The Case of the Lazy Lover (25 page)

Chapter 20

Court reconvened at two o'clock. Judge Colton said, "Mr. Jerome, you were on the witness stand being examined when Court adjourned. Will you take the stand again, please. Gentlemen, the defendant is in court, the witness Jerome is on the stand. Will you please proceed with your examination, Mr. Mason?"

Mason said to Judge Colton, "Your Honor, there has been a rather unexpected development in the case. Under the circumstances, I feel that I should be permitted to recall the witness Overbrook for further cross-examination."

"I object to that, Your Honor," Danvers said. "Counsel had every opportunity to cross-examine Overbrook, and he certainly took advantage of that oppurtunity. He asked Overbrook searching questions and…"

Judge Colton nodded, said, "I would think so, yes."

Mason said desperately, "Your Honor, I can now state that I am not on a fishing expedition. If I can be permitted to cross-examine Overbrook again I feel I can bring out a point which will exonerate this defendant and definitely refute Fleetwood's testimony."

"You feel you can do that?" Judge Colton asked.

"I do, Your Honor."

"That makes the situation materially different," the judge said.

"Of course, Your Honor, I have already closed the case of the prosecution," Danvers said "The prosecution's case is completed. It is closed."

"And," Judge Colton said grimly, "if the Court should intimate that it didn't consider the evidence sufficient to bind the defendant over, you'd be on your feet in a minute stating that you had additional evidence and asking for permission to reopen your case."

Danvers said nothing.

"Take the stand, Mr. Overbrook," Judge Colton said.

Overbrook once more took the stand.

Mason said, "You qualified, in a way, as an expert on tracks, Mr. Overbrook."

"Well, us people that live out in the country know something about tracks."

"You've done quite a bit of tracking?"

"Yes."

"And you are fairly expert on tracks?"

"Yes, Sir!"

"Now, then," Mason said, "inasmuch as you seem to be an expert on tracks, will you kindly tell the Court how you know that the tracks made by this woman were tracks made by a woman jumping from the car and running to the highway and then coming back to the car?"

"Why, you can see it plain as day. Look at this here diagram. That shows you the tracks."

"Yes, that's quite true. It shows tracks leading away from the automobile and coming back to the automobile."

"Yes, Sir!"

"And how do you know what happened there?"

"Why, you can see it written right on die ground. No person could have got out of the automobile without leaving tracks, and no person could have got in the automobile without leaving tracks. The way these tracks are, the woman jumped out of the baggage compartment and ran down to the road and then she came back and got in the car, and the only way on earth she could have got away from there was to have driven that car away, unless she had wings. Otherwise, she would have left tracks on leaving the car."

"But there are tracks leaving the car," Mason said.

"What?"

"There are tracks leaving the car."

"No there ain't. I looked that ground all over and this here diagram is correct."

"But those are the tracks leaving the car," Mason said, pointing to the diagram.

"Oh, sure. Those are her tracks leaving the car the first time, before she came back to it."

"How do you know they were before she came back?" Mason asked. "How do you know that these tracks weren't made first, the ones coming back from the highway and going to the car? How do you know this woman didn't walk from the highway out to this point and then jump down over to this point on the ground and run back to the highway?"

"Why, now, you just can't tell for sure!" Overbrook grinned. "Except, of course, that when she made these tracks here, you can see where she got in the car. Now after she got in the car, perhaps you can tell me how she managed to get down inside the baggage compartment"

The courtroom tittered.

Judge Colton rapped with his gavel to silence the spectators.

"But suppose," Mason said, "that when those tracks were made, the car wasn't there."

"Huh?" Overbrook asked, stiffening to startled attention.

Mason smiled and said, "Those tracks, Mr. Overbrook, could well have been made when the car wasn't there. It would have, been a simple matter for any woman to have walked out from the roadway to the point where the car tracks were located, to have made tracks at a point even with the place where the left-hand door of the car had been, and then, by using a pole similar to the manner in which a pole vaulter makes a long leap, to have made a short jump over to this point and then run back to the highway."

"Well, now," Overbrook said, scratching his head, "you've got something there, Mr. Mason! There isn't anything that shows when the tracks were made."

