The Baxter Trust

There’s no way you could testify.”
    “I know,” Steve said. “I was bluffing. I know the law. I just figured you didn’t.”
    Max glared at him. “You’re just lucky you cashed that check as quickly as you did.”
    “Oh yeah? Well, now I think you’re bluffing. Let me ask you something. When did you consult your attorneys?”
    “What’s that got to do with it?”
    Steve grinned. “It’s got everything to do with it. Here you are, striding around, saying, ‘Boy are you lucky you cashed that check in’ time.’ I think that’s bullshit. You want to have me believe that when you talked to your attorneys, it was too late to stop payment on that check. It never happened that way and you know it. You’re not that kind of guy. You didn’t wait till this morning to call your attorneys. You got ’em out of bed last night, and you told ’em the whole thing, and they told you what the law was. You could have stopped payment on the check, but you didn’t. And you wouldn’t. I could have that check in my pocket right now, and it would still be good, ’cause you have no intention of stopping payment on it.”
    Steve paused, put his feet up on the coffee table and relaxed into the couch. “You see,” he said, “I have you by the balls. You don’t want to admit it, and that’s why you’re making these hollow ‘you’re lucky you cashed it in time’ remarks, but that happens to be the fact. Because, despite what your lawyers told you, which happens to be absolutely true, you can’t get away from the underlying threat in what I told you. Because, if you didn’t pay me, even if I couldn’t testify, there would always be a way of leaking what I know to the district attorney. And the thing is, you don’t know me well enough, and there’s nothing you can find out about me to convince you one way or another as to whether I’d be unscrupulous enough to do that. And you just can’t take the chance.
    “So, like it or not, I’m Sheila Benton’s attorney, and you just have to get used to the fact. So, if you would be so kind as to give a message to Marston, Marston, and Cramden the next time you talk to them, please tell them this—lay off my client. Butt out. Because if they don’t, I am going to file a complaint with the Grievance Committee, charging them with tampering with a client and attempting to solicit her away from her attorney. And from what I know about the conservative, respectable firm of Marston, Marston, and Cramden, that is going to cause them to choke on their soup.”
    Maxwell Baxter had not been a man of wealth and power for many years without developing a tremendous amount of poise. He showed it now.
    “I see,” he said.
    “But that’s not what I came for,” Steve said.
    “Oh? What did you come for?”
    “I thought perhaps we could talk over the case.”
    “I fail to see what we have to talk about.”
    “Well, for one thing, I just had a talk with Carla Finley. Nice girl. You should meet her.”
    “Who’s Carla Finley.”
    “Your detectives haven’t told you? She was a friend of the late Mr. Greely.”
    “So?”
    “She tells a very interesting story. It seems about a week ago Greely was all excited over something. She didn’t know what it was, but it was something big. He told her in a few weeks he’d have enough money to take her someplace. He told her she’d never have to work again.”
    “So?”
    Steve shrugged. “So, the police theory on this case is cockeyed. They figure Greely knew something that would have cost Sheila her trust fund, so he was putting the bite on her.”
    “Obviously.”
    “But it doesn’t add up. Sheila doesn’t come into her money until she’s thirty-five. No one’s going to get rich blackmailing her. So, I said to myself, if I were a blackmailer, who in this case would I blackmail?”
    “Hypothetically, of course,” Max said ironically.
    “And so I come to you.”
    Max considered that for a moment. “I see. And so you’re going to claim that since Sheila had no money, Greely must have actually been blackmailing me. Therefore I killed him.”
    “It’s a nice theory,” Steve said. “It would at least punch a few holes in the prosecution’s theory of the case.”
    Max shook his head. “Frankly, I don’t think so. The police will claim that Sheila expected to get the money from me.”
    “Of course that’s what they’ll claim. And I’ll have a devil of a time proving otherwise. But you and I both know that’s