Dutton, startled by this change of gears, said, “What?”
“Your plane ticket. Have you got the stub?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Is there anybody who can prove you were actually in Reno?”
“Why?’
“I want to cross you off the list. If the police get tough about it, can you prove you actually went to Reno?”
“Of course I can.”
“Who saw you there?”
“My wife.”
Steve’s head twisted around. “Your what? ”
“My wife,” Dutton said. “I went out there to see my wife’s attorney about the divorce papers, and-”
Dutton’s head snapped back and the car rocketed forward as Steve stamped the gas pedal to the floor.
21
“Why didnt you tell me he was married?”
Sheila Benton looked at Steve Winslow though the wire mesh in the visiting room at the lockup.
Steve had to admire her. In spite of her predicament, she wasn’t crying, and she wasn’t rolling over and dying either. Unhappy as she must be, scared as she must be, she was a fighter, and she was still scrapping.
“It was none of your business,” she said defiantly.
“It was all of my business,” he said. “It’s the last link the police need to convict you of murder. Greely was a blackmailer. You have a trust fund that you lose if your name is connected to any scandal. Being named a correspondent in a divorce case would just fill the bill.”
“I know that.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t think of it.”
“Bullshit.”
“All right, damn it,” Sheila said. “I’m not stupid. What you just said-about losing my trust fund-you think I didn’t know that? About being named correspondent. I know. It’s the motive. It’s all the cops need.” Sheila shrugged helplessly. “I thought if the case looked too black, you wouldn’t take it.”
“I’m a lawyer,” Steve said. “It’s not my job to judge you. It’s my job to take the facts and present them to the jury in the best possible light. But I have to know what they are first.”
“Then you won’t quit on me?”
“Of course I won’t quit on you.”
“That’s good, because, well, there’s something else I have to tell you.”
“What is it?”
“I was lying about the window-shopping.”
“So, what else is new? What were you really doing?”
“Buying cocaine.”
Steve looked at her. “What?”
“I was buying cocaine.”
He just stared at her for a moment. Then he began laughing. He shook his head and laughed, mirthlessly.
Sheila, who had been working herself up to this particular confession, and who had thought she had girded her defenses against any sort of reaction, was totally unprepared for this. She stared at him in irritation.
“What’s so damn funny?” she said.
Steve waved apologetically, but continued to laugh. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s just my luck, somehow. I mean, how bad can things get? Now I’ve got a cokehead for a client in a hopeless murder case. You’ve made my day.”
“What do you mean, hopeless murder case?”
“Well, I said if the cops found any grounds for blackmail you’d be sunk. Wait’ll they find out about the coke.”
“They won’t.”
“Don’t count on it.”
“So, what if they do? They already have a motive for blackmail. What difference does it make if they have two.”
“Wake up,” Steve said. “I don’t know if you’re aware of it or not, but there’s been a tremendous backlash against drugs lately, and particularly against cocaine, what with crack and all. Not only will this give the prosecution a motive for blackmail, it’ll turn the whole jury against you.”
“So?”
“So that changes our whole strategy. Before, we could stall around, buy some time, get a few postponements and continuances. Now I gotta rush this thing to trial before anyone figures out you’re a junkie.”
“I’m not a junkie!”
“Sorry. Cokehead.”
“Fine. I see that. But you’re missing the point. The point is, I have a perfectly good witness for the time of the murder, but there’s no way in the world he’s going to come forward and testify.”
“It doesn’t matter. They fix the time of death between twelve-thirty and one-thirty. So you could have killed him after you got home.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. So that’s the way it is. Now, before we go any further, do you have any more little surprises for me?”
“Well, sort of.”
Steve sighed. “Okay. Let’s have it.”
“When I found the body I had a gram of coke on me. I was afraid I’d be arrested and searched, so I put it in an envelope and mailed it to myself. The mail hadn’t come before the cops picked me up, but it must have come by now.”
“So?”
“I keep an extra key to my apartment on the ledge over my door. There’s a key to the mailbox in the drawer of my night table.” She paused and then went on, ironically mimicking his earlier speech to her. “Now, I’m not advising you to get that letter before the police get it. That would be compounding a felony and conspiring to conceal a crime. So I’m not advising you to get that letter.”
Steve looked at her. Some girl, he thought. She was stickin’ it to him good. Despite her predicament, she was still scrapping. He had to admire her spunk, though he wasn’t going to let her know that.
He frowned and rubbed his forehead. “What a nice little playmate you are,” he said. “I haven’t been working for you twenty-four hours, and you’ve got me running dope.”
22
“Steve. I’ve been trying to reach you. The cops picked up Sheila Benton.”
“Yesterday’s news, Mark. I’m calling from the lockup.”
“You see your client?”
“Yeah. I saw her.”
“What’s her story?”
“She’s innocent, what did you think it was?”
