A Handy Death

“So where do we stand?” Steve asked. His usual voluminous file of papers was beneath his hand, ready for instant reference. Both men were in their shirt sleeves; empty coffee cups were scattered about the long conference table. Hank Ross ran a hand through his thick hair.

“Out in mid-air,” he admitted. “Damn! We know the boy was the intended victim of a swindle scheme; both Bukvic and that private detective, Jennings, admitted it openly. But they won’t testify.”

“Can’t you subpoena them and make them testify?”

Ross shook his head definitively.

“No. If we have to put Coughlin on the stand, we’ll have one hostile witness. If all our witnesses were hostile we wouldn’t have a prayer with a jury no matter what we dragged out of them.”

“Mike Gunnerson was with you when you talked to Bukvic and Jennings,” Steve said. “Couldn’t you put Mike on the stand?”

“All that would do would be to ruin Mike as a private investigator without helping us a bit. With the relationship between my firm and his for the past years, Gorman would tear him apart. Not to mention that Bukvic would never talk to him again.”

“So what do we do?”

“I don’t know.” Ross bit his lip. “And Grace Melisi dead... Although she wouldn’t have testified if she weren’t.”

“Why not?” Sharon asked. “After all, even if she admitted taking part in a swindle eight years ago, the statute of limitations would have handled that. She couldn’t be charged.”

“Not on the swindle charge,” Ross said, “but the indictment here is murder, and she would have to admit handing the murder weapon to Billy. I doubt she’d do it. Anyway, she is dead, and we’re just wasting time.”

Steve said, “Maybe the sister — Anne Melisi — might know something when you locate her.”

“If Grace Melisi didn’t put it in writing — and I’m sure she wouldn’t have — then we wouldn’t be able to use it as evidence, anyway.” Ross shook his head. “Besides, we always come back to that damned pistol. Even if Marshall took it and gave it to somebody, who did he give it to?”

There were several moments of silence; then Steve spoke thoughtfully.

“I have an idea. What difference does it make about the gun? Suppose Billy admits he had the gun with him. Suppose he admits he was caught playing around with Neeley’s woman—”

“Neeley’s wife was in court,” Sharon pointed out. “Ex-wife, rather, and Dupaul denied it was her.”

“I said woman, not wife. Suppose we work on the basis that Neeley caught Billy with Neeley’s girlfriend, and in the argument Billy shot Neeley — no, in the struggle, Neeley got shot.” Steve began to warm to his defense. “That’s it. Neeley wouldn’t want to admit he couldn’t even go to the movies without his girlfriend putting out for a complete stranger; that’s why he made up that weird story about meeting Billy outside the bar. How’s that? On that basis couldn’t we still make a strong case for self-defense?”

“On that basis,” Ross said, “the first thing we would face is the fact that our client lied to the jury in his first trial. And the basis of our defense has been that he told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Once we tore the fabric of his veracity, we’d undermine ourselves completely. That’s out!”

There were several minutes of silence. Ross sighed and reached for the phone.

“Molly—”

“She isn’t in today,” a bright voice said. “Would you care to leave a message?”

“No, thank you,” Hank said hurriedly, and hung up. He reached for the outside phone on his desk, looking at Sharon sheepishly. “I forgot. Where did you get her, by the way? Woolworth’s?”

“You won’t think so when you get the bill,” Sharon said, grinning. “She just happens to be a blithe spirit.”

“So let Noel Coward keep her,” Ross said, and dialed a familiar number. It rang once and was picked up. “Mike?”

“Hi, Hank.”

“Hello, Mike. What’s new? Wait a minute — I’ll put you on conference. I’m here with Sharon and Steve. We’re up here with all the papers on the Dupaul case, trying to discover how to walk on water.”

Mike’s deep voice filled the room as Ross pressed the conference button on the telephone, switching it through the small conference box.

“With what I’ve got for you, Hank, my suggestion would be real tall stilts. Oh, yes, for whatever help it is, I may have been a bit hasty up there in Albany yesterday—”

Steve leaned forward. “You mean, Grace Melisi isn’t dead?”

“If she isn’t, she should sue,” Mike said, “because they buried her. No, I mean I talked to some of her friends at the sanitorium, who said she’d never married. Quigley’s man up there had a little more imagination — not to mention time — and he checked out her pastor. It seems Grace was married and then divorced.”

Ross sat erect, his eyes sharp. “Who to? And when? That could be our missing boyfriend! That could be damned important!”