The Innocent Woman

48

For Someone who’d just been handed the solution to a murder case, District Attorney Harry Dirkson did not look particularly happy. He stood next to the desk in Judge Wylie’s chambers and rubbed his head. “Let me hear it again.”

“Yes, let’s have it again,” Judge Wylie said. “If I’m going to dismiss this case, I’d like to be sure of my grounds.”

Steve Winslow leaned back in his chair, looked over at the judge. “Sorry I couldn’t get you a confession,” he said, “but the number of people who break down in court and say, I did it, is somewhat smaller in real life than it is in books.”

“Spare me,” Dirkson said. “Just get on with it.”

Steve Winslow looked up at him. “I don’t like your attitude and I don’t like your tone. If you don’t want to hear this, I’m perfectly happy to walk out now and let the case go to the jury. Now, you take a minute and consider whether or not you think they’d convict.” He paused a moment, let that sink in. “If you nail Cunningham, you still come up with a killer. Which will look a little better in the scorebook than losing all the way around. Now, you want to hear this or not?”

Dirkson said nothing, looked away.

“Yes, let’s have it,” Judge Wylie said. “I think I have the picture, but let’s nail it down.”

“It’s really very simple,” Steve said. “We have your basic, simple crime of passion. Larry Cunningham killed Frank Fletcher in a jealous rage. He was infatuated with the defendant. Unfortunately, the feeling was not mutual. Amy Dearborn had no interest in Cunningham-he simply wasn’t her type. She was willing to let him buy her dinner now and then, but that was it.” Steve shrugged. “Not entirely admirable, I suppose, but somewhat less heinous than murder.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dirkson said. “What about Cunningham?”

“Well, there’s your picture,” Steve said. “We have your repressed young man carrying a torch in a one-sided love affair. Just the type to pop his cork and go berserk when he thinks she’s being hit on by someone else.”

“Never mind the motivation,” Dirkson said irritably. “For my money, anyone will kill anyone. Just tell me how he did it. More to the point, how can I prove he did it?”

“He did it just like I said in court. He took Amy out to dinner with the hope of getting her into bed. It was a vain hope by the way, but guys like him never quite believe that. He was going to kiss off the movie, get her up to her apartment, and make his move. He was obsessed, so the fact it had never worked before wasn’t enough to dissuade him.”

“How do you know it had never worked before?”

“My client told me.”

“Big deal. I wouldn’t take her word for anything.”

“Gentlemen, please. Let’s not digress,” Judge Wylie said.

“The point is,” Steve said, “he was planning to get her up there. So at the end of dinner he went to check the answering machine. Not that he was expecting to get a message. More than likely, he was just laying the groundwork for skipping the movie He intended to tell her something had come up, they didn’t have time to go to the show, but he had time to come up to her place for a while.”

“You know that for a fact?” Dirkson said.

“No, I’m making it up. It just seems plausible to me.”

“I need more than that.”

“I don’t.”

Dirkson looked at him. “Huh?”

“If you don’t convict this guy, it’s no skin off my nose. I’ll give you what I’ve got, but frankly I’m getting a little sick of the sarcastic interruptions.”

“You haven’t given me a fact yet.”

“You haven’t shut up long enough for me get to one.”

Winslow and Dirkson glared at each other a moment. Then Dirkson waved it off, flopped into a chair. “Get on with it,” he said.

“Okay,” Steve said. “For whatever reason, at the end of dinner Cunningham went and made a phone call. He said he was checking his answering machine, but actually he was checking hers. Why? Because he had call-forwarding on, transferring his calls to her phone.” Steve pointed to Dirkson. “And there is a fact that you can check. First that he has call-forwarding. And second, that on the night in question it was routing his calls to her phone.”

“Will there be a record of that?” Dirkson said.

Steve shrugged. “I haven’t the faintest idea. But it’s something to check out. If there’s a record, it will help. But there should be other proofs.”

“Such as what?”

“You might try cabs.”

“Huh?”

“Cunningham beat Amy down to the office and had time to get in, kill Fletcher and get out. If she went home, checked the answering machine and went straight down there, that would be cutting it rather close. I doubt if a man on that sort of time schedule would take the subway.”

“What time schedule? According to her, she didn’t get down there until ten o’clock.”

“Yeah, but he didn’t know that. As far as he was concerned, she was right on his heels.”

“She was,” Dirkson said, “and you know it. She came down right after him.”

“I don’t want to get into that,” Steve said.

“I’ll bet you don’t.”

“I mean now. It’s another digression. Right now, I’m telling you what Cunningham did.”

“And I for one want to hear it,” Judge Wylie said. “We can deal with these other matters later on. You were saying, Mr. Winslow?”

“I’m saying the odds are he took a cab. And if he did, somewhere out there there will be a cabbie with a trip sheet listing that ride. And if there is, the cops can find it. Just like they did with Tracy Garvin.”

“You admit that was her in that cab?”

“I admit nothing of the sort. I’m just using it as an example.” Steve leaned back in his chair. “Where was I? Oh yes, Cunningham takes a cab downtown. You can figure that cab was hailed at approximately seven-thirty.”

