Petaluma, California
January 2004
Snowy Ducks for Cover
If Molly O’Keefe had been what is known in the vernacular as a “swell looker,” Frank Sheridane would never have consulted “Snowy” Shane. For Sheridane was fully as keen a business man as any of the criminal lawyers who handled the big-time murder cases; and it needed no expert in mental arithmetic to reach the conclusion that the more fee for Snowy Shane, the less for Sheridane.
But Sheridane liked to win his cases. A death penalty verdict was as inconvenient for defense counsel as it was fatal for the client. Hence, he consulted the chunky little detective and put his cards on the table. Snowy Shane called the turn with neatness and despatch.
“Bum looker, eh?”
“Not so hot, why?”
“Just wondered. You’d have gone before a jury and trusted to a few tears if she’d been a mamma.”
“Yeah, maybe. Anyhow, I’m here. It’s up to you.”
Snowy Shane had acquired his nickname for a bushy crop of gray hair which silvered his head with a grizzled mane. His eyes matched his hair, steel cold, with the glint which comes from frosted grass when the sun first strikes it. He was a fast worker, and the police would have none of him. He didn’t play the game along orthodox lines, but took shortcuts whenever he felt reasonably certain of his ultimate goal.
He picked a pipe from his pocket, regarded the polished bowl lovingly, crammed in moist crumbs of fragrant tobacco and grunted.
“What you want me to do?”
“Get her out, of course.”
“Is she guilty?”
The lawyer grinned.
“She tells me she isn’t,” he confided.
“Humph,” grunted the detective. “If she ain’t, who is?”
Frank Sheridane knew the ways of the chunky detective, knew just how far he could be trusted. He bit the end from a cigar, struck a match and rotated the tobacco between his fingers as he applied the flame, making certain the cigar would bum evenly.
“Harley Robb, president of the Mutual Morehomes Building & Loan had been dipping into the funds, using them for speculation. He was short something over a million.”
Snowy Shane nodded.
“He was exposed by someone, forced to sign a confession. That confession has every earmark of having been written under a great emotional strain. It’s all in his handwriting.”
The lawyer took a folded paper from his pocket.
“Original?” asked Snowy Shane.
“No. A copy. Here’s what it says.”
“I, Harley Robb, President of the Mutual Morehomes Building & Loan have been embezzling the funds for speculation. I admit my guilt. I had no accomplices. I alone am to blame. Harry Robb.”
“That confession was sent by special messenger to the chairman of the advisory committee. Naturally he went at once to interview Robb. He took a detective with him. They found Robb dead-murdered.”
Snowy Shane grunted.
“Sure it wasn’t suicide?”
“Yes. He was stabbed. There’d been some sort of a struggle.”
“Who was the chairman of the advisory committee?”
“Arthur Sprang.”
“Who loses the money Robb took?”
“Lots of people. Sprang for one; my client for another. She will lose all of her savings.”
The white-haired detective toyed with a pencil. His cold gray eyes regarded the lawyer contemplatively.
“Clues?” he asked.
“There weren’t any.”
“Why pick on the jane, then?”
“Because she was the last person to see him alive, so far as the police can find out.”
“Tell me about it.”
“The murder happened some time around midnight. Robb had been at the office, giving the secretary, Molly O’Keefe, some dictation. He seemed distraught, nervous. She went home shortly before twelve. She says Robb was still in the office.
“The confession reached the chairman of the advisory committee around one o’clock in the morning. A messenger had been summoned over the telephone, ordered to take an envelope that would be found pinned to the office door, and deliver it to the address shown on the envelope.
“That envelope was found pinned to the door, delivered. It contained the confession. Sprang was home and in bed when the message was delivered. He summoned a detective and they went at once to the office of the company, found the door locked, forced it, found the body of Robb.
“There had been a struggle. A chair or two was smashed. Rugs were wrinkled and pitched around into the corners of the waxed floor. Robb had received several stabs. It was a messy job.
“Robb wore a wrist watch. It had been smashed in the struggle. The hands pointed to 11:57. My client caught a street car at 12:15. There was a speck of blood on the outside of the envelope in which the confession was enclosed.
“When they arrested Molly O’Keefe they found a wallet that has been identified as belonging to Robb. It contained something over ten thousand dollars in cash. She had hidden it in the mattress of her bed and then sewed up the mattress where she had slit it to put the wallet in.”
The criminal lawyer regarded the tip of his cigar judiciously. Snowy Shane grunted an interruption.
“What’s her story — on the wallet?”
“She says Robb dictated to her, seemed very nervous, asked her how much money she had in the company. She told him around fifteen thousand dollars, money she’d been saving for years. He took his wallet from his pocket, told her to keep it in a safe place, if anything happened to her investment to consider the money in the nature of a repayment; but never to let anyone know she had it.”
Shane sighed.
“What’s the police theory?”
“That Robb told her of his shortage, wrote out the confession. That she asked him about her savings, that he told her they had gone, along with the rest, that she drew a knife, struggled with him, killed him, took the wallet from his body and beat it.”
“Find the knife?” asked Snowy Shane.
“No. They can’t find it.”
“Any stains on her clothes?”
“No. That’s a point in her favor.”
Shane shrugged his massive shoulders.
“Looks like she could beat the rap before a jury. If they ain’t got nothing more than that, it’ll be all circumstantial evidence. She could spiel her piece to the jury and raise a reasonable doubt.”
The lawyer made a grimace.
“She’s got skinny legs,” he said, “and a homely face.”
“How old?”
“Around forty-three, looks fifty. And... well, the case is young yet. You can’t tell what the police will discover later on. I want to get you started now.”
“Huh, want me to beat the police to it, eh?”
“Yes.”
“And if you’re afraid they’ll discover something, it’s because you’ve got a hunch your client’s guilty.”
“Our client.”
“Not yet,” said Snowy Shane with a grin.
Frank Sheridane twisted the cigar around and around in his mouth.
“She might be, at that,” he admitted. “It’s funny that Robb would have given her virtually all the cash he had. If he was carrying ten thousand bucks around in his pocket it was getaway money. You know what these looters do as well as I do. They always keep a bunch of cash on them for a quick getaway.”
Snowy Shane squinted his eyes in silent thought for a few moments.
“Funny he could have copped that much swag without the advisory committee getting wise.”
The lawyer’s eyes narrowed.
“If we can get that thought across to the jury, backed by some evidence, we may save our client.”
“Your client,” said Shane, cupping the hot bowl of his pipe in caressing fingers.
“Maybe if you could find some facts to work on,” went on the lawyer, heedless of the comment, “I could pin a theory.”