Look, I said, “the thing that makes the case so black against your boss is that three shells being fired from his gun. It looks as though he’d done all the shooting.”
“Well, he didn’t. He said someone fired at him out of the darkness and he could see the little spurts of flame which came from the muzzle of the gun when the shots were fired.”
“I know,” I said, “and if everyone on the jury knew him as well as you do, he’d probably be acquitted. But there are going to be people from both political camps on the jury. He’ll have some friends who have no doubt as to his honesty. But there’ll be others who have been influenced by the Marlin Morning Star. In their eyes he’s the devil’s chief deputy.”
She said, “The way the Star has been lying about him is terrible. It’s just been a malicious campaign of insinuations, innuendoes, and downright lies. I’m glad Dalton was killed!”
“I m sure,” I said, “there are lots of people who aren’t shedding any tears over Dalton. But he seems to have been a pretty good publicity man. He got his stuff across. About two-thirds of the town thinks your boss is a crook.”
Edith started to cry again then, and I said, “Now, take it easy. If you want to help him, you can’t do it by roaming around with a flashlight in the dark and crying over the editorials Dalton ran in his newspaper. Do you know what would help him?”
“No,” she asked, looking a little startled. “What would?”
“Well,” I said slowly, “you’d better not stay out here any longer tonight, because I don’t think you’ll find anything. In fact, if you were found here, it might look bad for more than one reason. But if someone else did some searching, and should happen to find a gun lying on the grass or near the edge of the flower bed where it wasn’t too conspicuous, and there were two discharged shells in the cylinder of that gun — well, it would be a cinch that your boss would be acquitted.”
“Just a little thing like that?” she asked, and I could tell from the tone of her voice that she was doing a lot of thinking.
“A little thing like that,” I said, “would change the whole picture. It would make it appear that Dalton had gone out to your boss’s house intending to kill him, but had lost his nerve when he saw that Spred was armed, and had started to run. It would look as though he’d turned and fired two shots, at dangerously close range and Spred was forced to shoot back in self-defense.
“There’d be a big switch in public sentiment almost overnight. Your boss would be a martyr and a hero, and the recall election would fail and lots of things would happen, all over something as little and insignificant as a gun.”
“What caliber gun?” Edith asked.
“It wouldn’t make any difference,” I said, “just so long as it was a gun.”
“But how would that explain the fact that no bullets struck anywhere — not even against the side of the house?”
“It might mean that Dalton was so frightened he was shooting wild and missed the side of the house,” I said. “It would give the lawyers something to argue about. And the weight of the evidence would certainly be in Mayor Spred’s favor.”
Edith Forbes nodded. “If there were only some way of accounting for those bullets not hitting the house we could get a hung jury, any way,” she said. “I’m sure of that.”
“Dalton might have been shooting up in the air in order to frighten him,” I said.
“That’s it,” she said quickly. “The important thing is to convince the jury that Dalton fired first.”
Her voice trailed away, and she stood still for a moment, staring at the ground. Abruptly, she asked, “What’s your name?”
“Wennick,” I said, “Pete Wennick.”
“Mr. Wennick,” she said, “I think you’re wonderful. I’m awfully glad I met you tonight. I think perhaps it was fate. Do you have a car?”
“No,” I said, “I came on a bus.”
“Come on,” she said, “I’ll drive you back to town.”
I tucked her arm through mine, and we walked to the long hedge which bordered the alley. She said, “You’ll have to lift me over. I crawled through on my tummy when I got in, but—”
I scooped her up, lifted her over the hedge, and just before I dropped her on the other side, felt her arms around my neck, and the hot circle of her lips pressing against mine.
“You’re wonderful,” she said.
My blood pressure ran up seventy or eighty points, and I almost forgot to be careful about not leaving footprints when I came over the hedge. There was a lot about Edith Forbes I didn’t know, but one thing I was sure — it wasn’t the first time she’d ever kissed a man.
Her car was an inexpensive, new model convertible, and she was a good driver.
As we got out where the city lights were a little on the garish side I studied her profile carefully. She was chestnut-haired with a snug-fitting hat, a nose which turned up, and a mouth that I already knew about.
I was interested in thinking of possibilities which I hoped might materialize into a chain of events. I figured I could trust this girl, and if I was going to give stuffed-shirt Cedric Boniface very many breaks, I certainly needed someone I could trust.
Abruptly, she turned to me and said, “I’m going to an apartment. I want you to keep out of circulation for two hours, and then knock twice on the door.”
“It will be after midnight, if I have to wait that long.”
“That’s all right,” she said. “The door will be unlocked.”
“Some girl’s apartment?” I asked.
She hesitated for a moment, then said: “No, my boy friend.”
“Oh-oh,” I said.
“Now listen, what’s your first name again?”
“Pete.”
“All right Pete. Don’t be like that. This boy is Carl Gail, and he’s smart. He knows his way around. I think you’ll like him. In any event, he can help us.”
“Well, why not let me go on up and meet him. That way we’ll be two hours to the good before we start? After all, we haven’t unlimited time.”
“No,” she said, “I’m going to have to prepare him for this, and it will take a little time.”
“Two hours,” I said, “would give you time for a plane trip to Miami and back. Almost, anyway.”
“We have things to do.”
I started to ask some more questions, and then decided to keep quiet. She swung the car down a side street off the main boulevard and came to a district where old-fashioned residences stood elbow to elbow with tall apartment houses.
She said, “They keep the front door unlocked until one. You come in at twelve-thirty, climb the first flight of stairs, and walk back to apartment eighty-one. Just knock twice and go in. Don’t let anyone see you.”
I did a lot of thinking before I said, “Okay, Edith. It’s your party.”
“And you won’t mind walking wherever you’re going from here, will you? The center of town is straight down that street, and in about two blocks you’ll come to a hotel where there is a taxi stand out in front. There’s at least one cab there all the time. I’m sorry I can’t drive you there, but seconds are precious, and we have things to do.”
I said slowly, “You might tell your boy friend to remember that guns have numbers on them, and can be traced. It would look like hell if anything got traced back to you.”
“Good Lord, Pete,” she said, “I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“I’ll be there at twelve-thirty,” I said, and walked around to help her out of the car. She gave me a flash of legs, a quick smile, and was gone.
I walked down a street whistling a little tune, and beginning to think it was a pretty good world after all. It looked like Cedric Boniface might get the breaks he’d been counting on.