"Then, by that same sign," Mason said, "there isn't anything that shows when your tracks were made."

"What do you mean?"

"Your tracks, down as far as the left-hand door of the car, could have been made on Monday night," Mason said. "And then you could have gone out on your farm road Wednesday morning, put down the boards and walked out on those boards until you were in a position that was exactly even with the place where the tracks you had made Monday night ended, and then by walking back toward the farm road, your tracks would show as an uninterrupted line indicating you had made no pause. Your tracks of Wednesday could have been tacked onto your tracks of Monday. You can't prove when your own tracks were made."

"Well, of course," Overbrook said, "I didn't tie an alarm clock on each one of my tracks."

Some of the spectators in the courtroom laughed.

"No," Mason said, "but there is one very interesting thing that is shown in this photograph I am holding in my hand, but which is not shown in the diagram."

"What's that?"

"I notice," Mason said, "that these little tracks here evidently indicate the tracks made by your dog. Now then, will you kindly explain to the Court how it happens that the dog accompanied you when these treks were made from the car to the road, but didn't accompany you when the tracks were made from your house to the place where the car was parked?"

Overbrook shifted his position in the witness chair.

"Can't you answer that question?" Mason asked.

"Well, I'm just trying to figure out an answer."

"The answer," Mason said, "is that when you made those tracks from the hour to where the car was parked, you didn't have your dog with you; and the only time you didn't have your dog with you was when he had been left in the house to guard the witness Fleetwood, and that was on Monday night. Therefore, Mr. Overbrook, you made these tracks Monday night after you had put Fleetwood to bed. You left the dog to guard him, and you took a flashlight and went out to backtrack him and see what had happened at an. automobile you had heard drive off the road. You got to the automobile and found a man lying in it in an unconscious condition. That man was Bertrand C. Allred, a man whom you hated because he had swindled you in a mining deal. You saw an opportunity to even the score with him and you simply got in the car, drove the car away and ran it over a grade where you knew he would be killed. Then a day or so later you began to be worried about the question of tracks and decided you'd better do something about them. So you went out and laid the boards down and finished making your tracks in an unbroken line from your house to the hard surface ground. But when you took those boards out, you were surprised to find additional tracks. Tracks had been made by some woman so that it looked as though she had jumped out of the baggage compartment and then returned to the car. Now, isn't that exactly what happened?"

"Your Honor, I object," Danvers shouted. "That question is incompetent, irrelevant, immaterial. It's not proper cross-examination and…"

"You look at the witness' face, young man," Judge Colton said sternly, "and you'll find that it certainly is competent, relevant and material. The objection is overruled. Now if you want to get at the facts in this case, Mr. Assistant District Attorney, the court suggests you'd better pay more attention to Mr. Mason's questions and the answers of this witness. Go ahead, Mr. Overbrook, you answer that question."

Overbrook squirmed and twisted on the witness stand as though the chair had suddenly become hot.

"Answer the question," Judge Colton said.

"Well, Your Honor," Overbrook blurted, "I'll tell you the truth. In some ways that's just about what happened. It ain't true in some respects."

"In what respects?" Mason asked.

"When I got to the car," Overbrook said, "I put my flashlight inside and saw this man in there and he was dead, and then I recognized that it was Allred, and I knew that I was in a jam because people knew I hated his guts and it would look as though – well, it would look pretty bad for me having his body found on my property, and this chap that was up there at the house, of course, he could claim that he didn't know anything about it. Well, I was in a spot. So I took the car and drove her back down to the highway and just shoved her off the cliff, and then I walked back home. I got back about maybe three or four o'clock in the morning. Of course, the dog didn't make any commotion when I slipped in, and I went to bed.

"And then Tuesday night I got to worrying about the tracks. I knew that sooner or later they'd come up there and start looking for tracks on account of this man Fleetwood having been found up at my place, and particularly after these people came and got him, so – well, you're right about what happened. I went out there Wednesday and put the boards down and finished making my string of tracks so they looked as though I'd kept right on agoing; and then I told the sheriff I'd made all the tracks Wednesday morning and nobody thought about the dog. The sheriff didn't think about it, and by gum I didn't think about it!"

