would have to be. The question is, who gave ’em the tip? If Marilyn Harding killed her father, it sure wasn’t her. And if she killed her father, who else would have known?”
Steve looked at Dirkson. “Any comments?”
Dirkson shrugged. “You’re talking, Winslow. I’m listening. That’s all.”
“Fine,” Steve said. “You listen. The way I see it, if Marilyn Harding killed him, it doesn’t make any sense. She had the most to gain, she had the opportunity, she fed him the lunch that killed him. For Christ’s sake, if you want a suspect, she’s it.
“Now, let’s assume she didn’t kill him. In that case, she’s been beautifully framed. The murderer set her up. Arsenic’s introduced into the sugar, Marilyn is the one to serve it to him, she’s the one who gained. All well and good.
“Except for one thing. The doctor botches the diagnosis. He puts the cause of death down as coronary thrombosis. A natural death. Bad luck for the murderer. Here’s a perfect frame-up, only no one knows it’s murder.
“So, what happens? The murderer sweats it out, hoping the cops will get wise. When they don’t, as a last resort, we get the anonymous tip.”
Steve paused. Dirkson still said nothing.
“Now,” Steve said, “you’re not going to tell me anything. But assuming we got so far as to go to court-on the Phillip Harding murder, I mean-well, I’m going to be calling witnesses and cross-examining yours. And the thing I’m going to be bearing down on is that anonymous tip. And if there was one, I’m going to bring it out. And when I do, if it was a phone tip, the first thing I’m going to bring out is whether the tip was from a man or a woman. And when I do, I’ll bet you a nickel it was from a woman. That’s assuming, of course, it wasn’t a disguised voice.
“Then I’ll bring out my theory of the case. Wanna hear it? Well, I’ll tell you anyway. It’s an old story, really. An old fairy tale. Perhaps you’ll recognize it. Once upon a time, there was this sweet, beautiful, young girl. But she had this wicked stepsister. Recognize the story? Now the stepsister wasn’t as pretty, or as rich, or as young, or anything. Basically, she had only one thing going for her. And you know what that was? Prince Charming. Slight variation on the old theme. The wicked stepsister had Prince Charming. But then she started to lose him too. And to her worst rival, her beautiful stepsister. So this cold, repressed, unhappy woman plotted her revenge. She’d kill her stepfather, and set it up so her dear stepsister took the blame.”
Dirkson made his first comment. “Bullshit.”
“Oh is it?” Steve said. “Who do you think hired Miltner? Who do you think was keeping tabs on Marilyn Harding? I mean, come on. If she and Kemper were having an affair, who the hell do you think was keeping tabs on them?”
“You can’t prove that.”
“No, I can’t. We’re playing what-if here. And the what-if is, what if Marilyn Harding gets acquitted of killing Donald Blake?”
“That’s highly unlikely.”
“Is it? All right, let’s look at the Donald Blake case for a bit.”
Dirkson smiled. “I was wondering when you’d get around to that.”
“For the purpose of our discussion it’s somewhat incidental, but let’s look at it. Say Phyllis Kemper hired Miltner. She’s framed Marilyn for one murder, but it hasn’t come off. Now she tries to go for two.”
“Now you’re really stretching,” Dirkson said.
“Maybe, but let’s play with it a bit. Phyllis Kemper puts a tail on Marilyn. What she’s hoping to come up with is some hard evidence of the affair.”
“Stop right there,” Dirkson said. “If that was the objective, why not tail her husband.”
Steve shrugged. “We’re playing with theories here. I can give you two reasons, though. One, she didn’t want the detectives to know who was hiring them. If the detectives put a tail on her husband, the obvious person to be doing it would be the wife. She went to great lengths to disguise her voice, so it’s clear she didn’t want to be known. So she put a tail on Marilyn instead, which would work just as well, since all she’s interested in is her husband’s rendezvous with her. Second reason. Douglas Kemper’s a real estate salesman. It would be a large pain in the ass to have detectives tail him around all day as he drove clients from one property to another. With that many trips, and having to stake out the real estate office all the time, there’d be a good chance the detectives would be spotted. She also wouldn’t be too keen on having private detectives following her and her husband when the two of them went out for dinner. Under those circumstances, even the coolest person couldn’t help looking around a bit wondering where the detectives were.”
