Blind Justice by William Bernhardt Page A

the sofa, Jones in the chair behind the desk. Jones held his steno pad at the ready, just in case something important was said.
    Ben passed Christina his list of suspects. “Tell me everything you know about these three men.”
    Christina examined the list. “Do you really think the murderer is one of these three?”
    “Has to be. If Spud is telling the truth.”
    “Spud?”
    “Lombardi’s dipsomaniacal doorman.”
    Christina appeared puzzled. “His desk plate says Holden Hatfield. How does he get—”
    “Don’t ask.” He redirected her attention to the list.
    “Well, of course I know Reynolds. And I’ve heard of DeCarlo—never met him though. Tony mentioned him a few times. They had some kind of business arrangement.”
    “Did Lombardi like him?”
    “Far from it. He was scared to death of him. Normally, Tony thought he was king of the world—serious folie de grandeur. But when it came to DeCarlo, Tony became a Nervous Nellie. DeCarlo sent him into fits of abject apoplexy.”
    A not altogether unreasonable response, Ben thought. “But you don’t know what their business activities were?”
    “Something to do with parrots, I assumed.”
    “What about Clayton Langdell?”
    “That’s the animal guy, right? I’ve seen him on television.” She searched her memory. “I know he was hassling Tony about the parrots. Thought Tony’s employees were trapping endangered species. Tony wasn’t too worried about it. ‘A bird is a bird is a bird.’ That’s what Tony used to say.”
    “Very literary,” Ben replied. “I can see what attracted you to him.”
    “So he wasn’t a philosophy major. Tony was a courteous, harmless man.”
    “So you thought, anyway. I’m going to interview your boss and the other two as soon as possible.”
    “What about Mrs. Lombardi, Tony’s widow?”
    “What about her?”
    “You need to check her out, too.”
    “Why?”
    “Just a hunch. Cherchez la femme .”
    “Yeah—as long as you’re not the femme .”
    The phone rang. Jones picked it up. “It’s the lab.”
    Ben took the call. After a few minutes, he thanked the person on the other end and hung up. “Totally inconclusive,” he announced. “We waited too long to have the blood sample taken. Damn. Now I’m going to have to try to get access to the government’s test results.”
    “The lab found nothing at all?”
    “There were strong residual traces of alcohol in your bloodstream that could indicate you were drugged, perhaps with chloral hydrate, a sedative-hypnotic. It has an elimination half-life of four to twelve hours, depending upon the dosage, so it could easily put you out for six hours. On the other hand, the residual alcohol could just indicate that you were drinking. Which you were.”
    “Not that much,” Christina insisted. “I hadn’t had more than a few sips before I was out.”
    “But how do we prove that to the jury?” Ben glanced at his notes. “Chloral hydrate is a relatively common drug, something anyone with criminal connections could lay their hands on. It has a sickening sweet taste, but that would probably be masked by the rosé you were drinking. Oh, and it smells like perfume.”
    Christina blinked. An errant thought skipped through her head, but it was gone before she could capture it.
    “They did a urine test with a barbiturate screen, but it was inconclusive. Again, it came too late.”
    “I know I didn’t drink enough to have alcohol show up in my blood almost forty-eight hours later,” Christina said.
    “You know it and I know it, but so what? The bottom line is: the test doesn’t prove anything. We have no evidence.” He threw himself back on the sofa. “Are you sure you don’t remember anything else that happened Monday night?”
    “My memory’s fuzzy. I went over to see Tony. He wasn’t home. I waited for him.”
    “Spud says you seemed upset with Tony.”
    “Well, I was a little put out about having to meet him at his apartment. It’s not even within the