They leaned toward me just perceptibly. I said, 'What is it you want me to do?'
'Why-find our son. Wasn't that clear? And bring him home to us.'
Maybe there had been a misunderstanding. 'Let me get this straight. Your son is William Blount
— the William Blount who was charged this week with second-degree murder. He's the 'missing person' we're talking about here? Or am I confused?'
Jane Blount shot her husband an impatient look and removed a Silva Thin from a gold box on the coffee table. Blount shifted in his chair and said, 'Why, yes, William Blount is our son. I thought you understood that-from the media coverage. Do you think you can locate the boy?'
'I might. And then what?'
'Then what? I don't follow.'
'I mean, do you want me to gather evidence that will clear your son of the charge? That's what I'm usually hired to do in these cases. I've done it.'
'Oh, we'll handle the legal end of it,' Blount said, waving the matter away. 'You'll simply find William and bring him to Jane and me. You won't need to concern yourself with the, ah, judicial processes, Mr. Strachey. That's all being taken care of.'
'How so?'
Jane Blount lit her cigarette, which dangled from one corner of her mouth, and from the other corner she spoke to me with a pained earnestness. 'Jay Tarbell is helping us out-he's a dear man, do you know Jay? And hopefully this ugly business can be cleared up with a minimum of upset for all concerned. It's been such a ghastly experience for Stuart and me, and we're terribly anxious for it to be over with just as soon as possible. But Billy, naturally, must take the first step by coming home and facing up to his responsibilities.'
She sounded like a mother whose son had knocked up the trashman's daughter and a settlement was in the offing. She dragged on the cigarette and blew a stream of smoke up toward a humming little vent in the ceiling, which inhaled the cloud.
I said, 'I know Tarbell by reputation. If anyone in Albany can get your son out of this, he's the one. I take it you believe your son is innocent.'
They looked irritated. Not injured, not offended, just irritated. 'Well, we certainly hope so,'
Blount said. 'My God, I'd hate to think William was even capable of such a thing. But let me emphasize, Mr. Strachey, that the question of William's guilt or innocence is a matter to be dealt with elsewhere. That end of it would be outside your purview, as I see it. Disposition of the case would be a matter for the courts to concern themselves with, wouldn't you agree? By way of preparation for that eventuality, however, perhaps you could give us an estimate on how long it might take you to locate William.'
Something was screwy here, but I didn't know what. 'I'd had clients in similar situations, but none so chipper and optimistic as the Blounts. I studied them for a moment, with no result. I said,
'No, I can't. Two days, a week, a month-it's hard to say. I'd have an idea in a couple of days of what I'd be up against. I'd need a good bit of help from you two.'
'You'll have it,' Blount said. 'Will you take the case?'
'You understand that once I locate your son and he agrees to come home, you and Tarbell could meet with him and then he'd have to go straight to the police. That's the law. If he didn't, I'd have to report it. There'd be no funny stuff, right? Flying down to Rio or whatever.'
I doubted this was what the Blounts had in mind, though it had happened to me once before. I'd rounded up a client's embezzler-husband, who, instead of turning himself in, flashed his three hundred thou to my client and the happy couple left together on the first flight for Brazil. I'd lost my fee and barely escaped an abetting-a-felony charge and sometimes regretted I hadn't followed on the next plane.
'Mr. Strachey,' Blount said, 'Jay Tarbell is an officer of the court. He has a reputation to uphold in this community, as do Jane and I. We're hardly about to jeopardize our good names by participating in a conspiracy to circumvent justice. As I say, we are confident that some formal resolution to the matter can be arrived at that will satisfy all the interested parties. I'm afraid you'll just have to accept my word on that.' He gave me a sickly smile.
'I just thank God,' Jane Blount put in, 'that we live in modern times.'
What were they up to? Stuart Blount had a reputation around town as a high-toned wheeler-dealer-suburban real estate, shopping malls, cozy connections with the politically well placed.
And while I supposed there were jurisdictions in the State of New York where you could still get a murder fixed,
I doubted Albany County was one of them. In the thirties, I guessed, but not in 1979. Maybe the Blounts held a genuine abiding faith in their son's innocence and were confident that, with a nudge from them here and there up the line, justice would triumph. It was a topic they didn't seem to want to go into.
I said, 'Have you already done a deal with the DA, or what? I like to know what I'm getting into.
I've got a license to keep.'
Jane Blount's eyes flashed and she sucked furiously on her cigarette. Her husband sighed deeply.
They were taking some unaccustomed abuse from me, and I guessed I knew why.
'Mr. Strachey, it's all being worked out with the appropriate authorities, believe me it is. What we're counting on, you see, is that a, ah, prison sentence can be avoided-that some alternative approach to William's rehabilitation can be worked out-if you get my drift.'
I didn't. 'Are you talking about a tour in the Peace Corps, or what? Fill me in. What's new on the correctional front?'
'I can tell you this much, Mr. Strachey. Judge Feeney has already been consulted, and he has given his blessing to the program we have in mind, as has the district attorney. Does that reassure you?'
Killer Feeney. Maybe he was going to allow the Blounts to have their son hanged at home, from the family chandelier.
I said, 'If your son is innocent, isn't all this dealing a little premature?'
Blount squeezed his eyes shut for a long moment. Then, deciding I was probably worth all of this, he opened them and gazed at me wearily. 'Let me explain. I'm a realist, Mr. Strachey. In my business, I have to be. I know what the evidence against William is. It's all been laid out for me.
No, I don't believe that my son killed a man. William is troubled, yes, but I can't accept for a minute the notion that William would take a human life. It's just that the situation is-rather an intractable one, wouldn't you say? Jay Tarbell has gone over the evidence with me, and he's given his opinion, which is not favorable. Jane and I have been over it and over it, and we're simply doing what we think we must do.'
'Making the best of a sorry state of affairs,' Jane Blount added.
I said, 'My fee is a hundred fifty dollars a day plus expenses. If you agree to that, and to giving me your full cooperation, I'll take the case.'
They relaxed. 'Thank you,' Blount said. 'Thank you, Mr. Strachey, for placing your trust in us.'
I didn't trust them any farther than I could toss their walnut sideboard. But there were aspects of the case that interested me-for one, both the accused and his alleged victim were gay-and there was the additional incentive of my needing at least $2.93 to cover the check I'd written after lunch at Elmo's. I decided to risk becoming involved with these people I neither liked nor understood and then figure them out as I went along. It wasn't going to be the first time.
I said, 'Tell me about your son. When did you last see him?'
I'd done it again. They looked at me as if I'd just said, 'Up above the world so high/Like a tea tray in the sky.' Except this time my irrelevant gibberish had them squirming in their Chippendale seats.
'We haven't seen William since before the, ah, crime,' Blount finally said. 'I believe it was some weeks ago- back in the latter part of the summer, if I recall precisely.'
'That's not very precise.'
'Billy has a lot of growing up to do,' Jane Blount said. She flushed under her terrific tan.
'What happened the last time you saw Billy? Tell me; maybe that will help me begin to understand your son.' And his parents.
Blount sucked in the corner of his mouth and sat looking droll. His wife gave me a full frontal of her nostrils, sighed deeply, and spoke. 'On the morning of August the eighteenth, Stuart and I drove down from our cottage in Saratoga. When we arrived, Billy was here in our house with-a man.'
