A Wrongful Death (21 page)

"It's a mess, isn't it?" she murmured when Bailey left. "From the others' point of view Elizabeth has to be dead, and from ours she has to be alive and ready to testify about the source for that research. But if she's alive and they know it, would anyone be able to keep her safe? Whisk her away to a safe house somewhere? Then Jason's at risk, and if they manage to snatch him, she'll be their obedient servant."

"It's a mess," Frank agreed.

"The only out I can see," she went on, "is if we can come up with the killer. Not just a suspicion, but hard proof. And anyone who can shoot a woman in the face at close range isn't likely to break down and confess."

He nodded his agreement and they both were silent for a long time.

"Why do we do it, Dad?" she said in a low voice. "Play God with someone else's life. You, Shelley, me. We're playing God again."

"Because we know there's a lot of time from when a bad law gets passed and when it gets repealed, if it ever does, and during that time real people get hurt by it, sometimes to the point of being put to death. Or," he continued, "because it's all we know how to do, that or flip hamburgers or wash dishes. Or become corporate attorneys. Same thing." He smiled faintly. "Or to get rich."

She laughed. "The phrase is filthy rich. Catch up, Dad. Get with it."

He laughed, too. He suspected that Barbara, with all the pro bono work she did, not only was not getting rich, but was playing it close to the edge much of the time. He sobered again quickly. "Or because we have to."

He stood. "It's going to be a busy day tomorrow. I'm going to take a bath and go to bed. When you go up, turn off the tree lights, and close the fireplace door." He kissed her cheek and walked out with both cats at his heels.

/Because we have to/, she thought, turning off the lamps. She sat down again with a lowering fire and Christmas tree lights the only illumination. No real choice at all, we just have to. She was thinking of the turning points that everyone can see clearly with hindsight. If she hadn't seen that sign for cabins, if she had not turned in on a whim, what? She had been pondering the offer to teach, she thought, almost in surprise. She had forgotten that she had considered it so recently. Too late now, she knew, but would she have accepted? She didn't know, and suspected that she never would be able to answer that question. If Elizabeth had not decided to go with Terry to look for that assignment, she would be editing her books, planning her Christmas with her best friend and child. Someone who might never have dreamed of killing anyone had become a murderer. Once you make that turn, she thought, you're swept up in a different current, unforeseen, unpredictable, unavoidable. Once you're in it, you have to go where it takes you.

She remembered what Elizabeth had said about her father, that he was such a presence when he was home. He worked, and had to travel several times a year, but when he was home, he was so completely there that neither she nor her mother had ever resented his absences or felt threatened by them. She might have been describing Frank, Barbara realized. His travels had been the times he had become immersed in a case, once or twice a year, no more than that. But the rest of the time, he had been completely there for her and her mother. How he had listened to her prattle as a kid, she thought, smiling, and then through her adolescent storms, and into the present. Always there for her. And she gave so little in return, she realized with regret. So little.

Yet he loved her without reservation, and he was proud of her. That thought surprised her, too. He had told her more than once that he was proud of her, but she never attached any particular importance to it. Parents said that to their kids. It wasn't like that, she understood that night, sitting by a dying fire. It was more than the dutiful parent encouraging a child. Alex was proud of Shelley in the same way that Frank was proud of her, the way she had been proud of him all her life. It was important, too important to dismiss without a thought.

The fire had burned down to no more than glowing embers by the time she got up to close the fire screen, turn off the tree lights and go upstairs.

Although San Francisco seemed a far distant past, almost another lifetime, the question the counselor said she had to answer had returned: What are you afraid of?

"Inadequacy," she said under her breath. Her own inadequacy.

Chapter 20

At nine the next morning Bailey pulled to a stop before the Meier and Frank department store. The parking lot was already filled, with cars circling, drivers searching for a parking space. Barbara didn't look to see if her followers discharged a passenger; she took it for granted that she would be followed every step. She entered the store and headed for the accessories department.

