A Handy Death (13 page)

Ross was listening intently. Mike picked up a paper clip and began to unbend it, straightening it out as he talked.

“My guess is the thing worked like this: Neeley and Grace Melisi were in this swindle racket, as you surmised. They rented the second apartment as a base of operations. While it's true the average New Yorker doesn't pay any attention to his neighbor, they probably felt there was too much danger in sharing Neeley's aparment while using it for their racket—”

He paused, thinking, his brow furrowed, and then shook his head. Ross waited patiently.

“No,” Mike said. “That doesn't make sense. The single apartment would have been ideal for the swindle, but it would have been disastrous for the murder scheme. So the chances are that Grace Melisi insisted on separate apartments. Who knows? Maybe she was modest. In any event, they rent the second apartment. And Neeley is waiting there when the woman brings the fly into the spider's web. Neeley waits until the woman has time to set the stage and then walks in with the empty suitcase. And—unfortunately for him—right into a gun filled with real bullets.”

Ross thought about it a moment and frowned.

“I like it up to a point, but something in my mind sticks at the shooting. Why would she arrange to have Neeley shot?”

“Well,” Gunnerson said with elaborate sarcasm, “I doubt she did it as a sign of excessive friendship.”

“I'm serious. Why not wait until they'd milked the sucker and then arrange for Neeley to—as the morticians say—pass on? She wouldn't even have to split. Why go to all the trouble of setting up the deal and then throw it all away?”

“My guess,” Mike said, “is that probably the opportunity to have Neeley shot and be home free didn't present itself every day. I figure she felt she had to forego the money for the pleasure of having Neeley knocked off.”

“I'm still not sure,” Ross said. “Did she live in that apartment alone?”

“As far as the renting agents know, although they wouldn't have fussed if she lived there with a basketball team. It's that kind of place.”

“Anyone living in the building now who lived there then?”

“No, because I already thought of that and checked. It's not the kind of place,” Mike said, “that people choose for retirement.” He suddenly frowned. “What are you getting at, Hank? You think she might have been in the deal with a third party?”

“It makes more sense,” Ross said. “Someone had to get that gun and hand it over to her. And it couldn't have been Neeley.”

“Why not?”

“Because they couldn't take the chance that Dupaul would see him and remember him if he picked it up during the contract signing, or during any other time at the hotel. What did Neeley do for a living, do you know?”

“No idea. But bringing in a third party merely complicates things that are already too complicated.”

“Don't worry,” Ross said, and grinned. “Things are always darkest just before the dawn.”

“You mean, to coin a phrase.”

“Exactly. How far have you gotten in tracing her after she skipped the apartment?”

“Well,” Mike said, “we have a name for her—Grace Melisi, whether it's a real name or not. It sounds it. And she used it once and may have used it again, and there's a chance at least her initials are the same. We have her description as given by Billy Dupaul, and while it fits a million women, there are one hundred million it doesn't fit, which is a tiny step forward for mankind. And we have her signature—”

He saw the look on Ross's face and smiled.

“She signed the rental papers, remember? And we figure she probably got as far away from New York and Raymond Neeley as possible, because she knew he'd come out of the hospital with a few questions, like, ‘Why did you have me shot, Grace, dear?'”

“Unless, as I said, she had a partner who arranged the loaded gun without her knowledge.” Ross paused. “Although I don't suppose Neeley would have bought that story, true or not.”

“I rather doubt he would. I know I doubt
I
would.”

“So where do we go from here?” Ross said. “You have a description that doesn't mean much, a name that's probably false, a signature, and the whole wide world in which she could hide. And a lapse of eight years …”

“Well,” Mike said cheerfully, “we have as much as we get for most skip-tracing jobs. Plus one little thing: Neeley must have known something about her, and I intend to backtrack Neeley, too. When is the trial coming up?”

“Gorman is in a rush, I guess. The preliminary proceedings are scheduled for tomorrow, and I'm sure he'll push' for trial as soon as possible afterward. He'll want to rush us before we can come up with anything. It's his usual tactic, so we can't waste time.”

