I pushed him away. “Touch me again and I’ll leave your ass on the floor.”
“As if you could.”
“Try it and find out.” I looked at the stenographer. “You getting all this down, Jay? I want the record to show that Mr. Whiteside is throwing charges around and he hasn’t even read Mr. Ralston his rights.”
“Goddammit, get out of here,” Whiteside said.
“When you make up the transcript of this, I want to see every word of it in the record.”
“You’re obstructing justice, Janeway. I’m giving you five seconds to get out of here.”
“You wouldn’t know justice if I chiseled it on your dick.”
“Jay, tell Matthews to get in here.”
“What are we doing now, calling the A-team? Hey, I’ll make it easy on you. I’ll walk out, but not quietly, pal, and I’m coming back with one helluva savage New York lawyer who is going to make buffalo chips out of you and your tactics. You hear that, Mike? Don’t say a word to this prick. Write that down, Jay. Janeway wants it on the record, this man was not Mirandized, and it better be there. Randy Asshole Whiteside can kiss Mrs. Ralston’s diary good-bye.”
I kicked over the chair and pointed at the stenographer. “Do you know how to spell
I got right into Whiteside’s startled face. “Because you know what, asshole?” I patted my pocket. “I’ve got a tape of this whole sorry interview.”
I pushed my way past him. Ralston sat in wide-eyed disbelief. I had his attention at last. I looked down at him as I passed. “Remember, Mike, don’t sign anything, don’t say anything.”
I walked out and slammed the door, and the spirit of Harold Waters walked out with me.
Outside, I took a deep breath and touched my empty pocket as if I’d really had a tape there.
CHAPTER 13
My pal Robert Moses came from an old New York family of lawyers. Named after a public official who had transformed New York’s parks in the La Guardia administration, he had moved to Denver years ago and I had met him when I was still a motorcycle cop. He always sounded wide awake and ready for battle, even when I woke him in the middle of the night.
“You should’ve called me right away. The minute you heard they wanted to question your friend, that’s when I should’ve gotten this call.”
“When have you ever known me to do what I ought to do?”
“This isn’t funny, Cliff. Do us both a favor and don’t try to play lawyer, please; you’re not that good at it. Do you know how lucky you are not to be in jail now?”
I said I did know that. I had known that possibility even before the dance got started. But I had been on the cop’s side of the table enough to know that Whiteside was after more than background information, and somebody had to be there to get Ralston a fair shake.
“You made Whiteside a promise and you broke your word. You said you’d be quiet. You call that quiet?”
“I said I’d be quiet if he’d be civil. You call that civil?”
He sighed loudly into the telephone. “All right, I’ll go down and see what they think they’ve got on your boy. With luck we’ll both walk out of there.”
An hour later he called me from downtown. The cops had released Ralston even before he had arrived. There were no charges pending; the evidence consisted only of motive, which the police still considered strong. Twelve thousand-five was a lot of money to a man with Ralston’s checkered past.
“Have they even asked along the block if anybody saw any strangers?”
“They weren’t about to tell me that. You’ve got to assume they did, and found nothing.”
“Which only means nobody was looking, nobody noticed, or nobody’s talking. Or they haven’t found the one who was, did, or will. But it gives them an excuse to stop looking, doesn’t it?”
“They think Ralston wanted the money so he could go back to his gambling, womanizing ways. The missus wouldn’t budge and things got out of hand. Frankly, Whiteside is having a hard time believing that a strapping young guy like Ralston, with his past, would form a personal attachment to a very plain older woman.
“The son of a bitch had better not use it around me.”
“If he does, you smile, look in his pretty face, and say, ‘Thank you, Constable,’ on advice from your attorney.”
A cop had taken Ralston back to his home, Moses said, and it was assumed that’s where he was now. I thanked him and told him to send me a bill.
Then I drove back up to Globeville. Ralston’s car was no longer parked at the curb where I had seen it earlier, and now the street was quiet and dark. I went up onto the porch and banged on the door. Nothing. I came down into the yard and stood there for a moment wondering where he might be. Finally I realized I didn’t know him well enough to even begin such a hunt.
