Гэри Бранднер - Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 33, No. 3, August 1973

Gil himself seemed to be in shock. He answered questions in monosyllables, not always making sense.

Finally the coroner’s people took away the body and Gil was driven off in a police car. When I had a chance I called Lillian and told her what had happened. She took it pretty well and said she would have her lawyer come down to. Manhattan Beach in the morning. I wished her luck and started to hang up, but she stopped me.

“Dukane, will you go down with the lawyer to see Gil?”

“If you want me to, but I don’t know how I can help.”

“Please,” she said. “Gil will need all the support he can get.”

“I’ll be there,” I said. “Have your man give me a call when he’s ready to go.”

As I hung up I saw that the party was coming back to life. I got out of there and went home.

Gil’s attorney was a pink-faced young man named Wallach. I met him at the Manhattan Beach police station and we waited together for them to bring Gil put. They let us use a small bare room behind the jailer’s desk, and Gil told us his version of what happened at the party.

“We had a big fight on the dance floor, Bunnie and I. An argument, I mean. I guess everybody in the world saw it. I told Bunnie to go wait in my apartment and I’d come out in a minute and we’d finish it in private. I had a couple more drinks — we were both pretty smashed already — and went on out through the court.

“The lights were out in my apartment, but I could make out Bunnie lying on the sofa. I thought maybe she’d passed out there. I called her name but she didn’t answer. I went over and touched her to wake her up. My hands came away wet with her blood.”

“What was the argument about?” I asked.

“Is that important?”

“It might be,” Wallach put in. “Was it just a lovers’ spat?”

Gil didn’t answer for several seconds. When he did his voice was flat and weak.

“I’m afraid there was more to it than that. It will all come out Monday anyway, so I guess there’s no use trying to hide it. I’ve been embezzling money from my firm, selling off stocks in my accounts without the owners’ knowledge. I gave most of the cash to Bunnie. It was supposed to be a loan to help her set up a modeling agency. When I got my promotion I knew there would be an audit before I turned the accounts over to a new man, and the shortage would be discovered.

“I told Bunnie I had to have the money back right away. She stalled me for several days, then finally refused outright, shying as far as she was concerned it was a gift. I was making one last try to talk her into it last night. I guess I didn’t do so good.”

While Wallach talked legal strategy I went over Gil’s story in my mind, and had to admit that he didn’t do good at all. When they took Gil back to his cell a man from the district attorney’s office stopped in looking pleased with himself.

“As a friendly tip,” he said to Wallach, “you’d better plead your man guilty. I could convict him right now of Second Degree, and all I need is a solid motive to make it Murder One.”

“I’ll need time to study the evidence,” Wallach said, but he didn’t sound hopeful.

“We have plenty for you to study,” the D.A.’s man said cheerfully.

“What was the official cause of death?” I asked.

“A single stab wound that penetrated the right ventricle of the heart. Death was almost instantaneous.”

“What about the weapon?”

“A cheap hunting knife, available at any sporting goods store.”

“Fingerprints?”

“Not on the knife. The handle was wiped clean, but we won’t need them to build a case against Foster.”

Wallach hung around to see what bail arrangements could be made, but an idea was starting to grow in my head so I left and drove to a shopping center on Pacific Coast Highway. There I made two purchases at a sporting goods store and carried them with me in a paper bag to the Surf Apartments.

I found Aaron Judd one-handling a mop over the dance floor in the party room while Ken Tregorian idly poked balls around the pool table. Neither had a greeting for me. I walked carefully across the wet floor and talked to Judd.

“Quiet around here today.”

“It always is the morning after a party,” he said.

“I suppose so. Are the police around?”

“No. They finished up in Foster’s apartment about an hour ago and left.”

“Would you mind letting me into the apartment?”

“What for?” he asked, eyeing the paper bag.

“I want to try something.”

Tregorian sidled over to listen in.

“You can help too,” I told him.

“What do you mean ‘try something?’ ” Judd said.

“Come on,” Tregorian put in. “It might be kicks.”

“All right,” Judd agreed after a hesitation. “It better not take long, though, I’ve got other work to do.”

“It won’t take long,” I assured him.

As we crossed the court Rachel Coombs came out of the building and fell in beside me.

“I thought I saw you drive up,” she said. “There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

“Sure,” I said, “right after we’re finished here. Come on along.”

Judd let us into Gil’s apartment with a passkey. The police had tidied up somewhat, but you knew they had been there. Fingerprint powder smudged the wall here and there, a dead flashbulb had rolled into a corner, and a sheet was thrown, over the sofa where Bunnie Moran had died.

Rachel hung back as I walked up to the sofa, but the two men followed closely.

I opened the bag and took out a styrofoam belly board, the kind small children use for surf riding. I laid it flat on the sofa. Then I pulled out the hunting knife I had bought and plunged it hilt-deep into the board, leaving it there.

Rachel gasped. The men watched me silently.

“What’s that supposed to prove?” Tregorian said.

“Wait and see. Now pretend for a minute that this is the dead Bunnie Moran. The killer would not want to carry the bloody knife out of the room and risk meeting somebody, but he doesn’t want to leave his fingerprints either. So what he does is wipe the knife clean. Let’s see you do it, Tregorian. Wipe the prints off the knife.”

“Like hell I will. Not until you tell me what this is all about.”

“Do you have a special reason for not wanting to touch the knife?” I said.

Tregorian glared at me for a moment, then he reached down and yanked out the weapon. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and vigorously wiped the handle while holding the blade, keeping cloth between his fingers and the steel. When he finished he tossed the knife back onto the sofa and pocketed the handkerchief.

“Well?” he said.

I turned to Rachel. “Did you see anything unusual in the way he did that?”

The girl shook her head, watching me with large green eyes. “I’m not sure what you mean, but it looked all right to me.”

“How about you, Judd?” I asked.

“So he wiped off the knife. What do you want me to say?”

“So we all agree that the actions were natural,” I said. “Just about anybody wanting to wipe his fingerprints off would have done it pretty much the way Tregorian did.”

I picked up the knife and stabbed it once more into the styrofoam board.

I turned to face Aaron Judd. “Now you do it.”

He didn’t move. Slowly Judd’s head rolled and he looked down at his empty sleeve.

“A man with only one arm couldn’t do it that way, could he,” I said.

Working left handed I drew out my own handkerchief, leaned down and wiped the knife handle clean. The blade stayed sunk in the belly board. “That’s the way you would do it, isn’t it, Judd?”

“What of it?” he snapped.

“When Bunnie was found the knife was still in her. There was only one wound, so it hadn’t been pulled out, then stuck back in. The handle was wiped clean by a man who couldn’t use two hands. You, Judd.”