“Not eight o’clock?” Judge Wylie said.

“Absolutely not.” Steve turned to Dirkson. “Amy Dearborn has always maintained she left the restaurant at seven-thirty. Cunningham’s the one said eight o’clock. He was most insistent about it. At first I thought he was lying to give her an alibi. It took a while before I realized he was lying to give himself one.”

Dirkson frowned.

Steve smiled. “See how it fits? Anyway, he made the phone call at seven-thirty. Just as he would have if they were going to the pictures at eight. Which Amy thought they were actually doing. So Cunningham goes, makes the phone call, hears the message from Frank Fletcher because he has call-forwarding on, is incensed, goes back, tells Amy Dearborn a business matter came up. They leave the restaurant. She goes home, he grabs a cab downtown.”

Dirkson put up his hand. “Hold on a moment.”

“What?”

“The business appointment. With the client. Whatever his name is.”

“Philip Eckstein.”

“Yeah, him. Are you saying there never was a business appointment?”

“No. Of course there was.”

“How? Where’s the message?”

“What message?”

“The message on the answering machine. Look,” Dirkson said. “I served the search warrant. We impounded Amy Dearborn’s machine. The only message on that tape was from Frank Fletcher, asking her to come to the office. If Larry Cunningham had call-forwarding on, the message from Philip Eckstein should have been on there too,”

Steve smiled. “Yeah, but you’re taking his story at face value.”

“No, I’m not,” Dirkson said. “I checked with the client. He said he left the message.”

“A wholly reliable witness?” Steve asked.

Dirkson took a breath. “Actually, no. As I recall he’s a nerdy little twerp, nervous as hell, gave the impression he was lying. But not about the call. About the time element. See, I always figured just like you did that Cunningham was lying about the time to give her an alibi. And this guy was his client, owed him a favor and was backing him up. I’ll give you that. But the bit about the phone call and the message-there was nothing bogus about that. And with a guy that transparent, I’d know.”

“I think you would too,” Steve said.

“So where’s the message?”

“On Cunningham’s answering-machine.”

“How is that possible if he had call-forwarding on?”

“That threw me a while too,” Steve said. “Before I realized Cunningham was lying all the way along. But it works out if you trace his motivation. First off, he’s looking to get laid. He’s going out with Amy Dearborn, he’s looking to score, and that’s number one in his mind.

“Here’s how I dope it out. He gets home that afternoon, checks his answering machine. There are two messages on it. One is this guy Philip Eckstein, saying he really wants to meet with him that evening to go over some stock. The other is Amy Dearborn, high as a kite, saying she just got home from court, she was acquitted on all counts, and let’s go out to dinner and celebrate.”

Steve shrugged. “Tough luck for Eckstein. Cunningham never calls him, never gives him a second thought. He calls up Amy Dearborn, says he’ll be right there. He stops long enough to set call-forwarding on his phone so if he gets any more calls they’ll be routed up there. Then he picks up Amy Dearborn and goes out to dinner, at the end of which he calls to check the machine. Since it’s call-forwarding he checks hers, gets the message from Fletcher, and there you are.

“Now he needs a pretext to get away. Well, he’s got one already. The business meeting. He calls Phil Eckstein, pretends he just got the message from him, tells him to sit tight, he’ll be right over. Then he goes back, tells Amy Dearborn something came up, sends her home, rushes down and kills Fletcher.”

Dirkson shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“I do,” Steve said. “When you questioned Eckstein, you knew he was lying, right? About the time element?”

“Yeah. So?”

“So, if he’s so transparent, I bet you can break it down.”

Dirkson frowned. “What do you mean?”

“The lie Cunningham got him to tell was that the phone call from the restaurant was at eight o’clock. We know it was seven-thirty. That’s the lie, and that’s why the guy’s nervous.

“The other half of the story-that Cunningham got there at eight-thirty-that happens to be true. Why? Because he went to kill Fletcher first. See, if he called at eight o’clock and went straight to the client’s house, he’d get there at eight-thirty. But if the phone call was seven-thirty and he went right there, he’d get there at eight o’clock.

“But he didn’t. The eight-thirty part of the story happens to be true. Which doesn’t fit with the seven-thirty phone call we also know to be true.”

Steve looked at Dirkson. “See where we can break this down?”

“No, I don’t,” Dirkson said. “What’d he shoot him with, his finger? Where’d he get the gun?”

“He was carrying the gun.”

“Why?”

“Because he was that type of guy.” Steve shrugged. “I’m not a psych major, but this is not particularly deep. He wasn’t scoring in the sack, but he was packing a rod.”

Judge Wylie nodded. “This just might hold water.”

“I’m not so sure,” Dirkson said. “Say all that happened. What did he do then?”

“Splashed back to earth, most likely. He gets the message, he’s a bull who sees red. He goes down to the office, bursts in on Fletcher, takes out his gun and shoots him. Fletcher falls dead and the bubble bursts. Suddenly, he’s no longer the avenging hero, fighting for his young lady’s honor. Suddenly he’s the murderer, the fugitive, the hunted man. Oh my god, what do I do now?”

