Parnell Hall - The Baxter Trust

Dutton rubbed his forehead. “No. That won’t be necessary. I withdrew the money.”

“And what did you do with that money, Mr. Dutton?”

Sheila grabbed Steve’s arm. “Stop him!” she said.

There was no time for Steve to weigh the pros and cons of objecting at this point. He rose to his feet. “Objection, Your Honor. Incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial. No proper foundation has been laid.”

Judge Crandell looked from the defense table back to the witness. Crandell was only human. The look on Dutton’s face decided the point.

“Objection overruled. Witness will answer the question.”

John Dutton looked around the courtroom. He looked trapped. Desperate. Almost as if he were going to cry.

He looked back at Dirkson. “I refuse to answer on the grounds that it might incriminate me.”

The court was in an uproar. Judge Crandell banged the gavel furiously, but nothing was going to stop the stampede of reporters who were charging for the exits.

John Dutton came out of the elevator in his luxury East Side apartment building, walked down the hallway and put the key in the door to his apartment.

A hand clamped down on his shoulder. He spun around. Steve Winslow was standing there. He was obviously in no mood to be trifled with.

“All right, Dutton,” he said. “What’s the story?”

“My lawyer said I shouldn’t talk to you.”

“I don’t give a shit what your lawyer told you,” Steve snapped. “Your girlfriend is going up the river on a murder rap unless you come clean. Now, I don’t know what your lawyer told you, and I don’t know what your legal rights are, but either you start talking or I’ll kick the shit out of you.”

Dutton looked at him, gave in. “All right, come in.”

He unlocked the door and let Steve into the apartment.

“I’m glad you said that,” Steve said, following Dutton in. “I was bluffing. I couldn’t fight my way out of a paper bag. Now let’s have it. It was coke, wasn’t it?”

Dutton looked at him. “How’d you know?”

“Seven grand over six months is too cheap for blackmail. Besides, Greely didn’t bleed people. He was a one-bite man. So it had to be coke.”

“Well, you’re right.”

“Great. I suppose Sheila knew all about this?”

“Of course. I bought it for her.”

“What about Greely?”

Dutton walked over to the couch, sat down and rubbed his head. “Just a damn coincidence. I hadn’t seen him in about three weeks, since the last game I went to. I had no idea. You can imagine the shock when I recognized his picture in the paper. Robert Greely. Jesus. But I kept quiet about it. I didn’t think anyone would ever find out.”

“You thought wrong. What about Sheila? Did she know you knew Greely?”

“Not then. I told her when I saw her yesterday.”

“And you told her not to tell me, right?”

“My lawyer didn’t want me to tell even her. We had no idea it would ever come out.”

Dutton rubbed his head some more and looked down at the floor.

Steve stood looking at him contemptuously. “Great,” he said. “Can I use your phone?”

“Sure. Why?”

Steve walked over, picked up the phone and punched in a number. “Hello Mark, Steve. We missed a bet on John Dutton. Just because he flew to Reno doesn’t mean he couldn’t have turned around and flown back. Check all flights from Reno that would have gotten him here in time for the murder and still let him keep that appointment with his wife’s attorney that seemed like such a sweet alibi. Then check all the flights back to Reno after the murder that would have gotten him there in time to catch the flight I met him on. It’s time we stopped taking things for granted.”

Steve hung up the phone. He had been watching John Dutton during the call. Dutton had looked at him, but had not betrayed any particular emotion. “Thanks,” Steve said. He started out.

“It’s a nice idea,” Dutton called after him. “But you’re going to draw a blank.”

Steve turned back in the doorway. “That I can live with. What I can’t take is any more surprises.”

Sheila Benton looked at Steve Winslow through the wire screen in the visiting room at the lockup. “You’re mad at me, aren’t you?” she said.

Steve smiled ironically. “It would help if every now and then you would give me some little hint as to what was coming next. I might be able to plan a defense.”

“Why are you so upset? I’m the one who’s going to be convicted.”

“Oh, you’re finally starting to realize that?”

“Give me a break will you?”

“No, I won’t give you a break. This is serious. This is not fun-and-games time, like with you and Johnny baby.”

“Hey!”

“The big schmuck. Where the hell does he come off telling you not to tell me he knew Greely?”

“Lay off.”

“No, I won’t lay off. What an asshole. The guy’s supposed to love you. So what does he do? He tries to fuck up your defense in a murder trial. That’s really love.”

“Goddamn you-”

Steve threw up his hands. “Right, right. Mustn’t say anything bad about dear old Johnny. He may be a schmuck, he may be an asshole, he may be a murderer, but you still love him.”

“He’s not a murderer.”

Steve broke out laughing. “That’s funny, you know it? I call him a schmuck, an asshole, and a murderer, and you contradict one of the three. It’s an old vaudeville routine.”

“Oh you-”

“You love him, right? That’s what this is all about. You love him. No matter what. Is that true?”

“Yes… I love him.”

“Even if he killed Greely?”

“He didn’t.”

“Yeah, but what if he did? Would you love him then?”

“I am not answering hypothetical questions.”

“I don’t blame you. That’s a hard question. If he killed Greely and is letting you go to jail for it, it might make him a hard person to love.”

Steve leaned back in his chair, pursed his lips and looked around the room, thinking things over.

Sheila sat and glared at him.

“Well,” he said. “Any more little surprises?”

“No.”

“Anything else I should know?”

For a moment she just kept glaring at him. Then she sighed, and the resistance just seemed to drain out of her. He knew why. It was the relief of being able to talk about something other than John Dutton.

“Uncle Max was just here.”

“Oh?” Steve said. “What did he want? As if I didn’t know.”

“That’s right. He wanted me to fire you. He was vehement about it. He said after what happened in court today the situation was critical and I couldn’t take the risk. He wants Marston, Marston and Cramden, and he wants them now.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him to stick it.”

“How did he take it?”

“How do you think he took it? He started lecturing me on drugs, sex, my life-style, education, my choice of friends, you name it.”

“What did you do?”

“I stood it for as long as I could. He was rather amusing, really. Telling me if I’d just be serious, like Phillip. Finally it got boring so I shocked him and drove him away.”

“Shocked him? How?”

“Oh, I’ve always been able to shock him. He’s such a prude, you know. That’s how I deal with him. Flatter him, amuse him, kid him, shock him. Keep him off balance. It depends on whether I’m trying to get something out of him or he’s trying to get something out of me.”

“How did you shock him?”

“Oh. Well, you know, he always treats Phillip as if he can do no wrong. So I shook him up a little. Uncle Max had started off on a tangent about sex and promiscuity, and I broke in and said, ‘Speaking of sex, did I ever tell you about the first time I ever played “doctor”? You know, children’s sex games? It was with Phillip.’”