The Anonymous Client

as far as I know, it has nothing to do with the murder.”
    “Well, I’m telling you that it does,” Dirkson said. “I am hereby informing you that that list of numbers is a valuable piece of evidence in a murder case, and I am asking you in my official capacity as District Attorney to turn it over to the police. Now then, do you intend to do so?”
    “Certainly,” Steve said. He produced the list and passed it over to Stams. “I’d hate to make Sergeant Stams go to the trouble of having me frisked again.”
    Sergeant Stams whipped a notebook from his pocket and began comparing numbers.
    “Now then,” Steve said. “You’ve got what you wanted. Tracy and I aren’t talking, and Taylor’s made his statement. I think this is where we came in.”
    Dirkson shook his head. “I’m afraid not, Winslow. I warned you what would happen if I connected you with those thousand dollar bills.”
    “You can’t hold me without a warrant,” Steve said.
    Dirkson shook his head sadly. “I’m trying to give you a break. If you cooperate, I might be able to save you the embarrassment of a formal arrest. But if you want me to swear out a warrant, I will.”
    “You don’t have the grounds to issue a warrant.”
    “I didn’t before, but I sure do now. Those serial numbers clinch the case. Bradshaw withdraws the bills from the bank Monday. You get the numbers Tuesday. Bradshaw gets bumped off Wednesday. The bills are found in his pocket, and you’re found in his apartment. Now put all that together and tell me if I can get a warrant.”
    Sergeant Stams cleared his throat. “Excuse me, but—”
    “Just a minute,” Dirkson said. “I just want to make sure Winslow knows where he stands. Now then, Winslow, you’re not leaving here until you answer some questions. We can do it the easy way or the hard way. It’s entirely up to you.”
    Stams cleared his throat again.
    “Yes, what is it?” Dirkson snapped.
    “I’m sorry,” Stams said. “But there’s been some kind of flimflam here. The numbers on the list don’t match.”
    “What?”
    Stams shook his head. “That’s right. None of the numbers match. Winslow must have switched lists.”
    Dirkson’s face began to purple. “Son of a bitch!” he hissed. “By god, Winslow, if you switched lists—”
    “You’ll have a hell of a time proving that,” Steve said, “after the bank teller gets through testifying that the numbers are genuine.”
    Dirkson hesitated a second, trying to gauge if Winslow was bluffing. He figured he couldn’t be. Not if he expected the bank teller to back him up. “Damn it,” Dirkson said, “if you didn’t switch lists, then you switched the bills themselves.”
    “That’s a fine theory,” Steve said, “if you can find any way to prove it, be sure to let me know. In the meantime, I’ve done all I can here. Tracy, Mark. I think we’ve taken up enough of these gentlemen’s time. After all, they have a murder to solve.”
    Steve bowed to Stams and Dirkson, and ushered Tracy and Mark Taylor out.

17.
    T RACY G ARVIN COULD HARDLY CONTAIN herself. She was seated across the table from Steve Winslow in a small diner three blocks from the courthouse. Steve had brushed aside all her questions, even after Mark Taylor, who didn’t want to hear the answers, had hailed a cab and beat a hasty retreat back to his office. Now she waited in mounting frustration while a tired waitress plodded over and slid cups of coffee in front of them.
    As the waitress departed, Tracy looked up at Steve and said, “Now?”
    Steve dumped cream in his coffee. “Yeah, now.”
    “What happened?”
    “You first. You heard it on the news, right?”
    Tracy gave him an exasperated look, but realized argument would be futile. He wasn’t going to talk till she did. “Yeah. I’d gone home, and I told Mark Taylor to call me if anything happened, but he hadn’t called, and I was listening to the radio, you know, in case they had more details about the Harding thing. Then the news came on about Bradshaw. I called information and your number was listed, so I tried to call you. Of course, you weren’t there. So I figured he’d called you and you’d beat it to Bradshaw’s apartment. So I hopped a cab and went over there.”
    “And what happened?”
    “You know what happened. I walked into a trap.”
    “How?”
    “I was stupid. When I got to the building there were no cop cars, nothing. I couldn’t understand it. I mean, this was a murder site. I