“Is that not a fact, Mr. Cunningham?”
On the witness stand, Larry Cunningham had gone white as a sheet. He opened his mouth, closed it again. Blinked his eyes. Failed to answer.
In the silence that followed, Steve Winslow murmured, “No further questions.”
48
For Someone who’d just been handed the solution to a murder case, District Attorney Harry Dirkson did not look particularly happy. He stood next to the desk in Judge Wylie’s chambers and rubbed his head. “Let me hear it again.”
“Yes, let’s have it again,” Judge Wylie said. “If I’m going to dismiss this case, I’d like to be sure of my grounds.”
Steve Winslow leaned back in his chair, looked over at the judge. “Sorry I couldn’t get you a confession,” he said, “but the number of people who break down in court and say, I did it, is somewhat smaller in real life than it is in books.”
“Spare me,” Dirkson said. “Just get on with it.”
Steve Winslow looked up at him. “I don’t like your attitude and I don’t like your tone. If you don’t want to hear this, I’m perfectly happy to walk out now and let the case go to the jury. Now, you take a minute and consider whether or not you think they’d convict.” He paused a moment, let that sink in. “If you nail Cunningham, you still come up with a killer. Which will look a little better in the scorebook than losing all the way around. Now, you want to hear this or not?”
Dirkson said nothing, looked away.
“Yes, let’s have it,” Judge Wylie said. “I think I have the picture, but let’s nail it down.”
“It’s really very simple,” Steve said. “We have your basic, simple crime of passion. Larry Cunningham killed Frank Fletcher in a jealous rage. He was infatuated with the defendant. Unfortunately, the feeling was not mutual. Amy Dearborn had no interest in Cunningham-he simply wasn’t her type. She was willing to let him buy her dinner now and then, but that was it.” Steve shrugged. “Not entirely admirable, I suppose, but somewhat less heinous than murder.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Dirkson said. “What about Cunningham?”
“Well, there’s your picture,” Steve said. “We have your repressed young man carrying a torch in a one-sided love affair. Just the type to pop his cork and go berserk when he thinks she’s being hit on by someone else.”
“Never mind the motivation,” Dirkson said irritably. “For my money, anyone will kill anyone. Just tell me how he did it. More to the point, how can I prove he did it?”
“He did it just like I said in court. He took Amy out to dinner with the hope of getting her into bed. It was a vain hope by the way, but guys like him never quite believe that. He was going to kiss off the movie, get her up to her apartment, and make his move. He was obsessed, so the fact it had never worked before wasn’t enough to dissuade him.”
“How do you know it had never worked before?”
“My client told me.”
“Big deal. I wouldn’t take her word for anything.”
“Gentlemen, please. Let’s not digress,” Judge Wylie said.
“The point is,” Steve said, “he was planning to get her up there. So at the end of dinner he went to check the answering machine. Not that he was expecting to get a message. More than likely, he was just laying the groundwork for skipping the movie He intended to tell her something had come up, they didn’t have time to go to the show, but he had time to come up to her place for a while.”
“You know that for a fact?” Dirkson said.
“No, I’m making it up. It just seems plausible to me.”
“I need more than that.”
“I don’t.”
Dirkson looked at him. “Huh?”
“If you don’t convict this guy, it’s no skin off my nose. I’ll give you what I’ve got, but frankly I’m getting a little sick of the sarcastic interruptions.”
“You haven’t given me a fact yet.”
“You haven’t shut up long enough for me get to one.”
Winslow and Dirkson glared at each other a moment. Then Dirkson waved it off, flopped into a chair. “Get on with it,” he said.
“Okay,” Steve said. “For whatever reason, at the end of dinner Cunningham went and made a phone call. He said he was checking his answering machine, but actually he was checking hers. Why? Because he had call-forwarding on, transferring his calls to her phone.” Steve pointed to Dirkson. “And there is a fact that you can check. First that he has call-forwarding. And second, that on the night in question it was routing his calls to her phone.”
“Will there be a record of that?” Dirkson said.
Steve shrugged. “I haven’t the faintest idea. But it’s something to check out. If there’s a record, it will help. But there should be other proofs.”
“Such as what?”
“You might try cabs.”
“Huh?”
“Cunningham beat Amy down to the office and had time to get in, kill Fletcher and get out. If she went home, checked the answering machine and went straight down there, that would be cutting it rather close. I doubt if a man on that sort of time schedule would take the subway.”
“What time schedule? According to her, she didn’t get down there until ten o’clock.”
“Yeah, but he didn’t know that. As far as he was concerned, she was right on his heels.”
“She was,” Dirkson said, “and you know it. She came down right after him.”
“I don’t want to get into that,” Steve said.
“I’ll bet you don’t.”
“I mean now. It’s another digression. Right now, I’m telling you what Cunningham did.”
“And I for one want to hear it,” Judge Wylie said. “We can deal with these other matters later on. You were saying, Mr. Winslow?”
“I’m saying the odds are he took a cab. And if he did, somewhere out there there will be a cabbie with a trip sheet listing that ride. And if there is, the cops can find it. Just like they did with Tracy Garvin.”
“You admit that was her in that cab?”
“I admit nothing of the sort. I’m just using it as an example.” Steve leaned back in his chair. “Where was I? Oh yes, Cunningham takes a cab downtown. You can figure that cab was hailed at approximately seven-thirty.”
“Not eight o’clock?” Judge Wylie said.
“Absolutely not.” Steve turned to Dirkson. “Amy Dearborn has always maintained she left the restaurant at seven-thirty. Cunningham’s the one said eight o’clock. He was most insistent about it. At first I thought he was lying to give her an alibi. It took a while before I realized he was lying to give himself one.”
Dirkson frowned.
Steve smiled. “See how it fits? Anyway, he made the phone call at seven-thirty. Just as he would have if they were going to the pictures at eight. Which Amy thought they were actually doing. So Cunningham goes, makes the phone call, hears the message from Frank Fletcher because he has call-forwarding on, is incensed, goes back, tells Amy Dearborn a business matter came up. They leave the restaurant. She goes home, he grabs a cab downtown.”
Dirkson put up his hand. “Hold on a moment.”
“What?”
“The business appointment. With the client. Whatever his name is.”
“Philip Eckstein.”
“Yeah, him. Are you saying there never was a business appointment?”
“No. Of course there was.”
“How? Where’s the message?”
“What message?”
“The message on the answering machine. Look,” Dirkson said. “I served the search warrant. We impounded Amy Dearborn’s machine. The only message on that tape was from Frank Fletcher, asking her to come to the office. If Larry Cunningham had call-forwarding on, the message from Philip Eckstein should have been on there too,”
Steve smiled. “Yeah, but you’re taking his story at face value.”
“No, I’m not,” Dirkson said. “I checked with the client. He said he left the message.”
“A wholly reliable witness?” Steve asked.
Dirkson took a breath. “Actually, no. As I recall he’s a nerdy little twerp, nervous as hell, gave the impression he was lying. But not about the call. About the time element. See, I always figured just like you did that Cunningham was lying about the time to give her an alibi. And this guy was his client, owed him a favor and was backing him up. I’ll give you that. But the bit about the phone call and the message-there was nothing bogus about that. And with a guy that transparent, I’d know.”