- Margolin - The Last Innocent Man

THERE WAS Anote from Monica in his message box the next morning. An indictment had been returned, and a date for the arraignment had been set in circuit court. David made a note to himself to set a time for a bail hearing. The first thing he did when he reached his office was call Jennifer Stafford. She answered after the first ring.

“I’ll represent Larry if you want me to.”

“Yes,” she answered after a brief pause. “Thank you. I was afraid you wouldn’t… Larry is very high on you. We talked about it yesterday evening.”

“You didn’t tell him I was thinking about not taking the case?”

“Oh, no. He doesn’t know anything about us.”

There was silence on the line.

“You haven’t…?” she started.

“Of course not.”

There was another pause. Not an auspicious beginning. They could not relax with each other.

“Larry said that you have his appointment book at home,” he said.

“I think so. I’ll look.”

“I’ll need it as soon as possible. And the fee,” he added, feeling uneasy about asking her for money.

“Of course; Charlie told me. I’ll go to the bank.”

Again, dead air. Neither of them knew how to fill the space.

“I’ll let you know when the bail hearing is set,” David said, unwilling to let the conversation end.

“Yes.”

“And don’t forget the book. It’s important.”

He was repeating himself.

“If…if I find the book, should I bring it down this morning?”

Did that mean she wanted to see him? He felt very unsure of himself.

“We can set an appointment.”

“I could leave it with your secretary. If you’re busy.” She hesitated. “I don’t want to bother you. I know you have other cases.”

“No. That’s all right. If you find it, come down. I’m pretty open this afternoon, and I have to talk to you anyway for background.”

“Okay. If I find it.”

They rang off. He leaned back, breathed deeply, and composed himself. This was no good. There was too much adrenaline involved. He wasn’t thinking straight. Like some high-school kid with a crush. Stupid. When he felt he had himself in hand, he dialed Terry Conklin, his investigator.

“How you doing, Terry?”

“Up to my ass. And you?”

“Same thing. That’s why I called you. I have a real interesting one. It’ll probably take a lot of your time.”

“Gee, I don’t know, Dave. I hate to turn you down, but I just picked up Industrial Indemnity as a client, and I’ve had to hire another guy just to handle their caseload.”

David was disappointed. Terry had been an intelligence officer in the Air Force and a policeman after that. When he got tired of working for someone else, he quit the force and started his own agency. David had been one of his first clients, and they were good friends. As Terry’s reputation grew, he acquired several insurance companies as clients. The money end of his business was in investigating personal-injury claims, and he had little time now for criminal investigation, his first love. But he and David had an understanding if the case was big enough, and he had never let David down yet.

“It’s the policewoman who was murdered at the Raleigh Motel,” David said. He was laying out the bait.

“Oh. Yeah? Some of my police friends were talking about that. They got someone, huh?”

“You don’t read the papers?”

“I was in New Orleans last week.”

“My, my, aren’t we getting to be the cross-country traveler. Business or pleasure?”

“A little of both. You representing the accused?”

David smiled. He was interested.

“Yeah. They arrested a lawyer from the Price, Winward firm.”

“No shit!”

David relaxed. He had him.

“Can you recommend someone to work on the case? I’d like someone good.”

“Hold on, will you? Just one minute.”

Terry put him on hold and David laughed out loud. When Terry got back on the line, they made an appointment to meet after work and drive to the Raleigh Motel.

JENNIFER SHOWED UPat three. She was dressed in a conservative gray skirt and a white blouse that covered her to the neck. Her hair was swept back in a bun. With glasses she would look like a librarian in one of those forties movies, whose hidden beauty was revealed when she let her hair down.

“I brought the book,” she said, holding out a pocketsized notebook with a black leather cover. David reached across the desk and took it, careful not to let their hands touch. He flipped through the pages until he came to June 16. Stafford had had an appointment at nine forty-five with someone named Lockett and another appointment at four-thirty with Barry Dietrich. David recognized Dietrich’s name. He was a partner at Price, Winward who specialized in securities work. That would tie in with what Larry had told him at the jail. There were no other entries for the sixteenth, and David made a note to contact Dietrich.

“Is that any help?” Jennifer asked.

“It could be. Larry met with one the partners on the day of the murder. I’ll find out how late they worked.”

Jennifer nodded. She looked ill at ease, sitting erect with her hands folded in her lap, making an extra effort to look businesslike. David appreciated her discomfort. He felt rigid, and the conversation had an artificial quality to it.

“I want to talk to you about your relationship to Larry. Some of the questions I’m going to ask will be very personal, but I wouldn’t ask them if the answers weren’t important to Larry’s defense.”

She nodded again, and he noticed that her hands clasped tighter, turning the knuckles of her left hand momentarily white.

“How long have you known Larry?”

“Just over a year.”

“How did you meet?”

“I was teaching school with Miriam Holt, Charlie’s wife. She introduced us. Larry and Charlie play a lot of handball together.”

“How long after that were you married?”

“A few months. Four.”

It came out as an apology, and David looked down at his notes, sensing her embarrassment. Whether the jury found Larry innocent or guilty, this would be an ordeal for her. And it would never really stop. If Larry was convicted, she would be the wife of the young lawyer who had killed a policewoman he thought was a prostitute. Why had he needed a prostitute? They would look at her and wonder. What was wrong with her that she had driven him to that?

And if he was acquitted? Well, you never were, really. The jury might say you were not guilty, but the doubts always remained.

“Where do you teach?”

“Palisades Elementary School.”

“How long have you been teaching?”

She smiled and relaxed a little.

“It seems like forever.”

“Do you enjoy it?”

“Yes. I’ve always liked kids. I don’t know. It can be hard at times, but I really feel it’s worthwhile. Larry wanted me to stop teaching after we were married, but I told him I wanted to keep on.”

“Why did he want you to stop?”

Jennifer blushed and looked down at her hands. “You have to understand Larry. He’s very tied up in this manhood trip. It’s just the way he is.”

“Has Larry ever cheated on you?”

There was a sharp intake of breath, and Jennifer looked directly at David.

“No,” she said firmly. “And I think I would have known.”

“Has he ever struck you?”

“No,” she said after a moment’s hesitation.

“Has he or hasn’t he?”

“Well, we’ve quarreled, but he’s never…No.”

“Do you consider Larry to be normal sexually?”

“What do you mean, ‘normal’?” she asked hesitantly.

David felt uneasy and unsure of himself. He had asked this type of question often enough in the past, but it had always been strictly for professional reasons. He was asking now as a professional, but there was something more. He wanted to know what the relationship between Larry Stafford and his wife was really like. He wanted to know how he stacked up sexually to the man he was representing. He wanted to know if Jennifer responded to her husband with the passion she had exhibited during their lovemaking.