Chip Harrison - Make Out With Murder

“He’s a genius,” I explained. “He was telling me just a few hours ago that there’s a very thin line between genius and insanity. You can think of him as walking along that line, doing a high-wire act on it.”

“But you say he’s about to come up with a killer.”

“He’s going to come down on one,” I said. “With both feet. And he’s got enough weight to land hard.”

“Not all that much weight,” Polk said. “He’d be right trim if you was to stretch him out to a suitable length.”

I pushed the image of Leo Haig being lengthened on a medieval rack as far out of mind as possible, and settled down to the serious business of setting the stage and assembling the audience. It took two hours and twelve minutes, and I think that was pretty good.

They arrived in stages, of course, but I won’t burden you with the order of their coming, or the way I fielded their questions and settled them down. I’ll just tell you what the room looked like when Haig condescended to enter it.

Wong Fat and I had set up a double row of chairs on my side of the partners’ desk, facing Haig. My own chair was off to the side, between the audience and the door.

In the front row, farthest from me, sat Detective Vincent Gregorio. He was wearing a black silk suit with a subtle dark blue stripe and a pair of wing tip loafers you could see your face in if you were in a house where they covered the mirrors. I don’t know where he bought his clothes, but between them and his twenty-dollar haircut he looked like a walking advertisement for police corruption. I was surprised that he had agreed to come so readily. Maybe he got a charge out of it when Haig called him a witling.

Andrea Sugar sat on Gregorio’s right, which was an obvious source of pleasure to Kid Handsome, because he was doing a courtship dance that a male Betta splendens would have been proud of, preening and posing and not knowing how little good it was going to do him. Andrea was wearing a maroon dress with bright red cherries all over it, and if you can’t think of the thoughts it inspired, that’s too damned bad, because I am not going to spell them out for you.

I had put Addison Shivers, our sole surviving client, alongside Andrea. That also put him directly across the desk from Haig which seemed only proper. He was the angel for this theatrical production. His suit was probably as old as detective Gregorio, but it still looked good. He sat quite stiff in his chair, and when Haig came into the room he took off his glasses and cleaned them with his necktie.

Kim was seated next to Mr. Shivers, with Gordie McLeod on the other side of her, which put him in the chair closest to mine. This had not been my idea. I would have preferred to be able to look directly at Kim without having him around to play the role of an automobile graveyard at the foot of a beautiful mountain. That’s a bad choice of words, actually, because Kim could not have looked less mountainous. She seemed to have grown smaller and more petite in the short time since I had seen her. She was wearing what she had worn earlier. I had seen nothing to object to then and I saw nothing to object to now, except for the hulking moron who was holding her hand in his paw.

McLeod was wearing something loutish. I think he’d put on a clean bowling shirt in honor of the occasion. His shoes needed a shine and probably weren’t going to get one. They had thick soles, for stepping on people.

Detective Wallace Seidenwall was directly behind McLeod, which put him closer to me than I might have wanted him. He had not grown discernibly fonder of me since our last meeting. “This better be good,” was a phrase which came trippingly to his lips during the waiting period. He didn’t say it as though he thought it was going to, either. He was wearing a gray glen plaid suit that Robert Hall had marked down for good reason. Either his partner got all the graft, or Seidenwall was running a yacht, or something, because he was due for a bitter disappointment again this fall when the Best Dressed list came out.

Ferdinand Bell was next to Seidenwall, and he was the only one in the crowd who looked genuinely happy to be present. “This will be a treat,” he said upon entering, and he enjoyed himself immensely making small talk with the others and asking the names of all of the fish. He had on the same suit he’d worn to Melanie’s funeral. His short white hair set off his pink scalp, or maybe it was the other way around, and his plump cheeks reminded you more than ever of a chipmunk when he smiled, which was most of the time.

I had stuck Luther Polk next to Bell, which put him directly behind Addison Shivers. (I know I’m taking forever giving you the geography of all this, and I know you could probably care less about the whole thing, but Haig spent so much time charting it out that it is conceivably important. I know I’d catch hell if I didn’t go through it all.) I don’t think I described Polk before, but if you’ve seen Dennis Weaver in that television series where he plays an Arizona marshal attached to the New York Police Department, then I won’t have to describe him for you. He had had relatively little to say to the two Homicide detectives, or they to him, and he sat there keeping his hand comfortingly close to the revolver on his hip.

Madam Juana was sitting on the far side of Polk. She was wearing her basic black dress and a string of pearls, and she looked like the stern-lipped administrator of a parochial school for girls. (I can’t help it, that’s what she looked like.)

Well, it wasn’t what you would call perfect. I mean, there should have been three or four more obvious suspects present. John LiCastro would have been a nice addition to the group, but Haig had pointed out that it would have been an insensitive act to place him in the same room with policemen for no compelling reason. And it would have been even nicer if our other client had been present; if Haig had had just a few more hours to work with, Caitlin would have been alive.

So it wasn’t perfect, but it was still a pretty decent showing, and I have to admit I got a kick out of it when Leo Haig marched into the room and every eye turned to take in the sight of him.

He seated himself very carefully behind his desk. I had a bad moment when I thought he was going to put his feet up, but he got control of himself. He took his time meeting the eyes of each person in the room, including me, and then he closed his eyes and touched his beard and went into a tiny huddle with himself. It didn’t last as long as it might have.

He opened his eyes and said, “I want to thank you for coming here. I am going to unmask a killer this afternoon, a killer who has in one way or another affected all our lives. Each of us has been thus affected, but not all of you are aware of the extent of this killer’s activities. So you must permit me to rehash some recent events. Not all of them will be news to any of you, and one of you will know all of what I am about to say, and more. Because the murderer is in this room.”

He was grandstanding, but of course it went over well. Everybody turned and looked at everybody else.

“This past Wednesday,” Haig said, “my associate Mr. Harrison discovered the body of Miss Melanie Trelawney. She had died of an overdose of heroin. Previously she had told Mr. Harrison that she feared for her life. His observations of the scene at Miss Trelawney’s apartment led Mr. Harrison to the certain conclusion that she had been murdered. When he confided his observations to me—”

“Wait a minute,” Gregorio cut in. “Where do you get off concealing evidence from the police?”

“I concealed no evidence,” Haig said. “Nor did Mr. Harrison. Nothing was suppressed, nothing distorted. It is not incumbent upon a citizen to apprise the police of his suspicions. Indeed, it is often unwise.