The Baxter Trust

“Know what?”
    “Did you know he was guilty?”
    “What’s the difference?”
    “I’d like to know.”
    “Why?”
    “Because you’re my lawyer, and what happens to me depends on you, and I need to know how you work. Did you know he was guilty?”
    He sighed. “I found out later. I didn’t know at the time.”
    “What do you mean at the time?”
    “When I did it. Pulled the stunt. I believed the story, what the other lawyers on the case told me. The guy was innocent, the cops had gotten the wrong man, and were trying to force an identification. It’s an old line. Only I was the one who swallowed it.”
    “Would you have done it if you’d known?”
    “Hell, no.” Steve rubbed his head. “But I was stupid. I read it wrong. I thought it was a case of an innocent man being wronged. It wasn’t. It was a case of some rich son of a bitch hiring a bunch of high-priced lawyers to try to get himself out of a mess. And I helped. Like a damn fool, I helped. It’s kind of funny, really. My one act as a lawyer, and what did it do? It got me fired, it let some rich bastard beat the rap, and it earned good old Wilson and Doyle a whopping big fee.”
    Sheila was looking at him closely. “You wouldn’t have done it if you’d known he was guilty?”
    “Didn’t I just say that?”
    “Yeah. You did. Are you telling me you wouldn’t defend me if you thought I was guilty?”
    “I wasn’t telling you that, no.”
    “But you wouldn’t, would you?”
    “No.”
    “What would you do?”
    “If I thought you were guilty? I’d withdraw from the case.”
    “Well,” she said, sarcastically. “Isn’t that just fine. Here you are, defending me, and any time things start to look a little black, you can just decide I’m guilty and walk away.”
    “That isn’t going to happen.”
    “Oh? Why not?”
    “Because you’re innocent.”
    “Oh, you’ve decided that, have you? Of course you have, or you wouldn’t have taken the case. Well, that’s just great. And just why are you so sure I’m innocent?”
    The needling was getting to him. “I’ll tell you why,” he snapped. “Because of what I told you before. Because you’re a shrewd, calculating, manipulative woman. Because, whatever else you are, you’re not dumb. Now, I wouldn’t put it past you to have killed this guy—you might have done it—but not like that. It’s too stupid. You kill him in your apartment with your knife after taking his blackmail letter to the police, and you haven’t even thought up a decent story to tell. All you say is, ‘I don’t know who he is, I don’t know what he’s doing here, I don’t know who killed him.’ I mean, hell, you’re either the stupidest murderer that ever lived, or else you’re innocent.”
    “Oh, great,” she said. “That’s why you think I’m innocent. That I couldn’t be that stupid. Not that you have any confidence in me.”
    “Confidence in you?” he said. “Hell, you change your story every time I talk to you. You really inspire confidence.” Suddenly he felt very tired. “All right, that’s the story. That’s the way things are. Now you know the whole thing. And you know where we stand. So it’s up to you. You want to fire me?”
    She looked at him. “If I do, it means the end of your law practice, doesn’t it?”
    He smiled mirthlessly. “I have no law practice. At least I’ll be twenty-five grand to the good.”
    “No, you won’t. Uncle Max will stop payment on the check.”
    He shook his head. “Don’t kid yourself. I cashed that check the minute his bank opened this morning.”
    She smiled. “You know, you’re not as dumb as you look.”

28.
    M ARK T AYLOR WAS JUST HANGING up the phone when Steve Winslow walked in and tossed a wad of money on his desk.
    “Here,” he said. “Credit this to my account.”
    Taylor picked it up, snapped off the rubber band and riffled through it. He whistled.
    “Say,” he said. “You weren’t shitting me about a big retainer.”
    “Would I lie to you?” Steve pulled up a chair and sat down. “So what’s new?”
    “Not much. The lid’s still on tight. Most of the stuff I’m getting is the stuff that doesn’t matter, the stuff the cops are feeding to the papers anyway.”
    “Such as?”
    Taylor shrugged. “Character assassination, largely. They got a next-door neighbor, a Mrs. Rosenthal. She’s got the apartment right next to Sheila Benton’s. She’s the snoopy-busybody-gossipy-old-lady type. Her story is that