Ehrengraf for the Defense (15 page)

“Indeed. They seem to believe that you mixed
a lethal dose of Cydonex into your wife’s wine at dinner. The
poison, tasteless and odorless as it is, would have been
undetectable in plain water, let alone wine. What sort of wine was
it, if I may ask?”

“Nuits-St.-Georges.”

“And the main course?”

“Veal, I think. What difference does it
make?”

“Nuits-St.-Georges would have overpowered the
veal,” Ehrengraf said thoughtfully. “No doubt it would have
overpowered the Cydonex as well. The police said the wineglasses
had been washed out, although the rest of the dinner dishes
remained undone.”

“The wineglasses are Waterford. I always do
them up by hand, while Alyssa put everything else in the
dishwasher.”

“Indeed.” Ehrengraf straightened up behind
his desk, his hand fastening upon the knot of his tie. It was a
small precise knot, and the tie itself was a two-inch-wide silk
knit the approximate color of a bottle of Nuits-St.-Georges. The
little lawyer wore a white-on-white shirt with French cuffs and a
spread collar, and his suit was navy with a barely perceptible
scarlet stripe. “As your lawyer,” he said, “I must raise unpleasant
points.”

“Go right ahead.”

‘You have a mistress, a young woman who is
expecting your child. You and your wife were not getting along.
Your wife refused to give you a divorce. Your business, while
extremely profitable, has been experiencing recent cash-flow
problems. Your wife’s life was insured in the amount of five
hundred thousand dollars with yourself as beneficiary. In addition,
you are her sole heir, and her estate after taxes will still be
considerable. Is all of that correct?”

“It is,” Bridgewater admitted. ‘“The police
found it significant.”

“I’m not surprised.”

Bridgewater leaned forward suddenly, placing
his large and sinewy hands upon Ehrengraf’s desk. He looked capable
of yanking the top off it and dashing it against the wall. “Mr.
Ehrengraf,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper, “do you
think I should plead guilty?”

“Of course not.”

“I could plead to a reduced charge.”

“But you’re innocent,” Ehrengraf said. “My
clients are always innocent, Mr. Bridgewater. My fees are high,
sir. One might even pronounce them towering. But I collect them
only if I win an acquittal or if the charges against my client are
peremptorily dismissed. I intend to demonstrate your innocence, Mr.
Bridgewater, and my fee system provides me with the keenest
incentive toward that end.”

“I see.”

“Now,” said Ehrengraf, coming out from behind
his desk and rubbing his small hands briskly together, “let us look
at the possibilities. Your wife ate the same meal you did, is that
correct?”

“It is.”

“And drank the same wine?”

‘Yes. The residue in the bottle was
unpoisoned. But I could have put Cydonex directly into her
glass.”

“But you didn’t, Mr. Bridgewater, so let us
not weigh ourselves down with what you could have done. She became
ill after the meal, I believe you said.”

“Yes. She was headachy and nauseous.”

“Headachy and nauseated, Mr. Bridgewater.
That she was nauseous in the bargain would be a subjective
conclusion of your own. She lay down for a nap?”

“Yes.”

“But first she took something.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“Aspirin, something of that sort?”

“I suppose it’s mostly aspirin,” Bridgewater
said. “It’s a patent medicine called Darnitol. Alyssa took it for
everything from cramps to athlete’s foot.”

“Darnitol,” Ehrengraf said. “An
analgesic?”

“An analgesic, an anodyne, an antispasmodic,
a panacea, a catholicon, a cure-all, a nostrum. Alyssa believed in
it, Mr. Ehrengraf, and my guess would be that her belief was
responsible for much of the preparation’s efficacy. I don’t take
pills, never have, and my headaches seemed to pass as quickly as
hers.” He laughed shortly. “In any event, Darnitol proved an
inadequate antidote for Cydonex.”

“Hmm,” said Ehrengraf.

* * *

“To think it was the Darnitol that killed
her.”

Five weeks had passed since their initial
meeting, and events in the interim had done a great deal to improve
both the circumstances and the spirit of Ehrengraf’s client.
Gardner Bridgewater was no longer charged with his wife’s
murder.

