Dirkson made his first comment. “Bullshit.”
“Oh is it?” Steve said. “Who do you think hired Miltner? Who do you think was keeping tabs on Marilyn Harding? I mean, come on. If she and Kemper were having an affair, who the hell do you think was keeping tabs on them?”
“You can’t prove that.”
“No, I can’t. We’re playing what-if here. And the what-if is, what if Marilyn Harding gets acquitted of killing Donald Blake?”
“That’s highly unlikely.”
“Is it? All right, let’s look at the Donald Blake case for a bit.”
Dirkson smiled. “I was wondering when you’d get around to that.”
“For the purpose of our discussion it’s somewhat incidental, but let’s look at it. Say Phyllis Kemper hired Miltner. She’s framed Marilyn for one murder, but it hasn’t come off. Now she tries to go for two.”
“Now you’re really stretching,” Dirkson said.
“Maybe, but let’s play with it a bit. Phyllis Kemper puts a tail on Marilyn. What she’s hoping to come up with is some hard evidence of the affair.”
“Stop right there,” Dirkson said. “If that was the objective, why not tail her husband.”
Steve shrugged. “We’re playing with theories here. I can give you two reasons, though. One, she didn’t want the detectives to know who was hiring them. If the detectives put a tail on her husband, the obvious person to be doing it would be the wife. She went to great lengths to disguise her voice, so it’s clear she didn’t want to be known. So she put a tail on Marilyn instead, which would work just as well, since all she’s interested in is her husband’s rendezvous with her. Second reason. Douglas Kemper’s a real estate salesman. It would be a large pain in the ass to have detectives tail him around all day as he drove clients from one property to another. With that many trips, and having to stake out the real estate office all the time, there’d be a good chance the detectives would be spotted. She also wouldn’t be too keen on having private detectives following her and her husband when the two of them went out for dinner. Under those circumstances, even the coolest person couldn’t help looking around a bit wondering where the detectives were.”
“That’s pretty thin,’ Dirkson said.
“As I said, they’re just theories. I don’t really want to argue. We’re playing what-if. What if Phyllis Kemper put a tail on Marilyn? Well, she’s expecting to have Marilyn rendezvous with her husband. But it doesn’t happen. Something else does. What? Marilyn calls on someone at a not too affluent address, not the type of place Marilyn would normally go. Very interesting. When Phyllis gets the report from the detective agency the next day, she investigates. Finds Marilyn has called on a David C. Bradshaw. Now things are popping real nice for Phyllis. She’s already called in a tip to the cops on Phillip Harding being poisoned, and that morning they act on it. The body’s exhumed, arsenic’s found. Marilyn has a tough morning with the cops. When they finally leave, Marilyn gets a phone call. Phyllis, thinking it’s a rendezvous call from Doug, listens in. But it’s not Doug, it’s Bradshaw. With a blackmail demand. Jackpot! Phyllis keeps listening. Better and better. Marilyn had already paid blackmail money. The detectives can swear Marilyn called upon Bradshaw. And Marilyn makes another appointment to see him. And Phyllis knows detectives will follow Marilyn there again.
“Well, no reason for Phyllis to tag along too. If she tried to, the detectives might spot her. But she knows where Marilyn’s going. She gets out of there fast, goes to Manhattan, stakes out Bradshaw’s apartment from across the street. Waits for the scenario to unfold.
“What happens? Marilyn arrives, slightly late, since she was held up waiting for Doug. Of course, Phyllis doesn’t know Marilyn was going to meet Doug, since she split right after the Bradshaw call. Had she known that, it might have altered her plans. But she doesn’t know.
“So Marilyn arrives, goes in, and comes out five minutes later. The detectives are trailing along behind. Great. The stage is set. Phyllis goes up, rings the doorbell, gets buzzed into the apartment, talks to Bradshaw. I don’t know what line she pulled on Bradshaw, but knowing he was a blackmailer, thinking up one couldn’t have been that hard. At any rate, she kids him along, picks up a knife, and zaps him in the back. Voila! Perfect frame.”
Dirkson shook his head. “Full of holes.”
“Such as?”
“What about the ten thousand bucks hidden in the hallway?”
“Phyllis does that. She knows Marilyn came to pay him off. She searches the body for the ten grand. Finds it. She doesn’t want to leave that money on the body, because why would Marilyn pay him off and then kill him? On the other hand, she wants the money discovered ’cause it will point to Marilyn. So she takes it and hides it in the upstairs hallway. The theory: Marilyn killed Bradshaw, then, trapped in the apartment and afraid she would be discovered with the money on her, hid it and got out. Not a great theory, but the best she could do. The bills have to be discovered to point to Marilyn, and hiding them is slightly more credible than leaving them on the body.
“Only, what Phyllis doesn’t know is the bills she removed from the body aren’t Marilyn’s, they’re Bradshaw’s, and Marilyn’s ten grand is still left in the money belt. But Phyllis had no reason to suspect there was another ten grand involved.
“And,” Steve said, “if you want to talk about weak theories, you’re the one dealing with the contention that Marilyn would have paid Bradshaw off, killed him, and then left the money on the body. Frankly, I find that hard to swallow.”
Dirkson smiled. “I don’t think I’ll have a problem. You’re forgetting the time of death, Winslow. The altercation? The witness? The phone call to the cops? If Phyllis Kemper did what you describe-and I’m not saying she didn’t-by the time she got up the stairs, Donald Blake was dead.”
“You’re splitting hairs, Dirkson. You’re talking minutes here. No medical examiner can be that exact.”
“There’s the witness and the phone call.”
“Sure there is. But how exact is exact? Those detectives who logged the times Marilyn went in and out. You think they got it to the minute?”
“That’s their job.”
“Yeah. That’s their job, and I bet they’re aces at it. They probably log everything the instant it happens. Probably set their watches by Greenwich mean time every morning. Totally infallible, I’m sure.”
Dirkson waved his hand impatiently. “I don’t want to quibble. You save your arguments for the jury. I’m just telling you I don’t think they’re going to pull very much weight.”
“I don’t want to argue either. I told you, I didn’t come here to discuss the case.”
“You could have fooled me. I happen to be rather busy, Winslow. You got a point, make it. Otherwise, I got work to do.”
“All right, I’ll make it. If Marilyn’s found guilty on any count of the Bradshaw murder you’re going to turn around and try her for the murder of her father.”
“You keep saying me. Phillip Harding was killed in Nassau County. That’s outside my jurisdiction.”
“Yeah, sure,” Steve said. “But you know damn well you’ve got your hand in. If they haven’t indicted her for it, it’s ’cause they’re just waiting for your say so.”
Dirkson frowned. Said nothing.
“But that’s neither here nor there. The point I’m making is this. If she’s convicted of this crime, she’ll be charged with that one. You know it and I know it. But consider this. If she’s acquitted of this crime-the Bradshaw murder-then someone better take a long hard look before they charge her with the murder of Phillip Harding. ’Cause then you got no prior conviction to throw in her face. And when you think about it, that was really going to be the key evidence against her. Sure, you can show she had an opportunity to tamper with the sugar bowl. But so did her stepsister. And if Marilyn had poisoned her father, do you really think she’d be stupid enough to leave the sugar bowl full of arsenic around for a whole month until the cops thought to look for it? I’d like to see you try to argue that one. And if Phillip Harding’s body was exhumed because of an anonymous tip, think of the argument I’ll be able to make. Think of the doctrine of reasonable doubt. And then ask yourself what chance you’d have of getting a conviction.”