A Handy Death (6 page)

“Were there any other witnesses to these events?”

“None that the defense called. The prosecution didn't need to call any others.” Steve added, “In that regard, Hogan can be criticized, I think. I don't believe he truly tried to find any corroborative witnesses.”

“All right,” Ross said. “I'll try not to interrupt so much.”

“Right.” Steve referred to his paper, shoving his glasses back. “Dupaul's story was that he was with Mrs. Neeley and in fact even bought her a drink and paid for it. The bartender said that lots of people, after being cut off, try to pull the gag of pretending to buy a drink for someone on an adjoining stool, but he still had no recollection of any woman. He also testified he was working the other end of the bar when Dupaul left and therefore couldn't say if the boy went out alone or not. The place was busy and the bartender said he couldn't keep track of every drunk around.

“At any rate, Dupaul's story goes on that they went to an apartment on West Sixtieth Street by taxi—the taxi records were checked by the prosecution and no record of a trip to that address that night was found, but that doesn't mean too much—it could have been a gypsy. Dupaul stated that he thought he remembered the woman leading him to a mailbox and pointing out the name ‘Neeley' on it; the prosecution had a lot of fun with that, since the letter box is behind the stairs and out of the way, and why would the woman do it? Not that they denied that Neeley lived there.

“Anyway, Dupaul said he thought he remembered going up in an elevator and going into this apartment. He said he remembered sitting on a bed while the woman undressed him, and he remembered feeling very dizzy—”

Ross said, “Do you have his direct testimony there?”

“Right here. Do you want it?”

“No. Just give Sharon the page numbers. I may want to check it out later.”

“Right,” Steve said. He dug through one of the stacks, checking page numbers. “Pages 116 through 122. It starts—the part I'm describing now—on line 5 of page 118. Okay?”

Sharon nodded and marked the footage on the recorder meter. Steve went back to his notes.

“Well, to sum up his testimony, he said he wasn't feeling well, but this woman obviously wanted to make love and he figured she was a prostitute, and then all of a sudden she let go of him and made this funny noise and there was a man with a suitcase standing in the doorway. The man started to swear at him and dropped the suitcase and started to go through a dresser drawer looking for a gun—”

Ross interrupted. “How could he know what the man was looking for?”

Steve reddened slightly.

“Well, actually he didn't say that; he said the man was going through the dresser drawer and brought
out
a gun, and then the woman was pressing another gun into his hand and telling him the man was going to shoot them both, and when the man raised the gun he'd taken from the dresser drawer, Dupaul didn't think, he just pulled the trigger.”

“And then?”

“The man fell down, bleeding, and Dupaul proceeded to get sick. He went into another room and threw up. When he came back the man was unconscious, lying on the floor and bleeding badly from the mouth, and the woman was gone. He started to get dressed and then ran out of the place with the rest of his clothes in his hands. He ran down the steps and right into the arms of the police. And that was that.”

Ross frowned. “What did he do with the gun he'd used?”

“He said he just dropped it after the shooting and before he got sick; he didn't know what happened to it. The police later found it on the floor next to the bed.”

Ross studied Steve's face. He said, “You're not giving me all of it, Steve. On the basis of that testimony—a young boy, drunk, sick, scared to death, being handed a gun and told to use it for what he obviously considered self-defense—not only his own defense but that of a third person, and a woman at that—I'm surprised he received more than a suspended sentence. Even Al Hogan, drunk as a lord, should have been able to do better than that for the boy. But you apparently feel, from what you said before, that the jury was justified in finding Dupaul guilty on the basis of his story. So what are you leaving out?”

“I'm not leaving anything
out
,” Steve said with a grin. “I just haven't finished putting everything
in
. Not yet, I mean. I still haven't given you Neeley's testimony, for instance.”

“True,” Ross conceded, and leaned back in his chair. “Fire away.”