“It was one of the first things I thought
of,” Ehrengraf said. “The police had their vision clouded by the
extraordinary coincidence of your purchase and use of Cydonex as a
vehicle for the extermination of squirrels. But my view was based
on the presumption of your innocence, and I was able to discard
this coincidence as irrelevant. It wasn’t until other innocent men
and women began to die of Cydonex poisoning that a pattern began to
emerge. A schoolteacher in Kenmore. A retired steelworker in
Lackawanna. A young mother in Orchard Park.”

“And more,” Bridgewater said. “Eleven in all,
weren’t there?”

“Twelve,” Ehrengraf said. “But for diabolical
cleverness on the part of the poisoner, he could never have gotten
away with it for so long.”

“I don’t understand how he managed it.”

“By leaving no incriminating residue,”
Ehrengraf explained. “We’ve had poisoners of this sort before,
tainting tablets of some nostrum or other. And there was a man in
Boston, I believe it was, who stirred arsenic into the sugar in
coffee-shop dispensers. With any random mass murder of that sort,
sooner or later a pattern emerges. But this killer only tampered
with a single capsule in each bottle of Darnitol. The victim might
consume capsules with impunity until the one fatal pill was
swallowed, whereupon there would be no evidence remaining in the
bottle, no telltale leftover capsule to give the police a
clue.”

“Good heavens.”

“Indeed. The police did in fact test as a
matter of course the bottles of Darnitol which were invariably
found among the effects. But the pills invariably proved innocent.
Finally, when the death toll mounted high enough, the fact that
Darnitol was associated with every single death proved
indismissable. The police seized drugstore stocks of the
painkiller, and again and again bottles turned out to have a single
tainted capsule in with the legitimate pills.”

“And the actual killer—”

“Will be found, I shouldn’t doubt, in the
course of time.” Ehrengraf straightened his tie, a stylish specimen
showing a half-inch stripe of royal blue flanked by narrower
stripes, one of gold and the other of a green, all displayed on a
field of navy blue. The tie was that of the Caedmon Society, and it
brought back memories. “Some disgruntled employee of the Darnitol
manufacturer, I shouldn’t wonder,” said Ehrengraf carelessly.
“That’s usually the case in this sort of affair. Or some unbalanced
chap who took the pill himself and was unhappy with the results.
Twelve dead, plus your wife of course, and a company on the verge
of ruin, because I shouldn’t think too many people are rushing down
to their local pharmacy and purchasing Extra-Strength
Darnitol.”

“There’s a joke going round,” Bridgewater
said, flexing his large and sinewy hands. “Patient calls his
doctor, says he’s got a headache, an upset stomach, whatever.
Doctor says, ‘Take Darnitol and call me in the Hereafter.’”

“Indeed.”

Bridgewater frowned. “I suppose,” he said,
“the real killer may never be found.”

“Oh, I suspect he will,” Ehrengraf said. “In
the interests of rounding things out, you know. And, speaking of
rounding things out, sir, if you’ve your checkbook with you—”

“Ah, yes,” said Bridgewater. He made his
check payable to Martin H. Ehrengraf and filled in the sum, which
was a large one. He paused then, his pen hovering over the space
for his signature. Perhaps he reflected for a moment on the curious
business of paying so great an amount to a person who, on the face
of it, had taken no concrete action on his behalf.

But who is to say what thoughts go through a
man’s mind? Bridgewater signed the check, tore it from the
checkbook, and presented it with a flourish.

“What would you drink with veal?” he
demanded.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You said the Nuits-St.-Georges would be
overpowering with veal. What would you choose?”

“I shouldn’t choose veal in the first place.
I don’t eat meat.”

“Don’t eat meat?” Bridgewater, who looked as
though he’d cheerfully consume a whole lamb at a sitting, was
incredulous. “What
do
you eat?”

“Tonight I’m having a nut-and-soybean
casserole,” the little lawyer said. He blew on the check to dry the
ink, folded it, and put it away. “Nuits-St.-Georges should do
nicely with it,” he said. “Or perhaps a good bottle of
Chambertin.”

* * *

The Chambertin and the nut-and-soybean
casserole that it had so superbly complemented were but a memory
four days later when a uniformed guard ushered the little lawyer
into the cell where Evans Wheeler awaited him. The lawyer, neatly
turned out in a charcoal-gray-flannel suit with a nipped-in waist,
a blue shirt, and a navy tie with a below-the-knot design,
contrasted sharply in appearance with his prospective client.
Wheeler, as awkwardly tall and thin as a young Lincoln, wore
striped overalls and a denim shirt. His footwear consisted of a
pair of chain-store running shoes. The lawyer wore highly polished
cordovan loafers.

