Lawrence Block - The Ehrengraf Fandango

“Oh?”

“For the book.”

“Ah, the book,” said Ehrengraf, and drew a document of several pages from a manila folder. “I’ve looked this over, Ms. Plumley, and I believe it’s ready for your signature. The publisher has agreed to improve his terms, and they’re now quite generous. You’ll work with an accomplished author, a very talented and personable young woman named Nan Fassbinder, and I’ll vet the final document to make sure the words she puts in your mouth are acceptable. Now if you could sign your name here, Cheryl Jonellen Plumley, that’s right, and here, and here as well. And now you’ll be able to tell your story to the world.”

“The part I remember,” she said, “which isn’t very much at all, but the wonderful part is that now I’ll be able to pay your fee. I was worried about that, you know, but you told me not to worry, and I had a thought that, well, it seems embarrassing now. I don’t know if I should mention it.”

In Ehrengraf’s experience, a mere pause was often all it took to prompt a fuller explanation. Such was the case now.

“What struck me on our first meeting,” Cheryl Plumley said, “was what an attractive man you are. When you told me I was innocent, I quivered with a sensation that was more than mere relief. And then, when you rescued me from what looked to be an absolutely hopeless situation, I was overcome by the desire to express my gratitude in, um—”

“Physical form?”

“Yes. But to do so when I was unable to pay your fee, well, that wouldn’t be proper, would it? It would look as though, well, you know how it would look.”

“Yes.”

“But now, with the book deal taking care of your compensation, and, oh, this is so awkward, Mr. Ehrengraf, but—”

“My dear Ms. Plumley,” Ehrengraf said, and took her hand, and brushed it with his lips. What a sweet little hand it was, so soft, with tapering fingers. “I do believe,” he said, “that we’d be more comfortable on the sofa.”

Ehrengraf had just finished knotting his Caedmon Society necktie when his client returned from the lavatory. She was nicely dressed once again, after having been ever so nicely undressed. He looked at her, and his gaze brought a blush to her cheeks even as it put a smile on her lips.

“I feel quite wonderful,” she said. “Everything’s worked out perfectly, hasn’t it?”

“It has.”

“For everyone but Maureen McClintock,” Cheryl Plumley said. “I don’t suppose I should sympathize with her, after what she did to those people and what she tried to do to me. But I was locked up myself until very recently, and I know how awful that is.”

“Indeed.”

“And while I never knew her terribly well, she always seemed like such a nice person. I ask myself how she could have done what she did, and the answer that pops into my head — well, you’ll just think it’s silly.”

“Oh?”

“Maybe the Devil made her do it,” she said. “But that’s perfectly ridiculous, isn’t it?”

“Perfectly ridiculous,” said Maureen McClintock. “As I didn’t do any of the things with which I’m charged, there’s nothing for the Devil to have made me do.”

“I know,” Ehrengraf said.

“I’m supposed to be the worst woman since Lucrezia Borgia,” she said, “with the possible exception of that woman who drowned her two little boys, and she at least was clearly demented. Is that how you propose to save me? Because I’m not crazy.”

“I know.”

“Though how can I be sure? ‘I’m not crazy’ is, after all, one of the things crazy people say. And what’s the point of saying it? The people who already know you’re sane don’t require reassurance, and the others won’t find your proclamation convincing.” She frowned. “One can almost see the Devil’s hand in it, can’t one? Because the whole affair is truly diabolical. All the evidence in the world points to my guilt as a multiple murderess. And yet I’m innocent.”

“I know.”

She looked at him, as if seeing him for the first time. Ehrengraf, his usual natty self in a gray flannel suit, a French blue shirt, and a navy tie, took the opportunity to look at his new client, and liked what he saw. Her drab outfit notwithstanding, she was a fine-looking woman, and he could see strength and purpose in her facial features.

His recent experience in his office provided him with an interesting image — Maureen McClintock, divested of her garments, stretched out upon his brown leather sofa.

All in due time, he told himself.

“‘I know,’” she echoed him. “You keep saying that, Mr. Ehrengraf.”

“I suppose I do.”

“I said I was innocent, and you said, ‘I know.’”

“I did.”

“Were you acknowledging my remark? As if nodding to keep the conversation moving?”

He shook his head. “I was acknowledging your innocence. Because I know you didn’t kill anybody, my dear Ms. McClintock, nor did you persuade anyone else to do so, through hypnotism or another of the dark arts. You were artfully — one might even say diabolically — framed, by someone whose intent was to commit murder and get away with it.”

“Cheryl Plumley.”

“Certainly not,” said Ehrengraf. “Ms. Plumley was my client.”

“But—”

“And my clients are innocent, Ms. McClintock. I did not endure the tedium of law school or brave the rigors of the bar exam in order to serve as cup bearer to the guilty. I represent — gladly, proudly — the innocent.”

“You’re saying that Cheryl and I are both innocent.”

“I am.”

“And someone else—”

“Framed you both, so arranging matters that Ms. Plumley appeared to have committed the murder while you appeared to have hovered in the background pulling the strings. Those books on hypnotism, Ms. McClintock. Did you buy them? Study them in detail?”

“I never even laid eyes on them,” she said, “until the police searched my home and pointed them out to me.” She frowned at a memory. “I was hypnotized once,” she remembered, “if that’s what it was. I wanted to lose a few pounds, and a friend had gone to a hypnotherapist, and she said it helped. So I went, and I guess he hypnotized me, but I can’t say I felt any different afterward. I picked up a pint of ice cream on the way home.”

“So it didn’t work.”

“Well, maybe it did,” she said, “because two weeks later I joined a gym and booked sessions with a personal trainer, and that worked. Maybe that man put me in a trance and told me to join a gym.” She straightened in her chair. “I didn’t buy those books, I didn’t hypnotize Cheryl, I didn’t do any of those things.”

“You don’t have to tell me that, Ms. McClintock.”

“But how can you prove it in court?”

“I am rarely called upon to prove anything in court, Ms. McClintock. I find courtrooms airless and joyless venues, and make a point of staying out of them. What I intend to do, my dear woman, is so arrange matters that the facts of the case become known. When that happens, the innocence which is now so obvious to me will become evident to one and all.”

And toward that end, he told her, he’d need to know something about her life and the people in it.

“Whitley Pleskow,” Maureen McClintock said, on their next meeting. “Why, I can barely picture what he looks like. It’s been years since I saw him, and our relationship never amounted to much of anything. I’m not even sure you can call it a relationship. We had a couple of dates, and I should have ended it at that point because I knew the chemistry wasn’t there.”

“But you didn’t.”

“No, and the next time I saw him I went to bed with him, and that confirmed what I’d already realized.”