The Innocent Woman

message?”
    “On Cunningham’s answering-machine.”
    “How is that possible if he had call-forwarding on?”
    “That threw me a while too,” Steve said. “Before I realized Cunningham was lying all the way along. But it works out if you trace his motivation. First off, he’s looking to get laid. He’s going out with Amy Dearborn, he’s looking to score, and that’s number one in his mind.
    “Here’s how I dope it out. He gets home that afternoon, checks his answering machine. There are two messages on it. One is this guy Philip Eckstein, saying he really wants to meet with him that evening to go over some stock. The other is Amy Dearborn, high as a kite, saying she just got home from court, she was acquitted on all counts, and let’s go out to dinner and celebrate.”
    Steve shrugged. “Tough luck for Eckstein. Cunningham never calls him, never gives him a second thought. He calls up Amy Dearborn, says he’ll be right there. He stops long enough to set call-forwarding on his phone so if he gets any more calls they’ll be routed up there. Then he picks up Amy Dearborn and goes out to dinner, at the end of which he calls to check the machine. Since it’s call-forwarding he checks hers, gets the message from Fletcher, and there you are.
    “Now he needs a pretext to get away. Well, he’s got one already. The business meeting. He calls Phil Eckstein, pretends he just got the message from him, tells him to sit tight, he’ll be right over. Then he goes back, tells Amy Dearborn something came up, sends her home, rushes down and kills Fletcher.”
    Dirkson shook his head. “I don’t know.”
    “I do,” Steve said. “When you questioned Eckstein, you knew he was lying, right? About the time element?”
    “Yeah. So?”
    “So, if he’s so transparent, I bet you can break it down.”
    Dirkson frowned. “What do you mean?”
    “The lie Cunningham got him to tell was that the phone call from the restaurant was at eight o’clock. We know it was seven-thirty. That’s the lie, and that’s why the guy’s nervous.
    “The other half of the story—that Cunningham got there at eight-thirty—that happens to be true. Why? Because he went to kill Fletcher first. See, if he called at eight o’clock and went straight to the client’s house, he’d get there at eight-thirty. But if the phone call was seven-thirty and he went right there, he’d get there at eight o’clock.
    “But he didn’t. The eight-thirty part of the story happens to be true. Which doesn’t fit with the seven-thirty phone call we also know to be true.”
    Steve looked at Dirkson. “See where we can break this down?”
    “No, I don’t,” Dirkson said. “What’d he shoot him with, his finger? Where’d he get the gun?”
    “He was carrying the gun.”
    “Why?”
    “Because he was that type of guy.” Steve shrugged. “I’m not a psych major, but this is not particularly deep. He wasn’t scoring in the sack, but he was packing a rod.”
    Judge Wylie nodded. “This just might hold water.”
    “I’m not so sure,” Dirkson said. “Say all that happened. What did he do then?”
    “Splashed back to earth, most likely. He gets the message, he’s a bull who sees red. He goes down to the office, bursts in on Fletcher, takes out his gun and shoots him. Fletcher falls dead and the bubble bursts. Suddenly, he’s no longer the avenging hero, fighting for his young lady’s honor. Suddenly he’s the murderer, the fugitive, the hunted man. Oh my god, what do I do now?”
    “What does he do?”
    “First off, he makes it look like a robbery. The first thing that comes to mind is the petty cash drawer. He and Amy have just been discussing it. He cleans out the petty cash box to make it look like the office had been robbed. Like that’s why Fletcher was killed. He takes the money and splits.” Steve Winslow pointed at Dirkson. “Which is another thing you can check on.”
    “What’s that?”
    “The detective. Samuel Macklin. He had a list of the serial numbers of the twenty-five twenty dollars bills that were in that petty cash drawer. That was admittedly a month ago, but there’s a chance some of those bills were still there. In which case, there’s a chance Cunningham has them. It’s a long shot, but if you check the serial numbers on his bills, you just might get lucky.”
    “Yeah, I’ll check on it,” Dirkson said. “But now that we’ve come to it, what about the petty cash drawer?”
    “What about