Read Online A Handy Death by Robert L. Fish - Free Book Online Page B

Either he didn’t want to go back to baseball, or more likely baseball didn’t want him back with a record. In any event, he was handling these beer kegs into this bar this day and one of the customers recognized him and started to needle him.”
    Sharon had cleared the table, putting the refuse aside to be disposed of later. Now she was back with her stenographic book, noting the interruptions on the recorder meter. Steve referred to his papers and went on.
    â€œIn this case there were plenty of witnesses, all willing to testify. The bar was fairly crowded, but it was early afternoon and nobody was drunk. Unfortunately, most of the witnesses—like witnesses anywhere—had thirteen different stories. Still,” Steve added, “this time I find it a lot harder to excuse Mr. Hogan.”
    â€œAl Hogan was his lawyer again?”
    â€œYes, sir. Appointed by the court again. Dupaul was broke, of course. And that was about all the work Mr. Hogan was getting in those last days. I imagine the courts must have felt sorry for him.”
    â€œI felt sorry for him, too, but a little consideration for the rights of the accused to decent counsel wouldn’t have been too amiss, either,” Ross said evenly. “So what happened in this bar?”
    â€œThis one customer—a man named Clarence Riess—apparently recognized Dupaul and started to give him the needle. He got pretty obnoxious, it seems. He wanted to know if Dupaul had turned queer in prison, and asked Dupaul what he had really been doing in Neeley’s apartment the night he shot him five years before. The bartender claimed he was too busy to see or hear what led up to the fight; when he got around to noticing it the two men were already hard at it. There are witnesses who claim Dupaul kept his cool until this man actually called him names; others claimed Dupaul practically started it. Naturally, the DA’s office stressed the witnesses who suited them. Louis Gorman hadn’t risen to Chief Assistant in those days, but he was already on the staff. He was one of the men at the prosecution table.”
    Ross shook his head and sighed.
    â€œWhat I don’t understand is how, if even a barfly could see the proper defense in that first case, Al Hogan couldn’t, drunk or sober. In fact, I don’t believe it. Al was sharper than that.”
    Sharon said, “I don’t understand.”
    â€œWhich only means,” Ross said, more to himself than to the others, “that in all probability Billy Dupaul wouldn’t let him use that argument for his defense. God save all lawyers from noble clients!”
    â€œI don’t understand,” Steve said. “ What defense?”
    Ross studied the other two. He sighed.
    â€œDo you remember before, I said that Al Hogan had the perfect defense if he wanted to invent a story? Just suppose Al Hogan had rehearsed the boy, Dupaul. Now, remember, Neeley had testified first , since he was a prosecution witness; his story was on the record. Now, suppose after hearing that testimony, Hogan took Billy aside that night and told him what to say. Suppose the boy got up on the witness stand and agreed with almost everything Neeley claimed; that he’d been drinking alone, met Neeley in the street the way the other man claimed, that he’d been pretty drunk, that Neeley had, indeed, invited him up to his apartment under the guise of sobering him up with coffee—
    â€œ But! ” Ross raised a hand. “Suppose when they got to the apartment, Neeley had made a pass at him; had made him an improper proposition. Here’s a young boy, a stranger in town, a known athlete—hell! The jury would have freed him in five minutes. The boy carried the gun—his own gun—because he’d heard there were places and people you couldn’t trust in this town, and here was a case in point!
    â€œLook at it from the defense attorney’s viewpoint. A man is