Read Online Nipped in the Bud by Stuart Palmer - Free Book Online Page A

you. ‘ What Being an American Means, by Sascha Bordin, aged nine.’ Prize third-grade essay of the year. I thought you might like to have it back, perhaps to show your own children?”
    “Well—” He laughed nervously. “I’m married to my law books, I’m afraid.”
    “Really? Then I’d watch out for that girl in the outer office; she has a certain glint in her eye.” They talked for a few moments about the old days at P.S. 38. “Not,” Miss Withers admitted, “that I’m surprised at the way you’ve risen in the world. The child is father to the man, and as I look back on it I can see very clearly how you were meant for the law. You used to argue interminably, whether you were in the right or the wrong, and perhaps best when you were in the wrong. I’ve watched your career from a distance, and when I heard the other day that you are to appear in another big murder trial, I suddenly thought it might be possible for me to see you in action.”
    “Oh, the Gault case. But it’s been set back on the calendar, or I’d be happy to fix it so you could have a front seat. When the time comes—”
    The schoolteacher thanked him. “But I’m afraid I won’t be in town. I’ve retired, you know, and am living out in southern California.”
    “Too bad. There’ll be some legal fireworks, if the case ever comes before a jury. I’d like you to see the fun.”
    “ If? ” said Miss Withers sharply, cocking her head.
    He looked at her with an added respect. “You don’t miss much, do you?”
    “Sascha, you haven’t answered the question!”
    “Yes, ma’am. Well, personally I don’t think that the D.A. will press. They haven’t a very strong case against my client, you know.” He waved his hand. “Except for the circumstantial evidence.”
    “And except for—” began the schoolteacher, and bit her tongue.
    “Except for a so-called surprise witness for the prosecution who has suddenly turned up missing?” At the look on her face Sam Bordin broke into a wide grin. “Wait a minute, don’t get me wrong, I haven’t been tapping wires or listening at keyholes, but those things get around.”
    Across the desk the maiden schoolteacher looked hard at the little boy whom she had once assisted over the bumps and potholes of the third-grade curriculum. There were not many among her thousand and more pupils for whom she had once held higher hopes. “You never used to cheat, Sascha,” she finally said softly. “Not in my classroom. You might argue that black was white, but you never cheated.”
    He bowed. “Thanks. But why bring that up now, ma’am?”
    “Because somebody in this Fagan-Gault affair has cheated and still is. Where is the Kell girl, Sascha?”
    It was a clean miss. “You tell me,” he came back swiftly. “Because I have a subpoena here ready to serve on Ina Kell if she ever shows up. Even if the prosecution doesn’t want her on the stand, I do.”
    Miss Withers’ sniff was eloquent of doubt, but she said, “You are, I suppose, quite satisfied in your own mind that your client is innocent?”
    Bordin hesitated only a moment. “I could hardly express an opinion—”
    “Then you think he’s guilty?”
    “Not until proven,” said the little man stubbornly. “Listen a minute. It’s an attorney’s job to make the best defense possible for his client. I’m not the judge or the jury. I use every means at my command to get the facts, particularly everything on his side of the story, and to present it all in the best light. I don’t know how you happen to know so much about the Fagan murder—”
    “Justice is the problem of every good citizen,” she informed him. “And sometimes my friend Oscar Piper, down at Centre Street, talks to me about his cases.”
    The famous Bordin smile congealed a little. “So? I’ll bet you the inspector didn’t tell you that the autopsy showed that Tony Fagan had an abnormally thin cranium, a skull so frail that it might have been smashed during a