no crime had been committed. Therefore the officers were more careless than would have otherwise been the case—at least I hope they were. It was an investigative blunder and I don’t like it. I don’t feel easy about it at all.”

“That was an important witness,” Mason said. “The police should have seen that he was available.”

“I agree with you.”

“So where does that leave us now?” Mason asked.

“I’m afraid,“Vandling said, “it leaves you and me in a position where we have a conflict of interests. The way things look now I’m going to have to put a murder charge against Myrna Davenport. I’m going to have to prosecute that charge. Naturally I don’t want to do it if Ed Davenport actually did climb out of the window of that motor court.

“However, even if we found that witness, about all he could testily to was that he saw a figure, which he presumes was a masculine figure, clad in pajamas, getting out of the window, that he noticed the man was barefoot, that he got in an automobile and drove away. The figure matches the general description of Ed Davenport.”

“You’ve found the body?” Mason asked.

“We’ve found the body.”

“Any question but what it’s Ed Davenport’s body?”

“None whatever.”

“How was the body dressed?” Mason asked.

“In pajamas. It was barefoot and it had been buried in a grave that had been dug two or three days in advance.”

“You mean it was buried in a hole in the ground that had been there for some time?”

“Well, that’s your way of presenting it,” Vandling said. “As far as I’m concerned it was a grave that had been dug several days in advance and dug for the specific purpose of receiving Davenport’s body.”

“And how did he die?” Mason asked.

“We don’t know that for sure,” Vandling said, “but our best guess is that it was poison.”

“Arsenic?”

“Potassium cyanide. We haven’t had the autopsy yet.”

“Then death would have been almost instantaneous.” Vandling nodded.

“The candy?” Mason asked.

“The candy in his bag was loaded with arsenic and potassium cyanide. Most of the pieces had arsenic. Some of them had potassium cyanide. It was a neat job of poisoning. Part of the liquid had been drained out, evidently with a suction needle, and liquid containing poison had been introduced.”

“Why the devil would anyone have used two types of poison?” Mason asked.

Vandling said, “I’d like to have the answer to that, too.”

“Particularly.” Mason said. “A slow-acting poison and one that would have taken effect almost immediately.”

“It’s a question,” Vandling admitted. “In fact, there are questions in this case that I can’t answer. I don’t like to prosecute a case unless I know that I have a case. If I ask a jury to return the death penalty against this woman, I want to be certain that she is guilty of cold-blooded, premeditated, first degree murder.”

Mason nodded.

“I’ve read a lot about you,” Vandling went on. “You’re a tough, resourceful fighter. You believe in the dramatic. I’m not too keen to go up against you in a case where I can’t be sure it’s dead open-and-shut.”

“And so?” Mason asked.

Vandling’s friendly smile was once more in evidence. “And so,” he said. “That’s all I can say to you at the present time.”

“What is?”

“I’ll repeat. I don’t like to ask for the death penalty in a case unless I’m sure it’s cold-blooded, deliberate, premeditated murder; that there are some things in this case I can’t explain at the present time. I don’t seem to have the answers. There’s a defense witness who has slipped through the fingers of the police.

“I have a reputation to maintain as a prosecutor. You’re dynamite. You’re deadly dangerous. If there are any facts in a case that the prosecution can’t explain, you’re going to dramatize those facts in some way so that they seem to be the most important facts in the entire case.”

“And so?” Mason asked.

“That’s all I can say at the present time.”

“Well, let’s look ahead a little.”

“I’m not a fortune teller or a prophet.”

“Let’s explore some of the possibilities that might happen.”

Vandling said. “If you put it on that basis, a prosecutor nearly always finds that when he has enough evidence to prove a person is guilty there are some elements in the case that he still can’t account for. When that happens he sometimes goes ahead and gets a conviction anyway. Sometimes he offers to make a deal.”

“What sort of a deal?”

