Parnell Hall - The Baxter Trust

“So what happened? Say six months ago Greely is playing in a poker game, and some young stud named John Dutton, who is a pretty boy and an egotistical asshole, is shooting off his mouth about how he’s got a thing going with an heiress. And Greely, who’s always on the lookout for something like that, tunes right in and finds out the girl’s name is Sheila Benton.

“Which rings a very big bell. So Greely asks a few questions and pokes around some, and finds out this John Dutton is very much married. So now Greely has an heiress with a trust fund playing around with a married man, music to the ears of a blackmailer.

“So Greely goes to Uncle Teddy and says, ‘Hey, I got all this dope on your niece. You know all about how her trust is set up. If you can figure any way we can shoot this information, I’ll go halves with you.’

“And Uncle Teddy tells him it’s hopeless. Sheila has no money of her own, there’s no way she can touch the money in her trust, the only one who can get the money out of the trust is Uncle Max, and if he knew about it Sheila would lose the trust, so what’s the point?

“Now, this is all conjecture, but I would imagine at this point Greely considers blackmailing Dutton. But Dutton doesn’t have that kind of money-he’s a fortune hunter himself, figuring he can retire a millionaire in ten years by hooking up with Sheila. So Greely and Uncle Teddy figure that’s not worthwhile, and Uncle Teddy convinces Greely that they should hang onto the information and then maybe the situation would change and they could shoot it at a later time.”

Steve shrugged. “So that’s it. The matter drops. They let it slide.

“And then something happens. What happens is, Sheila sees cousin Phillip and kids him about the time they played doctor together. And Phillip tells Teddy. And the key part of the story is the fact that it happened the same day Sheila’s mother was killed. Because Phillip went everywhere Teddy went. And Teddy was supposed to be in New York that day. But he wasn’t. He was up in Vermont, tampering with the brakes of his sister’s car so she’d go off the road and he’d inherit the whole bundle.

“So when Teddy hears this he’s hysterical. He knows if Sheila tells Uncle Max, Uncle Max will start thinking and figure out what happened.

“So he’s got to shut Sheila up. So he figures to involve her in a mess, ’cause if her life is all screwed up, and she’s in a position where she has to protect herself, she won’t be needling her Uncle Max with any cutesy-poo childhood memories.

“So he remembers Greely. What if he had Greely blackmail her? Wouldn’t that do the trick? Sure. But he realizes that’s not good enough. Because there is no way to blackmail her, and Greely would eventually find that out, and wonder what the hell was going on. And Teddy’s not going to tell Greely the real reason he wants to do it.

“So he gets another idea. What if he frames her for murder? Of Greely? Great. No problem there. Greely’s dead, so he can’t find out the blackmail was bogus. Or get caught and blurt out his connection with Teddy. It’s perfect.

“So he calls Greely and tells him he’s figured out how to make the blackmail work. While Greely’s in the john, or out buying beer, or whatever, Teddy types the envelope. He tells Greely his scheme, which is just a bunch of bullshit. But Greely doesn’t know that, and he has no reason to suspect anything. He thinks he’s going to make a killing. So Teddy gets Greely to make the anonymous phone call. And he arranges to meet Greely at Sheila’s apartment, presumably to make the shakedown. He lures him up there, and he kills him.

“And the beauty of the thing is John Dutton. Because Greely met John Dutton at that poker game, Teddy knows that if the cops start trying to trace Greely’s background, they’ll trace him back to Dutton, not to him. Which they did.”

Dirkson frowned. “Yeah, but…” He stopped. Tried to think of a “but.” Got one. “But why go through all that? Teddy, I mean. If he wanted to shut Sheila up, why not just kill her?”

Steve sighed. He shrugged and smiled. “I don’t know. Your guess is as good as mine. This isn’t some TV show where the plot threads get tied up nice and tidy. The principals in this case are all dead, so we’ll probably never know.

“You want theories? I can give you theories. I talked to Teddy Baxter. I think in spite of everything, he had genuine affection for Sheila and couldn’t bring himself to kill her.”

“But he didn’t mind framing her for murder,” Dirkson said sarcastically.

“Don’t like that one? Try this-He knew if Sheila were killed, Uncle Max would move heaven and earth to find out who did it, and he was afraid the trail would lead back to him. Whereas, he figured no one would ever connect him with Sheila killing a blackmailer. Particularly when he knew the blackmailer could be traced back to John Dutton.”

“Aw, you’re just making up stuff off the top of your head,” Dirkson said. “You’ve got nothing but wild guesses.”

“Right,” Steve said. “You got anything better?”

Dirkson rubbed his forehead. He carefully avoided looking at Lieutenant Farron. He was a poker player, playing them close to the vest. “You got anything else to support this?”

“Sure. The key in Greely’s pocket. There was nothing else in his pockets. Why? Because Teddy took everything out of his pockets except the key. Why? Because he wanted to make sure the police would investigate the key and find out that Greely had the key to Sheila’s apartment.”

“But the locksmith says Greely was the one who copied the key.”

“Sure. Uncle Teddy gave him a key to copy. Check up and you’ll find that some time or other when Sheila took a vacation she gave Uncle Teddy a key to feed her goldfish, or whatever. At any rate, he had a key.”

“But you can’t prove Teddy Baxter killed Greely.”

“Uncle Max told me he did.”

“That’s hearsay.”

Steve grinned. “No, it’s a dying declaration. Read your law.”

Dirkson looked at him narrowly. “Surely you don’t intend to put yourself on the stand to testily to what Max told you.”

“I don’t have to,” Steve said. “You see, we’re sitting here, and you’re asking me my theories, and I’m giving ’em to you, and you’re telling me they’re bullshit, and that’s all well and good. But the thing is, when we get into court, I don’t have to explain everything, you do. You have to prove Sheila guilty beyond all reasonable doubt. Fat chance. Wanna know how it’s gonna go?”

Steve leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs and cocked his head at Dirkson. “When you rest your case, I’ll call Uncle Max as my first witness. Then you can explain to the jury why he isn’t available.”

Steve paused while Dirkson thought that over. He watched Dirkson, and he liked what he saw. He smiled, and shrugged his shoulders. “Then I’ll rest my case right there and we’ll proceed to the argument. The judge will instruct the jury that if I can explain the facts of the case by any reasonable hypothesis other than that of guilt, they must find the defendant not guilty. I’ll give them a reasonable hypothesis.”

This time Dirkson couldn’t help exchanging glances with Farron. Neither man liked what he saw.

“If that’s what you want, fine,” Steve went on, airily. “Sheila will get off anyway, the police will look like a bunch of incompetent bunglers and it probably won’t do your political career any good. I, on the other hand, will come off smelling like the proverbial rose.”

Steve let that sink in, then changed his tack. He uncrossed his legs and leaned in to Dirkson. “But if you want to get smart,” he said in an almost conspiratorial voice, “dismiss the case and release the girl. Then call in the press and issue a statement about how you, working in conjunction with the police department, cracked the Benton case. It’d be a hell of a story. Make you guys look real good.” Steve paused, smiled. “Probably get you reelected.”