A Handy Death (5 page)

Steve continued placing his papers to suit his planned presentation; he made Ross think of his old artillery captain arranging his firing gear for most effective loading prior to a barrage. Ross waited patiently; he knew Steve never needlessly wasted time. When at last the young lawyer had everything to his satisfaction, he drew the first pile of papers toward him, pushed his glasses back into place—a habit of long standing—and looked up.

“How do you want this, Hank?”

“Give me the general picture first.”

“All right. William Emerich Dupaul was arrested on July 25, 1964, and charged with assault and battery in connection with the nonfatal shooting of a certain Raymond Neeley. He was released on ten thousand dollars bail and came to trial—”

“Who put up the money? The Mets?”

“He put it up himself; he still had his bonus money then. He got it back when he appeared for trial, and it was part of the package that went back to the Mets.”

Ross nodded and leaned back. Sharon noted the question-and-answer location on the casette tape that was rolling as they talked. Steve shoved his glasses back on his nose and continued.

“Dupaul came to trial in the New York County Supreme Court on November fourteenth of the same year, 1964. The delay was partially due to a crowded calendar, but also due to the time it took the victim, Neeley, to recover. The presiding judge was the Honorable Joseph Demerest. Dupaul pleaded not guilty. The jury found for the prosecution and Judge Demerest sentenced Dupaul to four to eight years at Attica Prison.”

Ross nodded. “All right. Details.”

“Right. On what, first? Dupaul, personally, or the case? I put the Gunnerson agency on Dupaul Friday night, and they worked over the weekend. I got the latest report just a few minutes ago.”

“Better give me Dupaul first.”

“Right.” The sheet was replaced on its proper pile and a second stack drawn closer. “William Dupaul was born in Queensbury, outside of Glens Falls in upstate New York, on June 5, 1945. His mother's maiden name was Mary Emerich, of an old upstate family. His father was French Canadian, Pierre Dupaul, who Mary Emerich met on a visit to Montreal. People in Queensbury are still amazed at the marriage—”

Ross frowned. “Why?”

“Apparently the Emerichs were an old family, not much money but lots of pride, and Pierre Dupaul turned out to be a drunk who worked around old John Emerich's orchards for a while, but generally loafed.” Steve looked a bit embarrassed. “I know it's gossip, but I told Mike Gunnerson to have his man go into depth. Sharon said the sky was the limit on expenses …”

“Well, not the sky exactly, but maybe Shea Stadium,” Ross said with a smile. “Go ahead.”

“Right. At any rate, the problem of Mary Emerich and her drunken husband was resolved when they got hit by a train in 1947, when Billy was two years old. Their car stalled on the tracks and I gather Dupaul was drunk, and at any rate they were killed. Billy was raised by his maternal grandparents, John and Carrie Emerich, now both deceased.

“He apparently was raised in normal fashion; his grandparents weren't rich, but Billy never went hungry. He went through school with average grades, no trouble of any kind on the record, no police record other than a few tickets for speeding. He was active in sports—four letters in high school—and was the captain and mainstay of the Queensbury High School team that won the national baseball championship in 1963 in Denver. The Mets always scout the championship and apparently they were quite impressed by Dupaul, and in 1964—as soon as he graduated around the end of May—they brought him down to New York as their number one bonus baby. They paid him two hundred thousand dollars to sign, and planned on putting him with one of the farms until spring training, and if he worked out the way they hoped and expected, he would be pitching regularly for the Mets the following season.”

Steve reached for another sheet of paper, pushing back his glasses.

“In New York he established residence at the Clairborne Hotel on East Eighty-sixth Street. On the night of—” Steve paused, eyeing his chief through his thick glasses. “Anything more on Dupaul personally? I have about everything here except his fingerprints.” He smiled suddenly. “As a matter of fact, I have those, too.”

“Just a few things,” Ross said, and nodded to Sharon. She noted the footage on the tape and prepared to put the question and answer in her book. Ross turned back to Steve. “Was he an only child?”

“Yes, he was.”

“Any girlfriends?”

