The Case of the Troubled Trustee

Chapter Fourteen

Paul Drake sat in Mason's office with a notebook balanced on his knee and said, 'Our men have uncovered a lot of stuff. None of it is going to help.'

'Go on,' Mason said, 'give me the facts.'

'Well, Rodger Palmer was a great believer in the Steer Ridge Oil stock, but he hated Jarvis Reader, the head of the company.

'I don't know whether you noticed it or not, Perry, but there's a lot of similarity in the appearance of the two men. Reader is perhaps a few years younger, but both men were two-fisted oil men who had worked as roughnecks, who believed in direct action but who had ideas that were diametrically opposed.

'Palmer believed in developing a company working along proven structures, taking a chance on wildcatting after scientific exploration of the structures indicated there was a reasonable chance.

'Jarvis Reader is a plunger. He wants to be a big shot, the bigger the better. He made his money, not by operating oil wells but by selling stock, paying himself a fancy salary and making his reports to the stockholders look good by tying up huge blocks of acreage.

'Now, of course, you can't tie up acreage like that in really good oil country, and the Steer Ridge Oil Company was going steadily downhill until it had that lucky strike.

'Reader is a flashy dresser, a big spender, regards himself as the big executive type, has a twin-motored airplane at his beck and call and is always the big shot.

'After Rodger Palmer got out of the company, he had periods of pretty lean living. He hung around cheap hotels. Sometimes he would be in rooming houses where shady characters lived. Once he was even questioned by the police in connection with the nylon stocking strangling of a prostitute. He had been in the rooming house at the time, but fortunately had an alibi. He had been talking with the clerk at the time the actual murder must have been committed.

'But that gives you a general idea of the guy's background. His clothes were seedy, he was pretty much discredited in the oil game.

'Then he started calling on stockholders in the Steer Ridge Company, telling them that they were being bilked, and he put up a pretty convincing argument. I understand a group of stockholders, who controlled a large block of the stock, gave him money to try and get proxies so that Reader could be ousted.

'Now then, you asked about Fred Hedley the night of the murder and whether he could possibly have been out there at the country club at the time the murder was committed.

'There's not a chance. At the time the murder must have been committed, Hedley was in a drugstore having his face patched. After that fight he was out of circulation and pretty badly messed up.

'He found an all-night drugstore, and the clerk helped him put on disinfectants and patched him up.'

'All right,' Mason said, with a sigh. 'We go to trial tomorrow and, so far, every single thing we've uncovered not only hasn't helped us but is ammunition the district attorney can use.'

'And he'll sure use it,' Drake said. 'He'd rather win this case than any case he's ever tried. The way he looks at it, he's running downhill all the way.'

Mason said, 'It looks that way, Paul, but we'll give, him a fight for every inch of ground we have to hold.'

Chapter Fifteen

Judge Eduardo Alvarado opened the second day of the trial by saying, 'Gentlemen, I hope we can get a jury today.'

'I see no reason why we can't,' Perry Mason said.

'The peremptory is with the prosecution,' Judge Alvarado said.

'The prosecution passes.'

Mason arose, bowed and smiled. 'Let the jury be sworn,' he said. 'The defense has no further peremptories and is satisfied with this jury.'

Judge Alvarado smiled as he said, 'Well, I hardly expected such prompt action. I thank you, gentlemen. The clerk will now swear the jury and then Court will take a ten-minute recess.'

At the conclusion of the recess, Judge Alvarado nodded to the table of the prosecution where Stevenson Bailey, one of the trial deputies, sat next to Hamilton Burger, the district attorney.

'Make your opening speech, Mr. Prosecutor,' the judge said.

Bailey said, 'If it please the Court, and you members of the jury, this is going to be perhaps the briefest opening statement I have ever made.

'For the most part I am going to let the facts speak for themselves, but because they are somewhat complicated I will give you a brief outline.

'The defendant, Kerry Dutton, was trustee under a so-called spendthrift trust created by Templeton Ellis in favor of his daughter, Desere Ellis.

'Under the terms of this trust, the defendant, Dutton, had the right to sell securities as he saw fit, purchase other securities, and to pay out such money as he saw fit to the beneficiary of the trust.

'Now then, ladies and gentlemen, we expect to prove that in the three years and some months, almost four years, during which this trust had been in effect-' And here Bailey held up four fingers in front of the jury- 'during all of those four years, the defendant in this case never made a single accounting to the beneficiary of the trust.'

Bailey paused to let that statement sink in.

'Furthermore, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we propose to show that the defendant, Dutton, had systematically looted that trust, using income from it to feather his own financial nest until he had built up an independent fortune in his own name through shrewd investments and manipulations but he never- made-an-accounting!'

Again there was a moment of silence.

'As a part of the holdings of the trust, there had been stock in the Steer Ridge Oil and Refining Company. This stock was highly speculative. At one time it was rather high; then it went to a low where the value was only nominal; and then when oil had been struck, the property skyrocketed.

'We expect to show that Rodger Palmer, the decedent, had known the executive officials of the Steer Ridge Oil and Refining Company for some time, had also known Templeton Ellis, the father of Desere Ellis.

'We expect to show that Rodger Palmer wanted the defendant to give him a proxy enabling the decedent to vote the trust stock in the Steer Ridge Company. The defendant refused, because he had to refuse, since he had sold the Steer Ridge stock. The decedent didn't know of this sale, but we can show by inference at least that he did know of a purchase of a large block of Steer Ridge stock the defendant had made in his own name.

'The decedent, Rodger Palmer, was threatening the defendant with exposure unless he received a proxy and the sum of five thousand dollars with which to carry on his proxy fight.

'Now, we expect to show this and to show that Rodger Palmer made a final appointment with the defendant at approximately ten o'clock on the night of the twenty-first of September.

'I say that it was a final appointment, because the defendant kept that appointment and, at that time, killed Rodger Palmer. The decedent, Rodger Palmer, had demanded five thousand dollars as the price of his silence. The defendant had been prepared to pay that price if he had to. He had drawn five thousand dollars from his bank and had the money on him in cash when he was apprehended.

'But the defendant knew that blackmail was endless. The blackmailer's attitude would be even more eager, his appetite the more voracious by receiving this payment.

'So after due consideration, after careful deliberation, Kerry Dutton decided on murder as his best way out.

'The murder, ladies and gentlemen, took place at the seventh tee of the exclusive Barclay Country Club. The