Дональд Уэстлейк - Baby, Would I Lie?

Jolie gave her a sour look. “Are you calling him Mr. Jones so you won’t seem like the impudent boorish pushy New Yorker you really are?”

“Yes,” said Sara. “I thought his attorney was Warren Thurbridge.”

“ And single-minded.” Jolie sneered slightly. “Warren is Ray’s trial lawyer, the one who gets all the publicity and most of the money. I’m his attorney for everything else, including why we shouldn’t have press on this bus.”

“Are you handling his income-tax problem?”

Jolie reared back, as much as her poundage would permit. “I may throw you off the bus myself.”

Sara garbed herself in the attributes of offended innocence. “Ms. Grubbe,” she said, “it’s Ms. Grubbe, is it? Ms. Grubbe, he was singing about it on this very bus; it’s hardly a secret .”

The bus was now rolling down the block, trailed by only a few of the goofs, the majority still believing the main action would be at the courthouse. Jolie Grubbe said, “The first thing you’re gonna do when we get to the office is sign a release.”

Sara laughed. “Even before I turn water into wine?”

“You are not here as a friend,” Jolie insisted. “You are here as a journalist, and everything you hear and see is privileged. It’s our decision what and whether you can publish.”

“You’re speaking in the plural,” Sara said. “Who besides Ray Jones makes the decisions?”

Looking very mulish, Jolie said, “Don’t get tough with me , girl, that’s my advice.”

“I’m not your enemy,” Sara said. “The people who decided to make a publicity stunt out of a second arrest, they’re your enemy. Why would anybody think Mr. Jones would kill John Golker? He was a musician, was he?”

“His name was Bob Golker,” Jolie said, which Sara had well known (get them into the habit of giving you information, that’s the idea), “and there’s no reason at all.”

“He was a backup musician in the show?”

“And a drunk. And a skirt-chaser. And I didn’t say any of that.”

The bus stopped and Jolie struggled to her feet, giving Sara a grim smile. “You can’t use anything,” she said. “Not without our permission.”

Nevertheless, Sara got off the bus with the group and walked among them into the former furniture store that was now Warren Thurbridge’s headquarters and where a whole lot of people were noisily going out of their minds. As Sara stared around at everything, recording and remembering every detail, Jolie grabbed a handy clerk. “Where’s Warren?”

“With the judge!” the clerk cried. “That’s all we know!”

Jolie released the clerk, who scurried off like the white rabbit. Giving Sara her most sour look, Jolie said, “Now we’ll see if Warren is worth all the money he gets.”

“This is so prejudicial, Your Honor,” Warren Thurbridge said, the strong vibrato of his rich voice barely under control, “I’m going to ask for a mistrial right now.”

Judge Berenice Quigley looked both irritated and baffled. “Counselor, the trial hasn’t begun . You can’t have a mistrial before the trial.”

“The police action this morning,” Warren said, “has poisoned the entire jury pool.”

Buford Delray snorted. “I would think, sir,” he said, his fat-boy envy of Warren Thurbridge’s accomplishments rising around him like heat waves, “I would think your own client’s activities have done all the poisoning around here. Though poison does seem one of the few methods he does not favor.” And Delray beamed fatuously upon his hanger-on, the British reporter, who beamed fatuously back.

They were in judge’s chambers, all seated, though Warren managed to sit in such a fashion as to look as though he were pacing, probably waving his arms, even possibly pushing distracted fingers through his hair. Across from this kinetic Warren, Judge Berenice Quigley, a heavyset, stern-looking woman in her mid-forties who was well known to have gubernatorial cravings in her future, sat at attention behind her large polished desk, trying to look evenhanded, though she was possibly the most prosecution-favoring occupant of the entire Missouri bench.

To Warren’s right sat prosecutor Buford Delray, looking like a butterball turkey that has just been basted, and beyond Delray, on a sofa off to the side, sat the British reporter, whose presence here Warren didn’t understand and certainly didn’t approve. He switched to that sore point, letting the original sore point rest a moment, saying, “Your Honor, I don’t see how we can have this conversation with a reporter in the room.”

“Mr. Fernit-Branca is not a reporter ,” Delray said, voice dripping with condescension. “He’s a writer with The Economist , a respected London publication.”

“I know The Economist ,” Warren growled, and glared at the Englishman. “Fernit-Branca,” he mused. “I know that name.”

“I suppose you’ve seen my byline,” the fellow said, and smiled fondly at Warren.

Judge Quigley said, “Mr. Delray asked that this one representative of the press be present. As he’s not a daily journalist, not an American, not taking notes, and not intending to print anything until the trial is completed, I saw no reason to refuse the request. There are precedents for such things.”

“In those precedents,” Warren pointed out, “the defense has been consulted in advance and has agreed.”

Judge Quigley’s face could become very cold. “I didn’t feel that was necessary,” she said.

“Evidently.”

“Now,” she went on, “as to this new charge.”

“Another thing I don’t understand,” Warren told her.

“It’s very simple,” Delray said, so smug you just wanted to slap his face. “Last night, a body was found in a car in Lake Taneycomo. It had been driven off a cliff on the south side of the river, east of Hollister. The body was identified as one Robert Wayne Golker, who had disappeared just after the murder of Belle Hardwick. Golker was a musician in your client’s employ. After his disappearance, Jones put it about that Golker had left to take a job in California.”

“Golker himself told people that,” Warren objected, “for weeks before he went.”

“If you have witnesses to substantiate that,” Delray said, smiling in mock pity, “I’m sure you’ll bring them forward. In any event, Golker had been drinking heavily, or perhaps had had a great quantity of alcohol forced on him. He was then hit on the head, placed in the car, and the car pushed off the cliff into the lake.”

“Drunk, he drove over the cliff,” Warren said, “and hit his head when the car hit the water.”

“If you have forensic witnesses to offer that theory,” Delray said, “I’m sure you’ll hire them to testify. In any event, Golker died within twenty-four hours of the death of Miss Hardwick. Golker and Miss Hardwick knew one another.”

“They worked in the same theater,” Warren said.

“Of course. And both knew Mr. Jones. It is the state’s contention that Mr. Golker learned of Mr. Jones’s murder of Miss Hardwick, either through something Mr. Jones said or some error he made, and that Mr. Jones then murdered Mr. Golker to protect his secret, attempting to make it look like a drunken accident.”

“It was a drunken accident.”

“If you have witnesses you can pay to suggest that possibility, I’m sure you’ll parade them before the court.”

Judge Quigley tapped her palm on her desk blotter, in lieu of a gavel. “All of that will be decided at trial,” she said. “There’s no need to discuss it here.”