“I haven’t sought other employment because there doesn’t seem to be much point in it, and I haven’t changed my lifestyle because I’m happy as I am. But I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in prison, Mr. Ehrengraf, nor do I want to escape on some technicality and be loathed by my neighbors for the remainder of my days. I want to be exonerated and I don’t care what it costs me.”
“Of course you do,” said Ehrengraf, drawing himself stiffly erect. “Of course you do. After all, son, you’re innocent.”
“Exactly.”
“Although,” Ehrengraf said with a sigh, “your innocence may be rather tricky to prove. The evidence—”
“Is overpowering.”
“Like Nuits-St.-Georges with veal. A search of your workroom revealed a half-full container of Cydonex. You denied ever having seen it before.”
“Absolutely.”
Ehrengraf frowned. “I wonder if you mightn’t have purchased it as an aid to pest control. Rats are troublesome. One is always being plagued by rats in one’s cellar, mice in one’s pantry, squirrels in one’s attic—”
“And bats in one’s belfry, I suppose, but my house has always been comfortingly free of vermin. I keep a cat. I suppose that helps.”
“I’m sure it must, but I don’t know that it helps your case. You seem to have purchased Cydonex from a chemical-supply house on North Division Street, where your signature appears in the poison-control ledger.”
“A forgery.”
“No doubt, but a convincing one. Bottles of Darnitol, some unopened, others with a single Cydonex-filled capsule added, were found on a closet shelf in your home. They seem to be from the same lot as those used to murder thirteen people.”
“I was framed, Mr. Ehrengraf.”
“And cleverly so, it would seem.”
“I never bought Cydonex. I never heard of Cydonex—not until people started dying of it.”
“Oh? You worked for the plastics company that discovered the substance. That was before you took employment with the Darnitol people.”
“It was also before Cydonex was invented. You know those dogs people mount on their dashboards and the head bobs up and down when you drive?”
“Not when I drive,” Ehrengraf said.
“Nor I either, but you know what I mean. My job was finding a way to make the dogs’ eyes more realistic. If you had a dog bobbing on your dashboard, would you even want the eyes to be more realistic?”
“Well,” said Ehrengraf.
“Exactly. I quit that job and went to work for the Darnitol folks, and then my previous employer found a better way to kill rats, and so it looks as though I’m tied into the murders in two different ways. But actually I’ve never had anything to do with Cydonex and I’ve never so much as swallowed a Darnitol, let alone paid good money for that worthless snake oil.”
“Someone bought those pills.”
“Yes, but it wasn’t—”
“And someone purchased that Cydonex. And forged your name to the ledger.”
“Yes.”
“And planted the bottles of Darnitol on drugstore and supermarket shelves after fatally tampering with their contents.”
“Yes.”
“And waited for the random victims to buy the pills, to work their way through the bottle until they ingested the deadly capsule, and to die in agony. And planted evidence to incriminate you.”
“Yes.”
“And made an anonymous call to the police to put them on your trail.” Ehrengraf permitted himself a slight smile, one that did not quite reach his eyes. “And there he made his mistake,” he said. “He could have waited for nature to take its course, just as he had already waited for the Darnitol to do its deadly work. The police were checking on ex-employees of Triage Corporation. They’d have gotten to you sooner or later. But he wanted to hurry matters along, and that proves you were framed, sir, because who but the man who framed you would ever think to have called the police?”
“So the very phone call that got me on the hook serves to get me off the hook?”
“Ah,” said Ehrengraf, “would that it were that easy.”
Unlike Gardner Bridgewater, young Evans Wheeler proved a model of repose. Instead of pacing back and forth across Ehrengraf’s carpet, the chemist sat in Ehrengraf’s overstuffed leather chair, one long leg crossed over the other. His costume was virtually identical to the garb he had worn in prison, although an eye as sharp as Ehrengraf’s could detect a different pattern to the stains and acid burns that gave character to the striped overalls. And this denim shirt, Ehrengraf noted, had no patch upon its elbow. Yet.
