A Handy Death

“No,” Ross said. “I’ll buy her taking the suitcase for itself, but not for a getaway. The swindle, in Neeley’s mind, was just beginning. They were a long way from getting their hands on the money. Neeley would have been suspicious if he were carrying a suitcase filled with her things, and there was certainly no reason for him to fill it with things of his own. No, the suitcase almost certainly had to be empty.”

“So, even more, why would she run out carrying an empty suitcase?” Gunnerson demanded. “Hell, that makes even less sense!”

“No, it doesn’t,” Ross said slowly. He smiled. “You know, Mike, you and I complicate things entirely too much. She took the suitcase for the very simple reason that it belonged to her. Neeley said in court he never owned a suitcase, which would have been an exceptionally stupid statement if it weren’t true. Therefore the suitcase belonged to the elusive Grace, and the reason she had to take it away was because it would have led to her identification. It probably had her initials on it, or something of that nature.”

Gunnerson looked at him with mock admiration.

“Mr. Ross, as they say in Arkansas, you are purely a genius! It’s wonderful the way you manage to find explanations for everything you want to fit into one of your theories.”

“You have a better explanation?”

“Well, no,” Gunnerson said, “but that’s not the problem. The problem is to prove your explanation.”

Ross grinned at him.

“That’s your problem, not mine.” His smile faded. “Which won’t be too easy after eight years. And after nothing was dug up on the woman even at that time to help Billy Dupaul prove his story.”

“Well,” Gunnerson said, serious now, “facts are the one thing that don’t age and don’t erode. They didn’t find the woman when the trail was fresh for the simple reason that they didn’t look for her. They didn’t believe she existed. Now us, we believe she exists, don’t we? Sure we do. You just told us she did. Therefore we look.”

“Where?”

“An excellent question,” Gunnerson said. “Actually, I have a few ideas just based on our discussion here today. And that transcript you haven’t bothered to read, of course.”

“There’s one more thing for us to remember,” Ross said slowly. “It may be true that Neeley couldn’t denounce the woman in court, but I seriously doubt that he ever forgot or forgave what she did to him. Maybe the police didn’t look for her very hard, but I’ll bet he did.”

“If she existed, I’m sure he did, too,” Gunnerson said in bland agreement. “In fact, that already occurred to me. Nor do we know he didn’t find her. Which only means that if he could, we should be able to.”

“And if he looked and didn’t find her?”

“Then just hope we’re luckier.”

“I hope,” Ross said, and came to his feet. “Well, you have your target for tonight. Prove there is — or was — a woman who called herself Grace Neeley, at least for one night, and then find her.”

“That’s all?”

Ross grinned. “Then all you have to do is prove she was involved in the swindle and tried to kill Raymond Neeley. Which will get our client off the hook.”

Gunnerson’s tone was sarcastic.

“After which why don’t we prove the twenty-two pistol really wasn’t the one Dupaul brought down from Queensbury, but belonged to a long-lost grand-uncle, also named John Emerich, who lost it in a poker game one night out West to a dancehall hostess whose granddaughter happened to be named Grace?”

Ross laughed. “It would certainly help if you could!”

“Thanks,” Gunnerson said sourly. His eyes came up to study Ross’s face. “How far can we go on this one?”

“Well,” Ross said, “you know who’s paying our client’s bill. I’d say you can go as far as you need to on this one.”

“Right,” Gunnerson said. “Mr. Quirt of the Mets. The only thing I don’t know is why he’s paying.”

“I don’t either,” Ross admitted, and walked to the door. His hand found the knob and twisted it. “Does it make much difference?”

“It might,” Gunnerson said slowly, and frowned at the man in the doorway. “Hank, my people were the ones who dug up that glossy of Billy Dupaul signing the Met contract that Steve Sadler showed you. With Charley Quirt grinning like a hyena behind the boy.”

Ross frowned back. “So?”

“So they dug up a lot of things while they were digging,” Gunnerson said slowly. “Like Mr. Charles Quirt didn’t make the slightest effort to help young Dupaul eight years ago.”

“I know,” Ross said. “He couldn’t. He was out of the country.”

“I hear they’d invented the telephone by that time,” Gunnerson said sarcastically. “Don Ameche stayed up one whole night to do it.”

Ross stared at him.

“What are you driving at?”