That proved to be a popular shopping area, and the pretty evening bags much sought-after gifts. The forty percent off notices likely had an influence on potential buyers. She saw tiny silver or gold bags, beaded bags, crocheted, sequined. All of them big enough to hold a tissue or two, a small comb, a little makeup, maybe eyeglasses and not much more.

The regular handbags were no better for her purposes, none more suitable for carrying a half-inch stack of papers than the ones she already owned. There were school bags, day packs, backpacks, travel bags. She left the store and made her way to another one. The wide aisles were crowded, noisy, with incessant Christmas music. The next store was no better than the first, and the next...

Sometime during the two hours it took before she decided to sit down and rethink her plan, it occurred to her that she hated the "Little Drummer Boy." She had inspected every bag for sale in the mall, she thought morosely, and nothing. Although she found a coffee kiosk, there was no place to sit down with a cup of scalding hot coffee, and too many people jostling for space to try to manage it standing. Another child began to scream, and she could imagine the kid being put on Santa's lap and suffering a panic attack. Her sympathy was with the child.

A woman got up from a bench and Barbara hurried over in order to get there first, just to sit down and think for a few minutes. She should have called Shelley, who always had exactly the right garment or accessory. But she had to admit that what she was looking for was not exactly the right accessory for any occasion except this one. Could she carry the folder under her coat? Not unless she strapped it to her waist, like a money belt, she decided. Then her eyes narrowed and she thought again, like a money belt. She didn't have a coat that would work, not one that would flare out enough to conceal a package that big. She recalled the beautiful cape Mrs. Cortezar had been wearing when she showed up at the office. That would do it. The papers in a light pouch, around her waist, under a cape. Both hands free and visible, carrying a tiny decorative bag at most. She rose and headed back to a department store, this time aiming for the coat and outerwear department.

It was five minutes before twelve when she called Bailey to come get her. Her feet were tired, her back was tired and she had a headache throbbing to the strains of the blasted drummer boy's /tum, de, tum tum/.

"See why guys don't like to go shopping with women?" Bailey said aggrievedly when she got into the SUV minutes later. "Three hours to buy one little thing."

"I couldn't find that one little thing," she said, just as aggrievedly. "They don't exist."

He eyed the bag at her feet. "So you killed some time anyway for the joy of shopping."

"The only reason I don't belt you is that I'm too tired to take over at the wheel. I hope the guy following me had as much fun as I did."

She suspected that Bailey's sympathy was for her follower.

"I'll show you " she said when Frank and Bailey looked at her purchases with incomprehension. There were two scarlet, velvet-covered cushions, yards of soft red roping and a hooded cape. "Where are those research papers?"

Frank had retrieved them along with the corporate structure report that morning before going grocery shopping. He went to his study to get them as she unzipped the cover of one of the cushions and removed it. She slipped the envelope of papers inside the cover and zipped it closed. "Pouch," she said. "Scissors? Where would I find them?"

"I'll get them," Frank said and went to the kitchen drawer to retrieve them.

Barbara made a hole through both sides of the pouch, just under the zipper, then worked the roping through the hole. After measuring it against her body, from the pouch over her shoulder, back down, she cut two lengths of the roping for straps. In a few minutes she had her enlarged money bag to wear around her waist, her own improvised version of a backpack. With the new cape on, the pouch was well hidden.

"Besides," she said, when done, "the cape is rather pretty, isn't it?" Dark blue with a red satin lining, it was lovely. "And practical," she added, although she suspected that it would get very little wear. Not her style. She walked around the kitchen with the cape and pouch in place. "I'll add a tie to keep it from moving around. That's why I got so much rope."

"Ingenious," Frank said.

Bailey was grinning. "Let those guys try to figure that one out. If it's reversible, you can be Little Red Riding Hood come Halloween." He looked at the other red cushion. "Why two?"

"Because you don't buy just one cushion," she said. Bailey and Frank exchanged puzzled looks.