“Well,” Steve said, “Neeley, to put it in a nutshell, says that Dupaul's whole story is a fairy tale. Neeley says there is no Mrs. Neeley and there hasn't been since they were divorced ten years earlier, and that her name isn't Grace but Rose, and if he had come home and found his ex-wife entertaining a stranger in bed he would have given that stranger a prize, because it would have gotten him off the hook on the alimony payments he was making—”

Ross smiled. “Whatever gave him that idea?”

“I'm merely reporting what he said. Anyway, the ex-Mrs. Neeley was brought to court and denied ever having seen Dupaul, and Dupaul was equally emphatic that this was not his pretty, sexy Mrs. Neeley.

“The prosecutor more or less hinted, without coming right out and saying it, that Dupaul's story had been composed, words and music, by Al Hogan—probably in one of his drunken states—and was patently ridiculous. He pointed out that even Mr. Hogan should have remembered that the police had found only the one gun in the room—”

Ross sat a bit more erect, interrupting.

“They only found the one gun?”

“Yes, sir. The one Neeley supposedly had taken from the dresser drawer was gone. Incidentally, the suitcase he supposedly had brought into the room also was not there.”

“How did they know the gun found beside the bed was the gun used in the shooting?”

“Actually, they never had to prove it. Dupaul never claimed it wasn't.”

Ross shook his head. “Al Hogan should have done better! Well, go on.”

“Yes, sir. Hogan claimed the woman must have taken the second gun away, but the prosecutor pointed out that even Mr. Hogan would have to admit puzzlement that the woman—had she existed and had she taken a gun from the room—would almost certainly have taken the gun she gave Dupaul, rather than the unfired gun belonging—supposedly—to Neeley. Actually, the prosecution had a lot of fun on that score.

“Neeley further not only denied having walked into the apartment with a suitcase, but claimed he didn't own a suitcase. He—”

“The woman could have taken it away, as well as the gun,” Ross pointed out.

“I suppose she could have, if there would have been any reason for her to do so,” Steve acknowledged. “But why on earth, in a panic situation, would a woman stop and pick up a suitcase before running out?”

“I have no idea,” Ross said flatly. “Go on.”

“Anyway, I'm merely giving you the testimony as it appears in the transcript. We can draw our conclusions later. Neeley said what actually happened was that he was on his way home—”

“From where?”

“He said he'd been to a movie. The defense questioned him about that and the details seemed to fit, but nobody made a big point of it.”

“It seems there were lots of points nobody made a big point of,” Ross said sourly. “Go on.”

“Neeley said he was passing the Mountain Top Bar when young Dupaul came staggering out and collared him the way drunks do, telling him what a miserable, lousy place New York City was, they wouldn't sell a man a drink, and so on and so on. Neeley said he could see it was just a big kid in his teens and he felt sorry for him, so he told him to come up to his place and have some coffee and sober up.

“He said they walked—no taxi—on to the apartment on West Sixtieth Street, and when they got there, he went into the kitchen and put up some coffee—incidentally, there was fresh coffee on the stove when the police got there, whatever that proves—and when he came back the boy had wandered into the bedroom, taken off his jacket, tie, and shoes, and was stretched out on the bed, sound asleep.

“He says he woke the boy up and the kid wanted a drink, and when Neeley told him there wasn't any liquor in the house—Neeley said there was, of course, but not for the kid—the boy didn't believe him and started to get abusive.

“And when Neeley threatened to call the cops and throw him out, the boy got real nasty and started to tear the place apart, starting with the bed. Neeley grabbed him to try and shove him out of the apartment, at which—according to Neeley—the boy pulled a gun and said something to the effect of, ‘Do I get a drink or do you get shot?' Neeley says he insisted there was no liquor in the place, at which the boy said something like, ‘I'll find it easier without you,' and shot him down in cold blood.”

Ross scribbled a note on the pad before him. Sharon looked at him, surprised he had not asked her to include it in her notes. Ross smiled at her.

“Just something that strikes me as being a bit odd,” he said, and turned to Steve. “By the way, what was the exact nature of Neeley's wound?”

