If I Die Before I Wake Read online

  ‘All right,’ I said.

  ‘Good!’ She put her handkerchief back into her bag. ‘I’ll have to hurry now – I can’t have him finding me here. You know how jealous he is. But I’ll be back.’

  The guard came over and tapped me on the shoulder.

  ‘Five minutes,’ he said.

  Elsa stood up.

  ‘Soon,’ I said.

  ‘Yes.’

  I watched her going out, her head held down. Her black dress rippled sleekly as she walked.

  The door clanged shut.

  III

  That society woman who shot her husband (five times) while he was raiding the icebox for a midnight snack came up for trial while I was in the jail.

  I saw her picture in the paper. She was a beauty, all right. You couldn’t imagine her killing her husband on purpose.

  The State had built up a strong case against her, though. They had witnesses to show that she’d never got along with him. For one thing, she liked to go out to all the bright spots. He was about twice her age, a broker, and liked to stay at home. They had quarreled on the very night that he was shot. Not only that, he had taken $90,000 of insurance out in her name.

  The jury took twenty minutes to decide what to do with her.

  ‘Not guilty,’ they said.

  The picture showed her smiling after the verdict, standing with her lawyer, a big bouquet in her arms.

  The flowers were roses.

  The lawyer was Mark Bannister.

  As a lawyer he was a lot different than as just a man. He came in to see me, looking very pleased with himself, smooth and suave in striped gray trousers and black coat, a white carnation in his coat lapel.

  ‘Sorry I couldn’t see you before,’ he said briskly. ‘Naturally I want to do all I can for you.’

  I said: ‘I was hoping you’d come and see me.’

  ‘Of course you know the Grand Jury has already indicted you for the shooting of Lee Grisby. They had no alternative, since you had signed the confession. But now supposing you tell me all about it.’

  ‘There isn’t much to tell.’

  ‘If you’d only seen me before you signed the confession—’

  ‘I just told them what happened,’ I said. ‘Then they asked me to sign it.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘It isn’t what happened,’ he said. ‘Obviously.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No! If I’m going to help you – and you must see what an odd position that puts me in, defending a man on trial for killing my own law partner – you’re going to have to tell me everything.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘The State will try to prove that you killed Grisby with intent, that the whole thing was premeditated, even to your preparations for leaving the country, and that there was no accident to it. The motive they’ll try to establish, of course, will be robbery. They’ll try to prove that by your possession of the five thousand dollars – money known to have been withdrawn by Grisby while you looked on.’

  I decided to test him out.

  ‘Do you think I killed him for the money?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s just it – I don’t think so. And I can’t, if I’m to defend you. Because unless I can convince myself that you killed him accidentally, as you said in the confession, I’d have to withdraw even before I begin. A good many of my colleagues would be justified, otherwise, in feeling that I ought better to be on the prosecution side of this case. You may not know it, but there’s a fine matter of ethics involved here.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘it was an accident.’

  ‘You shot him just the way you said?’

  ‘Yes. We were parked on the little hill above the beach, just trying to cool off. Then we thought we heard a sound and Grisby said maybe it was someone to hold us up. He was afraid because of the five thousand dollars he was carrying.’

  ‘What was he going to do with the money, did he happen to mention it?’

  ‘No, he didn’t say.’

  ‘Why did you go into the bank with him when he drew the money out?’

  ‘He asked me to.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I don’t know. He just asked me to and I did.’

  He shook his head again to show that he didn’t believe it. But he didn’t stop to argue.

  ‘All right,’ he said, ‘go on with the story.’

  ‘Well, when we heard the sound, Grisby said to get the gun out of the side-pocket of the car, just in case. I reached in and got it, but I’d hardly taken it out when it went off.’

  ‘In the confession you said that you were getting out of the car and that you slipped or something, causing the gun to go off.’

  I tried to remember what I had said about that, and couldn’t.

  ‘It all happened at once,’ I said. ‘I took the gun out, opened the door and started to get out all at the same time. I don’t know how it happened to go off, but when I saw he was dead I got scared and dragged him out of the car into the bushes near there. Then a lot of people came up to see what the shooting was all about.’

  ‘They said you were coming up from the pier when they came on the scene.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. I’d gone down there to wash my hands.’

  He made a clucking sound.

  ‘There wouldn’t have been time. The first man got there only seconds after the shot had been fired. His statement is backed up by statements of others who followed him. The State would trip you up on almost everything you’ve said so far. But go ahead, I want to hear your own version of this.’

  ‘Well, that’s about all. After the people had left, I went back to Grisby and took the money. I knew it wouldn’t do him any good any more—’

  ‘And then you threw his body into the Sound?’

  I did some fast thinking.

  ‘I don’t know how I happened to say that in the confession, except that they were all pushing me pretty hard. I guess I was just rattled. What really happened was that I left him right there, in the bushes. I was sure he was dead. It wouldn’t have done any good to get him to a doctor. And if I brought him back, and said it was an accident, I didn’t know if anyone would believe me.’

