Killing the Goose (24 page)

“The trouble is,” she said, “that there's nothing to all this if it's really Beck. Because the only point to any of it is that I don't think it
is
Beck. So there's no point in saying that it's really Beck acting under duress.” She looked at Jerry. “And I can spell duress,” she said. She did. “Because if it is, he'd still sound like Beck. And the point is, he doesn't.”

They thought of that. Jerry didn't agree, fully. He said that the circumstances might very well alter the way Beck sounded.

“I mean,” he said, “if somebody had a gun in my back, I wouldn't sound the way I do now. At least, I shouldn't think anyone would. You'd be nervous and uncertain; you'd probably—I mean in Beck's predicament—be saying things you didn't believe, perhaps even things they had written down for you to say, instead of what you wanted to say. At best, you wouldn't put the same conviction into it.”

Pam said it was very logical; she said that all both of them said was very logical. She said that she thought, just the same, that somebody had stolen Beck and that it was an impersonation.

“And after all,” she said, “I listened to him. Jerry didn't, really, and you, Bill—you were off arresting Mr. Pierson. I was the one who discovered it wasn't Mr. Beck, really, and it's
my
theory you're both explaining away. Only as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't go away.”

“Right,” Bill said. “You stick to your theory, Pam. And—just on the chance there's something to it—don't go off on your own and try to prove it. If you get to feeling that you want to, remember Elliot. Just to reassure you, I'll look into it. Right?”

“Well—” Pam said. “If you'll
really
, look into it. Not just to humor me, but to find out something. As if you thought there was something to find out. Only I'm not sure you can, because you don't believe it yourself.”

Bill didn't like that, and his expression said so. He said he was serious; very serious. Even if she was not really right in her theory, she might run into something if she tried to find out about it by herself.

“Damn it, Pam,” Bill said, “it's dangerous.”

“It's not dangerous if Pierson is the man,” Pam pointed out. “You've got him locked up. If you really believe your own theory, it doesn't matter
what
I do, because there isn't any danger.”

Bill Weigand smiled faintly. He stood up.

“All right,” he said. “I'm not sure enough about Pierson to risk anybody's life on it. Particularly yours, my dear.”

He was rather grave about it. But Jerry seemed confident. He told Bill not to worry.

“Because,” he said, “I'll see she doesn't get into any trouble. This time, I'll keep her locked up.”

Bill seemed relieved by that, and went on toward the magistrate's court and the arraignment of Alfred Pierson. It was not until he had gone that Pam, very innocently, reminded Jerry that he was going to be on the radio himself that evening—on a book program—and that he couldn't very well be there and still keep an eye on her.

“Unless you mean really lock me up,” she said. “And you couldn't do that on account of fire.”

Jerry was not as taken aback as Pam expected. He pointed out that he could take her with him. He added that that was precisely what he planned to do.

XIII.
Thursday, 10:20 A.M. to 9:35 P.M.

Justice moved briskly through the preliminary stages of the case of the State of New York vs. Alfred Pierson. Pierson was sandwiched between a jostling case, which involved a known pickpocket, and a charge of simple assault. Pierson looked rested. He had managed to get a fresh suit and he sat with an attorney of reputation and presence. The reputation was in some respects a little curious; it was the jaundiced view of the police department that Francis D. Kendall had never knowingly defended an innocent man. Juries, however, rather consistently disagreed with the Police Department, and most of Mr. Kendall's clients went out, finally, into the free air. They did not, the police felt, notably freshen it.

The preliminary hearing of Mr. Kendall's new client, before Magistrate Barrsmith, was exceedingly brief. Mr. Pierson pleaded not guilty on the short affidavit, signed by Police Lieutenant William Weigand and charging suspicion of homicide. He waived preliminary examination. Magistrate Barrsmith ordered him held without bail for action of the Grand Jury, gave a suspended sentence in the simple assault case, and regarded Franklin Martinelli, held by the police as a material witness. Martinelli remained small and truculent.

