Outdoors, Chief Meister had Marshall wait in the car with Betty while he returned to the garage for the coil of rope.
Tossing it in the back seat of the car, he said laconically, “Evidence.”
As Henry Quillan’s law office was only half a block from police headquarters, the lawyer was already there when Meister, Marshall and Betty arrived. He was a tall, bony man of about fifty with a gaunt, Lincolnesque face and a rather dignified manner. He listened quietly to the chief’s explanation of Betty’s arrest.
“Any objection to my speaking to my client in private before you book her?” he asked.
A felony suspect had no legal right to confer with anyone without a police officer being present before even being booked, but the Runyon City police force inclined to be informal about such matters.
“All right with me,” the chief said with a shrug. “You can use my office.”
“May Kirk sit in with us?” Betty asked the lawyer.
He also shrugged. “If you want it that way.”
Inside the office Henry Quillan seated his bony frame on a corner of the desk and waved Betty and Marshall to chairs.
When they were seated, he said, “Now — first I have to know how you want to plead to this charge, Betty. Innocent or guilty?”
Marshall said indignantly, “She’s innocent, of course.”
Quillan gave him a brief glance. “Suppose we let her answer.”
“Innocent, Henry,” she said in a steady voice.
“All right. Now — that rope hasn’t yet been examined by the state police crime lab, and it may well turn out that the cuts don’t match after all. You can’t accurately judge a thing like that with the naked eye. But I know Harold Farroway’s work, and if he says that screen was cut from the inside, it was and he’ll be able to prove it in court. Do you have any theory as to how and why it was cut from inside?”
Betty gave her head a bewildered shake.
Marshall said, “Maybe the cat burglar got in some other way and only used the second-floor hall window as an escape route.”
Betty smiled at him. “I appreciate your faith, Kirk, but he could have unlocked it from inside. All you have to do is release a hook and swing it outward.”
Quillan said, “Frankly, it looks bad for you, Betty. And it’s going to look worse if Farroway establishes the fact that the rope fragment actually did come from the coil in the garage. We’d be better off with no evidence that the cat burglar attempted to break in that night. Just your word that you heard noises on the roof probably would be enough to establish reasonable doubt. But a jury is going to accept this apparently rigged evidence as an indication that you tried to cover up deliberate murder.”
“Don’t you want to defend me?” she asked quietly.
“Don’t turn temperamental,” he said with a touch of impatience. “As a lawyer I have to accept your word that you’re innocent. As a friend, I believe you are. But I have to convince a jury of it. I have no intention of sparing your feelings by avoiding unpleasant questions, because I’m going to have to furnish a jury with the answers. We have to find some reasonable explanation for that rope and screen.”
“I’m sorry,” she said contritely. “But I’m afraid I have no reasonable explanation. I did hear someone on the roof that night. I did hear a rasping noise from the direction of the hall window. I was convinced it was the cat burglar who eased open my bedroom door. What more can I say?”
“There’s the matter of motive,” Marshall put in. “How’s the state going to establish one? If she wanted to get rid of Bruce it would have been much simpler to divorce him.”
Quillan pursed his lips. “You have a point there. What was the financial setup between you and Bruce, Betty?”
“I’m afraid I controlled the purse strings. Bruce had his income from the law firm, of course, but he spent it pretty much as he pleased. The house and Dad and Mother’s estates were in my name. You might say I supported the family and Bruce’s income was his personal pocket money.”
The lawyer hiked his eyebrows. “As his law partner, I happen to know he took around seven thousand a year from the firm. That isn’t much as established lawyers’ incomes go, because he really didn’t work any harder than he had to. But it’s a considerable amount of pocket money. That’s beside the point, however. You retained everything you inherited in your own name? You hadn’t signed anything over to him or established joint bank accounts?”
Betty shook her head. “Everything was in my own name.”
“Hmm. New York has no community property law, and it wouldn’t apply here anyway, because only property increases subsequent to the marriage are involved in community property settlements. He couldn’t have had any legal claim against you if you had decided to divorce him. It could be a telling point if we show the jury that divorce would have caused you no financial disadvantage.”
“I was going to divorce him,” she said.
The lawyer gave her a sharp look.
“You’re not supposed to conceal anything at all from your lawyer, are you?” she asked. “Bruce and I were through. We hadn’t been sleeping together for weeks. I don’t suppose the reasons are important now, but I had definitely made up my mind. To divorce him, not to kill him. As Kirk pointed out, there was no reason to kill him even if the thought had occurred to me.”
Quillan said, “I suggest we keep your divorce plans between the three of us for the moment. They wouldn’t gain you any sympathy from the jury. I also suggest you refuse to make a statement of any sort to the police, except through me. Okay?”
“I’ll do whatever you say, Henry.”
The lawyer came to his feet. “Then let’s go out and get the ordeal over with. I’ll try to get you released on bail, but don’t count on it. If they plan to charge first-degree, you can’t be released on bail.”
Chapter IX
Outside, at the complaint desk, they discovered that District Attorney Arnold Ross had just arrived. The D.A. was a round, pleasant-looking man with a little button nose and the smooth, pink skin of a baby. He was talking to Chief Meister, but he looked up as the chief’s door opened and threw an affable smile to include all three of the people emerging from the office.
“I’m sorry about all this, Betty,” he said with cordial regret. “But I have no choice but to take the proper action. How are you, Hank? Hello, Kirk.”
The county had too little crime to require a full-time prosecutor, and district attorney was only a part-time job. Arnold Ross was also a practicing attorney and therefore made a point of being pleasant even to those charged with crimes. You could never tell when someone he had to prosecute might become a potential client.
Quillan said, “What are your plans about this, Arn?”
“What choice do I have in the face of the evidence?” Ross asked, giving Betty an apologetic look. “I have to charge premeditation.”
“Oh, come on,” Qullan said. “Even if she was guilty — which she isn’t — you couldn’t expect to prove worse than manslaughter.”
“You don’t really believe that, Hank. I think we have enough to prove first-degree.”
The horse trading between opposing attorneys prior to trial had always fascinated Marshall. Quillan’s first maneuver obviously was to attempt to get as low a charge as possible for his client. If Betty’s liberty, and perhaps her life, hadn’t been at stake, he would have enjoyed the jockeying.
Quillan said, “In that case I guess I’ll get a writ of habeas corpus and we’ll have a preliminary hearing in city court right now.”
Marshall recognized this as an attempt to lever some kind of concession out of the district attorney. As a writ of habeas corpus required the police either to grant an immediate hearing or release the prisoner, its issuance would mean that Arnold Ross would have to go into court right away. And obviously he wasn’t ready.