  ‘So you left him there. Then what did you do?’

  ‘I drove the car back to the garage.’

  ‘Right away?’

  ‘As fast as I could.’

  ‘And stayed there?’

  ‘Yes – until the police came.’

  ‘Why did you run away when they came?’

  ‘I was afraid they’d come to arrest me for killing him. Even if it was an accident, they might make it tough for me. So I cleared out.’

  ‘But didn’t you stop to think how that would damage your case?’

  ‘I was pretty rattled, all right. But I gave myself up – don’t forget that!’

  ‘Yes, that’s something.’

  ‘And I made the confession by myself, too – they didn’t have to drag it out of me.’

  He ran a thin, sharp finger down his nose.

  ‘Yes! Speaking of that – McCracken says you made it almost eagerly. That’s one of the reasons it’s open to suspicion. Another reason is that you said you had thrown the body into the Sound, whereas it was found, dry, down on Wall Street!’

  ‘I think I can explain that,’ I said.

  I told him McCracken’s idea. That Grisby hadn’t been dead, as I’d thought. That he’d come to, seen the speedboat tied up at the pier, and gone down to Wall Street himself. That by the time he’d got there he was so weak from loss of blood, probably, that he’d died almost as soon as he’d got onto the street, and before he could reach the office.

  ‘From the shot accidentally discharged by you on the beach?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘With the gun that was in the side-pocket of the car?’

  ‘Yes.’

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p; ‘After taking himself down in the speedboat that was later found back at the pier?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He put on his hat and started to leave. Then he stopped and turned to look at me, leaning hard on his cane.

  ‘Do you want to go to the chair?’ he asked. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘What do you mean – about the bullet?’

  ‘About everything! I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself. I’ve been talking to McCracken. He says that the fatal bullet – the one that caused Grisby’s death – couldn’t possibly have come from the gun you said it did.’

  ‘Yeah, I know…’

  He came back and sat down again.

  ‘Now tell me all about it,’ he said. ‘Everything.’

  ‘Supposing I had had another gun,’ I said, ‘and had thrown it away after the shooting, would that go pretty hard against me?’

  ‘I’d never get a jury to believe you hadn’t shot him, if that’s what you mean. Did you have another gun?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘Then you didn’t shoot him!’

  ‘No.’

  He drew back and stared at me.

  ‘Then for God’s sake, why did you say you did?’

  I didn’t say anything for a minute. I didn’t know what to say, unless I accused him of having done it himself.

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you why,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you. You confessed to killing Grisby, a crime for which you thought they’d have less chance of convicting you, in a desperate attempt to get out of another crime – the murder of Broome!’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I didn’t kill Broome. That wasn’t it at all.’

  ‘How else can you explain it? Not that it was a very smart move on your part – it was a very foolish move. It just serves further to establish your guilt on both counts.’

  ‘But you just said if I didn’t have another gun, I couldn’t have killed Grisby!’

  ‘Yes, but I didn’t say you didn’t have another gun. You might have had. The thing is, what line of defense are we going to take? So far you haven’t said a thing that would help me in the least. Now, why? What are you trying to conceal, unless you did kill him – and not accidentally?’

  I decided I’d have to do something, and in a hurry. Otherwise he’d walk out on me sure.

  ‘Can they really send me to the chair?’ I asked. ‘I mean, if they can’t prove I didn’t have another gun?’

  ‘They certainly can. They can say you threw the other gun away in the swamp, or in the Sound. Did you?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘There wasn’t any other gun.’

  ‘All right. That brings us right back where we were. You didn’t shoot him. You couldn’t have. Then why did you say you had?’

  ‘Because I didn’t know he was going to get killed,’ I said.

  He thought I was trying to be smart. His jaw snapped.

  ‘You’re playing with dynamite here,’ he said. ‘I’m telling you, they can convict you. The State has an air-tight case. Maybe you are innocent – if I didn’t think you were, or at the worst that it was an accident and you were just being very dumb, I wouldn’t be helping you now. But now you say you didn’t shoot him at all – then why did you confess to it? Don’t you realize how serious this is?’

  ‘I told you, I didn’t know he was going to get killed. It was supposed to be a fake murder.’

  ‘A fake murder!’

  ‘Yes. Grisby wanted to get away from his wife – she wouldn’t give him a divorce. So he hired me to pretend to kill him accidentally – he gave me five thousand dollars to prove I’d killed him. He said the police couldn’t do anything unless they could find the body, and that he’d be on his way to the South Seas, so I’d be absolutely safe. It all sounded pretty easy.’

  He looked at me as though he couldn’t believe he had heard right.

  ‘Are you serious?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s why I confessed,’ I said. ‘It was all part of the scheme. I never dreamed—’

  ‘But Grisby wasn’t married!’

  My mouth fell open.

  ‘He wasn’t!’

  ‘Of course not!’

  ‘But—’

  ‘The whole thing is ridiculous! If you think I’m going to go into court with a story like that, you’re crazy.’

