Margaret Millburn’s mouth moved, but no words came out. She swayed slightly.
Steve bored in.
“You killed Bradshaw. You killed him and you took the money. It wasn’t in self-defense. It wasn’t in the heat of passion. It was a cold-blooded, premeditated crime. It was murder for profit. You set up Marilyn Harding, and you killed Donald Blake. You coldly, ruthlessly, intentionally-”
Margaret Millburn struggled to her feet. “No, No!” she cried. “I swear! I didn’t! It was an accident! …”
Time stood still.
Margaret Millburn froze, petrified by what she had just said.
No one moved. No one spoke.
An electric silence hung in the air.
No one in the courtroom could quite believe what had just happened.
Steve Winslow could hardly believe it either.
“Son of a bitch,” he murmured. “A courtroom confession.”
46
Steve Winslow looked like a prizefighter after the big fight. He was slumped back in his desk chair, totally drained, a can of beer in his hand. He looked as if he didn’t have the strength to raise it to his lips.
On the other hand, Mark Taylor and Tracy Garvin were animated. They were sitting there, drinking beer and whooping it up.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Taylor was saying. “I just couldn’t believe it. I’m sitting there in court, and you got the witness on the run, and I’m really digging it ’cause you’d been off in chambers and things looked pretty sticky and then when you came back she caved in on the fingerprints, and I’m just like everybody else in the courtroom-by that time I figured the list was just a red herring, just a ploy to get her to touch the clipboard and get her to leave her fingerprints. And I know you haven’t compared any prints, but she doesn’t, and she caves in, and I’m thinking, ‘Holy cow, score one for our side!’ And the next minute you’re back to the clipboard and the list and Phyllis Kemper, and I’m thinking, ‘Holy shit, Tracy was right after all!’ Suddenly you come out with, ‘No, the name you reacted to was Mark Taylor.’“
Taylor shook his head. “I’m telling you, I almost went through the floor. It was like someone changed the channel on me. It was like someone was gonna tap me on the shoulder and say, ‘Smile, you’re on Candid Camera.’ Taylor shook his head again. “I tell you, I never saw anything like it.”
“But you knew it all along,” Tracy said. “Last night, when you had us make up the list. Didn’t you?”
Steve sighed. He hefted the beer and took a swig. “I had it in mind. But you’re the one who gave it to me. With that question about why did Bradshaw come to the office. And then mentioning the phone calls. That was the key, of course. He didn’t come to my office, he came to Mark Taylor’s office.”
“What?” Taylor said.
“Well, he didn’t, but that’s where he was headed. He had Margaret Millburn trace the license number, he looked up the Taylor Detective Agency, and he was on his way to get you.”
“Then why didn’t he?”
“Callboard in the lobby. He looked at the callboard to get your room number, and right under Mark Taylor, on the bottom of the callboard was Steve Winslow. Kemper had already told him I was his lawyer. He knew private detectives don’t work on their own, somebody hires them, so he figured it was me. That was the leap of logic, and it was one that Bradshaw could easily make. And that’s why he came to me.”
“And on the strength of that, you figured Margaret Millburn killed him?” Tracy said.
“I figured it was a good shot. See, her story didn’t fit in with anyone’s version of what happened. Or rather, my interpretation of their stories. Or lack of them, in Marilyn Harding’s case. I knew something was wrong, but I couldn’t figure it out. The reason I couldn’t figure it out was I’d made a mistake in logic.”
“Really?” Taylor said. “What was that?”
“Douglas Kemper’s story was that he got there before Marilyn Harding and found Bradshaw dead. I knew that was a lie. I knew he’d made that up to protect Marilyn. I figured he’d got there second. And, of course, he had.
“It was Marilyn Harding’s silence I misread. I figured Marilyn Harding was keeping quiet because she believed Douglas Kemper had got there first. In other words, because she walked in and found Bradshaw dead.
“But I was wrong. I had it backwards. What was making her hysterical was that she found Bradshaw alive. She called on him, told him she didn’t have the money, he was abusive, threatened her, and she got out. Bradshaw was alive when she left. That’s the thing Marilyn was trying to conceal.
“You can see how it looked to her. As soon as she heard Bradshaw was dead, she figured Douglas Kemper arrived right after she left, had an argument with Bradshaw, and killed him. See, the cops had the time of death pinned down so well that if Bradshaw was alive when she left, then Douglas Kemper must have killed him. Marilyn figured her statement that Bradshaw was alive when she left would crucify Kemper. And that’s why she kept quiet.”
“You lost me,” Tracy said. “How does all of that point to Margaret Milburn?”
Steve took another sip of beer. “I had the benefit of hearing Douglas Kemper’s story. And most of it was bullshit, but some of it wasn’t. Some of it I believed. And the part that I believed was the fact that he walked in there and found Bradshaw dead. ’Cause that’s the way it made sense from his point of view. He came second, he walked in there and found Bradshaw dead, and therefore he thought Marilyn had killed him, and that’s why he was claiming he came first.
“Now, if that was true, Margaret Millburn’s story didn’t fit at all. And once you answer the key question, why did Bradshaw come to my office, the answer is Margaret Millburn. Which means Margaret Millburn knew Bradshaw well and is lying up and down the board. Once you realize that and stop taking her phone call to the police at face value, the whole thing is obvious.”
“So Phyllis Kemper had nothing to do with it,” Mark said. “She was just a red herring to throw the witness off the track.”
“She had nothing to do with the Bradshaw murder,” Steve said. “I’m sure she’s the one who hired Miltner. And the one who killed Phillip Harding too.
“You can see what happened. Here’s Phyllis Kemper, a cold, mousy, repressed woman, living in her stepsister’s shadow. The only thing she’d got going for her is Douglas Kemper. And then she starts to lose him too. To her stepsister. So she snaps. She cracks up. She frames Marilyn for the murder of her father. But it doesn’t come off. The doctor blows the diagnosis and calls it a natural death. She waits for something to happen, but nothing does. So she forces the game. She hires private detectives, hoping to get the dirt on Marilyn and her husband. I don’t know what she expected to do with it, whether she was going to throw it in Marilyn’s face, or throw it in her husband’s, or what. I suspect by that time she wasn’t that clear on what she wanted to do.
“But she doesn’t catch Marilyn and hubby going to a hotel. She gets something else. She finds Marilyn is calling on a mysterious gentleman named David C. Bradshaw under circumstances that can only be shady. Jackpot. She phones an anonymous tip to the cops to get Phillip Harding’s body exhumed. Arsenic is found. Now, if Bradshaw hadn’t been murdered, I’m sure there would have been another anonymous tip to the cops telling them to check with Miltner’s Detective Agency concerning Marilyn’s movements. They would have found out that Marilyn had been calling on Bradshaw, and then jumped to the conclusion that Bradshaw was blackmailing her. That would have put Marilyn in the embarrassing position of having to prove that Bradshaw wasn’t blackmailing her over the murder of her father-as the police actually figured-but over something else.