Ehrengraf, seated at his desk, wore a Dartmouth-green blazer over tan flannel slacks. As was his custom on such occasions, his tie was once again the distinctive Caedmon Society cravat.
“Ms. Joanna Pellatrice,” Ehrengraf said. “A teacher of seventh- and eighth-grade social studies at Kenmore Junior High School. Unmarried, twenty-eight years of age, and living alone in three rooms on Deerhurst Avenue.”
“One of the killer’s first victims.”
“That she was. The very first victim, in point of fact, although Ms. Pellatrice was not the first to die. Her murderer took one of the capsules from her bottle of Darnitol, pried it open, disposed of the innocent if ineffectual powder within, and replaced it with the lethal Cydonex. Then he put it back in her bottle, returned the bottle to her medicine cabinet or purse, and waited for the unfortunate woman to get a headache or cramps or whatever impelled her to swallow the capsules.”
“Whatever it was,” Wheeler said, “they wouldn’t work.”
“This one did, when she finally got to it. In the meantime, her intended murderer had already commenced spreading little bottles of joy all over the metropolitan area, one capsule to each bottle. There was danger in doing so, in that the toxic nature of Darnitol might come to light before Ms. Pellatrice took her pill and went to that big classroom in the sky. But he reasoned, correctly it would seem, that a great many persons would die before Darnitol was seen to be the cause of death. And indeed this proved to be the case. Ms. Pellatrice was the fourth victim, and there were to be many more.”
“And the killer—”
“Refused to leave well enough alone. His name is George Grodek, and he’d had an affair with Ms. Pellatrice, although married to another teacher all the while. The affair evidently meant rather more to Mr. Grodek than it did to Ms. Pellatrice. He had made scenes, once at her apartment, once at her school during a midterm examination. The newspapers describe him as a disappointed suitor, and I suppose the term’s as apt as any.”
“You say he refused to leave well enough alone.”
“Indeed,” said Ehrengraf. “If he’d been content with depopulating the area and sinking Triage Corporation, I’m sure he’d have gotten away with it. The police would have had their hands full checking people with a grudge against Triage, known malcontents and mental cases, and the sort of chaps who get themselves into messes of that variety. But he has a neat sort of mind, has Mr. Grodek, and so he managed to learn of your existence and decided to frame you for the chain of murders.”
Ehrengraf brushed a piece of lint from his lapel. “He did a workmanlike job,” he said, “but it broke down on close examination. That signature in the poison-control book did turn out to be a forgery, and matching forgeries of your name—trials, if you will—turned up in a notebook hidden away in a dresser drawer in his house.”
“That must have been hard for him to explain.”
“So were the bottles of Darnitol in another drawer of the dresser. So was the Cydonex, and so was the little machine for filling and closing the capsules, and a whole batch of broken capsules which evidently represented unsuccessful attempts at pill-making.”
“Funny he didn’t flush it all down the toilet.”
“Successful criminals become arrogant,” Ehrengraf explained. “They believe themselves to be untouchable. Grodek’s arrogance did him in. It led him to frame you, and to tip
the police to you.”
“And your investigation did what no police investigation could do.”
“It did,” said Ehrengraf, “because mine started from the premise of your innocence. If you were innocent, someone else was guilty. If someone else was guilty and had framed you, that someone must have had a motive for the crime. If the crime had a motive, the murderer must have had a reason to kill one of the specific victims. And if that was the case, one had only to look to the victims to find the killer.”
“You make it sound so simple,” said Wheeler. “And yet if I hadn’t had the good fortune to engage your services, I’d be spending the rest of my life in prison.”
“I’m glad you see it that way,” Ehrengraf said, “because the size of my fee might otherwise seem excessive.” He named a figure, whereupon the chemist promptly uncapped a pen and wrote out a check.
“I’ve never written a check for so large a sum,” he said reflectively.
“Few people have.”
“Nor have I ever gotten greater value for my money. How fortunate I am that you believed in me, in my innocence.”
