Scam

framed you isn’t gonna fly. The guy’ll just sit back and laugh at you, and who could blame him?”
    “Yeah, but that’s what Richard has to do—create reasonable doubt.”
    “Yeah, and the operative word is reasonable. I hate to break it to you, but, Hey, I was framed, is not that original an idea. Hell, every other punk we pick up claims he was framed.”
    “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.”
    “Hey, you don’t have to sell me. But you have to sell them, and they ain’t buyin’. Now, this Belcher thing—if you can prove it, fine. But if all you got is what you got now, I’m tellin’ you it’s not a theory you wanna advance.”
    “So what do I do?”
    “You find another way. Now, before you went out to this agent’s house, as I understand it, you call on these two broads.”
    “Yeah. So?”
    “You take your car?”
    My eyes widened. “Are you trying to suggest …?”
    “If Belcher didn’t frame you, someone else did.”
    “But he did frame me.”
    “Can you prove it? If not, you look for something else. Now, these women you called on—which one was first?”
    “The granddaughter. What’s her name. Amy Greenberg. So young she makes you seem senile.”
    “Uh-huh,” MacAullif said. “And where’s she live?”
    “Scarsdale.”
    “So you took your car?”
    “Sure.”
    “Did she have an opportunity to plant the gun?”
    “Did she? Let me think. Sure. She backed her car out of the driveway so I could get out. While I was inside calling the office.”
    “Could she have planted the gun then?”
    “Sure. I don’t think my car was even locked.”
    “There you are,” MacAullif said. “That’s ten times better than Belcher.”
    “Why?”
    “Because she can’t disprove it. Plus, she isn’t set up to come back at you. What about the other woman?”
    “What about her?”
    “Where was your car?”
    “East 78th Street. Parked right in front of her building.”
    “She have an opportunity to go near it?”
    “No.”
    “How do you know?”
    “Because I saw her leave.”
    “How come?”
    “She went to lunch with one of her husband’s business associates. I thought that was interesting, so I tailed along.”
    “In the car?”
    “No.”
    “You left it there?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Where anyone could have got in, planted the gun?”
    “Like who?”
    “Like whoever killed those people. How do I know, like who? The point is, they could have.”
    “I suppose.”
    “There’s no supposing about it. How about after lunch. You tail the woman home?”
    “Actually, no. I went off on a job.”
    “In the car?”
    “No, on foot. It was just down the block.”
    “What about after?”
    “After the job?”
    “Yeah.”
    “I went back to the restaurant, the woman was gone.”
    “Well, there you are,” MacAullif said. “What was to stop her from going home and planting the gun?”
    “She didn’t know it was my car.”
    “No?”
    “No.”
    “She couldn’t have seen you out the window when you drove up?”
    “Her apartment’s on the fourteenth floor.”
    “Even so.”
    “And she didn’t know I was coming.”
    “How about when you left?”
    “That’s very far-fetched.”
    “How about the guy she went to lunch with?”
    “What about him?”
    “How’d you know she was going to lunch?”
    “I saw him go in.”
    “When?”
    “When I went out.”
    “Did he see you?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “Did he know you?”
    “If he did, he knew me as someone else.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I was up in Cranston Pritchert’s office once. He introduced me as a client.”
    “Interesting,” MacAullif said. “Then seeing you would register.”
    “Possibly.”
    “So he sees you come out of the building and get into your car. So he goes up and calls on the widow, and says, Hey, what was that client of Cranston’s doing coming around? She says, Client, what client? A private detective he hired was just here. Well, this guy can put two and two together, figures out who you are, and knows where your car’s parked.”
    “And plants the gun in it?”
    “Or tells her so she can. Which flies very nicely,” MacAullif said. “A guy gets killed, nine times out of ten the wife did it. Here she is with a boyfriend on the side, say they’re in it together, no problem there. He tips her off to you and they say, Bingo, and plant the gun.”
    “But that’s not what happened.”
    “Doesn’t matter,” MacAullif said. “All you need is something your lawyer can argue.