And yet, Ehrengraf noted, the young man was
poised enough in his casual costume. It suited him, even to the
stains and chemical burns on the overalls and the ragged patch on
one elbow of the workshirt.

“Mr. Ehrengraf,” said Wheeler, extending a
bony hand. “Pardon the uncomfortable surroundings. They don’t go
out of their way to make suspected mass murderers comfortable.” He
smiled ruefully. “The newspapers are calling it the crime of the
century.”

“That’s nonsense,” said Ehrengraf. “The
century’s not over yet. But the crime’s unarguably a monumental
one, sir, and the evidence against you would seem to be
particularly damning.”

“That’s why I want you on my side, Mr.
Ehrengraf.”

“Well,” said Ehrengraf.

“I know your reputation, sir. You’re a
miracle worker, and it looks as though that’s what I need.”

“What you very likely need,” Ehrengraf said,
“is a master of delaying tactics. Someone who can stall your case
for as long as possible to let some of the heat of the moment be
discharged. Then, when public opinion has lost some of its fury, he
can arrange for you to plead guilty to homicide while of unsound
mind. Some sort of insanity defense might work, or might at least
reduce the severity of your sentence.”

“But I’m innocent, Mr. Ehrengraf.”

“I wouldn’t presume to say otherwise, Mr.
Wheeler, but I don’t know that I’d be the right person to undertake
your defense. I charge high fees, you see, which I collect only in
the event that my clients are entirely exonerated. This tends to
limit the nature of my clients.”

“To those who can afford you.”

“I’ve defended paupers. I’ve defended the
poor as a court-appointed attorney and I volunteered my services on
behalf of a poet. But in the ordinary course of things, my clients
seem to have two things in common. They can afford my high fees.
And, of course, they’re innocent.”

“I’m innocent.”

“Indeed.”

“And I’m a long way from being a pauper, Mr.
Ehrengraf. You know that I used to work for Triage Corporation, the
manufacturer of Darnitol.”

“So I understand.”

“You know that I resigned six months
ago.”

“After a dispute with your employer.”

“Not a dispute,” Wheeler said. “I told him
where he could resituate a couple of test tubes. You see, I was in
a position to make the suggestion, although I don’t know that he
was in a position to follow it. On my own time I’d developed a
process for extenuating polymers so as to produce a variable-stress
polymer capable of withstanding—”

Wheeler went on to explain just what the
oxypolymer was capable of withstanding, and Ehrengraf wondered what
the young man was talking about. He tuned in again to hear him say,
“And so my royalty on the process in the first year will be in
excess of six hundred thousand dollars, and I’m told that’s only
the beginning.”

“Only the beginning,” said Ehrengraf.

“I haven’t sought other employment because
there doesn’t seem to be much point in it, and I haven’t changed my
lifestyle because I’m happy as I am. But I don’t want to spend the
rest of my life in prison, Mr. Ehrengraf, nor do I want to escape
on some technicality and be loathed by my neighbors for the
remainder of my days. I want to be exonerated and I don’t care what
it costs me.”

“Of course you do,” said Ehrengraf, drawing
himself stiffly erect. “Of course you do. After all, son, you’re
innocent.”

“Exactly.”

“Although,” Ehrengraf said with a sigh, “your
innocence may be rather tricky to prove. The evidence—”

“Is overpowering.”

“Like Nuits-St.-Georges with veal. A search
of your workroom revealed a full container of Cydonex. You denied
ever having seen it before.”

“Absolutely.”

Ehrengraf frowned. “I wonder if you mightn’t
have purchased it as an aid to pest control. Rats are troublesome.
One is always being plagued by rats in one’s cellar, mice in one’s
pantry, squirrels in one’s attic—”

“And bats in one’s belfry, I suppose, but my
house has always been comfortingly free of vermin. I keep a cat. I
suppose that helps.”

“I’m sure it must, but I don’t know that it
helps your case. You seem to have purchased Cydonex from a
chemical-supply house on North Division Street, where your
signature appears in the poison-control ledger.”

“A forgery.”

“No doubt, but a convincing one. Bottles of
Darnitol, some unopened, others with a single Cydonex-filled
capsule added, were found on a closet shelf in your home. They seem
to be from the same lot as those used to murder thirteen
people.”