Ma Bell. If you want to forward your calls to another number, you punch in a code on your home
phone, followed by the new phone number. The calls are forwarded automatically. Obviously you use
it all the time; your home phone‟s on it right now. That w your home number I just dialled.”
He wasn‟t talking. The muscles under his ear were jerking with every heartbeat. He tapped the ash off
the cigar without taking his eyes off me. I went on:
“When you left the party last night, you came here instead of going home. You knew Raines was in
Seaborn‟s office; you had talked to him when Seaborn called you at Babs‟ party You also knew
Raines would intimidate Seaborn enough to get the whole story. You probably had your gun there in
the desk, or in the car. After I called you, you called Seaborn‟s office again, told Harry you‟d meet
him over here. „Then you went downstairs and took the walkway through the park toward the bank.
When he came up on you and said, „You‟re finished,‟ you knew your career was flushed, so you shot
him. „The girl screamed, you ran back toward the river, dumped the gun, and came back here in time
to get Dutch‟s call.”
He sighed and shook his head. “Well “ he said, “I must admit you‟ve got quite the imagination. But I
can see why you don‟t practice law. You couldn‟t get anywhere with that outrageous bunch of
circumstantial bullshit.”
The office door opened and the Stick meandered in, his hat perched on the hack of his head as usual
“Who the hell are you?” Donleavy demanded.
“He‟s with me,” I said, and to the Stick, „Did you get it?”
He smiled and took a package out of his jacket pocket. It was
381 a Baggie containing a very wet silver-plated S&W .38, with black rubber pistol grips. I looked at
it. There was a number scratched on a piece of tape on the side of the bag.
“The number of your .38—is it 7906549?” 1 asked Donleavy.
“What .38?” he demanded.
“The one you bought on February third of last year at Odum‟s Sport Shop on Third Street,” Stick said.
“Mr. Odum remembers it very well. The only thing he had to look up was the exact day and the serial
number.”
“This is hard evidence,” I said. “There‟s nothing circumstantial about a murder weapon.”
“That gun was stolen from me months ago,” he squealed.
“Tell it to the judge,” I said.
“Let me see that,” he demanded.
“When we get downtown,” I said. “You want to book the man, Stick?”
“Delighted,” he said, grinning, “What‟s the charge?”
“Murder in the first,” I said. “Let‟s go all the way.”
Stick took off his hat and peered into it. He had a list of rights printed on a card taped to the inside of
the crown and started reading them to Donleavy.
“You have a right to remain silent—”
Donleavy swatted the hat out of his hands. “The hell with that,” he snarled, reaching for the phone.
I laid a forefinger on the receiver. “You can make your call from the tank like everybody else does,” I
said.
The Stick took out a pair of cuffs and twisted Donleavy rudely around. “Normally we wouldn‟t need
these,” he said quietly in Donleavy‟s ear as he snapped on the cuffs. “That was a mistake, doing that
thing with my hat. Your manners are for shit.”
“Hell,” I said, “we all make mistakes. Look at poor old Harry, he wrote his own epitaph: „Here lies
Harry Raines. He trusted the wrong man.”
Donleavy was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. We escorted him downstairs and turned him over
to two patrolmen in a blue and white and told them we‟d meet them at the station.
“What do we do now?” Stick asked.
“Pray,” I said.
We didn‟t have to. George Baker came running across the park as we started back toward our cars. He
was still in his wet suit, although he had changed his flippers for boots.
“Gotcha a present,” he said, and handed me an S&W .38, black handles, two-inch barrel. It was
wrapped in a cloth to protect whatever fingerprints might be on it. I checked the registration. It was
Donleavy‟s gun.
“I assure you, that‟s the weapon,” Baker said proudly. “It has not been underwater long enough to
gather rust.”
“Thank you, Mr. Baker,” I said with a smile. “You just saved my ass.”
“Well now, sir, that‟s a compliment which I will certainly not liken to forget.”
I gave Stick the Baggie he had given me in Donleavy‟s office, the one with the other S&W silverplated .38 in it.
“Where did you get this one?” I asked Stick.
“A friend of mine on Front Street,” he said.
“Beautiful,” I said.
“That was one helluva play up there,” he said. “Remind me never to play poker with you.”
“I don‟t play poker,” I said.
“Love your style, man,” said the Stick.
70
MURDER ONE
I was feeling great when we got to the county courthouse. The stately brick antique stood alone in the
center of a city square surrounded by ancient oaks big enough to pass for California redwoods, and
palm trees, which seemed somehow cheap and out of place beside them. The old place seemed to
groan under its burden of history. One story had it t1at Button Gwinnett had drafted his amendments
to the Declaration of Independence in one of its second-story offices. Another that, on Christmas Eve,
1864, in a secret meeting in one of the courtrooms, Sean Findley, Chief‟s grandfather, had turned
Dunetown over to General Sherman without a shot, after Sherman agreed to spare the city from the
torch. It was a story Teddy loved to tell, although the way he told it, old Sean‟s role in the surrender
came off more selfish than patriotic. Others apparently thought so too. The old man was assassinated
on the front steps of this same courthouse as he was being inaugurated as Dunetown‟s first post-war
mayor.
So much for history.
The DA‟s suite was on the first floor, protected by a frost-panelled door and little else. The door to
Galavanti‟s office stood open. The tough little district attorney „as poring over a sheaf of legal
documents as thick as an encyclopaedia, her Ben Franklin glasses perched on the end of her nose. I
leaned on the edge of the door and rattled my fingers on the jamb.
“Hi, kiddo,” I said. “Send anybody to the chair today?” She glowered at me over the top of her
glasses.
“I‟m not your kiddo, Mr. Kilmer,” he said. “We‟re not that familiar. How about the Harry Raines
tape?”
“A bust,” I said. “Nothing but a lot of rataratarata.”
She narrowed her eyes as if she didn‟t believe me and said, “I should have guessed that would
happen.”
“Now that‟s no way to talk to someone who just laid the biggest case in the county‟s history right in
your lap,” I said.
She leaned back, still staring warily at me.
“And just what case is that?”
I paused a little for effect, then said, “The State versus Sam Donleavy.”
She leaned forward so quickly that her chair almost rolled out from under her.
“You busted Sam Donleavy?” she said, her tone sounding like I had Just accused Billy Graham of
indecent exposure.
“He‟s being booked right now,” I said, as casually as I could make it.
“On what charge?”
“First-degree murder.”
She jumped up, all five feet of her, and stood with her mouth dangling open.
I held up a forefinger and repeated the news: “Murder one.”
She gulped. I had never heard anybody gulp before, but she definitely gulped.