After Barbara had taken off the cape and pouch, she took off her shoes and stretched out on the sofa with a book. Bailey left with copies of the corporate structure report and the list of heirs, and Frank went to his study to read the judge's decision regarding the first suit Knowlton had brought against the Diedricks Corporation.

Words blurred and ran together until Barbara realized that she was not reading anything and she closed the book. One of the cats came to help her rest, and later when Frank glanced in, both were sleeping.

When Bailey returned and, after a little arguing, she agreed to go to her apartment only long enough to pick up some clothes, then come back to Frank's house for another day or two. "But this can't go on indefinitely," she said, pulling on her jacket. "So they follow me, so what? Let them."

Bailey scowled and Frank frowned, and she added, "I said after another day or two, not tonight. Let's £0."

The plan that night was for the Knowltons to arrive at the Hult Center at seven-thirty, mingle with the crowd in the lobby, then for Brice to escort his mother and his wife to their seats on the upper level, and leave them, ostensibly for him to collect his father, who had happened to come across an old friend. Afterward he and his father would say they had listened to the first part of the oratorio in a room set aside for that purpose with others who had failed to take their seats in time. Barbara and Frank would arrive close to eight. He would join the Knowltons first, and after the chimes sounded for attendees to be seated, she would.

All three were at a conference table when she entered the meeting room. The elder Dr. Knowlton was a tall, lean man with sharp features and a big bony nose. With thin gray hair a little too long and eyeglasses, he looked more like a college professor than Brice did. And he clearly was suspicious and wary of this unprecedented conference. Frank introduced Barbara, and the men watched with interest as she removed her cape and the pouch and placed it on the table.

"The young lady who showed me where the room is said we can hear the music in here," Frank said, as he turned a dial on a wall panel of dials and switches. Audience noise came in too loud and he adjusted it. The sound faded to little more than white noise. "I'll turn it up when they start," he said. "We'll want to know when the intermission comes."

"Now will you tell me what this is all about?" Dr. Knowlton said sharply. "Who are you two?"

Frank handed him his card, and Brice said, "Ms. Holloway is also an attorney."

Dr. Knowlton looked ready to leap up. He tossed the card on the conference table, but before he could rise, Barbara opened the pouch, withdrew the folder and handed it across the table. "Take a look, Dr. Knowlton. Do you recognize any of these papers?"

She shouldn't have done it that way, she thought in alarm when Dr. Knowlton opened the folder and looked at the first paper, then turned it over to see the next one. The color drained from his face, and he looked as if he might faint or have a heart attack. Sweat glistened on his upper lip and broke out in beads on his forehead.

"This is my work," he said in a hoarse whisper. "It's my work! Where did you get this? Why didn't you come forward twelve years ago? Why now?"

Brice put his hand on his father's arm, but his expression was no less demanding when he turned to Barbara.

"I had never heard of you or the Diedricks Corporation twelve years ago," she said. Then, looking at Brice, she added, "I didn't have any of that when I talked to you. I can't tell you how it came into our possession, but it's irrelevant in any event. Where we go from here is what we have to discuss."

"These are copies," Dr. Knowlton said, leafing through the papers. "Where are the originals?"

"In a safe place," Frank said. He cocked his head. Almost below the threshold of audibility the opening strains of the Messiah floated in. He went to the wall panel and adjusted the sound, then resumed his seat. "We have until the intermission for this discussion," he said. "Dr. Knowlton, is that all of the work that you claimed vanished?"

Dr. Knowlton continued to examine the copies page by page. He stopped and made an inarticulate sound in his throat when he came to the sheet of practice initials. "I never did that," he said hoarsely. "That bastard did it!" Br ice took the paper, set it aside after a glance. Finally Dr. Knowlton nodded. "It's the work we were doing that last year or two. Maybe three."

"I read the judge's decision in that lawsuit," Frank said. "He gave the only verdict possible at the time. There was no proof, no corroborating evidence, no other witnesses concerning the origin of that work. He had no choice. And your attorneys had no remaining options, Dr. Knowlton. You have to accept that. There were no options without some kind of evidentiary proof."