The Naked Typist

19

Steve pushed open the office door. “Mark call again?”

Tracy looked up at him. “Are you kidding? I can hardly get off the line with him before he calls again.”

The phone rang.

“See?” Tracy said. “There he is now.” She snatched it up. “Steve Winslow’s office … Yes, Mark, he’s here.”

“Tell him to come down,” Steve said.

“He just got in, he says come on down.” Tracy listened a moment, covered the phone, said with some exasperation, “Mark says he’s got too much stuff coming in right now, you should go up.”

“Tell him to put a man on the phone and come down. Tell him you’re pissed off at being left in the lurch and I’m afraid you might quit on me.”

The phone squawked.

Tracy hung up. “He heard that, and he’s coming down.”

“Great.”

Steve walked into his inner office, slumped into his desk chair, leaned back, closed his eyes and rubbed his head.

Tracy followed him in and stood there looking at him. “What’s the matter?” she said.

Steve opened his eyes, sighed, shook his head. “This fucking case. It’s really getting to me.”

“What about it?”

“I listen to this girl, and she’s either totally innocent or she’s the most accomplished liar I ever heard.”

“Oh?”

“The first story she told us was hogwash, or at least most of it.”

“She didn’t type nude?”

“Yeah, she did.” Steve held up his hands in exasperation. “That’s just it. The parts of her story that sound like outlandish, preposterous lies turn out to be true. It’s the reasonable stuff that turn out to be lies.”

“So what’s going on? You gonna tell me?”

“Of course. That’s why I had Mark come down. Turns out I got a lot to tell.”

“Like what?”

“Like-”

Then came the sound of the outer door banging open.

“There’s Mark now.”

Seconds later Mark Taylor came barreling into the room.

“All right, Steve. What the fuck is going on?”

“Take it easy, Mark. What’s the matter?”

“What’s the matter? The girl’s charged with murder, I’m sitting on a bunch of key evidence, and you ask me what’s the matter?”

“We’ve been through all that.”

“Yeah. Before she was charged. Now she is, and there’s gonna be hell to pay.”

“You call your detectives?”

“Yeah. I can’t reach ’em.”

“Then you’ve done your job. You got information for me?”

“I’ll say. And more coming in every minute. Tracy tells me you took the case. Is that right?”

“Yeah, I took it.”

“Great. So you want me to sit on the evidence?”

“I’m not asking you to sit on anything. I told you to tell the detectives.”

“Right. Which I can’t do, ’cause you told ’em to skip out.”

“I never told ’em that.”

“They knew what you wanted.”

“I’m not legally responsible for what someone infers. I’m only responsible for what I said.”

“Steve, I got a license.”

“I know that. Look, let’s stop talking in the dark. We got information, let’s pool it. Then we can work out what we gotta do. You say you got information for me?”

“Lots of it.”

“How about the fact Kelly Wilder happens to be the sister of Herbert Clay?”

“Who?”

“You’re the one who told me, Mark. The Castleton bookkeeper, went to jail for embezzlement.”

Mark Taylor’s eyes widened. “Are you shitting me?”

Steve shook his head. “Not at all.”

“Jesus Christ, it’s even worse. That’s the motive.”

“That’s how it looks to you?”

“Of course it does.”

“Then that’s how it’s gonna look to the cops. But as far as you know, they haven’t got it yet?”

“If they do, I haven’t heard.”

“Your pipeline good?”

“The best.”

“Then they probably don’t. Okay. You know how the cops got a line on the girl?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Damn. The whole thing doesn’t make sense.”

“What whole thing? What the hell’s going on?”

Steve held up his hands. “Okay. You win. Me first. Here’s what happened.”

Steve gave them a rundown on Kelly Wilder’s story. He told them everything, up to and including the floppy disk that wasn’t there.

Taylor shook his head and said, “Shit.”

“What’s the matter?”

“The more I hear, the worse I feel.”

“Why is that?”

“This girl does not exactly inspire confidence. She tells you one story, it turns out to be bullshit. Then she tells another story. How do you know it’s not bullshit, too?”