“I never doubted it for a moment.”
“You know who else claims to be innocent? Poor Grodek. I understand the madman’s screaming in his cell, shouting to the world that he never killed anyone.” Wheeler flashed a mischevious smile. “Perhaps he should hire you, Mr. Ehrengraf.”
“Oh, dear,” said Ehrengraf. “No, I think not. I can sometimes work miracles, Mr. Wheeler, or what have the appearance of miracles, but I can work them only on behalf of the innocent. And I don’t think the power exists to persuade me of poor Mr. Grodek’s innocence. No, I fear the man is guilty, and I’m afraid he’ll be forced to pay for what he’s done.” The little lawyer shook his head. “Do you know Longfellow, Mr. Wheeler?”
“Old Henry Wadsworth, you mean? ‘By the shores of Gitche Gumee, by the something Big-Sea-Water’? That Longfellow?”
“The shining Big-Sea-Water,” said Ehrengraf. “Another client reminded me of ‘The Village Blacksmith,’ and I’ve been looking into Longfellow lately. Do you care for poetry, Mr. Wheeler?”
“Not too much.”
“ ‘In the world’s broad field of battle,’ “ Ehrengraf said,
“ ‘In the bivouac of Life,
“ ‘Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
“ ‘Be a hero in the strife!’ “
“Well,” said Evans Wheeler, “I suppose that’s good advice, isn’t it?”
“None better, sir. ‘Let us then be up and doing, with a heart for any fate; still achieving, still pursuing, learn to labor and to wait.’ “
“Ah, yes,” said Wheeler.
“ ‘Learn to labor and to wait,’ “ said Ehrengraf. “That’s the ticket, eh? ‘To labor and to wait.’ Longfellow, Mr. Wheeler. Listen to the poets, Mr. Wheeler. The poets have the answers, haven’t they?” And Ehrengraf smiled, with his lips and with his eyes.
The Ehrengraf Affirmation
“I’ve been giving this a lot of thought,” Dale McCandless said. “Actually, there’s not much you can do around here but think.”
Ehrengraf glanced around the cell, wondering to what extent it was conducive to thought. There were, it seemed to him, no end of other activities to which the little room would lend itself. There was a bed on which you could sleep, a chair in which you could read, a desk at which you might write the Great American Jailhouse Novel. There was enough floor space to permit pushups or situps or running in place, and, high overhead, there was the pipe that supported the light fixture, and that would as easily support you, should you contrive to braid strips of bedsheet into a rope and hang yourself.
Ehrengraf rather hoped the young man wouldn’t attempt the last-named pursuit. He was, after all, innocent of the crimes of which he stood accused. All you had to do was look at him to know as much, and the little lawyer had not even needed to do that. He’d been convinced of his client’s innocence the instant the young man had become a client. No client of Martin H. Ehrengraf could ever be other than innocent. This was more than a presumption for Ehrengraf. It was an article of faith.
“What I think would work for me,” young McCandless continued, “is the good old Abuse Excuse.”
“The Abuse Excuse?”
“Like those rich kids in California,” McCandless said. “My father was all the time beating up on me and making me do stuff, and I was in fear for my life, blah blah blah, so what else could I do?”
“Your only recourse was to whip out a semiautomatic assault rifle,” Ehrengraf said, “and empty a clip into the man.”
“Those clips empty out in no time at all. You touch the trigger and the next thing you know the gun’s empty and there’s fifteen bullets in the target.”
“Fortunately, however, you had another clip.”
“For Mom,” McCandless agreed. “Hey, she was as abusive as he was.”
“And you were afraid of her.”
“Sure.”
“Your mother was in a wheelchair,” Ehrengraf said gently. “She suffered from multiple sclerosis. Your father walked with a cane as the result of a series of small strokes. You’re a big, strapping lad. Hulking, one might even say. It might be difficult to convince a jury that you were in fear for your life.”
“That’s a point.”
“If you’d been living with your parents,” Ehrengraf added, “people might wonder why you didn’t just move out. But you had in fact moved out some time ago, hadn’t you? You have your own home on the other side of town.”
