Up for Grabs

Chapter 7

Elsie Brand said, “I think that Breckinridge person is simply horrid. He doesn’t have the faintest sense of appreciation. He doesn’t realize that all you’ve been doing has been for the purpose of saving him money.”

I said, “Whoa, Elsie, back up. After all, the guy’s the manager of the insurance company. He’s the one who’s paying the agency for my services. He has the right to expect to have things done his way.”

“You feel Bruno is a malingerer, don’t you, Donald?”

I thought that one over, then I said slowly, “No, I can’t say that I am ready to go that far as yet. I feel that all these people have something phony about them. You get the feeling that they’re playing a game.

“I have a feeling that Bruno just may be one hell of a smart guy, that he may have known that two-week vacation business was a trap, and that this Melita Doon may have given him some X-ray pictures that he intends to use later on in the case. I also have a feeling that if Breckinridge had tried to settle earlier today, he just might have found he was running up against a little more of a snag than he had anticipated.

“We haven’t enough to go on as yet, but I’m going to see Melita’s boy friend, Marty Lassen, in the morning and see if I can get something from him.

“When you suspect a man of malingering and find he’s tied up in some way with a nurse, and they are having mysterious meetings, you don’t like to quit your investigation until you’ve ripped things apart.

“But my main feeling in this case is in connection with Chester. I won’t say that I’m for Chester because he’s the underdog in Sergeant Sellers’ doghouse, but because Sellers is inclined— Oh, I don’t know, he makes up his mind when the data is about half in. He gets some fellow who’s his particular choice suspect and then every bit of evidence that Sellers can get his hands on will point to that person’s guilt. He never considers the possibility of innocence.”

“Well, you have to admit the circumstantial evidence does look rather black against Chester.”

“That’s right,” I told her, “but we haven’t heard Chester’s side of the story. When Sellers starts building up a case against someone, every bit of circumstantial evidence he gets hold of has to point directly to the culprit Sellers has picked out, otherwise Sellers thinks it isn’t evidence.”

“But how can you account for the fact that it was the car driven by Chester which pushed her off the grade?”

“Wait a minute.” I said. “How do you know it was the car driven by Chester?”

“Why, the piece from the headlight and the—”

“What you’re trying to say is that it may have been the car that was rented by Chester that pushed her off the grade, not the car that was driven by Chester.”

She thought that over for a moment, then said rather weakly, “Yes. When you come right down to it, I guess that’s what the evidence does show.”

“And,” I said, “Breckinridge is founding his whole case, not on a sane investigation of Bruno’s claim, but simply on the strength of the fact that his client, Chester, is going to be placed in an untenable position.

“That doesn’t mean that Bruno’s claim is on the up-and-up, nor does it explain the friendship between Bruno and the nurse who has been connected with a missing X ray.”

“Donald, you make it sound so terribly logical that— Well it is terribly logical.”

I said, “Look at the crime that Chester is supposed to have committed. He was supposed to have followed his wife over to San Bernardino; then up over the Tehachapi; then pushed her off the grade at a crucial spot; then, when the car didn’t roll far enough down to kill her, he parked his car, took an iron jack handle, went down and finished the job, then waited for a while before he decided to push the car down the grade the rest of the way and then, having done that, he waited until daylight and then came back and set fire to the car.

“Now, the way I look at the crime, if you get the real motivation, you find that everything that a person does ties into that particular motivation. Seller says that Chester was trying to kill his wife in order to get the insurance. Presumably, if Chester is acting in good faith, he doesn’t know his wife is dead. If he isn’t acting in good faith, he’s building up a background so that he can put in his claim against the insurance company and make it appear it’s a claim put in good faith.

“Once his wife was dead, there was no reason for him to push the car all the way down the road to the bottom of the canyon. Once the car and the woman were down at the bottom of the canyon, there was no reason for him to wait several hours and then return to set the car on fire.

“I’m not retained to defend Chester against Sellers’ theory, but I am retained to expose any defects in the Helmann Bruno case.”

“Well, Donald, I’m betting on you,” she said, and reached across to squeeze my hand.

“And you got me an apartment?” I asked.

“There was a vacancy,” she said, and then lowered her eyes, “on the same floor. The manager of the apartment was awfully nice about it.”

“Well,” I said, “I could go for a dinner and, since we have an expense account that—”

“Oh, Donald, Mr. Breckinridge would never stand for a dinner of that sort on the expense account; not after the things that have been happening.”

“If Mr. Breckinridge simply saw an account of ‘meals’ he’d pay it, wouldn’t he?”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“Well,” I said, “outside of two glasses of buttermilk, I haven’t had anything today and I’m about due.”

“Oh, you poor boy,” she exclaimed.

“So I take it you’ll help me charge the ‘meals’?”

“Yes,” she said, laughing nervously.

“And,” I told her, “how about the ‘lodging’?”

She became slightly uneasy. “The manager of the apartment house said she’d put that on my bill. It wouldn’t be very much of a charge.”

“Then I’ll have to manipulate things around so we can get that camouflaged on the expense account.”

“No, Donald, let me take care of it. I... I’d like to feel that: you were my guest for once.”

“Bertha doesn’t know anything about it?”

“Not a thing,” she said. “Good heavens, Donald, no one must know anything about it. If they did— Well, Bertha is peculiar anyway. She thinks I can’t do my work because I— Well, I mean that I’m supposed to be—”

“I know,” I told her. “Bertha has little idiosyncrasies and if she thought that I had occupied an apartment in the same house with you, on the same floor— By the way, where is this apartment?”

“Right across the hall from me,” she said.

“No,” I told her, “Bertha must never know.”

And with that understanding we went to dinner.