“The bullet struck him in the corner of the mouth on the right side, catching a bit of the lower lip. It apparently shattered on his jawbone and the fragments were pretty well scattered. The doctors managed to get most of them out, but it seems the one that eventually killed him was either missed by the operating physicians or was inoperable.”

“Was any testimony given at the time to indicate there was still a fragment remaining that was inoperable?”

“No, sir,” Steve said. “Still, Neeley was lucky at that. If it had been a thirty-eight instead of a twenty-two, he wouldn't have had those extra eight years of life.”

“I'm not so sure,” Ross said thoughtfully. “A thirty-eight probably wouldn't have shattered in the first place. It would probably have smashed the jawbone and gone out the side of the cheek, taking out a lot of teeth but not necessarily killing him. There are a lot of records of cases where the damage done by a small caliber bullet is far greater than would have been done by a larger caliber, mainly because of shattering.”

He thought a moment, his fingers drumming on the desk blotter, and then went back to Steve's exposition.

“You referred to Dupaul saying he was hazy because of drink. When he was booked at the precinct, did they do a blood alcohol on him?”

Steve rustled among his papers, coming up with the proper one.

“Yes, sir. It was high—very high. Zero-point-three-five percent. That's the equivalent of 3.2 milligrams. Rated as ‘almost incapable' in the police tables.”

“How about Neeley? Had he been drinking? Did they run a blood-alcohol test on him as well?”

Steve shook his head with a faint smile. It wasn't very often he had a chance to catch the boss off base.

“It wouldn't have indicated a great deal, when they had to transfuse him with six pints of blood.”

“They still could have done a urine analysis,” Ross said shortly. “They didn't transfuse him with that, did they?” He shook his head. “Well, I've seen some poorly handled cases in the years I've practiced law, but this strikes me as one of the worst. No one attempted to check witnesses, in the bar or on the street. For instance, was there any attempt to verify if anyone saw Neeley, with or without Dupaul, on the street that night? Were any advertisements placed in newspapers asking witnesses to come forth?”

“No, sir.”

“Did anyone bother to check the apartment-house tenants to see if anyone there saw anyone in the lobby or the elevator? Or the hallway?”

“The tenants were checked, but only desultorily as far as I could see by reading the transcript. None of their testimony was on record, just the testimony of the investigating detectives who checked.”

“Hogan must have been drunker than usual,” Ross said, and added, “rest his soul!” He checked his watch and looked at Steve. “All right—one last question and we'll break for lunch. But I wouldn't be able to enjoy my meal if I didn't ask it—”

“Right,” Steve said, smiling, anticipating the question.

“What's the big secret you're holding up your sleeve? To make you so sure Billy Dupaul should have been found guilty and rated the four to eight no matter whose story the jury believed? If Neeley was telling the truth, I admit the boy comes on as a rather nasty piece of goods. But if the boy's story was the right one, he should have walked out free and clear. And without one witness on either side, you'd think he would have been given the benefit.”

“Except there
was
one witness. Of sorts,” Steve said, and grinned.

“There was? You didn't mention him.”

“I mentioned
it.
The gun. The one Billy Dupaul swore the woman had shoved into his hand. There had been no attempt to obliterate numbers or hide identification. I have a photostat of the registration with me here—” He gestured toward his papers. “It. was registered in Glens Falls. In the name of John Emerich, Dupaul's grandfather.…”

CHAPTER

4

Sharon Mccloud had managed to spread a tablecloth over a portion of the conference table without disturbing Steve Sadler's many papers, and was busy putting down paper plates and spoons.

“Sandwiches will be right along,” she said.

Ross grinned. “No beer or martinis today?”

“You have your choice of coffee or soda today. And like it,” Sharon said with mock severity. She turned at the diffident tap on the door and opened it to admit a young fellow from the delicatessen down the block. He was carrying a cardboard box filled with hot, capped cups, cold bottles, wrapped sandwiches and pastry. Sharon tipped the boy, piled the sandwiches on one plate, the Danish on another, and placed the drinks on the center of the cloth. Ross picked up a sandwich, discovered it was roast beef, and opened it. He took a big bite, chewed, and swallowed.