“I don’t.”

“Exactly. And then this fairy tale about a floppy disk that don’t exist.”

“Maybe it did. Maybe she had it and someone stole it.”

“Sure,” Taylor said. “The conspiracy theory. Someone framed her brother. Someone framed her. Maybe you can sell that to a jury, but you’ll have a tough time selling me.”

Steve took a breath. “Mark, I have a tough time selling myself. I’m just telling you what I’ve got. Now what have you got?”

Taylor pulled out his notebook, flipped it open to a page that was filled with seemingly indecipherable scrawl and proceeded to decipher them. “Okay. Time of death you know about. That’s the worst, and that’s what fries our ass. And hers.

“Cause of death-gunshot wound to the heart. Thirty-two-caliber automatic found next to the body. One shot discharged- you knew that. News is, it’s the murder gun. Ballistics matched up the bullet.

“No prints on gun-thank god for that, one for the good guys. Girl’s prints in the apartment, score one for the bad team. Paraffin test on hands shows corpse did not recently fire gun.”

“Unless wearing gloves,” Steve said.

“Great,” Taylor said sarcastically. “Good theory. Decedent wearing gloves shot self through heart, then removed and hid gloves before expiring on the floor.”

“I’m not saying he fired that shot from that gun, but he could have fired a gun.”

“Sure. At an assailant, making it self-defense. Assailant then removed gloves and gun, leaving murder weapon behind.”

“Admittedly not the best defense. I’m just talking. Go on, Mark.”

“Bartender at singles bar recalls David Castleton drinking there early in the evening, but did not see who he left with.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No.”

“How the hell’d they get a line on him?”

Taylor shrugged. “That I haven’t got. Best guess is Castleton talked.”

Steve nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense. But you can’t confirm it?”

Taylor shook his head. “That’s the one thing I can’t get a line on. Anything about Milton Castleton’s being handled with kid gloves. Anything he told ’em is very hush-hush. The reporters don’t have it and I don’t have it.”

“Yeah, but that’s got to be it. David Castleton left work, went right to his grandfather’s apartment, then went to meet the girl. The way I see it, it means Castleton was running him all along.”

“What do you mean?”

“When he first came to my office. David Castleton, I mean. Trying to get a line on the girl. That bit about admiring her from afar was bullshit. Grandpa was running him.”

“Why?”

“Basically to find out what the hell was going on.” Steve took a breath. “The problem is, we’re sifting through these stories, and everyone is lying and misrepresenting and holding out. So we have a Watergate situation here-who knew what when?

“Let’s start from the beginning. With Kelly Blaine Clay Wilder whatever getting fired. Her original story and Danby’s version of what happened were presumably both lies. If her second story’s true, that she was tapping into the computer system and Danby caught her at it, well what happened then? I would assume Danby told Castleton exactly what happened. So Castleton’s clued into that, but still doesn’t know what’s going on. Then I show up and try to bulldoze a settlement. Which confused Castleton. First he thinks the girl’s an industrial spy, now he thinks it’s a badger game. Whatever, he’s playing ’em close to the vest. He won’t let Danby admit the girl was fired for going through the files and has him tell his improbable story of her making sexual advances to him. He then settles the civil suit as cheaply and as quickly as he can, figuring if that’s all there is to it, they’re actually lucky and they got off easy.

“But as soon as it’s settled, he starts checking to make sure that’s what actually happened. So he starts checking on the girl. Which is well before I start checking on the girl. And it doesn’t take long to check out. She gave a phony name, address and telephone number. The girl is completely bogus.

“Now Castleton really wants her checked out, but he’s got no way to do it. The girl is my client, so presumably I should be able to reach her. But he knows I won’t tell him. So he gets his grandson, who’s young and handsome, to come in and make a pitch about wanting to date the girl. The guy is awkward and embarrassed about it, but under the circumstances that goes pretty well with the role he’s playing. Anyway, as it turns out, I can’t reach Kelly any more than he can. In the meantime, she contacts him.