  IV

  Grisby not married!

  I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘But that’s the reason he gave me,’ I said. ‘Really.’

  ‘All right. It may be true. It sounds just fantastic enough – just like some scheme that Grisby might think up. And it checks with certain facts I happen to know. Grisby was preparing to leave the country, I’m sure of that. He’d been putting his house in order for some time. But we can’t use it. No jury in the world would believe it.’

  ‘No, I guess not. Not if he didn’t even have a wife. But that’s what he said and that’s why he gave me the five thousand, to help him get away from her. He said that was the only way. That’s why he brought me into the bank with him, too – so I’d be sure of getting the money as soon as I went through with my part.’

  Bannister was thinking.

  ‘So then he did take the boat down to Wall Street himself. It fits, all right,’ he said. ‘It could be.’

  ‘Oh, he took the boat down himself, all right. I saw him leave. I was supposed to wait until he was out a way, and then fire the shot into the sand. The idea was to make people think afterwards, when the police learned he’d disappeared, that I really had shot him and thrown his body into the Sound. That was the story I was to confess to.’

  ‘Then why did you run away? Before you said it was because you were afraid they might not think it was an accident. That doesn’t hold with the new story you’re telling me.’

  ‘I got scared when I heard the police coming. I thought maybe there was some trick to it and that Grisby would cross me up, so I tried to hide out in the swamp. Then I got to thinking, and I figured the best thing to do was give myself up and go through with it just as we’d planned. So I came back and made the confession.’

  ‘Well, at least that’s a story I can believe,’ he said. ‘But the jury would never believe it, and we can’t use it.’

  I saw that easily enough – now that I knew Grisby hadn’t even been married.

  ‘Well, then what can we use?’ I asked.

  ‘The accident plea is all we have. It isn’t good, but we can say you did have another gun, and that you threw it away, and we can say that Grisby then took the boat down to Wall Street of his own accord and died there from your shot.’

  ‘I should say I shot him when I didn’t?’

  ‘It’s your only chance.’

  ‘Why can’t we take back the confession and try to show that somebody else killed him?’

  ‘Oh, we’ll plead you ‘Not Guilty,’ don’t worry about that. It’s a law in this state that a man on trial for his life can’t plead guilty, anyway. But I’m in favor of letting the confession stand. I wasn’t before. They might laugh the accident plea right out of court. But what else have we?’

  ‘Maybe we can find the one who really did kill him. That would solve everything.’

  ‘That’s easy to say; hard to do. Where would we start? The trial would be over before we could begin.’

  ‘Maybe not.’

  ‘What do you mean? Have you any ideas?’

  ‘One.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You!’

  Bannister ran his finger up and down his nose again. He didn’t seem surprised, just puzzled.

  ‘Why do you think I might have killed him?’ he asked quietly. ‘Why, Laurence?’

  ‘Maybe to keep him from killing you.’

  ‘Why would he want to kill me?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘It’s ridiculous, then, isn’t it, to suppose I might have killed him?�
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  ‘I guess I just can’t think of anyone else who might have done it.’

  ‘Don’t you suppose the police have looked into the possibility that I might have done it? It’s the first thing they did when they found you couldn’t have been down on Wall Street yourself. And they’ve given me a complete bill of health.’

  ‘Did they look into the Broome angle, too?’

  ‘Of course they did. They know I couldn’t have killed Broome – I was out in the swamp all the time, helping them look for you. Besides, the two crimes are definitely related. No, Laurence; I’m glad you brought this up, just to clear it from your own mind; we’ll have to work together, you know.’

  ‘Do you think they’ll try me for Broome’s killing?’

  ‘You don’t need to worry about Broome – not yet. They’re sure to try you on the Grisby matter first. And as for that – well, we’ll just have to take our chances on the accident plea!’

  He left me with a lot of thinking to do.

  Grisby not married! That was a jolt. And Bannister – I wasn’t even sure about him any more.

  Supposing he hadn’t killed Grisby, or Broome. Supposing he hadn’t seen my letter and didn’t know a thing about Grisby’s plan to murder him. I would be in a fine fix if I told him about it, and about how I’d let Grisby talk me into helping him carry the plan through. Then he’d refuse to do a thing for me – and I wanted him to, now. Things were closing in on me. I was beginning to get scared. And he’d got the society woman off, hadn’t he? That was an ‘accident,’ too, just like mine.

  So I kept still. I knew I could always spring the truth, if the accident plea didn’t work.

  I waited, not really scared yet, but plenty worried. I waited, and watched to see what would happen.

  V

  Elsa came to see me often. She came whenever she thought the coast was clear.

  Nobody knew who she was. She always wore the little hat with the veil, and the name she used on the visitors’ list was Sheila Stewart.

  The guards couldn’t figure it out. Even with the veil they could tell how beautiful she was. She always dressed beautifully, too. And who was I, anyway? A chauffeur! A young punk who’d confessed to one killing and probably had done two.