The Innocent Woman

up. Uh-oh, I’m in trouble now, what am I gonna do? Then he realizes. Amy. She’s gonna get the message and go down there. All he’s gotta do is—” Steve broke off.
    “What is it?” Tracy said.
    “It just occurred to me.”
    “What?”
    “The answering machine. If Amy got the message and went down there, the answering machine must have been blinking. But it shouldn’t have been if Cunningham heard the message. That’s how you make it stop blinking—you play the message. If it was still blinking, it means after he heard the message, Cunningham must have saved it. You can do that over the phone, right?”
    “Sure,” Tracy said. “You just punch in a code.”
    “And that’s what he must have done. Otherwise, Amy never gets the message at all. Which means he didn’t shoot Fletcher and wake up. He planned to frame her all along.”
    “All along?” Taylor said.
    “I mean from the time he made the call. He hears the message, decides to kill him, and decides to frame her all at once. It had to be, or why would he save the message. In a way, I’m glad.”
    “Why?” Taylor said.
    “Same reason I’m glad he closed the drawer.”
    “What?”
    “The guy blew his brains out. And if you want to look at it that way, I helped him do it. It may be selfish as hell, but I like to think the guy was a creep.”
    “He was a creep,” Tracy said. “We all agree on that. Tell me about the drawer.”
    “Okay,” Steve said. “Cunningham kills Fletcher, intends to frame Amy. He’s left the message for her, so he knows she’s on the way. In point of fact, he has very little time. He kills Fletcher, gets out, waits for nature to take its course. When Amy shows up, he’s across the street, keeping an eye on the building from behind a parked car. He sees her go in, but that’s not enough, he wants to be sure. He waits for the arrival of the cops.
    “Only they don’t come. Instead, he sees Amy go out. Better and better. She didn’t call the cops, she’s running away. That ought to stick her neck in the noose. He tags along just to make sure.
    “What happens? She goes to the corner and makes a call. Then she goes and hangs out on 48th Street. Of course he has no idea why.
    “What happens next?” Steve turned to Tracy. “You show up. Well, Cunningham has no idea who you are, but it sure is interesting. Particularly when Amy takes you up to F. L. Jewelry. And the two of you come out, and the cops still don’t come.
    “You take Amy back to our office. Cunningham’s no dope. He checks the directory in the lobby, sees my name. He and Amy were talking about me at dinner. So now he knows what’s up. Instead of the cops, she called her lawyer. You must be connected with me, Amy must be upstairs in my office. So now he’s on the street waiting for me to show up.
    “Only I don’t. Instead, you come out alone. Would Cunningham tag along? I would think so, when he sees where you’re headed. He follows you back to the office. Wonders what your plan is. Maybe, you’re going to find the body and call the cops. Try to leave Amy out of it. Cunningham wouldn’t like that much, but there isn’t much he could do about it.
    “So, he’s watching to see if the cops show up and, surprise, surprise, you and I both come out. Well, I’m sure Amy’s described me to him, so I’ve got to be the hippie lawyer. So he tags along to see what we do.
    “Well, we go right back to the office. A short while later, Amy comes out alone. Cunningham follows her to the subway, sees she’s headed uptown. Well, he can figure that out—slick, shyster lawyer sent her home so she can come to the office and pretend she just got there.
    “And that’s when Cunningham made the diabolically clever, incredibly shrewd move.
    “He knows the three of us have been in there. We’ve all seen the crime scene. He knows how Amy will describe it to the cops. And he knows she’s gonna show up and try to pretend she just got there the first time. So he thinks to himself, is there anything he could plant there that they would immediately know her story wasn’t true?
    “Then he gets it.
    “Yes, of course.
    “The drawer.
    “He rushes up there, closes the drawer and gets out. It’s the perfect frame. Well, not perfect—Amy might notice the drawer closed before she talks to the cops. But probably not. It’s on the far side of the desk, she’d have to walk around there to see it, and why should she?
    “And if she does, no real harm done. With