Open and Shut by David Rosenfelt Page B

to the prosecution, Willie Miller left work an hour before the murder, went on a drinking binge, and came back through the alley and into the back door. He went into the ladies’ room, where he came upon Denise McGregor. Willie allegedly hit Denise over the head and dragged her out into the alley, where he slashed her with a steak knife from the bar.
    Cathy Pearl, a thirty-five-year-old waitress from a nearby diner, came through the alley on the way home from work and saw Willie standing over the body. He ran off, dumping the knife in a trash can three blocks away, before settling into a doorway and collapsing in a drunken stupor.
    As if that weren't enough, there were scratch marks all over Willie's face, and his blood and skin were found under Denise's fingernails. Just to add another positive character trait for the jury to consider, there were needle marks in Willie's arms. It is such an airtight case that I am suspicious of it.
    Laurie believes every word of the government's case, while I say that is for a jury to decide.
    “They already have,” she notes.
    “The conviction has been set aside,” I point out.
    “He admits it.”
    “No, he doesn't dispute it. He can't remember anything. He was too drunk.”
    “Andy, read the transcript. This is not exactly a major whodunit.”
    “It reads like a frame-up to me.”
    She laughs derisively. “You're amazing,” is what she says, but what she means is that I am an asshole.
    “Thank you, but enough about me. What do we know about the victim?”
    Laurie recites the facts that I already know. Denise McGregor worked as a reporter for a local newspaper, the
Newark Star-Ledger.
No information was ever turned up to show that she had any enemies, anyone who would have had reason to kill her. According to testimony, she had been dating Edward Markham for about three months, and she was out with him on the night of her death. This reminds me of the picture I found in the attic, so I take it out of a drawer and show it to Laurie.
    “Isn't that Victor Markham?”
    “I have no idea what Victor Markham looks like,” she says. But then she points at the man standing next to him in the picture. “But I think I recognize him.”
    He doesn't look at all familiar to me, and Laurie tells me that she thinks it's Frank Brownfield, a real estate developer who has built ugly malls all over the New York metropolitan area. Laurie has a friend who works for him, and she had met Brownfield about a year ago. All this does is add to the puzzle; my father never mentioned knowing Brownfield either.
    Laurie turns the picture over and reads the date, June 14, 1965, off the back.
    “Now,
that's
weird.”
    “What?” I ask.
    She digs a piece of paper out of her purse and confirms her recollection. “The cashier check your father got for the two million. It was deposited on June 17, 1965.”
    Less than a week after my father posed for a picture with the future Who's Who of American industry, all of whom he never admitted knowing, he received two million dollars, which he never admitted having. If these two facts aren't related, then we're talking serious coincidence here.
    Laurie asks if she should check further, but I've got to get my priorities straight. I tell her I need her working full-time on the Miller case, and we agree she'll find Hinton, Willie's lawyer, to get his notes and impressions from the first trial. Meanwhile, I'm going to kill one witness with two stones and have a chat with Victor Markham.

M Y GUESS IS THAT VICTOR MARKHAM NEVER GETS LOST on the way to work. First of all, he no doubt gets into the back seat of a car and says to the chauffeur, “Take me to my office.” But if by some chance he were left to fend for himself, he would just have to look up. There, towering over the office buildings in Paramus, are the huge words “Markham Plaza” emblazoned across the top.
    If he got to the underground parking lot and was somehow still unsure that he had reached the right