The District Attorney's office, represented by an exceptionally downy assistant district attorney, asked that Franklin Martinelli be held in substantial bail as a material witness in the case of the State of New York vs. Alfred Pierson, charged with homicide in connection with the death of one Ann Lawrence.

“The man who was just before your honor,” the downy assistant district attorney reminded Magistrate Barrsmith.

“I remember, counselor,” the magistrate said testily. “The court it not wholly without intelligence.”

“No sir,” the assistant district attorney said. Magistrate Barrsmith regarded him narrowly, apparently considering the answer equivocal.

“Well,” Magistrate Barrsmith said. “What do you claim he knows about the case?”

“The State expects, through this witness, to place the defendant Pierson at the scene of the crime,” the assistant district attorney told him. “The State considers the evidence which will be given by Mr. Martinelli very material.”

“This court,” Magistrate Barrsmith said, thinking that if things went on as they were he would really have to see a doctor about his digestion, “does not lightly regard the tendency of the police to regard every citizen, regardless of his rights
as
a citizen and regardless of his presumptive need to make a living, as a mere pawn in the efforts of the police to—”

It came over Magistrate Barrsmith, gloomily, that he did not know precisely where he was going next. This was embarrassing, because the man from the AP local had started to take down what the court did not lightly regard. The other reporters who were covering Pierson's arraignment were not taking it down, but they would get it from the AP man if it was hot enough. Magistrate Barrsmith was unhappily aware that it had cooled off. The AP man, looking a little tired, had stopped taking it down.

Magistrate Barrsmith looked darkly at the downy assistant district attorney.

“You were about to say something, counselor?” he inquired, in icy tones.

The assistant district attorney, who had had no intention of saying anything, and was merely waiting, with rather awed curiosity, to see how the magistrate's sentence came out, jumped.

“No, your honor,” he said. “I wasn't going to say anything.”

“Then don't interrupt,” Magistrate Barrsmith advised, belligerently.

The young representative of the majesty of the State of New York was overcome with a mysterious sense of guilt.

“I'm very sorry, sir,” he said.

“Well,” the magistrate said, inconclusively. “Where was I?”

His tone did not invite anyone to tell him where he was.

“Oh, yes,” he said, “I don't hold with this business—this custom—of the police locking up everybody they think might know something about a crime. At a time when the country needs the hand of every worker if it is to triumph in this vital war against the forces of evil, it is essential that no man's work be interrupted without due cause. What do you claim this boy saw, counselor?”

The counselor looked around at Weigand.

“The defendant going into the house of the deceased,” Weigand said. “At about the time set by the Medical Examiner's office for the killing. This man will testify that the defendant Pierson stayed from half to three-quarters of an hour, all of the period being included in the critical time.”

“Well,” the magistrate said, “what was this man doing there? Have you thought of that, Lieutenant?”

Lieutenant Weigand wished inwardly that Magistrate Barrsmith would do something about his digestion. Or only hold court after lunch, which always seemed to soothe him.

“That question has come up, your honor,” Weigand said. “That is one of the reasons we would like to have him held in substantial bail. Your honor will understand that the inquiry is not completed. And this witness is not engaged in essential war work, your honor. His draft board has classified him as 1A.”

The magistrate looked sharply at Bill Weigand, who looked back mildly.

“When is this going before the Grand Jury, Lieutenant?” he wanted to know. Weigand looked at the assistant district attorney.

“As soon as these formalities are completed, your honor,” the attorney said, unwisely.

“Formalities?” Magistrate Barrsmith repeated. “So you consider this purely a formality, counselor? You regard this court as a pure formality, do you?”

Weigand found himself wishing that the downy young attorney would forget himself and answer “Yes.” Merely for the cause of honesty. But the attorney was not that downy.

“No, sir, certainly not,” he said. Magistrate Barrsmith seemed mollified.

“Well,” he said. “It isn't. And you've wasted enough of its time, counselor. What bail do you suggest?”

“Ten thousand dollars,” the attorney said.

Magistrate Barrsmith seemed bored. The reporters seemed bored.

