“No.”
“He never called you on yours?”
“No.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
“Is that so?” Steve said. “I hand you back the clipboard marked Defense exhibit B, and ask you to look at the list.”
Steve extended the clipboard, but Margaret Millburn made no move to take it. “Go ahead. You can touch it. You’ve already admitted being in the apartment. Your fingerprints don’t matter now.”
Reluctantly, the witness took the list.
“Fine,” Steve said. “Now, referring to the paper attached to the clipboard, the paper marked Defense exhibit A, what do you recognize it to be?”
“It’s a list of names.”
“That’s right. A list of names. Now, would you please read the names out loud?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The names on the list. Read them out loud, please.”
Margaret Millburn hesitated. Then she looked down and read off the names in a slow, steady voice, placing no emphasis on any particular name.
“Thank you,” Steve said. He took the clipboard, walked back and set it on the defense table. As he did so, Fitzpatrick flashed him a glance of inquiry. Under his breath Steve said, “Hold on to your hat, Fitzpatrick. We’re goin’ for the gold.”
Steve straightened and turned back to the witness. “Miss Millburn. Last night, when you were shown that list of names, the list you’ve just read into the record, did any name strike you as significant?”
“No.”
“No?” Steve said. “That’s odd. Suppose I were to tell you that Tracy Garvin, the young woman who showed you that list, noted a definite reaction on your part to one of the names-would that jar your memory any?”
“No, it would not. I don’t know what that list is, I don’t know where it came from, I don’t know what it means. That list has no significance to me.”
“And none of the names on that list has any particular significance?”
“No. The names appear to be people involved in this trial. Why that should be important, I couldn’t begin to tell you.”
“There are many people involved in this trial,” Steve said. “But it is my contention that there is one whose name has a special significance to you. Would it change your testimony any to know that the investigator, Tracy Garvin, was convinced that you showed a definite reaction to the name, Phyllis Kemper?”
The witness stared at him. “It most certainly would not.”
“It would not?”
“No.”
“The name Phyllis Kemper means nothing to you?”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Has no special significance?”
“None whatsoever.”
“And it is not true that last night when you were handed the clipboard, you reacted to seeing the name Phyllis Kemper?”
“No. It is not true.”
There was a pause.
Steve nodded. “You’re right, Miss Millburn. I don’t think that’s true either.”
The witness blinked. Stared at him.
Steve shook his head. “No. I think the name you reacted to was the name Mark Taylor.”
There was a pause. A time lag in the court, while people caught up with that statement. Mark Taylor? It was clear that most of the people in the court couldn’t even place the name.
Most of the people.
On the stand, the witness blinked. Once. Twice. She wet her lips.
“That’s true, isn’t it, Miss Millburn?” Steve said. “It was the name Mark Taylor that you reacted to, wasn’t it?”
“No. No,” she said. “It wasn’t.”
“No?” Steve said. He raised his voice and picked up the pace. “Then perhaps I can refresh your recollection. You have testified, have you not, that you never spoke to the decedent on the phone-that you never called him on his phone and he never called you on yours. Is that right?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Is it, Miss Millburn? I ask you, is it not a fact that on the afternoon of Tuesday the eighth, the man you knew as David C. Bradshaw called you on your telephone in your apartment, and said to you words to this effect: ‘I have just left the building and I’m being followed by detectives. I don’t want them to know I’ve spotted them. Here’s what I want you to do. I’m going to leave here and walk down the block in front of our building. I want you to look out your window at the car that’s tailing me and get the license number. Then I want you to call so-and-so at this phone number and ask him to trace the plate. Tell him it’s urgent and to do it right now. Just get the information, and I’ll call you right back.’
“And is it not a fact, Miss Millburn, that you did as you were instructed? Is it not a fact that you got the information, and when Bradshaw called you back minutes later, you passed it on to him? Is it not a fact that what you told Bradshaw, when he called you back from a pay phone on the corner, was that the car that was following him was registered to a detective agency? And wasn’t the name of the detective who had registered the car, the name that you passed on to David C. Bradshaw-wasn’t that name Mark Taylor? Isn’t that why the name Mark Taylor has a special significance to you, and isn’t that why you reacted so visibly to seeing his name on that list?”
The witness’s eyes darted around the courtroom. “No. No,” she said. “It’s not true.”
“It isn’t? You deny receiving either of those phone calls?”
“Yes, I do.”
“And if the records of the telephone company should show that calls were made from those pay phones to your apartment on the day in question, those records would be in error, is that right?”
“Objection. Argumentative.”
“Sustained.”
“Do you deny receiving those calls?” Steve persisted.
The witness hesitated. Looked around. “I … I…”
“It’s a simple question,” Steve said. “Do you or do you not deny receiving those calls?”
“It’s not a simple question,” she said. “You ask me if I deny receiving any calls from David C. Bradshaw. I may have received calls from someone else.”
Steve shook his head. “Nice try, Miss Millburn, but it’s no good. You forget. Bradshaw was being followed by detectives. Those detectives were in Mark Taylor’s employ and reported back to him. And those detectives reported the times and places of Bradshaw’s phone calls. If you received those calls, they could only have been from him.”
Margaret Millburn bit her lip.
Steve gave her time to think. He bored right in. “You see, Miss Millburn, it’s no use. We can prove you got those calls. Through the phone company, and the testimony of Mark Taylor’s men. If you want to try to deny what was said on those calls, that’s entirely up to you, but we can prove you got them all right. If we give you enough time, I’m sure you can come up with some plausible explanation for what was said during those calls, but you know and I know what was said, and it’s just what I told you. Bradshaw called you, told you he was being followed, and asked you to find who was doing it. Which you did.
“And if you did, it means you and Bradshaw were no casual strangers, as you would like to make it seem. You knew Bradshaw. You knew him well. You knew him before he even moved out here. When the apartment across the hall was about to be vacated, you called him and he snapped it up.
“Now, you’ve done a good job of keeping your relationship a secret. I happen to know that that was at his insistence, and I happen to know why.
“The fact is, you knew Bradshaw very well, you were in fact intimate with Bradshaw, and you’ve been in his apartment many times. Is that not a fact?”
“No. No, it’s not.”
“And is it not a fact that you knew all about the blackmail of Marilyn Harding? That you were in fact Bradshaw’s partner in the blackmail of Marilyn Harding?”
Margaret Millburn’s face was ashen white. “No. No, it’s not.”
“Oh isn’t it? I think it is. I’m going to tell you what happened, and then you can deny it if you like. You and Bradshaw were close. Damn close. You were his partner. You helped him out. Like tracing the license plate for him. You worked with him. You were a team.