“He was popular in high school, of course; the big hero, in fact. Lots of girlfriends at that period, but none that were mentioned during the trial as having been met after he came down to New York. Actually, he wasn't here very long before he got into the jam. I can get Mike Gunnerson to put someone on it if you think it important.”

“Not at this stage of the game,” Ross said. “How about old friends? Did he come to New York alone?”

“No,” Steve said. “He drove down here with another boy from the same championship team. The two of them roomed together at the Clairborne. Dupaul used his influence to get this other boy—his name is Marshall—a tryout with the Mets. They gave him one of the morning tryouts they have during the season, but he didn't make it.”

“His full name?”

“Jim—James, that is—Marshall.”

“And what happened to him?”

Steve shrugged. “He went home, I guess, when he missed out. His name came up in the pretrial depositions, but I imagine he was gone at the time Dupaul got into this trouble.”

“All right,” Ross said. “Let's get into that trouble.”

“Right. Well, on the night of July 25, 1964, Billy Dupaul went out on a binge. Probably to celebrate signing the contract with the Mets for that much money. After all, two hundred thousand is a bit of change for a boy of nineteen to lay his hands on. He started off in his hotel room, apparently, and then went down—”

Ross interrupted. “When did he actually sign the contract?”

Steve dug into his papers and came up with a glossy photograph.

“Here's a print from the newspaper shot that was in the
Daily News
showing the actual signing. It's dated—” he turned the five by seven print over, “—July twentieth. Mr. Quirt is in it, too, standing back of Dupaul while he's signing the contract.”

Steve handed the photograph over. Ross laid it aside without studying it.

“Steve, if Dupaul signed his contract on the twentieth, why did he wait nearly a week until the twenty-fifth to celebrate the event?”

Steve frowned. It was a point he had not considered.

“Maybe he wanted to wait until the check cleared. Until he actually had the cash?”

“No,” Ross said definitely. “To begin with, if you're known you can draw against a check the minute it's deposited, and against a check signed by Charley Quirt of the Mets—in front of a roomful of newspapermen—you can draw the full amount and the bank will even give you an armed guard to see you don't get rolled on the way home. And secondly, how much money do you need to go out on a drunk? You certainly don't need any more than most men carry in their pockets when they
aren't
going out on a drunk.”

He nodded to Sharon to note the discrepancy and turned back to Steve.

“Was anything said or brought out during the trial as to Billy Dupaul's reason for going out and getting drunk that night? By that I mean that
particular
night?”

“No,” Steve said, “only that he did. Is it important?”

“It's too early to say what may be important and what may not be. Still, anything unexplained is always potentially important. Maybe Billy Dupaul wasn't celebrating; maybe he was commiserating with himself for one reason or another. Feeling sorry for yourself is a far more common reason for getting drunk, especially among youngsters, and especially among youngsters who are athletes and don't drink as a general rule.”

He looked at Sharon. She read the footage of the tape, marked it down, made a note in her book, and bobbed her head. Ross turned back.

“All right, Steve, let's go on.”

“Yes, sir. Of course,” Steve said, “as far as Dupaul's reasons for getting drunk that particular night, we can always ask him when we get around to interviewing him at the Tombs.”

“Except I like to have independent evidence whenever possible. Clients, even clients facing a life sentence, often lie. They think they know better than their defense counsel what can help them and what can hurt them. As witness Billy Dupaul changing counsel in midstream, going from Louie Gorman to Al Hogan. I don't love Gorman, but compared to Al Hogan he has to look like Clarence Darrow.”

“Yes, sir,” Steve said. He returned to his sheet of paper. “Well, speaking of this drunk he went on, he started in his room. He had a bottle there and he testified to having a few drinks before going downstairs. Then, downstairs in the hotel bar, he ordered another drink—”

Ross raised his hand, interrupting.

“I know it's legal at eighteen in New York, but did anybody in the bar ask him for any identification?” He smiled and tilted his head toward Sharon. “When Sharon first came to work here she was—well, past eighteen—but whenever we went out to eat, the waiter wanted to bring her a Shirley Temple or Coca-Cola with her meal.”

