“I understand your contention,” Steve said. “Personally, I’m not challenging it. I’m just trying to discuss what happened. Now, as I understand it, after that first time, when you looked Donald Blake up, you’ve never been back to his apartment?”
“That’s right. But I tell you, that’s got nothing to do with whether or not I was his common-law wife, and-”
“I’m sure it doesn’t,” Steve said. “And I’m not trying to contest your claim. Now, those times Donald Blake called on you-did he ever say anything about what he was doing?”
She shook her head. “No. I told you. Not a word.”
“Never mentioned Marilyn Harding?”
“No.”
“Or Douglas Kemper?”
“No.”
“Or the Harding family at all?”
“No.”
Steve frowned. “O.K. Let’s get to the day of the murder. If the defense should put you on the stand and try to make a case for the fact that you killed Donald Blake, what would happen then?”
“They’d have a hard time,” she said. “At five o’clock that afternoon, I had an appointment with my hairdresser.”
“Where?”
She jerked her thumb. “Here. Right down the street.” She frowned. “You guys checked this all out already.”
“I know,” Steve said. “But I told you. We have to go over it one more time.”
“Why?” she said. “I’m telling the truth. You think I can’t tell the same story straight twice?”
“Not at all,” Steve said. “And I think that will do it.”
Mark Taylor looked at Steve inquiringly. Steve shook his head.
“Sorry we bothered you, Miss Keeling. But that’s our job.”
She ushered them to the door. “But you’ll keep in touch,’ she said.
“Don’t worry.”
“And no one else touches that money?”
“You can bank on it.”
They came out the front door onto the street.
Taylor stopped, said, “Thanks, Steve.”
Steve sighed. “Don’t thank me. She’s got an unimpeachable alibi. If she was in Queens getting her hair done at five o’clock, there’s no way she gets to Bradshaw’s in time.”
“We could have got the name of the place and checked it out.”
“She says the cops have checked it out, and I’ll bet they have, too. There’s no way she could have done it.
“But don’t be too hasty with your thanks. Even so, she’s a beautiful red herring, and if worst comes to worst, I just might have to use her. But for the time being, we let her go.”
“Fine by me,” Taylor said. “So what do we do now?”
Steve rubbed his head. “God, I’m tired,” he said. “I’ll tell you. Now we beat it back to the office, put our heads together and try to figure what the fuck all this means.”
42
“Ask me questions.”
Steve Winslow was sprawled out in Mark Taylor’s overstuffed clients’ chair.
“What kind of questions?” Taylor said.
Taylor was seated at his desk.
Tracy Garvin was seated in a straight chair and was holding her shorthand notebook.
Steve Winslow had just finished going over the entire facts of the case as he knew them. He figured just talking it out would do some good. Mark and Tracy had listened without interruption while Steve rambled on. It was a confused stream of consciousness jumble of facts and theories, and when he finished, Steve Winslow was exhausted.
“Any questions. Anything you can think of. Anything you’d like to know, no matter how trivial. Just ask ’em.”
“Me too?” Tracy said.
“Damn right,” Steve said. “You think of something, fire away.”
“O.K.,” Tracy said. “Why didn’t Bradshaw want Pauline Keeling around?”
Steve chuckled. “Too easy. You didn’t meet the woman. You wouldn’t want her around, either.”
“Who killed Bradshaw?” Taylor said.
“Come on, Mark,” Steve said. “If we could answer that, we wouldn’t be doing this.”
“All right, then,” Taylor said, “who got there first, Marilyn or Kemper?”
“Gotta be Marilyn,” Steve said. “That’s the only way it makes any sense. Kemper missed her at the coffee shop. By the time he got downtown, Marilyn had been in and out.”
“But if that’s true,” Tracy said, “when Kemper got there he found Bradshaw dead.”
“Right,” Steve said.
“Then who was the man the witness heard arguing with Bradshaw?”
“That’s the key question,” Steve said. “Everything points to Kemper. Except he had to come second. Marilyn had already been in and out. Bradshaw was already dead. You can’t argue with a dead man.”
“What if there were two men?” Tracy said.
Steve frowned. “What?”
“Well, you say Bradshaw was already dead. The witness heard an argument. She couldn’t identify the voices. Everyone’s assuming one of them was Bradshaw, but what if it wasn’t? What if he’s already dead and the argument is between two other men?”
“One of whom is Kemper?”
“Not necessarily,” Tracy said.
Taylor grinned. “You pull this out of one of those mysteries you read?”
Tracy gave him a dirty look.
“No, no. Go on,” Steve said. “I like this. This is just what I need. Tell me about the two men.”
Tracy warmed right up to it. “The two men killed Bradshaw. I don’t know who, I don’t know why, but say they do. They just killed him, and they’re about to leave when Marilyn Harding arrives. They’re trapped in the apartment. They hide in the bedroom. The door is open. Marilyn Harding walks in and finds Bradshaw dead. As you say, she immediately assumes Kemper did it. She’s in an absolute panic, and she gets out of there.
“The two men come out of the bedroom and they have an argument. About what, I don’t know. Maybe one of them thought the girl saw them and he wanted to kill her too. The other one didn’t. Whatever. Anyway, they fight. At any rate, the witness hears the argument and calls the cops. While she’s calling them, the two men leave. Douglas Kemper arrives right on their heels, finds the dead body, assumes Marilyn killed him, and makes up the bullshit story he told you.”
Steve leaned back in the chair and frowned. “I like it. It takes everything into account and gets our clients off the hook-that’s mainly why I like it. But Jesus Christ.”
“What?” Tracy said.
“Well, look at the schedule. You got two unidentified men, Marilyn Harding, Douglas Kemper, me, and the cops all arriving at Bradshaw’s apartment in the space of about a half hour. I mean, hell, the schedule was damn tight without throwing in two unidentified men.”
“It’s damn tight, but it happened,” Tracy said.
“It did for a fact,” Steve said. He leaned back in the chair. “Go on. Ask me more questions.”
“What happened to the twelve grand?” Taylor said.
“Now there is a damn good question,” Steve said. “Ten grand found in the hallway. Ten grand found on the body. Twelve grand disappeared. So where the hell did it go? Obviously, someone took it. The question is who?”
“The two men who killed Bradshaw,” Tracy said, excitedly. “They killed him and took the money.”
“Then they’re mighty selective,” Steve said, “if they took that twelve grand and left the other twenty grand there.”
“Ten grand was in a money belt. They wouldn’t know he had it.”
“And the other ten grand. Who took it and hid it in the upstairs hallway? If you’re telling me they did that, then the question is why?”
“Yeah, but maybe they didn’t,” Tracy said. “Maybe someone else put the money there.”
“Who?”
Tracy shrugged. “Bradshaw.”
“Bradshaw?”
“Sure,” Tracy said. “He knew they were coming and he didn’t want to have the money on him.”
“But he didn’t care about the other money?” Steve said. “You see, it just doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe it does,” Mark Taylor said. “The ten grand hidden in the hallway was the ten grand stolen from you. Bradshaw had to know you had the numbers on those bills. He didn’t want to be found with them in his possession. So he hid ’em outside his apartment. The other ten grand’s in his money belt. He’s got it, and he doesn’t care who knows it. He particularly wants Marilyn to know it.”