“Oh, it runs into all kinds of things. Sometimes he agrees not to ask for the death penalty if the defendant pleads guilty. Sometimes he lets the defendant plead guilty to second degree murder. Sometimes, in extreme cases, if the defendant can make a good showing, he’s willing to accept a manslaughter plea.”

“But in this particular case?” Mason asked.

“In this particular case,“Vandling said, “I am not in a position to say anything further at the present time.”

“Well, I guess we understand each other,” Mason told him.

“And you want to see the defendant, I take it.”

Mason nodded.

Vandling said, “I came down here personally because I wanted to meet you and because I wanted to assure you that you aren’t going to have the slightest trouble seeing the defendant. Up in this county we don’t go in for a lot of third degree stuff. We don’t try to keep a defendant away from counsel. You’ll find Mrs. Davenport waiting for you in a conference room, and I’ll give you my personal assurance that there aren’t any bugs in that room. It isn’t wired. Whatever you say to each other is going to be private and confidential. If Mrs. Davenport wants to talk to me I’ll ask her questions from time to time. If she doesn’t want to answer them that’s her privilege. You’re her attorney and you’re going to have every professional courtesy extended to you in this county and we’re going to safeguard the rights of the defendant just as jealously as you are.”

“Thanks,” Mason said.

“And,” Vandling went on, “if the evidence indicates that she deliberately poisoned her husband I’m going to ask for the death penalty.”

Mason nodded.

“And if she gets acquitted up here,” Vandling said, “The district attorney in Los Angeles wants her, to charge her with the poison murder of Miss Hortense Paxton.”

Again Mason nodded.

“I thought you might like to know those things,” Vandling said, “particularly in case you considered having the defendant plead guilty. Right now, in view of the fact that an important defense witness seems to have given the police the slip, if you wanted to go into court, comment on that fact and have your client plead guilty. I would certainly advise the court that under those circumstances the prosecution would be content to ask for life imprisonment and not for the death penalty.”

“And then they’d take her back to Los Angeles to try her for the murder of Hortense Paxton,” Mason said, “and when she got on the stand to deny her guilt the district attorney would cross-examine her and by way of impeachment would say, ‘Isn’t it a fact that you have been convicted of a felony?, and she would have to say, ‘Yes.’ Then he would say, ‘Isn’t it a fact that you were convicted of poisoning your husband up in Fresno County?’ and she’d have to say, ‘Yes.’ And then the jury in Los Angeles would decide she was a habitual poisoner and would close their ears to any evidence that might be in her favor, would find that she was guilty of the poison murder of Hortense Paxton and would sentence her to death.”

Vandling placed his hand to his face, rubbed his fingers along the angle of his jaw, and then slowly nodded. “Yes,” he said at length, “I can see that you have your problems, too, Counselor.”

“So,” Mason said, “I’ll go and talk with my client. Thanks for putting the cards on the table. I have an idea it’s going to be rather tough trying a case with you on the other side.”

Vandling’s fingers gripped Mason’s hand. “I’m going to try my damnedest to make it tough,” he said. “How about what happened up in Paradise? How about that letter with the blank sheets of paper in it and the flap that had been steamed open? You want to make any statement about that?”

Mason shook his head.

“I didn’t think you would,” Vandling said. “The D.A. up there telephoned me that I’d find you loquacious but evasive. He said you’d talk your head off but wouldn’t say anything.”

Mason said, “A man’s tactics change with different people and with different circumstances. I think it would be rather difficult to be loquacious and evasive with you.”

“I’d try to make it so,” Vandling said. “Well, go ahead and see your client, Mason, and anything we can do here to make you comfortable just call on us. I’m a Rotarian myself. I’d like to take you down to the club and introduce you. If you like to play golf, we can fix you up and—”

“Thanks,” Mason said. “I’m afraid I’m going to be pretty busy.”

“I’ll sure try to keep you busy.” Vandling told him. “Good luck. I think you’re going to need it. Perhaps we both are.”