Mason turned to Danvers with a grin and said, "And now, Mr. Danvers, this is your case and your witness. What do you want to do?"

"I want the case continued," Danvers said "Until when?" Judge Colton asked.

"Make it a – oh make it until four o'clock this afternoon, Your Honor."

"Very well," Judge Colton said, "and the Court will order this witness into custody. Silence in the court! Will the spectators please cease this uproar! There is no occasion for applause. This is a court of justice. The Court will clear the courtroom… will the spectators please cease applauding!"

Chapter 21

Perry Mason, his long legs elevated so that his feet rested on the corner of the desk, tilted back in his swivel chair and grinned at Paul Drake.

"You know, Paul," he said, "the possible significance of those tracks never occurred to me until after I started studying them at lunch. That's the bad part of circumstantial evidence. It can really trick you and trap you.

"I told you that Bernice Archer was a smooth individual. Tragg let her talk with Fleetwood up there in the jail, and the minute she knew what had happened she told Fleetwood to insist that Mrs. Allred had been in the luggage compartment of the automobile. She made Fleetwood tell her where the automobile had been parked and she jumped in her car and drove up there and by daylight Wednesday morning she had left tracks which would substantiate Fleetwood's story. And it was such a cinch to do. All she needed to do was to take any kind of a short pole, walk slowly from the highway out to where the automobile had been parked, then put the pole in the ground to steady her and give her leverage to jump down to a place about where the luggage compartment of the automobile would have been, and then run back to the roadway. When she did that, she didn't notice Overbrook's tracks coming out to the automobile and stopping. If she had, she could have pinned the murder on Overbrook right then."

"Well who the devil did kill him?" Drake asked.

Mason grinned. "Now, Paul, don't start taking on the duties of the police. It's up to the police to decide that. The only thing we're supposed to do is get Mrs. Allred off."

"Well who do you think killed him?"

Mason said, "When Overbrookwent out to investigate on Monday night, he must have had some weapon with him. He evidently didn't have a gun. He's a big, strong, powerful giant of a man and he had some sort of a club, probably a jack handle. I have an idea that Allred had regained consciousness by the time Overbrook got there, that he was probably moaning, that Overbrook got in the car, backed it down to the roadway and started to go to a doctor, that somewhere along the line he discovered the identify of his passenger and then there were words, accusations and perhaps Allred made a grab at Overbrook. Overbroolc cracked him over the head."

"How do you deduce all this?"

"Because of the blood in the luggage compartment," Mason said "No story so far has accounted for that blood. Bernice Archer was smart enough to know that the first person to tell a story that would account for that blood would have the inside track, so she deliberately made up a story for Fleetwood to tell and then went out and made tracks to substantiate that story.

"She was so anxious to have a fall guy for the police that she gilded the lily. But the minute Fleetwood told a story that accounted for the bloodstains and had tracks that would back it up he became the fair-haired boy child of the police.

"If she'd kept out of it, the tracks would eventually have given Fleetwood an out, but she couldn't realize that. Neither one of them realized what perfect tracking conditions existed at the spot where the car was parked.

"When Bernice went out there she only hoped to be able to make some significant tracks to back up Fleetwood's story. When she found what she had to work with, she really went to town.

"Now I claim that if that blood didn't come from Mrs. Allred's bloody nose, it must have come from a wound in Allred's head. I think that Overbrook became panic-stricken when he realized what he had done and started to conceal the body by putting it in the luggage compartment. Then he realized that wouldn't do him any good, and then he got the idea of taking the body out and putting it in the front of the car and driving the car over the grade."

"Why couldn't it have been Fleetwood who put the body in there?"

"Because," Mason said, "Allred weighed but a hundred and seventy-five pounds. Fleetwood is rather a slender chap and not particularly strong. Overbrook is the strong, husky farmer who could have handled a body like that without much trouble. But as far as I'm concerned, it's up to the police to worry about that. They've laid an egg, and they can hatch it."

Drake chuckled.

"How about the forged check?" Delta Street asked.

"That," Mason said, "is an interesting case of where Allred really outsmarted himself."