“So ordered,” Magistrate Barrsmith said. “Let's get on with it. Next case.”

The reporters left with the assistant district attorney, Weigand and Mullins, Pierson and Mr. Kendall, Franklin Martinelli. They had not, Magistrate Barrsmith feared—correctly—taken down anything he said. It was lamentably hard to get in the newspapers from a magistrate's bench, unless you disagreed publicly with Butch. And it was not particularly wise to disagree publicly with Butch.

Justice slowed down somewhat after the magistrate's court. The Grand Jury wanted to hear a good deal of testimony, and did. It heard from the auditors, it heard from Martinelli, it heard from the Medical Examiner's office and from Detective Lieutenant William Weigand and from Deputy Chief Inspector Artemus O'Malley. It adjourned for lunch and consultation, convened and heard from representatives of Estates Incorporated, from Max Silverstone, who went white again when he told how Mrs. Pennock's body had fallen on him. The jury also heard of the death of Frances McCalley and of that of John Elliot.

Built up, with all the issues stated, it made a convincing case, Weigand thought as he listened to the parade of witnesses. If you could get all this before a trial jury—but the trouble was you couldn't. The Grand Jury had wide latitude; the defense did not answer back. Half, anyway, of what the Grand Jury had heard by four o'clock that afternoon, the trial jury would never be allowed to hear. The State could not even try to give the trial jury so full a picture, since it would state its case on the murder of Ann Lawrence. That had been decided at a brief conference before the Grand Jury hearing began. But the State decided, also, that it would take whatever it could get out of the Grand Jury, so as to have something in reserve.

At ten minutes after five, the Grand Jury handed up indictments to Judge Washburn in General Sessions charging Alfred Pierson with the crime of murder in the first degree in connection with the deaths of Ann Lawrence, Frances McCalley, Florence Pennock and John Elliot. It also, in a fifth indictment, charged him with grand larceny on three counts in connection with his manipulation of the estate of Ann Lawrence, deceased, and with second degree forgery. (This last legal anticlimax grew out of certain alterations in records which auditors testified had been corollary to the theft of most of Miss Lawrence's once comforting fortune.)

Judge Washburn issued bench warrants on each indictment and they were duly served on Alfred Pierson, who was already in the new Tombs. Pierson was immediately taken before Judge Washburn and pleaded not guilty, severally, to all indictments. He was remanded to the Tombs, without bail. The Chief Magistrate signed an order dismissing the charge of homicide against Pierson, in view of the superseding indictment. The State of New York was now, formally, ready to proceed. With luck, it might find a gap in the court calendar in about three weeks.

There were few things more tiring than the law, Weigand thought as, with Mullins, he ate a nondescript dinner in a nondescript restaurant at a few minutes after seven. Because whatever Magistrate Barrsmith might like to say in public, this had been a day of pure formality. It had been speeded up, in consideration of the public interest in the case. It had been essential; it all had its vital part in the fair administration of justice. Weigand would not have seen—he would have fought as hard as he could against—any shortcutting of the procedure, because only in the procedure lay protection for the individual. But it had, in fact, been cut and dried.

There had been no reasonable doubt that Pierson would waive preliminary hearing; no possible doubt that Magistrate Barrsmith, in view of the waiver, would order him held without bail. There had not been any actual doubt that the police desire to have Franklin Martinelli kept in storage would be acquiesced in; even less that the Grand Jury, after satisfying itself of a prima facie case, would return indictments. All that was doubtful lay ahead, as it had lain from the start. Could they make the case stick when it came to trial? Nothing else mattered but that.

The rub there was evident.

“We can't show exclusive opportunity,” Weigand said. “Or even exclusive motive. The defense can raise a doubt. How about Martinelli? the defense will say. How about Cleo Harper? How about Elliot as murderer and suicide? We're going to need more. A lot more, Sergeant.”

“Yeah,” Mullins agreed. He drank thin coffee out of a thick cup. “And if Mrs. North gets in with her theory about somebody stealing Mr. Beck—Jeeze!”