Evidence of Guilt (38 page)

I eased back into my chair.

"We were staying at Tim's Friday night, We were supposed to be watching his little sisters, but after they were asleep we snuck out with a six-pack of beer. Tim's dad woulda beat the shit out of both of us if he'd known."

"But why wait until Sunday?"

"Tim said we should just keep quiet about the whole thing, that someone else would discover them eventually. But I waited all weekend and never heard a word about it. Not in the newspaper, not on the radio or TV. Finally I couldn't stand it anymore so I went back to see if they were still there." He stopped and put his head in his hands. "They were. And they were so much worse this time.

Swollen and ugly and crawling with bugs." His voice faltered. "It was disgusting. I couldn't even look."

I had no doubt Bongo's distress was real, but I had trouble working up much sympathy. "I want Tim's full name and address.
And
you'd better not say a word to him about this conversation, you understand? You mess up this investigation any more than you already have and you'll be in trouble big time."

Bongo's forehead glistened with perspiration. "I won't say a word, I promise. Tim'd kill me if he knew that I'd told. He's already mad cuz I told my mom they were in the barn."

On my way out I passed Kevin sitting on the front steps. The pocket knife was closed and he had no stick.

"Is he going to get in trouble?" Kevin asked.

"You were out here eavesdropping the whole time?"

Kevin glanced at the door, then back at me. His mouth stretched in a wide, gap-toothed grin.

"You'd better not say a word either."

He nodded, but the grin never left his face.

The car was hot when I climbed in. I started the engine, turned the air-conditioning on high, then rolled down the windows until it kicked in. My skin was damp and my head felt light, but it wasn't simply the heat of the afternoon. My whole body burned with the sense of discovery.

If Bongo was telling the truth, then the underwear in the compost bin had been planted there to make Wes look guilty.

What I couldn't decide was how to proceed. Part of me was eager to confront Tim, to find out for sure that he still had the underwear he'd stolen from Lisa and Amy. But I

knew that wasn't the best approach, not if I wanted to make sure the evidence would be introduced at trial. The safest strategy would be to convince Benson to get a search warrant, although I knew he wouldn't like the idea. And the longer it took, the more likely it was Tim would dispose of the evidence.

There was also the issue of locating the killer. As long as he thought his ruse with the planted underwear had worked, he was likely to let down his guard, thereby increasing the likelihood of his being found out. But I knew that it would be difficult to keep the search of a young boy's room from hitting the papers.

Sam hadn't returned my call from yesterday. I was still anxious to hear his thoughts on Barry Drummond. But now, in addition, we needed to discuss the planted evidence. And I knew we'd make more headway in person than by phone. With luck, I'd be able to catch Sam at home.

His car was parked in the driveway, but when I knocked on the door it was his sister, Pat, who answered. She lived in Chicago and usually came to visit during the winter. I was surprised Sam hadn't mentioned that she was coming.

"Sam's not here," she said wearily. "He's in the hospital. Something with his heart. They called me yesterday and I flew in late last night"

I was stunned. "Is he going to be all right?"

"I don't know. No one does." Pat's makeup was streaked, her gray hair flattened on one side and jutting out at odd angles on the other. "I just came from the hospital. Maybe by later today they'll know more."

"Is there anything I can do?"

She shook her head, fighting tears. "There's nothing any of us can do."

I drove to the hospital in a blur. It felt as though my throat had closed down and my lungs filled with dust. My mind could focus on nothing but Sam's kindness and generosity, and the fact that I'd never really told him how much I valued his friendship.

The parking places near the hospital entrance were taken, so I pulled into a spot around to the side. The volunteer in the lobby directed me to ICU on the third floor.

"They may not let you see him," she warned, "but they can tell you how he's doing."

The elevator was slow in arriving and even slower making its way to the third floor. As I was getting ready to push the intercom button outside the double doors of ICU, Jake Harding approached from the other direction. His white medical coat was wrinkled. There were dark circles under his eyes, and you could see the tension in his face.

"You heard about Sam?" he asked.

"His sister told me. How is he?"

Jake took a breath. "Not good, frankly."

"Can I see him?"

Jake hesitated, then nodded. "For a minute. I'll come with you so you won't have to hassle with hospital procedure."

With Jake leading, we headed through the double doors to a room with about a dozen beds, at least as many nurses and an array of medical equipment that looked as if it were straight out of a science fiction movie.

Sam lay in a bed near the nurses' station amid a tangle of wires and plastic tubes. His eyes were shut, his mouth contorted by the accordion tubing of a ventilator. He looked ancient, as though his frame had shrunk overnight, leaving his pale skin slack and loose.

Gently, I touched the hand with the plastic shunt. He

raised his lids and looked at me, blankly at first and then with a flicker of recognition.

"Hi, Sam," I whispered. There was a lump in my throat that made it impossible to talk further. But it didn't matter; I couldn't think of another thing to say. I gave his fingers a gentle squeeze and felt the slightest pressure of acknowledgment.

Sam's soft, liquid-gray eyes were filled with sadness--
a
pleading sort of anguish that almost broke my heart.

I squeezed the hand again. "You take care of yourself, Sam. Listen to the doctors and nurses. We're all rooting for you."

