“Now, I don’t think anyone there heard what the officers said except me. I was right up at the officer’s elbow and I heard him say, ‘They’re blanks’.”
“How many shots were fired?” Mason asked.
“Three.”
“Then what?” Mason asked.
“All of a sudden this woman smiled at the officer, said, ‘All right, let’s get it over with. I just wanted a little excitement. I wanted to see what would happen’.”
“And she admitted firing the shots?”
“She admitted firing the shots,” Nelson said. “Well, that was all there was to it. The officers took her into custody. They gave her an opportunity to go to Headquarters in a private police car. We tried to tag along, but you know the way the officers handle things when they are arresting a woman.”
“What do you mean?” Mason asked.
“They play it safe,” Nelson said. “A woman is always in a position to claim that officers made advances and all that sort of stuff, so whenever they arrest a woman they use their radio telephone to telephone Headquarters, giving the time and location, and stating that they are on their way in with a woman prisoner. Then the dispatcher notes the time and the place and then as soon as the officers get to the place where they’re booking the prisoner they check in on time and place.
“The idea is to show that considering the distance traversed, there was absolutely no time for amorous dalliance. So when they have a woman prisoner they’re taking in, they really cover the ground.
“They didn’t use the red light and siren but they were driving just too damned fast for us to keep up. I got my colleague and we tried our best. We followed the car for... oh, I guess three or four miles, and then they pulled through a signal just as it was changing and we lost them.”
“So what did you do?” Mason asked.
“So I telephoned to Drake and told him generally what had happened, and Drake told me to come on in and report to him in person.”
Mason looked at Drake.
“That’s it,” Drake said. “That’s what happened.”
Mason looked at his watch. “Well,” he said, “under those circumstances I assume that our client will be asking for an attorney and we’ll be hearing from her within the next few minutes.”
Drake said, “Evidently she had this thing all planned, Perry, and she was just coming to you to get you retained in advance. I thought you should know.”
“I certainly should,” Mason said.
Drake said to Nelson, “Well, Jerry, I guess that covers the situation. We’ve done all the damage we can do.”
“The point is, Mr. Mason,” Nelson said, “if anything happens I’m in an embarrassing position.”
“What do you mean?”
“The officers took my name and address. I had to give them one of my cards. My associate saw what was happening and managed to duck out of the way, but I was standing right there and one of the bystanders said to the officer, ‘This man was standing right by me and he saw the whole thing,’ so the officer turned to me and said, ‘What’s your name?’ and I didn’t dare to stall around any because I knew that they’d get me sooner or later and if they found I was a private detective and had been a little reluctant about giving them the information they wanted, they’d have put two and two together and figured right away I was on a case. So I just acted as any ordinary citizen would and gave the officer my name and address.”
“Did he check it in any way?”
“Yes. He asked to see my driver’s licence.”
“So he has your name and address.”
“Right.”
“And if you were called as a witness you’d have to testify to the things that you’ve told me here.”
“That’s right.”
“Well,” Mason said, “if you’re called as a witness you’ll have to tell the truth. But I want you to remember that she said that it was not a stick-up.”
“That’s the thing I can’t understand,” Nelson said. “She walked over toward the news stand, opened her purse, caught the eye of the girl behind the counter at the news stand, jerked out the gun, said, ‘This isn’t a stick-up’ and then bang! bang! bang! Then she turned and dashed into the women’s room.”
“But you can swear if you have to that she said it was not a stick-up.”
“Very definitely. But I guess I’m about the only one that heard it because she said isn’t and I’ll just bet about half of the people — in fact, I guess all of the people — who were around, would swear that she said, ‘This is a stick-up.’ ”
“Well, that isn’t might be rather important,” Mason said, “in view of the fact that there were only blank cartridges in the gun... You heard one of the officers say that they were blanks?”
“That’s right.”
“Okay,” Mason said, “I guess that’s all there is to it.”
Nelson got up and shook hands. “I’m mighty glad to meet you, Mr. Mason. I’m sorry that I may be a witness against you — that is, against your side of the case.”
“What do you mean, against?” Mason asked. “You may be one of the best witnesses I have.”
Drake, holding the door open for Nelson, said, “You get more goofy cases, Perry, than anyone else in the business.”
“Or more goofy clients,” Mason said.
In the doorway Jerry Nelson paused and shook his head. “That’s the thing I can’t understand,” he said. “That woman, when she came out, was the most perfectly poised woman you have ever seen in your life. She acted just completely natural. You wouldn’t have thought she even knew what a gun was, let alone having just caused a commotion with one.”
“You can’t always tell about women,” Drake said.
Mason grinned. “You can’t ever tell about women, Paul.”
Chapter Three
An atmosphere of tense expectancy hung over Perry Mason’s office until a few minutes before five o’clock when Perry Mason said, “Well, Della, I guess our client has decided she doesn’t need an attorney — and I’m hanged if I know why.”
“Do you suppose they’ve been interrogating her and won’t let her get to a phone to put through a call?”
“I don’t know,” Mason said. “I can think of a lot of explanations but none of them is logical. However, I’m not going to worry about it. Let’s close up shop, go home and call it a day. We should have closed the office at four-thirty and— Wait a minute, Della, it’s almost five. Let’s tune in on the five o’clock newscast and see if there is some mention made of what happened. It’ll be worth something to find out whether I’m going to have to try to defend a client on a charge of shooting up an airport with blank cartridges.”
“About the only defence to that would be not guilty by reason of insanity,” Della Street said.
Mason grinned.
Della Street brought out the portable radio, tuned it in to the station and promptly at five o’clock twisted the knob, turning up the volume.
There were comments on the international situation, on the stock market, and then the announcer said, “The local airport was thrown into a near panic today when an attractive young woman brandished a revolver, shouted ‘This is a stick-up!’ and then proceeded to fire three shots before retreating into the women’s rest room.
“While police were organizing to storm the citadel, the woman in question casually emerged. Upon being identified by spectators and taken into custody by the police, the woman at first professed her innocence, then finally smilingly admitted that she had done the act as a prank. Frankly skeptical, police soon determined two facts which lent strong support to the young woman’s statement. One fact was that the revolver was loaded only with blank cartridges and apparently the three shells which had been fired were blanks. The other fact was that an inspection of the woman’s driving licence identified her as Minerva Minden, who has been designated in the past by at least one newspaper as the madcap heiress of Montrose.