“Which is just what Castleton feared. This thing is more than just a simple badger game. The girl wants to meet him. The girl won’t come to his apartment. Wants to meet in a public place. He won’t go. And there’s no way she’ll deal with Danby. So Castleton rings in his grandson again.

“When David Castleton gets off work, he goes to his grandpa’s, where he and Danby program him for the evening and send him out to meet the girl.”

“Fine, I see all that,” Taylor said. “What’s the point?”

“The point is, if what I just said is the situation, that accounts for the cops getting a line on the bartender. Castleton told his story, which included his grandson going to the singles bar to meet the girl.”

“Right.”

“But it doesn’t explain how the cops got a line on her. Castleton knew her only as Kelly Blaine, didn’t have her name, didn’t have her address.”

“As far as you know.”

“Yeah, but it stands to reason. If Castleton knew how to contact the girl, he wouldn’t have to go through the charade with the grandson.”

“Yeah, but you’re talking about when he talked to the cops.”

“So?”

“So, maybe he knew then.”

“How?”

“From his grandson. His grandson meets the girl last night, learns her name and address. Assuming she didn’t kill him-and that’s a big if-after she leaves he calls grandpa and gives him the dope.”

“But she didn’t tell him.”

“So she says. She’s said a lot of things. Some of them are not noted for being true.”

“I like that theory.”

“Why?”

“It leaves David Castleton alive after she left.”

“Yeah, well don’t go on my say-so. The way I see it, it works as well if she excused herself to use the bathroom and David picks up the phone and says, ‘Got it, Grandpa, her name’s Kelly Wilder and here’s the address.’”

“Then she comes out of the bathroom and plugs him with a thirty-two?”

“Why not?”

Steve thought a moment. “One thing against it.”

“What is that?”

“As far as you know, the cops haven’t put together the fact her brother is Herbert Clay, right?”

“If they have, I haven’t got it.”

“Then they probably haven’t. Because that’s the type of fact they wouldn’t sit on. It don’t hurt Castleton none, and it’s front page news. Now David didn’t know Herbert Clay was her brother, but he knew that was what she was after.

“But apparently Castleton didn’t. Or the name Herbert Clay would have come up. And once it did, it wouldn’t take the police long to make the connection. If they haven’t, it means it didn’t.”

Taylor shook his head. “Again, you’re going by what the girl told you. I don’t think you can take any of it at face value.”

“Maybe not, but the point is, we still got a big, unanswered question-how did the cops get a line on the girl?”

“I don’t know.”

“Great. So what else have you got?”

“That’s it. But I got stuff coming in all the time. Can I get back to my office now?”

“Won’t they ring you here?”

“Not if it’s routine. They’re just collecting data. They won’t call down unless it’s something hot.”

The phone rang.

Steve looked at Taylor. Grinned. “A movie moment. Wanna bet that’s for you?” He turned to Tracy, who had scooped the phone. “Is it for him?”

“You called it,” Tracy said. She passed over the receiver.

Taylor took it, listened for some time, said, “Okay, thanks,” and hung up the phone.

“Well,” Steve said.

“A major kick in the chops, Steve. Your client’s the biggest liar in seventeen counties. No real surprise there. But I got the answer to your question-how did the cops get a line on the girl? She told you she didn’t give him her address, right? Well, she did. He had it written down on a piece of paper in his pants pocket.”

“You’re kidding.”

Taylor shook his head. “Not at all. And that’s the least of it. I’m begging you. Steve. Bail out of this, let me go to the cops and give ’em everything I know.”

“I can’t do it, Mark. I took the case. Sink or swim, I’m in it now.”

“That’s what I thought you’d say. Well, tell me how you’re gonna deal with this. The cops traced the gun.”

“And?”

“Speculation was with the gun left there, it’d be a cold piece- either stolen, unlicensed, unregistered, impossible to trace, or it would turn out to belong to David Castleton himself.”

“And it didn’t?”

“Hell, no. I don’t know if the cops have put it together yet, but they’re bound to, and when they do, you’re sunk. For your information, the murder weapon was duly licensed and registered to one Herbert Clay.”