Erle Gardner - Beware the Curves

“From your test have you been able to determine whether that was the weapon from which the bullet was fired which killed Karl Carver Endicott?”

“Well, I’ll put it this way. The barrel has been badly rusted. The individual markings from that barrel are such that it is impossible to make an identification. All I can state is that this revolver is a .38 Colt revolver firing bullets of a certain type and the bullet which was taken from the head of Mr. Endicott is the same caliber as the bullet which was taken from this revolver, has the same characteristics, and both bullets were fired from a .38 caliber Colt revolver.”

“In other words, there is no reason from the standpoint of ballistic science why the bullet which was taken from the head of Karl Carver Endicott could not have been fired from this revolver?”

“That is right. This revolver could have fired the fatal bullet.”

“Have you traced the ownership of that revolver so that you know whose revolver it is?”

“I have, yes, sir.”

“Whose is it?”

“Objected to as not the best evidence, as calling for hearsay evidence, as calling for a conclusion of the witness and invading the province of the jury,” Barney Quinn said.

Irvine seemed annoyed. “If the Court please, we can get at this another way, but it is going to be a costly procedure and will necessitate the calling of a witness who will have to take a plane to be here.”

“Nevertheless,” Judge Lawton ruled, “that is one of the constitutional guarantees of a man charged with crime. He has the right to be faced with the witnesses against him and to have the privilege of cross-examining them. I take it this witness now on the stand doesn’t know of his own knowledge to whom the weapon belongs, only that he has conducted investigations as an officer which have convinced him that the weapon is the property of a certain person.”

“That is right, Your Honor.”

“The objection is sustained,” Judge Lawton said. “It now appears that we have reached the hour of the afternoon adjournment. Court will take a recess until tomorrow morning. In the meantime, the defendant is remanded to the custody of the sheriff and the jurors are admonished not to discuss the case among yourselves nor to permit anyone to discuss it in your presence. You are not to form or express any opinion until the case is finally submitted to you for a decision.

“Court will recess until tomorrow morning at ten o’clock.”

Quinn walked past me on his way out of the courtroom. “Meet me in my office,” he said in an undertone.

I fell into step beside him. “What do you want?”

“To discuss the evidence.”

“To hell with it!” I told him. “I’ve got something else to do. Keep on the end of your telephone so I can reach you at any hour of the night. Get what sleep you can. This is going to be one hell of a night!”

I beckoned to Bertha, and we pushed our way through the crowd.

“Now what?” Bertha asked.

“Now,” I said, “we go to our own ballistics expert in Pasadena and find out what the hell we dug up in the garden.”

“It’s a .38 caliber Colt revolver,” Bertha said.

“Probably the murder weapon. That means one of us has got to be called as a witness.”

“Oh, my God!” Bertha said.

We drove to Pasadena where one of the best legal physicists in the country has his office. We started him working on the gun. Within half an hour he had the number of the gun, and within another hour we had the answer.

The gun had been purchased by Helen Manning six years ago.

I hung up the phone and turned to Bertha. “This,” I said, “is going to be in your province, Bertha. You’re going to have to take a babe apart.”

“Who?”

“Helen Manning.”

“That bitch!” Bertha said.

“Can you take her apart?”

“I’ll take her apart,” Bertha promised. “I’ll have her sawdust stuffing spilled all over the floor of her apartment.”

“Let’s go,” I told her.

I pressed the buzzer on Helen Manning’s apartment.

“Who is it?” she called through the doorway in dulcet tones.

“Donald Lam,” I said.

“Just a minute, Donald.”

She waited a moment, then laughed and said, “I was just in the shower. Let me put something on.”

Bertha and I waited for about five minutes; then the door opened.

The clothes she had put on were fluffy, semitransparent and good-looking. She raised her eyes to mine and said demurely, “You’ll have to pardon my appearance, Donald, I just came out of the bath and— Who’s this?”

Bertha Cool barged on into the room like a fortified tank moving in on an enemy front line of entrenchments.

“I’m Bertha Cool,” she said. “I’m a detective. Cut out the lollygagging and get the hell down to business.

Sit over there where I can look at you.”

Bertha kicked the door shut with her heel.

“What the hell was the idea of shooting Karl Endicott?” she demanded.

Helen Manning fell back. Her hand went to her throat; her eyes were wide. “What in the world are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about,” Bertha said. “You went down to see Endicott the day he was killed. You took your gun with you, didn’t you, dearie?

“When you were so nasty nice on the witness stand today, when you were billing and cooing with that romantic-looking district attorney down there, you didn’t tell him the whole story. You didn’t tell him about having bought a gun, did you?

“Well, I’ll tell you all about that gun, dearie. You bought that gun down at a sporting goods store in Santa Ana, and it was a nice little .38 caliber Colt revolver. You bought it two days before Karl Endicott was murdered. You haven’t had it in your possession since Karl Endicott was murdered.

“Now, won’t that be nice to tell the district attorney?”

Helen Manning said, “Why you... I didn’t... I never—”

“Don’t tell me you didn’t,” Bertha screamed at her. “You’re not showing your goddam legs to some impressionable man now. You’re talking to a woman who knows all the tricks. And don’t pull that business of being a little lady with me. You were sleeping with Karl Endicott and you didn’t mind his getting married as long as you were the number one mistress, but when he ran somebody else in and relegated you to the number two position you went off your trolley.”

“I... I—” Helen Manning started to sob.

“That’s right, go ahead and bawl,” Bertha said. “Keeps you from having to look in my eyes. But it isn’t going to do you any good. When you get your tears all dried up you’re going to be facing Bertha Cool, not Donald Lam. Now cut out the waterworks and give me the low-down before I decide to really get tough.”

“What... what do you want?”

“What happened the night Endicott was murdered?”

“I... I don’t know.”

“The hell you don’t,” Bertha said. “You told Mrs. Endicott all about Karl sending John Ansel up into the Amazon on a trip from which he wasn’t supposed to return. You really spilled your guts there. And she had to go and spill the story to her husband. That put the fat in the fire and the husband telephoned for you. That’s my best guess. Anyway you were there the night he was murdered. You were there when John Ansel came in. You were the girl who was in the upstairs bedroom. And after you killed him, you thought your gun would never be found. Well, dearie, for your information, we found your gun and the ballistics expert will testify that the fatal bullet was fired from that gun, a gun you bought two days before in a sporting goods store in Santa Ana. Now do you want to talk or do you want me to get the police up here and have the newspaper reporters rip your life wide open?”