Sharon laughed. “I had some time!” She wrinkled her nose. “Unfortunately, they never ask any more.…”

“Nobody asked him for identification. If you'd seen him, you'd know why. I never actually saw him myself, but I've got his statistics here, and they're impressive. He was a big kid, and I imagine he's a big man now,” Steve said.

“Okay,” Ross said, and looked at his watch. “Let's get on.”

“Right. In any event, Dupaul had a drink at the hotel bar and then went out on the town. He stopped at a place called Marco's on Lexington near Eighty-fifth and had a couple of drinks there. The bartender says he was talking to some character and then wandered out. The bartender also said it was a good thing he did, because in his state he wouldn't have served him any more. Then, about twenty minutes to a half hour later, according to the timetable established, he was in a spot called the Mountain Top—it's actually in a basement—on Fifty-fourth between Seventh and Eighth.”

“Quite a distance,” Ross commented, and frowned. “Odd.”

“Plenty of time to get there, especially in a cab.”

“I don't mean that. Usually, when a person goes out on a binge, or even a simple, everyday pub crawl, he sticks to bars that are fairly close to one another. He doesn't jump around. He doesn't take cabs. There are certainly enough bars around Eighty-sixth and Lexington to satisfy the most demanding thirst.” He frowned and looked up from the pencil he had been twiddling. “Did Billy Dupaul claim to have any particular reason for going over to this Mountain Top Bar?”

“There's nothing about it in the transcript.”

“Sharon, make a note of that. All right, Steve, what happened next?”

Steve Sadler shuffled some papers together, straightened his glasses, and shook his head.

“I'm going to have to give you two different stories now, Hank: the one told by Dupaul on the stand and the one told by Neeley. What I'll be giving you now will really be the summation of many transcripts of testimony, together with the conclusions drawn from this testimony—not conclusions on my part, but on the part of the prosecution on the one hand, and of the defense on the other. And, as I said before, it will give you two completely different stories told by the two men.”

“And the jury believed Neeley's story.” It was less a question on Ross's part than a statement.

“I'm not so sure,” Steve said. “What I mean is that I think if I'd been on that jury, I would have had to find the boy guilty no matter whose story I believed. It's a question of credibility. I know that old Mr. Hogan was blamed for poor defense by a lot of people after the trial, but they must have been people who got their information from the newspapers, people who didn't really follow the trial at firsthand very closely. On the weight of the evidence …” His voice trailed off.

“Well,” Ross said in a reasonable tone of voice, “let's assume we're the jury here in this room. Let us hear the two versions.”

“Right,” Steve said. “Well, first, here's the Dupaul version. Actually, of course, Neeley testified first, since he was a prosecution witness, but I'll give it to you in this order.

“In this Mountain Top Bar, Dupaul said he sat down at the bar and found himself sitting next to a woman. He said she was pretty old; his exact words were ‘middle-aged, in the neighborhood of thirty or thirty-five' but remember, at the time he had just turned nineteen. He said she was very good-looking and very sexy. He said they got talking and she told him her name was Mrs. Neeley, but he could call her Grace. She also said not to let the Mrs. bother him as her husband was away on a business trip. He also said he thinks he remembered that other people in the bar called her by the name Grace—”

Ross interrupted with a frown, the twiddled pencil still.

“He testified he
thinks
he remembered?”

“His testimony was full of ‘I think' and ‘I'm not sure, but I seem to recall' and ‘if I'm not mistaken' and phrases like that.” Steve shrugged. “Naturally the prosecution tore him into little shreds on a good part of his testimony, but the boy freely admitted he was very drunk and therefore extremely hazy as to details.”

“Great!” Ross said in disgust. “All right. Go on.”

“Well, despite Dupaul's testimony, the bartender in the place said he never heard of a Mrs. Neeley—Grace or any other name—and he didn't notice the boy with anyone in particular, or anyone at all. The bartender said he cut Dupaul off after three drinks because he was obviously out on his feet. Dupaul denied this—”