Parnell Hall - The Baxter Trust

Mrs. Rosenthal glared at him.

“Did you?”

“Yes, I did,” she said angrily.

“All because you wanted to know who this man was in case you ran into him in the hallway sometime?”

“Well, what’s wrong with that?” Mrs. Rosenthal said testily. “Good gracious, I would think if you had someone in your building all the time you’d want to know who he was.”

“I’m sure I would,” Steve said. He stole a look at the jury, just as Dirkson had done. “I don’t know if I’d go to such lengths to find out, but I’m sure I’d like to know.”

Steve stood, smiling at the witness. Mrs. Rosenthal sat, glaring back.

“Now then,” Steve said. “You say you’ve seen John Dutton enter the defendant’s apartment on many occasions. Tell me, did you ever see the decedent, Robert Greely, entering the defendant’s apartment?”

“No I did not.”

“Or leaving her apartment?”

“No.”

“Not even on the day of the murder?”

“That’s right.”

“You have never seen the decedent, Robert Greely, at all?”

That’s right.

“And you have never seen him entering or leaving Sheila Benton’s apartment?”

“That’s right.

“But he must have done so, since he was found murdered there, mustn’t he?”

“I suppose so.”

“Well then, can you tell me why it is that you have never seen the decedent, Robert Greely, entering or leaving Sheila Benton’s apartment?”

“Because I mind my own business,” Mrs. Rosenthal snapped.

There was a roar of laughter. It wasn’t as big as the one Dirkson had gotten, but it was the best Steve could have hoped for under the circumstances. He grinned broadly.

“No further questions.”

“Did your mother ever talk about your father?”

“What?”

Steve Winslow and Sheila Benton were sitting face-to-face in the attorney-client conference room off the court. Court had recessed for lunch right after Steve’s cross-examination of Mrs. Rosenthal. Steve was choosing to skip his lunch and was making Sheila skip hers.

The reason, of course, was that he was obsessed with his new theory-the theory that Greely was really Sheila’s father. Not that, if Greely were, Steve really suspected Sheila might have killed him. On reflection, he had realized that that idea had just been a flash of paranoia. Even if Greely were Sheila’s father, and even if he had been in a position to upset the trust, that would have posed no threat to Sheila, and she would have had no reason to want him out of the way.

But Uncle Max would have. That was the theory Steve was working on now. Sheila’s living father could have been a real threat to Uncle Max. He could have upset the trust and contested the will and raised bloody hell with Uncle Max’s little empire. And suppose Uncle Max had sent those letters, and then lured Greely up to Sheila’s apartment on the pretext of meeting his long-lost daughter and then killed him? It would have been a perfect frame-up. There would be nothing to connect Uncle Max to the murder at all. And Sheila would take the rap.

Steve had no idea why Max would want to frame his niece, but it wasn’t inconceivable. Max was her trustee. Her trust was worth millions. Max supposedly had millions of his own, but what if they were tied up in speculative investments of all types? What if Max sometimes had need for ready cash? He wouldn’t be the first trustee who’d dipped into a trust for his own purposes. And then with Greely on the scene, contesting the trust, contesting the will and demanding an audit, Max could have found himself in quite a spot. A spot where killing Greely and framing Sheila would actually have been killing two birds with one stone.

So Steve was desperate for information.

“Did your mother ever talk about your father?” he repeated.

“Why? What are you getting at?”

“I don’t know. Did she?”

“Not that I know of. I was very young when she died, you know.”

“I know. I want you to remember back. I want you to tell me everything you can remember before your mother died.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to understand. You just have to tell me.”

Sheila’s jaw set. “Oh no you don’t, mister. That’s the way my uncle treats me. That’s why I wouldn’t let him hire a lawyer for me. Now if you want something out of me you tell me why, and none of this you-wouldn’t-understand-little-girl shit.”

“Sorry,” Steve said. “I’m a little pushed for time, and I’m getting edgy. The thing is, I don’t understand either. And I need to understand. So I need some facts. And if they don’t seem to make much sense, that’s because I’m groping in the dark, and I don’t know what does make sense. But I’m trying to sort it out, you see?

“So here’s the thing-if you didn’t kill Greely, then someone else did. And they killed him in your apartment with your knife. And there’s gotta be a reason. And the only way that makes sense at all is if you tie it in with a twenty-million-dollar trust fund.”

Sheila threw up her arms. “But how? Tie it in how?”

He shook his head. “I know. That’s the problem. I’ve thoroughly gone over the provisions of the trust, and aside from that stupid licentious-behavior clause that’s causing all the trouble, there’s nothing in it that could possible affect any of the parties mentioned in it. I mean, it isn’t even as if you were convicted of this crime, Phillip would come into forty million dollars instead of twenty. If you lose your trust, no one gains except a bunch of unnamed charities.”

Sheila’s eyes widened. “Wait a minute! How do you know they’re unnamed?”

Steve looked at her. “I read the trust. They’re not named.”

“They’re not named in the trust,” she said excitedly. “But what if, somehow, someone knew that a particular charity stood to benefit?”

He waved it away. “You’re grasping at straws. That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it?” she said indignantly. “Why? Because I thought of it? Because you didn’t? What’s ridiculous about it?”

“What difference would it make if a charity benefits?”

“You don’t think there are people who have siphoned money out of charities?”

“And how the hell would they know?”

“Through Uncle Max, of course.” Sheila was becoming more and more animated as she built on the idea. “Can’t you see it? You’ve met him. Can’t you see him at some ritzy social club joking over a brandy with old cronies about how if I’m not a good girl, some of their organizations stand to make a few million?”

“No, I can’t.”

“Damn it, I’m serious. It’s my neck here. The least you could do is consider it.”

“Fine,” Steve said, his voice rising. “Noted. I hereby promise to investigate the possibility that the United Way, acting on inside information that they stood to benefit from the trust, conspired to have a blackmailer killed in your apartment. All right? You satisfied?”

Sheila recoiled from the intensity of his outburst. “Jesus Christ!”

He grimaced, rubbed his head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just don’t have time to go off on a tangent right now. I don’t think you’re stupid, and I will look into this, okay? But right now I need you to answer some questions. All right?”

She looked at him for a moment. “You still haven’t told me why.”

“I was trying to, when-” he broke off. “Never mind. All right. Look. If no one named in the trust stands to benefit from the crime, we have to look for someone not named in the trust. As far as I can see, the only one who answers that description is your father.”

“My father. But my father’s dead.”