The Anonymous Client

street.” She frowned. “You guys checked this all out already.”
    “I know,” Steve said. “But I told you. We have to go over it one more time.”
    “Why?” she said. “I’m telling the truth. You think I can’t tell the same story straight twice?”
    “Not at all,” Steve said. “And I think that will do it.”
    Mark Taylor looked at Steve inquiringly. Steve shook his head.
    “Sorry we bothered you, Miss Keeling. But that’s our job.”
    She ushered them to the door. “But you’ll keep in touch,’ she said.
    “Don’t worry.”
    “And no one else touches that money?”
    “You can bank on it.”
    They came out the front door onto the street.
    Taylor stopped, said, “Thanks, Steve.”
    Steve sighed. “Don’t thank me. She’s got an unimpeachable alibi. If she was in Queens getting her hair done at five o’clock, there’s no way she gets to Bradshaw’s in time.”
    “We could have got the name of the place and checked it out.”
    “She says the cops have checked it out, and I’ll bet they have, too. There’s no way she could have done it.
    “But don’t be too hasty with your thanks. Even so, she’s a beautiful red herring, and if worst comes to worst, I just might have to use her. But for the time being, we let her go.”
    “Fine by me,” Taylor said. “So what do we do now?”
    Steve rubbed his head. “God, I’m tired,” he said. “I’ll tell you. Now we beat it back to the office, put our heads together and try to figure what the fuck all this means.”

42.
    “A SK ME QUESTIONS .”
    Steve Winslow was sprawled out in Mark Taylor’s overstuffed clients’ chair.
    “What kind of questions?” Taylor said.
    Taylor was seated at his desk.
    Tracy Garvin was seated in a straight chair and was holding her shorthand notebook.
    Steve Winslow had just finished going over the entire facts of the case as he knew them. He figured just talking it out would do some good. Mark and Tracy had listened without interruption while Steve rambled on. It was a confused stream of consciousness jumble of facts and theories, and when he finished, Steve Winslow was exhausted.
    “Any questions. Anything you can think of. Anything you’d like to know, no matter how trivial. Just ask ’em.”
    “Me too?” Tracy said.
    “Damn right,” Steve said. “You think of something, fire away.”
    “O.K.,” Tracy said. “Why didn’t Bradshaw want Pauline Keeling around?”
    Steve chuckled. “Too easy. You didn’t meet the woman. You wouldn’t want her around, either.”
    “Who killed Bradshaw?” Taylor said.
    “Come on, Mark,” Steve said. “If we could answer that, we wouldn’t be doing this.”
    “All right, then,” Taylor said, “who got there first, Marilyn or Kemper?”
    “Gotta be Marilyn,” Steve said. “That’s the only way it makes any sense. Kemper missed her at the coffee shop. By the time he got downtown, Marilyn had been in and out.”
    “But if that’s true,” Tracy said, “when Kemper got there he found Bradshaw dead.”
    “Right,” Steve said.
    “Then who was the man the witness heard arguing with Bradshaw?”
    “That’s the key question,” Steve said. “Everything points to Kemper. Except he had to come second. Marilyn had already been in and out. Bradshaw was already dead. You can’t argue with a dead man.”
    “What if there were two men?” Tracy said.
    Steve frowned. “What?”
    “Well, you say Bradshaw was already dead. The witness heard an argument. She couldn’t identify the voices. Everyone’s assuming one of them was Bradshaw, but what if it wasn’t? What if he’s already dead and the argument is between two other men?”
    “One of whom is Kemper?”
    “Not necessarily,” Tracy said.
    Taylor grinned. “You pull this out of one of those mysteries you read?”
    Tracy gave him a dirty look.
    “No, no. Go on,” Steve said. “I like this. This is just what I need. Tell me about the two men.”
    Tracy warmed right up to it. “The two men killed Bradshaw. I don’t know who, I don’t know why, but say they do. They just killed him, and they’re about to leave when Marilyn Harding arrives. They’re trapped in the apartment. They hide in the bedroom. The door is open. Marilyn Harding walks in and finds Bradshaw dead. As you say, she immediately assumes Kemper did it. She’s in an absolute panic, and she gets out of there.
    “The two men come out of the bedroom and they have an argument. About what, I don’t know. Maybe one of them