Scam

confronted him with it. When he admitted it was his, it didn’t matter anymore. I remember sticking it in front of his face. To the best of my recollection, I left it on his desk.”
    “It’s not there now.”
    “No, I would assume he threw it out.”
    “And the paper you say he cut this out from—that was in his wastebasket?”
    “Yes, it was.”
    “Is it there now?”
    “I didn’t look, but I would assume that it’s been dumped.”
    “Why would you assume that?”
    “Because it was yesterday. I would assume the offices are cleaned.”
    “Every day?”
    “As to that, I have no idea. Maybe it’s there, maybe it’s gone. But this is silly.” I jerked my thumb. “The office is right next door. We could take a look.”
    “We can and will take a look,” Belcher said. “But I assure you this is not silly. The questions matter, and your answers matter. Your opinion is what’s important here.”
    Oh, boy.
    I said nothing. Sat. Waited.
    “At any rate,” Belcher said, “it is your statement that Cranston Pritchert admitted to you that he, himself, had fashioned the extortion letter out of headlines cut from the newspaper?”
    “That’s right.”
    “And what exactly did the letter say?”
    “I saw you in the singles bar.”
    “That’s all?”
    “That’s all.”
    “Was the letter signed?”
    “It was not.”
    “And the reason your client gave you for fabricating this letter?”
    “He wanted me to find this girl. He thought I wasn’t taking it seriously enough. He wanted to give me added incentive.”
    “Those were his exact words?”
    “That’s the gist of it, yes.”
    “And when you say that’s the gist of it …?”
    “That is an entirely accurate assessment of his stated intent.”
    “Uh-huh. Now then. You did as your client asked and tracked down this girl?”
    “Yes, I did.”
    “You communicated this to him?”
    “That’s right.”
    “At the same time you informed him that you had located the girl’s agent, and that she was the only one who had had contact with the man who hired her?”
    “That’s right.”
    “And he instructed you to ignore this agent?”
    “Yes, he did.”
    “But you called on her anyway?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Why?”
    I frowned. “That’s a tough question. The thing is, I’d been working on this for days. And I finally got a lead. A good, solid lead. More than a lead. A break. I not only found the girl, I found someone who actually met the guy who hired the girl. Which had to be the payoff. I mean, how can you not follow that up?”
    “I see,” Belcher said. “You found that frustrating?”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “It was frustrating that your client didn’t want to follow up the lead?”
    “Yes, it was.”
    “So much so that you followed it up on your own initiative?”
    “Yes, I did.”
    “And then when you follow it up, you find out the girl was employed by a man who looks exactly like your client.”
    “That’s a generalization.”
    “But an accurate one. The man was described as looking like your client.”
    “It was a very general description.”
    “Granted. But in your own mind, when you heard that description, who was the first person you thought it might be?”
    “My client.”
    “Isn’t that the reason you came here tonight? Isn’t that what you said? To ask your client if he was the man who went to the talent agency to hire the girl?”
    “That’s right.”
    “You had reason to be very angry with your client, didn’t you?”
    “Not angry enough to shoot him.”
    “Shoot him? Are you making a confession here?”
    “I just said I didn’t shoot him.”
    “I heard what you said. That’s a self-serving declaration, and means very little, but your denial is now on record. You claim you did not shoot your client, Cranston Pritchert?”
    “I did not.”
    “You were angry with him?”
    “Yes.”
    “You came here tonight to confront him?”
    “In a way.
    “Did you come here to confront him?”
    “Yes, I did.”
    “You were angry with him, and you came here to confront him?”
    “Yes.”
    “But you didn’t kill him?”
    What a sorry state of affairs.

22.
    T HE COP IN THE LOBBY never stood a chance. MacAullif steamrolled him as if he wasn’t even there. He never even broke stride. He whipped his shield out as he came in the front door, leveled his finger at the cop, and said, “Don’t give me any shit, I happen to be a sergeant, you’re supposed to guard this suspect, fine, you guard him