“We won't,” Mike promised. “What did you get from your visit to the Tombs?”

“A few things,” Ross said.

He reached for the attaché case, opened it, and removed the portable casette recorder that neatly fit into one of the pockets of the case. He reversed the tape; the slight buzzing as the tape fed back at high speed was the only sound in the room for several minutes. When the spool had run to the end, Ross reversed it again, and set it to play. The two men listened carefully until it had completed the entire conversation with Billy Dupaul at the Tombs. Ross stopped the tape and looked across the desk at Gunnerson.

“I'll have Sharon transcribe this for you when she has time. Probably sometime tomorrow. But you can get started before then. What you heard should give you enough to work on.”

“More than enough,” Mike said. He had been scribbling on a pad as he listened; now he looked at his notes. “Jim Marshall, eh? I had his name on the list from the trial transcript as one to be checked out, but I'll move him up in priority. A fight, eh? And he could have put his hand on the gun any time, earlier than the fight. And a lot of people have been shot by guys who are afraid of guns.”

“Except that he couldn't have been the one to steer Dupaul to the Mountain Top Bar,” Ross said. “In the mood Billy was in, if he ran into Jim Marshall at that Lexington Avenue bar, he wouldn't have listened to him tout another bar; he'd have pasted him one. Especially since he had about six or eight drinks in him already at that point.”

“Still,” Mike said, scribbling, “we'll put him between two rollers and turn the crank just to see what comes out. I have a man up in Glens Falls now who can handle it.”

“Good. See what you can find out about the big secret, too.”

“Naturally,” Mike said. “And there's the matter of that baseball game up at Attica.”

“Right. The delay in starting time could be extremely important. If the delay was an accident, and the timing of the escape attempt made it imperative that the riot be started at once over
any
excuse—”

“Then our boy Dupaul looks better, eh?”

“At least he doesn't look quite so bad.”

“In which case,” Gunnerson said slowly, “we have a long, serious talk with that umpire-guard who called those four balls. Right? And then maybe talk to the warden?”

“You're getting ahead of yourself, and our main problem is Billy Dupaul, not the morality of the prison guards, though whatever we dig out will go to the authorities, of course.”

“Of course,” Gunnerson said, and resumed making corrections to his notes. “But first we check out the reason for the delay with the prison chaplain, this Father Swiaki. Right?”

“Right.”

“I'll get right to it,” Mike said. He rose, stuffing his notes into his pocket. He started to move around the desk in the direction of the door but Ross reached out, restraining him.

“Wait a minute,” Hank said. “You didn't make a note of the most important thing on that tape.”

Mike Gunnerson frowned a him.

“Most, important? I got the baseball game, the delay, the chaplain. And I got Marshall and the big secret of what caused the fight that night. Did I miss something, Hank?”

“Billy Dupaul's grandfather, the one he calls Old John,” Ross said softly. “An old man with only his social security, no retirement, who manages to buy his grandson everything a growing teenager wants, and a lot of things families in far better positions are unable to get their kids.”

Gunnerson stared at him, mystified. “What about it?”

“Where did the money come from, Mike? That's what I want to know, because I have a hunch it's important. Where did the money come from?”

CHAPTER

9

The preliminary proceedings in the murder trial of Billy Dupaul took place in Part 32 of the New York Supreme Courts building in Manhattan. Hank Ross, comfortably seated at the defense table alone, nodded pleasantly in the direction of the prosecution table. Louis Gorman, slight and looking like a fighting cock, sat there with an assistant, well known to Ross. Varick returned the nod with a slightly embarrassed smile; he was quite aware of his chief's running feud with the opposition lawyer. Gorman, dressed in stiff black that seemed too large for his small body, turned away a bit obviously, his face a mask. Ross bit back a smile at the familiar Gormanian gesture, and turned to watch Billy Dupaul being escorted from the detention pen adjacent to the courtroom. Dupaul slipped into a chair at Ross's side and leaned over, smiling a bit wryly, trying to appear at ease.

