So back at the cabin, in bed under two blankets for the cold of the night, there was nothing for my mind to work on and it turned me loose for sleep.
That’s the sample, but before skipping to Wednesday evening I must report an incident that occurred at the cabin late Tuesday afternoon. I had just got back from somewhere and was with Lily on what we called the morning terrace, the other one being the creek terrace, when a car came up the lane — a Dodge Coronet hardtop I had seen before — with two men in the front seat, and Lily said, “There they are. I was just going to tell you, Dawson phoned they wanted to see me. He didn’t say why.”
The car was there, at the edge of the lodgepoles, and Luther Dawson and Thomas R. Jessup were getting out. Seeing those two, I was so impressed that I didn’t remember my manners and leave my chair until they were nearly to us. The defense counsel and the county attorney coming together to see the owner of the ranch Harvey Greve ran had to mean that something had busted wide open, and when I did get up I had to control my face to keep it from beaming. Their faces were not beaming as they exchanged greetings with us and took the chairs I moved up for them, but of course the county attorney’s wouldn’t be if something had happened that was messing up a murder case for him. Lily said their throats were probably dry and dusty after their drive and asked what they would like to drink, but they declined with thanks.
“It may strike you as a little irregular, our coming together,” Dawson said, “but Mr. Jessup wanted to ask you something and we agreed that it would be more in order for me to do the asking, in his presence.”
Lily nodded. “Of course. Law and order.”
Dawson looked at Jessup. They were both Montana-born-and-bred, but one looked it and the other didn’t. Dawson, around sixty, in a striped blue-and-green shirt with rolled-up sleeves, no tie, and khaki pants, was big and brawny and leathery, while the county attorney, some twenty years younger, was slim and trim in a dark gray suit, white shirt, and maroon tie. Dawson looked at me, opened his mouth, shut it again, and looked at Lily. “Of course you’re not my client,” he said. “Mr. Greve is my client. But you paid my retainer and have said you will meet the costs of his defense. So I’ll just ask you, have you consulted — er, approached — anyone else about the case?”
Lily’s eyes widened a little. “Of course I have.”
“Who?”
“Well... Archie Goodwin. Mrs. Harvey Greve. Melvin Fox. Woodrow Stepanian. Peter Ingalls. Emmett Lake. Mimi Deffand. Mort—”
“Excuse me for interrupting. My question should have been more specific. Have you consulted anyone other than local people? Anyone in Helena?”
If she had been any ordinary woman I would have horned in, but with Lily I didn’t think it was necessary. It wasn’t. “Really, Mr. Dawson,” she said, “how old are you? How many hostile witnesses would you say you have cross-examined?”
He stared at her.
“I suppose,” she said, “that lawyers have as much right to bad habits as other people, but other people don’t have to like them.” She turned to me. “What about it, Archie? Is it any of his business whom I have or haven’t consulted?”
“No,” I said, “but that’s not the point. From what he said, the question is actually being asked by Jessup, through him. It certainly is none of Jessup’s business, and they both have a hell of a nerve. I don’t know about Montana, but in New York if a prosecuting attorney asked the person who was paying the defense counsel who she had consulted, the Bar Association would like to know about it. Since you asked my opinion, if I were you I would tell both of them to go climb a tree.”
She looked at one and then the other, and said, “Go climb a tree.”
Dawson said to me, “You have completely misrepresented the situation, Mr. Goodwin.”
I eyed him. “Look, Mr. Dawson. I don’t wonder that you fumbled it; as you said, it’s a little irregular. If you hadn’t been fussed you would probably have handled it fine. Obviously something has happened that made Jessup think someone has been persuaded to butt in on his case, and he suspects that Miss Rowan did the persuading, and he wants to know, and so do you. Also obviously the way to handle it would have been to tell her what has happened and ask her if she had a hand in it, and it wouldn’t hurt to say please. If you don’t want to do it that way I guess you’ll have to look around for a tree.”
Dawson looked at the county attorney. Jessup said, “It would have to be understood that it’s strictly confidential.”
Dawson nodded. Lily said, “If you mean we have to promise not to tell anybody, nothing doing. We wouldn’t broadcast it just for fun, but no promises.”
Dawson turned to Jessup and asked, “Well, Tom?”
Jessup said, “I’d like to confer,” rose, and said to Lily, “Will you excuse us briefly, Miss Rowan?”
Lily nodded, and for the conference they walked over to the hardtop and behind it, and Lily asked me if I had a guess. I held up crossed fingers and said one would get her two that there was going to be some kind of a break, but as to what kind and how much, her guess was as good as mine. I no longer had to control my face to keep it from beaming.
The conference didn’t take long. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Dawson had come back alone just to say he was sorry we had been bothered, but in a few minutes they both came and took their chairs, and Dawson said, “The decision was Mr. Jessup’s, not mine. I want to make it clear that I am here at all only because he thought it proper, and I agreed.” He focused on Lily. “If you won’t promise, Miss Rowan, you won’t, and I merely want to say that I join him in hoping that you and Mr. Goodwin will regard what he tells you as a confidence. If I told you, it would be hearsay, so he will.”
In the last five days I had tried three times to get to Thomas R. Jessup for a private talk, and got stiff-armed. I’m not complaining, just reporting. There’s no law requiring a prosecuting attorney to talk it over with any and all friends of the defendant. It was Morley Haight, the sheriff, who had questioned me as a possible suspect or material witness. I had seen Jessup only from a distance and was appreciating the chance to size him up.
He gave Lily a politician’s smile and said, “I’m sorry there was a misunderstanding, Miss Rowan. Mr. Goodwin said it wouldn’t hurt to say please, and I do say please. Please consider this a confidential communication. I confidently leave that to your discretion. Mr. Goodwin said we should tell you what happened, and I’m going to. It won’t take long. Early this morning I had a phone call from a state official in Helena — a high official. He asked me to come to his office at my earliest convenience and bring my files on the Harvey Greve case. I drove to Helena and was with him nearly three hours. He wanted a complete detailed report, and after I dictated it to his secretary he asked questions, many questions.”
He turned on the politician’s smile again, for Lily, then for me, and back to her. “Now that was extraordinary. As far as I know, unprecedented, for the attor — for that state official to urgently summon a county attorney to Helena to report in detail on a case he is preparing. And a murder case. Of course I asked him what had caused such sudden and urgent interest, but I got no satisfaction. When I left his office I had absolutely no idea of the reason for it; I couldn’t even guess. I was twenty miles or more on my way back to Timberburg before it occurred to me that you might possibly have — er — intervened. You are concerned about Harvey Greve — properly, quite properly. You have retained Luther Dawson, an eminent member of the Montana bar, in his behalf. I know nothing of any political connections you may have, but a woman of your standing and wealth and background must be — must know many important people. So I turned around and drove back to Helena and went to see Mr. Dawson and described the situation to him. He said he knew nothing of any approach to the — to that official, and after some discussion he agreed that it would be reasonable to ask you about it, and he phoned you. I am not suggesting that you may have acted improperly, not at all. But if a high state official is going to — er — interfere with my handling of an important case, I have a right to know why, and naturally I want to know, and naturally Mr. Dawson does too, as counsel for the defense.” The smile again. “Of course if what I have said was confidential, anything you say will be confidential too.”