"You can see what Allred planned to do. He intended to get Fleetwood out with his wife and then kill them both and run the car over a mountain precipice. He had a perfect scheme there. All he had to do was to keep his wife out with Fleetwood until tongues began to wag, and then let the bodies of the guilty lovers be found in the bottom of a deep canyon.

"Now Mrs. Allred wanted me to protect Pat. Her husband didn't want me messing around in the case. He wanted to have a free hand. He talked her into destroying the letter she had written me, but she was still going to send the check.

"So Allred got a bright idea. Why not keep me from getting to work on the case by seeing that I had two checks. One of them could be forged He felt can that when I got two checks in the same amount I'd refrain from doing anything until I could get in touch with Mrs. Allred.

"And Allred felt he only needed just one day's time. By Monday night it would be all over. And if he could fog the issues so the check Mrs. Allred sent me wasn't cashed on Monday, it would never be cashed then because a person's death automatically cancels any outstanding checks.

"Mrs. Allred had hurriedly typed the letter to the bank at Las Olitas. It was lying there on the table by her typewriter and checkbook. Allred slipped a sheet of carbon paper underneath it, traced the signature with a pointed instrument, perhaps the point of a nail file, on a check and made out the body of the check after Mrs. Allred had left. Remember, he didn't go to Springfield with them, but followed them after a few minutes.

"He made his wife believe that Patricia Faxon had run into Fleetwood with her automobile. You can follow Allred's reasoning all the way through. He wanted to murder Fleetwood, and he made two attempts at it. He thought he had killed Fleetwood the first time when he slugged him with a club and left him lying by the hedge.

"Allred ran along the side of the hedge when Fleetwood started to leave the place. He was waiting on the street side of the hedge, just as Fleetwood came out on the patio side at the opening by the driveway. It only took one good, heavy blow to crumple Fleetwood to the ground. Allred thought he had killed him. Then Allred dragged the body back a little ways, took his own car and parked it in such a position that when Patricia came driving up, it was almost certain that she would cut a corner of the hedge. Even if she hadn't, Allred could have gone out and crumpled the fender after the car was in the garage and then had Patricia thinking she had struck Fleetwood with that fender as she made the turn.

"Then Fleetwood regained consciousness. That meant Allred had to work out some other bulletproof murder scheme. When Fleetwood pretended amnesia, Allred saw another opportunity. He got Fleetwood to go with Mrs. Allred, Mrs. Allred telling Fleetwood she was his married sister, and Allred coming to me and saying that Fleetwood had run away with his wife."

"Allred certainly went in for complicated schemes," Drake said.

"He schemed himself right into a grave," Mason said. "Evidently he hired a car and driver to take him to the Snug-Rest Auto Court and just about the time he was getting there, Fleetwood must have been trying for a getaway.

"Allred had a gun and he forced Fleetwood to stop the car and let him in. From that point on, Fleetwood's story could be the truth. The only part about it that's a lie is the story about Mrs. Allred's being in the luggage compartment. And Fleetwood and Bernice Archer hatched up that story to account for the bloodstains on the carpet of the luggage compartment."

"And Mrs. Allred changed her story to you because she felt that was her best way out?" Della Street asked.

"Sure. Fleetwood and his girl, Bernice Archer, made such a convincing story that Mrs. Allred suddenly realized she stood a better chance of going free by falling in with their story than by trying to tell the truth. The artistic way Bernice fixed up the story was that it gave Mrs. Allred almost a perfect out on a plea of self-defense – and, of course, it got Fleetwood out of a jam.

"Circumstantial evidence never lies, but it isn't always easy to interpret it correctly."

"Well, all's well that ends well," Della Street said. 'This case certainly expanded into a lot of complications from a forged check. I suppose it was that check which really aroused your suspicions, Chief."

Mason smiled. "The thing which really made me suspicious was the stories everyone had about the lazy lover. The picture of Fleetwood eloping with Mrs. Allred and then sitting back and letting her do all the running around and registering at the motel while he sat in the car, too lazy to move. Well, somehow when that picture was sketched I began to think Allred might have something up his sleeve in the way of a whole deck of marked cards." 'That's a good way to file it," Della Street said smiling, "The Case of the Lazy Lover."