“That’s pretty thin,’ Dirkson said.
“As I said, they’re just theories. I don’t really want to argue. We’re playing what-if. What if Phyllis Kemper put a tail on Marilyn? Well, she’s expecting to have Marilyn rendezvous with her husband. But it doesn’t happen. Something else does. What? Marilyn calls on someone at a not too affluent address, not the type of place Marilyn would normally go. Very interesting. When Phyllis gets the report from the detective agency the next day, she investigates. Finds Marilyn has called on a David C. Bradshaw. Now things are popping real nice for Phyllis. She’s already called in a tip to the cops on Phillip Harding being poisoned, and that morning they act on it. The body’s exhumed, arsenic’s found. Marilyn has a tough morning with the cops. When they finally leave, Marilyn gets a phone call. Phyllis, thinking it’s a rendezvous call from Doug, listens in. But it’s not Doug, it’s Bradshaw. With a blackmail demand. Jackpot! Phyllis keeps listening. Better and better. Marilyn had
“Well, no reason for Phyllis to tag along too. If she tried to, the detectives might spot her. But she knows where Marilyn’s going. She gets out of there fast, goes to Manhattan, stakes out Bradshaw’s apartment from across the street. Waits for the scenario to unfold.
“What happens? Marilyn arrives, slightly late, since she was held up waiting for Doug. Of course, Phyllis doesn’t know Marilyn was going to meet Doug, since she split right after the Bradshaw call. Had she known that, it might have altered her plans. But she doesn’t know.
“So Marilyn arrives, goes in, and comes out five minutes later. The detectives are trailing along behind. Great. The stage is set. Phyllis goes up, rings the doorbell, gets buzzed into the apartment, talks to Bradshaw. I don’t know what line she pulled on Bradshaw, but knowing he was a blackmailer, thinking up one couldn’t have been that hard. At any rate, she kids him along, picks up a knife, and zaps him in the back. Voila! Perfect frame.”
Dirkson shook his head. “Full of holes.”
“Such as?”
“What about the ten thousand bucks hidden in the hallway?”
“Phyllis does that. She knows Marilyn came to pay him off. She searches the body for the ten grand. Finds it. She doesn’t want to leave that money on the body, because why would Marilyn pay him off and then kill him? On the other hand, she wants the money discovered ’cause it will point to Marilyn. So she takes it and hides it in the upstairs hallway. The theory: Marilyn killed Bradshaw, then, trapped in the apartment and afraid she would be discovered with the money on her, hid it and got out. Not a great theory, but the best she could do. The bills have to be discovered to point to Marilyn, and hiding them is slightly more credible than leaving them on the body.
“Only, what Phyllis doesn’t know is the bills she removed from the body aren’t Marilyn’s, they’re Bradshaw’s, and Marilyn’s ten grand is still left in the money belt. But Phyllis had no reason to suspect there was another ten grand involved.
“And,” Steve said, “if you want to talk about weak theories, you’re the one dealing with the contention that Marilyn would have paid Bradshaw off, killed him, and then left the money on the body. Frankly, I find that hard to swallow.”
Dirkson smiled. “I don’t think I’ll have a problem. You’re forgetting the time of death, Winslow. The altercation? The witness? The phone call to the cops? If Phyllis Kemper did what you describe-and I’m not saying she didn’t-by the time she got up the stairs, Donald Blake was dead.”
“You’re splitting hairs, Dirkson. You’re talking minutes here. No medical examiner can be that exact.”
“There’s the witness and the phone call.”
“Sure there is. But how exact is exact? Those detectives who logged the times Marilyn went in and out. You think they got it to the minute?”
“That’s their job.”