“Hi, Counselor. How does it look?”

“We'll know better in a little while,” Ross said, and smiled at the boy reassuringly. “Don't worry.”

“I'm not worried. How do you figure to handle it?”

“Well,” Ross said, “it's been known for a long time that attack is the best form of defense. Add to that a little bit of confusion, and we'll see what comes out.”

Billy Dupaul started to say something and then bit his words off. He was staring across the courtroom.

“Hey! Isn't that Gorman there?”

“That's right. That's the prosecutor's table.”

“I know that! But he was my lawyer at my first trial! I thought he couldn't prosecute me personally. That's what one of the guys told me.”

“Well,” Ross said with a faint smile, “I suppose he can always try. Hope springs eternal. Although, knowing Judge Waxler, I'm not sure how far he'll get. Judge Waxler takes a dim view—”

He stopped speaking abruptly as the judge entered the courtroom and steadily ascended the bench. He sat down and adjusted his robes to his satisfaction. Judge Waxler, a dignified, elderly gentleman with snow-white hair, had a well-deserved reputation for fairness on the bench, and Ross was quite pleased to have him sitting on the case. The Clerk of the Court came to his feet ponderously and spoke in a completely expressionless tone.

“The People of the State of New York versus William Dupaul.”

He seated himself as the courtroom whispers lessened and eventually died away. Hank Ross placed a hand for a moment on Billy's arm, pressed it confidently, and came to his feet. He turned to face the bench.

“Your Honor,” Hank began, “the defendant moves to set aside the judgment of conviction and the sentence imposed by Justice Demerest on the twenty-seventh day of November, 1964. The instant pending indictment charges the accused with murder in the first degree. The indictment charges the accused with shooting the victim, one Raymond Neeley, on the twenty-fifth day of July, 1964. The victim died eight years later.”

Judge Waxler was leaning forward a bit on the bench, watching calmly and listening with interest. At the prosecution table Louis G. Gorman was frowning suspiciously, wondering what Ross was up to.

“Your Honor,” Ross continued calmly, “the judgment of conviction and sentence imposed in November of 1964 was predicated on the precise shooting of the victim as alleged in this new indictment. The defendant, under both our State and Federal Constitutions, is presumed innocent until found guilty, and this presumption of innocence follows the defendant not only when an indictment is returned, but stays with him throughout the entire case.

“Therefore, Your Honor, to permit a conviction to stand which is based on the same essential facts on which the defendant is presently charged, would deprive the accused of due process of law under the fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. To permit this conviction to stand would cast upon the defendant a presumption of guilt, when and if he takes the witness stand to testify in his own behalf.”

Louis Gorman was on his feet in an instant.

“The People object, Your Honor,” he said angrily. “The prosecution sees no reason at all to abandon the conviction as it now stands. The Defense is merely trying to muddy the water, to throw confusion into the case. It is an old tactic with my learned opponent. What differences does it make whether the old conviction stands or not? The prosecution would also like to point out that Section 40.20 of the new Criminal Procedure law specifically provides that a former conviction—in this case for assault—does not bar a prosecution for homicide when the victim dies. The law is clear.”

Ross bent down in response to a tug on his jacket from Billy Dupaul. The young man was frowning at him.

“What the devil difference does setting aside that conviction make at this late date, for God's sake? I spent those four years at Attica and they're sure as hell not going to give them back to me! Don't get cute with Gorman over nonessentials. I wasn't serious the other day. I know he's tough. And dangerous.”

“Leave Gorman to me,” Ross said in a low voice.

“But what's the purpose, for God's sake?”

“Stick around and see,” Ross said. He straightened up to find the judge looking from him to Gorman's angry expression.

“Gentlemen,” Judge Waxler said, “may I suggest a conference at the bench?”

Gorman, joined by Varick, moved closer to the bench. Ross paused to give Billy Dupaul a quick wink and then walked over to join the others before the judge. The stenotypist leaned back in his chair, flexing his fingers, thankful for the rest.