He struggled for a moment, as though he was trying to raise his head. His mouth twisted around the ventilator tube. Jake touched Sam's shoulder in sympathy, then adjusted a valve on the IV. In a moment Sam slid back into sleep. I waited while Jake conferred with the nurse and made a notation on Sam's chart; then we left.

"I'm going to get some coffee. You want to join me?" Jake sounded exhausted.

"I think he recognized me," I said as we started for the cafeteria. "That's a good sign, isn't it?"

"I'm afraid it doesn't count for as much as it appears."

Is he in pain?"

Jake shook his head. "He's probably confused, though. And being attached to all that machinery isn't exactly fun. That's why we try to keep patients sedated."

We got our coffee and found an empty table.

"When was he admitted?" I asked.

"Yesterday. We'd planned to go fishing, but by the time we got to our favorite spot Sam was complaining of indigestion and dizziness. I tried to convince him to go to the

hospital right then, but you know how stubborn he is. He did agree to let me take him home. He apparently called 911 later in the afternoon."

"What are his chances of pulling through?"

Jake stared into his coffee. "I honestly can't say. Sam's not in great shape. He won't exercise, eats all the wrong things and won't give up his after-dinner cigar. But even if that weren't the case, I'd be hard pressed to give you odds. It's simply too early to tell."

I bit my lip and stared into my coffee. "He's not going to be in any shape to take on a trial, is he?"

"No," Jake said glumly, "I'm afraid not."

Which left Wes Harding squarely on my shoulders.

As though he'd been reading my mind, Jake asked, "You think you can handle it?"

"Yes, I do. But if you and Wes decide you want someone else, I can understand."

Jake gave a noncommittal nod. "How are things shaping up?"

I knew Sam gave Jake daily progress reports, so I figured he wasn't so much interested in an answer as he was in filling a conversational void. Still, there were some recent developments he might not have known about.

Jake seemed preoccupied as I told him about Lisa's drawing of Barry Drummond. "It may be interesting, but I fail to see how it's going to help Wes. Shouldn't you be focusing more on getting ready for trial?"

There was a quality of ridicule in his tone that I found irksome. "I'm doing that too. But if we can point to someone else, someone with a clear motive for murder, that's got to raise reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors."

His expression remained skeptical.

I'd started to tell him about my conversation with Bongo when his beeper went off. My breath caught. I looked at Jake.

"IsitSam?"

He shook his head. "They'd have paged me," he said "This is my service."

My lungs started working again.

Jake rose. 'Try not to worry. I'll keep you posted on any changes in Sam's condition."

'Thanks." I finished my coffee, then used a pay phone in the hospital lobby to call Daryl Benson.

"You got my message, then," he said.

"What message?"

"I called you about half an hour ago. The initial lab reports for the underwear found in that dumpster came back. The woman's pair tested positive for blood. Type B, same as Lisa Cornell's."

"And millions of other people."

"It's an odd coincidence, Kali."

I took a breath. That's actually the reason I was calling." I repeated what Bongo had told me. "Tim apparently has the underwear hidden beneath a loose floorboard in his bedroom closet. Bongo saw it there yesterday."

"Or so Bongo says."

"Will you check on it?"

"Kali--"

"Please?"

He made a whistling sound. "Willis isn't going to like this."

"He doesn't have to like it." I shifted the receiver to my other ear. "Will you do it?"

"I'll try. I may need to reach you. Are you at home?"

"I'm heading there. At the moment I'm at the hospital."

I told him about Sam, and in the telling found my voice breaking repeatedly. When I hung up I pressed my forehead against the smooth plastic of the telephone and took long, slow breaths to compose myself.

Whether or not Jake kept me on the case, the work Sam and I had done to date needed to be catalogued. Besides, work was the one thing that might take my mind off Sam's illness.

I decided to go by his office, pick up the case files and notes and try to put things in some semblance of order. Later I would call Sam's sister, Pat, and see if there were any relevant papers at the house. If I had to turn the case over to another attorney, the materials would be ready. If I ended up staying on, I'd be prepared.

Sam's office was in a two-story building of fairly recent vintage--an all-purpose structure housing a travel agency, an insurance company and various small companies with uninformative names like KK Associates and VRA Inc. What the place lacked in charm, it more than made up for in amenities of the sort my own office lacked.

Sam had a library, a conference room, a kitchenette, a decent-sized reception area and a private work space with adequate light and ventilation. He'd given me the key be-

cause I often came at odd hours to use his reference materials and, when I was first starting out, his fax machine and laser printer.

I let myself in and began gathering case-related documents. There wasn't much. Sam was notoriously disorganized, so it shouldn't have surprised me, but it did. I knew for a fact that he'd talked to Wes's co-worker, Harlan Bailey, yet I couldn't find any record of the conversation. And I couldn't find any notes from his interviews with Wes Harding or from our own strategy sessions. Knowing Sam, though, they could be anywhere.

On the off-chance he might have actually listened to my nagging and transcribed his notes on disc, I flipped on his computer. As I expected, the only documents pertaining to the Harding case were official pleadings, motions and correspondence--no doubt typed by his secretary. Sam is of the generation that can't think without a pencil in hand. And he believes his case notes ought to look like notes-- the kind of yellow-tablet scrawlings that saw him through college and law school.