Dale McCandless nodded thoughtfully. “I guess the only thing to do,” he said, “is play the Race Card.”
“The Race Card?”
“Racist cops framed me,” he said. “They planted the evidence.”
“The evidence?”
“The assault rifle with my prints on it. The blood spatters on my clothes. The gloves.”
“The gloves?”
“They found a pair of gloves on the scene,” McCandless said. “But I’ll tell you something nobody else knows. If I were to try on those gloves, you’d see that they’re actually a size too small for me. I couldn’t get my hands into them.”
“And racist cops planted them.”
“You bet.”
Ehrengraf put the tips of his fingers together. “It’s a little difficult for me to see the racial angle here,” he said gently. “You’re white, Mr. McCandless.”
“Yeah, right.”
“And both your parents were white. And all of the police officers involved in the investigation are white. All of your parents’ known associates are white, and everyone living in that neighborhood is white. If there were a woodpile at the scene, I’ve no doubt we’d find a Caucasian in it. This is an all-white case, Mr. McCandless, and I just don’t see a race card for us to play.”
“Rats,” Dale McCandless said. “If the Abuse Excuse is out and there’s no way to play the Race Card, I don’t know how I’m going to get out of this. The only thing left is the Rough Sex defense, and I suppose you’ve got some objection to that, too.”
“I think it would be a hard sell,” Ehrengraf said.
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
“It seems to me you’re trying to draw inspiration from some high-profile cases that don’t fit the present circumstances. But there is one case that does.”
“What’s that?”
“Miss Elizabeth Borden,” Ehrengraf said.
McCandless frowned in thought. “Elizabeth Borden,” he said. “I know Elsie Borden, she’s married to Elmer and she gives condensed milk. Even if Elsie’s short for Elizabeth, I don’t see how—”
“Lizzie,” Ehrengraf pointed out, “is also short for Elizabeth.”
“Lizzie Borden,” McCandless said, and his eyes lit up. “Oh, yeah. A long time ago, right? Took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks?”
“So they say.”
“ ‘And when she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one.’ I remembe
r the poem.”
“Everybody remembers the poem,” Ehrengraf said. “What everyone forgets is that Miss Borden was innocent.”
“You’re kidding. She got off?”
“Of course she did,” Ehrengraf said. “The jury returned a verdict of Not Guilty. And how could they do otherwise, Mr. McCandless? The woman was innocent.” He allowed himself a small smile. “Even as you and I,” he said.
“Innocent,” Dale McCandless said. “What a concept.”
“All my clients are innocent,” Ehrengraf told him. “That’s what makes my work so gratifying. That and the fees, of course.”
“Speaking of which,” McCandless said, “you can set your mind to rest on that score. Even if they wind up finding me guilty and that keeps me from inheriting from my parents, I’ve still got more than enough to cover whatever you charge me. See, I came into a nice piece of change when my grandmother passed away.”
“Is that what enabled you to buy a house of your own?”
“It set me up pretty good. I’ve got the house and I’ve got money in the bank. See, I was her sole heir, so when she took a tumble on the back staircase, everything she had came to me.”
“She fell down the stairs?”
McCandless nodded. “They ought to do something about that staircase,” he said. “Three months earlier, my grandfather fell down those same stairs and broke his neck.”
“And left all his money to your grandmother,” Ehrengraf said.
“Right.”
“Who in turn left it to you.”
“Yeah. Handy, huh?”
“Indeed,” said Ehrengraf. “It must have been a frightening thing for an old woman, tumbling down a flight of stairs.”
“Maybe not,” McCandless said. “According to the autopsy, she was already dead when she fell. So what probably happened is she had a heart attack while she was standing at the top of the stairs and never felt a thing.”
“A heart attack.”
“Or a stroke or something,” McCandless said carefully. “Or maybe she was sleeping and a pillow got stuck over her face and suffocated her.”
“The pillow just got stuck on top of her face?”