Ehrengraf for the Defense Read Online Free Page A

two
cars in the garage, were there not? Your Buick and your wife’s
Pontiac. Your car was parked on the left-hand side, your wife’s on
the right.”
    “That was so that she could back straight
out. When you’re parked on the left side you have to back out in a
sort of squiggly way. When Ginnie tried to do that she always ran
over a corner of the lawn.”
    “Ah.”
    “Some people just don’t give a damn about a
lawn,” Gort said, “and some people do.”
    “As with so many aspects of human endeavor,
Mr. Gort. Now Mrs. Boerland observed you in the garage shortly
before dawn, and the actual explosion which claimed your wife’s
life took place a few hours later while you were having your
breakfast.”
    “Toasted English muffin and coffee. Years ago
Ginnie made scrambled eggs and squeezed fresh orange juice for me.
But with the passage of time—”
    “Did she normally start her car at that
hour?”
    “No,” Gort said. He sat up straight, frowned.
“No, of course not. Dammit, why didn’t I think of that? I figured
she’d sit around the house until noon. I wanted to be well away
from the place when it happened—”
    “Mr. Gort.”
    “Well, I did. All of a sudden there was this
shock wave and a thunderclap right on top of it and I’ll tell you,
Mr. Ehrengraf, I didn’t even know what it was.”
    “Of course you didn’t.”
    “I mean—”
    “I wonder why your wife left the house at
that hour. She said nothing to you?”
    “No. There was a phone call and—”
    “From whom?”
    Gort frowned again. “Damned if I know. But
she got the call just before she left. I wonder if there’s a
connection.”
    “I shouldn’t doubt it. Who was your wife’s
heir, Mr. Gort? Who would inherit her money?”
    “Money?” Gort grinned. “Ginnie didn’t have a
dime. I was her legal heir just as she was mine, but I was the one
who had the money. All she left was the jewelry and clothing that
my money paid for.”
    “Any insurance?”
    “Exactly enough to pay your fee,” Gort said,
and grinned this time rather like a shark. “Except that I won’t see
a penny of it. Fifty thousand dollars, double indemnity for
accidental death, and I think the insurance companies call murder
an accident, although it’s always struck me as rather purposeful.
That makes one hundred thousand dollars, your fee to the penny, but
none of it’ll come my way.”
    “It’s true that one cannot profit financially
from a crime,” Ehrengraf said. “But if you’re found innocent—”
    Gort shook his head. “Doesn’t make any
difference,” he said. “I just learned this the other day. About the
same time I was buying the dynamite, she was changing her
beneficiary. The change went through in plenty of time. The whole
hundred thousand goes to that rotter Lattimore.”
    “Now that,” said Martin Ehrengraf, “is very
interesting.”
    * * *
    Two weeks and three days later Alvin Gort sat
in a surprisingly comfortable straight-backed chair in Martin
Ehrengraf’s exceptionally cluttered office. He balanced a checkbook
on his knee and carefully made out a check. The fountain pen he
used had cost him $65. The lawyer’s services, for which the check
he was writing represented payment in full, had cost him
considerably more, yet Gort, a good judge of value, thought
Ehrengraf’s fee a bargain and the pen overpriced.
    “One hundred thousand dollars,” he said,
waving the check in the air to dry its ink. “I’ve put today’s date
on it but ask you to hold it until Monday morning before depositing
it. I’ve instructed my broker to sell securities and transfer funds
to my checking account. I don’t normally maintain a balance
sufficient to cover a check of this size.”
    “That’s understandable.”
    “I’m glad something is. Because I’m damned if
I can understand how you got me off the hook.”
    Ehrengraf allowed himself a smile. “My
greatest obstacle was your own mental attitude,” he said. “You
honestly believed yourself to