“What does he do?”

“First off, he makes it look like a robbery. The first thing that comes to mind is the petty cash drawer. He and Amy have just been discussing it. He cleans out the petty cash box to make it look like the office had been robbed. Like that’s why Fletcher was killed. He takes the money and splits.” Steve Winslow pointed at Dirkson. “Which is another thing you can check on.”

“What’s that?”

“The detective. Samuel Macklin. He had a list of the serial numbers of the twenty-five twenty dollars bills that were in that petty cash drawer. That was admittedly a month ago, but there’s a chance some of those bills were still there. In which case, there’s a chance Cunningham has them. It’s a long shot, but if you check the serial numbers on his bills, you just might get lucky.”

“Yeah, I’ll check on it,” Dirkson said. “But now that we’ve come to it, what about the petty cash drawer?”

“What about it?”

“Who shut it?”

“I have no idea.”

“I think you do. More to the point, I think you know why Amy Dearborn found it open. I’d like to hear your explanation for that.”

“All right,” Steve said. “But I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

“Never mind that. Let’s have it.”

“Okay. We agree Cunningham took the money and left the drawer open to make it look like a robbery.”

“I’m not agreeing to anything,” Dirkson said. “Just tell your story.”

“Okay. Cunningham kills Fletcher, takes the cash and gets out. He leaves the cash box and the cash drawer open. Your theory-correct me if I’m wrong-is that Amy Dearborn arrived right on his heels, found Fletcher dead and the office robbed. She then went out and tried to establish an alibi by returning at ten o’clock and calling the cops. They arrived and she told her story. The only problem was, in the meantime, unbeknownst to her, some chambermaid came by and closed that drawer. Is that right?”

“I’m surprised to hear you admit it.”

“I’m not admitting it. I’m asking if that’s your theory.”

“Absolutely.”

“Then I would assume you’ve turned that building’s maintenance staff upside down to try to find the cleaning woman who did that.”

Dirkson said nothing.

“Which you cannot do,” Steve said. “Because she doesn’t exist. You know it and I know it. Because if she did exist, you’d have found her. And if you’d found her, she’d have been a witness. She wasn’t, so you didn’t, and your theory falls apart.” Steve Winslow shook his head. “No, couldn’t have happened that way. No, the only theory that makes sense is someone from the crime scene unit closed it and he’s denying it to cover his ass. A detective could probably get away with that lie. I doubt if a chambermaid could.”

“I bet a lawyer could,” Dirkson said.

Steve Winslow cocked his head. “I beg your pardon? I’m not lying, I’m presenting theories. They may not be entirely accurate. In fact, they may be utterly false. But that doesn’t make them lies. That just makes them incorrect. Not that they necessarily are.”

Dirkson took a breath. “I’m not talking theories. You know and I know what you just told me’s bullshit. I know for a fact Amy Dearborn was down there earlier. We have the cab driver’s testimony. Plus the one who took your secretary. Not to mention the music store owner. You, her and the defendant were running around there all night, falsifying evidence and planting clues.”

“Are you making an accusation?”

“I’m telling you what you did.”

“You’re speaking in front of a judge.”

“He knows what you did too.”

“I’ve done nothing,” Steve Winslow said. “Except try to set the record straight. As I’m attempting to do now. You want to accuse me of something, figure out the charge.”

“How about obstructing justice, aiding and abetting and accessory to murder?”

“Wake up,” Steve Winslow said. “Aiding and abetting whom? Amy Dearborn didn’t kill Frank Fletcher. Larry Cunningham did. You think I aided and abetted him? Guess again. I’m trying to help you nail him. If you’d get the chip off your shoulder and stop taking potshots at me, you probably will.”

Dirkson frowned.

“What about the gun?” Judge Wylie said.

“What about it?”

“You think there’s any chance of recovering it?”

“Probably better than fifty fifty,” Steve said. “Cunningham’s the type of guy who’d hate to part with it. Plus he’d be sure no one suspected him.”

“Until now,” Judge Wylie said. He looked at Dirkson. “You think you’ve got enough to pick him up?”

“I’m not sold on this,” Dirkson said.

“I didn’t ask if you were,” Judge Wylie said irritably. “I asked if you could do it. I’d have remanded him to custody if I’d had any grounds. But it’s not like he admitted anything.”

Dirkson sighed. “All right. I’ll pick him up.”

There came the sound of raised voices in the hallway, and a court officer burst into the room. He was young and obviously very upset. “I’m sorry, Your Honor,” he said. “There’s been a shooting.”

“What?”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. The witness. Larry Cunningham.”

“Don’t tell me.”

“That’s right. He killed himself. Went in the men’s room, blew his brains out.” The young man shook his head. “They told me to watch him, but only so he wouldn’t get away. I followed him into the john, but I wasn’t going to follow him into the stall.”

Judge Wylie exhaled. “Jesus.”

“Yeah,” Dirkson said. “What a mess.”

Steve Winslow looked from one to the other. “And that, gentlemen, is that.”